english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 2, 2018, pp. 106-114 e-issn: 2621-6485 a study of implicature in daredevil web series movie 1isnaini jalu rakhmat prakoso, 2fauzia universitas ahmad dahlan 1jalurp22@gmail.com, 2fauzia@pbi.uad.ac.id abstract people especially them who use english as foreign language tend to feel difficult to understand the implicature, they need to infer the implicature in order to get what the actors mean in a movie. this study is aimed to identify the implicature and their maxim violation and find out how the violating maxims occur in daredevil web series movie. the study is conducted by using a mixed (qualitative-quantitative) method. the research object of this study is about implicature and the violation of the maxim. the subject of this study is a web series movie script entitled daredevil, the scripts are taken from season 1 episode 1 until 3. to collect the data, the writer uses note taking technique. the writer uses pragmatic referential method (metode padan pragmatis) to analyze the data qualitatively, and then count the frequencies of the data quantitatively. the result shows 25 implicatures in daredevil web series movie that occur because of its violation of the maxim. there are 20% implicature by violating the maxim of quantity, 36% implicature by violating the maxim of quality, 26% implicature by violating the maxim of relation, 18% implicature by violating the maxim of manner. by violating the maxim, the characters produce some implied meanings which can be used to misleading the hearer. the implied meaning of the utterances refers to an expression of agreement, denial, refusal, acceptance and indirect sentence, it depends on how the character uses the implicature. keywords: pragmatics, context, cooperative principle, implicature, violating maxim how to cite: prakoso, i.j.r. and fauzia, f. (2018). a study of implicature in daredevil web series movie. english language teaching educational journal, 1(1), 106-114. introduction people communicate with language. crystal (2008) has written in his book that ‘‘language is an act of speaking, writing or signing in a given situation – the notion of parole, or performance’’. thus, language is a system which is used by human to communicate, share feelings and ideas through verbal and nonverbal activities. when people talk using language, there are times when humans say (or write) precisely what they mean. however, in some cases, people tend to say (or write) far from the words meaning or something entirely different from the phrase means. something above is covered in linguistics. linguistics ‘‘may be defined as the scientific study of (lyons, 1968). linguistics concerns about the nature of language and communication. in linguistics contexts are studied in pragmatics. pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning, contextual meaning and it is a study of how more communicated than it said also a study about the expressions of relative distance (yule & stalnaker, 1996). mailto:1jalurp22@gmail.com mailto:fauzia@pbi.uad.ac.id eltej issn: 2621-6485  107 the language which is studied by pragmatics not only about a written language however, a conversation is concerned too. where conversation happens it means that there is communication. communication involves two participants who are speaker and hearer. leech (1983) explains that speaker is someone who receives and interprets the message while hearer is the one who gets or becomes the target of the message. language is used in communication and produces utterances in a particular context. to make an efficient and accurate communication the speaker and the hearer should co-operate each other for misunderstanding may occur in a conversation. people tend to misunderstood in understanding the implicature because of lack of knowledge about it. moreover implicature has many types and rules. grice (1975) in thomas (1995) said that there are two types of implicature: conventional and conversational implicature. conventional implicature occurs when there is no need of special knowledge and special background of knowledge to make the necessary inferences. conversational implicature; positive response is agreement and acceptance, negative response means denial, refusal, mockery, complaint, and lie. there are four maxims in conversational implicature which are quantity, quality, relation, and manner. when a speaker observes all the maxims and precisely said what they mean, they generated no implicature. however, many occasion when people fail to observe the maxims. there are five types distinguished by grice (1975) in thomas (1995) that the speaker is not able to observe a maxim; they are floating, violating, infringing, opting out, and suspending. the problem arises when people realize that actually implicature has many type and rules as mentioned above. people need to observe the context and pay attention to the maxims which is broken in order to get the actual meaning without any miscommunication. the writer will focus on the violating a maxims in the daredevil web series movie implicature. the main reason is because people tend to use the term ‘violate’ to generate the implicature. however the violating maxims itself has its own rules to occur. that is the reason why the researcher only focused on violating of the maxim implicature. the subject of this study is an american web television series created for netflix by drew goddard called marvel's daredevil, or simply daredevil, is a movie based on marvel's daredevil comic by stan lee and bill everett, while the object of the research in this study is violating a maxim in an implicature. implicature (thomas, 1995) argues that an implicature refers to anything that infers from an utterance but that is not a condition for the truth of the utterance. there is a hidden message from speakers that they want to tell. people use implicature for some reasons. for example, implicature applied to sarcastic, implying humor, or delivering the different intention from the speech act usage. grice (1975) as cited in thomas (1995) distinguished two different short of implicature: conventional implicature and conversational implicature. conventional implicature occurs when there is no need of special 108  e-issn: 2621-6485 knowledge and special background of knowledge to make the necessary inferences. in the case of conventional implicature the same implicature is always conveyed, regardless of the context whereas in the case of conversational implicature, what is implied varies according to the context of utterance (thomas, 1995). there are two basic conjunctions of conventional implicature: but, therefore (levinson, 1983). however the conversational implicature is not as simple as it is, the example above is just an example of an introduction of how an implicature works. because there is so many factors which make the implicature occur. conversational implicature needs context in order to understand what is the meaning carried by the implicature. the positive response is agreement and acceptance and the negative response means denial, refusal, mockery, complaint, and lie. this kind of phenomenon is discussed by thomas (1995) that implicature occurs when the speaker is breaking the rules of a good conversation. the rule is called as cooperative principles, in order to get a meaningful conversation speaker should fulfill the maxim, and there are four maxims in conversational implicature which are quantity, quality, relation, and manner. if the speaker fulfills the maxim, there will be no implicature. on the other hand, if the speaker is not able to fulfill the maxim, conversational implicature arises only in a particular context of utterance. cooperative principle the cooperative principle is a rule of conversation when the participants expect that each will make a “conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange” (thomas, 1995). the cooperative principle is a cooperative activity which is done by the speaker and the hearer. as a cooperative activity which is done by the both speaker and hearer. the principles are called maxims. the maxims are divided into a maxim of quality, a maxim of quantity, a maxim of relevance or relation, and the maxim of manner. however, there is a situation that the speaker or the hearer does not behave cooperatively. which mean the cooperative principle is observed or nonobserved. when the speakers can fulfill the maxims of cooperative principle, it indicates that the observed cooperative principle is done and the speaker will be considered as cooperative in a conversation. however, when the speakers are not able to fulfill the maxims, there will be a non-observed cooperative principle and the implicature will arise. a. observed cooperative principle observed cooperative principle occur when the speakers can fulfill the maxims of cooperative principle, it indicates that the speaker will be considered as cooperative in a conversation. grice (1975) as cited in thomas (1995) has formulated the maxims as follow: eltej issn: 2621-6485  109 1) maxim of quantity: the speaker must make a contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange). the speaker is not permitted to make more informative information than is required. 2) maxim of quality: the speaker is not allowed to not say what you believe to be false. it requires the speaker to be honest to the hearer. 3) maxim of relation: the speaker should be relevant. the speakers should say something which is relevant to the previous saying in a conversation. 4) maxim of manner: the speaker must avoid obscurity of expression, ambiguity. the speaker must be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity) and orderly. b. non-observed cooperative principle based on thomas (1995) book, non-observed cooperative principle is a condition when speakers cannot fulfill the maxims of cooperative principle. when saying something people fail to observe the maxims. there are five of implicature that occur because the speaker is not able to observe a maxim; they are floating, infringing, opting out, suspending, and violating. 1) floating the maxims floating maxim quantity is known when the speaker is giving less or more information than is needed. floating maxim quality is interpreted as giving some information that does not represent what they think. in floating maxim relation, the hearer is expected to imagine the utterance which is not said as the answer to the question. the last type is floating maxim manner. it is done by being obscure and often excludes a third party. 2) infringing the maxim another type of non-observed maxim is infringing the maxim. it can be considered as a failure of observing the conversational maxims, for the imperfection of the linguistics performance for several reasons. infinging of the maxim can be seen in the baby’s talk or foreign language learner who is not able to speak clearly, nervous, drunk, scared and cognitive impairment people. 3) opting out the maxim opting out the maxim means that the speaker is unwilling to cooperate because of certain reasons. 4) suspending the maxim this maxim is failed to be observed and occurs when there are few words or sentences are inappropriate or taboo to say. usually, this condition happens in the case of the mention of the name, place or thing. then culture, place, time, and the situation will also affect the violation of this maxim. the audience also did not expect the speaker clarifies what the speaker meant because the listener already knew the meaning. to make the interlocutor understand, the speaker will be looking for the pronouns such taboo words. 5) violating maxims 110  e-issn: 2621-6485 the last type of the non-observance of the conversational maxims is violating maxims. speaker violated the maxims when the speaker gives the wrong information intentionally, that the hearer will know the literal meaning of the utterance only. there are four types of violating maxims. they are violating quality, violating quantity, violating relation, and violating manner. research method in this study the writer uses a mixed (qualitative-quantitaive) method. the writer uses pragmatic referential method (metode padan pragmatik) to analyze the data qualitatively. referential method is a method which is used to identify the rule in the analyzing step (sudaryanto, 2015). and then to count the frequencies of the data, the writer uses quantitatively method. vanderstoep and johnson (2009) state in general that, quantitative research specifies numerical assignment to the phenomena under study. the data of this study is dialogue in the script of the daredevil web-series movie containing implicature especially about violating maxims. the subject of this study is an american web television series created for netflix by drew goddard called daredevil. the object of the research in this study is violating a maxim in an implicature. findings and discussion 1. description of the non-observed cooperative principle occurs in the conversation in daredevil web series movie after identifying the data, the writer finds twenty-five (25) implicature utterances uttered by the characters. the writer classify those 25 implicature utterances, the data based on the non-observed cooperative principle that is produced by violating the four maxims. the findings which the writer finds based on the frequency of the occurrences of the maxis that produce implicature are presented in the table below: table 1. frequency of the implicature occurrence no the non observed cooperative principle number of frequency % 1 violating of the maxim quantity 5 20% 2 violating of the maxim quality 9 36% 3 violating of the maxim relation 7 26% 4 violating of the maxim manner 4 18% speaker violated the maxims when the speaker gives the wrong information intentionally, that the hearer will know the literal meaning of the utterance only. the implicature which happens because of the violation of the maxim is divided into four types which are explained above. those are the eltej issn: 2621-6485  111 violating of the maxim quantity, violating of the maxim quality, violating of the maxim relation, violating of the maxim manner. a. the implicature generated by violating the maxim of quantity the speaker must make a contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange). the speaker is not permitted to make more informative information than is necessary. the implicature in daredevil web series movie has violated the principle, here is an example (1) matt : here's how this is gonna work. i'm gonna ask you some questions. you're gonna answer them. if you're lying to me, trust that i will know, and i will be unhappy. where's the boy? foster : he's dead. after in the last scene foster feels that claire hides something to him, he decided to call his russian’s gang to catch matt. however matt realizes, he attack foster and brings him to the roof and interrogates him. after matt asks questions, here foster violates the maxim of quantity by saying he’s dead. since he only gives less information that is needed by matt the daredevil about the boy that they kidnaped on the last episode. b. the implicature generated by violating the maxim of quality the speaker is not allowed to not say what you believe to be false. it requires the speaker to be honest to the hearer. some implicatures in daredevil web series movie are violating the maxim. it can be analyzed through the example below: (2) claire : (whispers) please. (knocking continues). who is it? foster : nypd, ma'am. please open the door. foster answer indicates that he has violated the maxim of quality. in order to capture matt murdock he has lied to claire by saying ‘‘nypd, ma'am’’, however he is not a real nypd (new york police department) officer. he does that because he does not claire know that he is one of the members of the russian gangster which wants to capture matt. c. the implicature generated by violating the maxim of relation in the rule of maxim of relation, the speaker should be relevant. the speakers should say something which is relevant to the previous saying in a conversation. some dialogue in this movie has generates implicature that occur because the actors has violated the maxim of relation, here are some examples: (3) matt : you find anything? claire : (holding foster’s phone). you smashed the hell out of it with that extinguisher. he had a badge. what if you're wrong? in this conversation, claire is violating the maxim of relation. she gives irrelevant answer by saying ‘‘(holding foster’s phone). you smashed the hell out of it with that extinguisher. he had a badge. what if you're wrong?’’ 112  e-issn: 2621-6485 her response is not relevant with matt’s question. she disobey the rule of ‘‘be relevant’’ by saying that statement. d. the implicature generated by violating the maxim of manner the speaker must avoid obscurity of expression, ambiguity. the speaker must be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity) and orderly. some dialogues have brought up the implicature by violating the maxim of manner can be seen from the dialogues as follow: (4) matt : this is what unhappy looks like. where's the boy? foster : what do you care? if he's not dead yet, he will be. the conversation happens between matt murdock or daredevil and foster the member of russian gang who is interrogated by matt. foster is violated the maxim of manner, because the rule of this maxim is ‘‘avoid the obscurity expression’’. and foster answer generates the implicature by violating the maxim of manner because by saying ‘‘what do you care? if he's not dead yet, he will be.’’ he seems obscure. he should give answer not question. 2. description of implied meaning of utterances uttered by the characters containing implicature in daredevil web series movie the implied meaning generates the reason why the characters use the implicature. the conversation which violate the maxim and generate implicature will have implied meaning. the implied meaning can be seen in the form of yes no question which uttered by the character in the daredevil web series movie dialogues. some kind of expression can be seen in the daredevil web series movie implicature implied meaning. they tend to use indirect answer to say yes or no rather than say it explicitly. some kind of examples which show the agreement expression can be seen from the dialogues as follows: (5) urich : so that's it? that's all i get? man : you know, when i went away to do my 10, every newspaper in town dragged my name through the shit. you were the only one who did it without mentioning my kids. always grateful for that. this conversation happens between ben urich and his friend, urich want to get information but cost of something which can threaten their life but, the man does not want to give the information because he thinks that it is the way too dangerous for him. by saying ‘‘you know, when i went away to do my 10, every newspaper in town dragged my name through the shit. you were the only one who did it without mentioning my kids. always grateful for that.’’ the man already violates the maxim of relation. moreover by saying his answer, he also eltej issn: 2621-6485  113 gives example of the agreement expression that means he refuse to give the information, because back in time he got problem and urich is the only one who helped him. he does not give yes answer because his utterance has already implied that he will stop giving information. conclusion after analyzing the data in daredevil web-series movie, the writer has found that there is implicature occurs by violating the maxim in this movie. there are 25 implicature utterances uttered by the characters in this movie episode 1 until 3 in the first season. from the 25 utterances is classified into the maxim which is violated by the characters. those maxims are violating of the maxim quantity, violating of the maxim quality, violating of the maxim relation, violating of the maxim manner. the final result of the data analysis found that there are five (5) implicature utterances generated by violating maxim of quantity, nine (9) implicature utterances produced by violating maxim of quality, seven (7) implicature utterances produced by violating maxim of relation, four (4) implicature utterances generated by violating maxim of manner. the most often appear implicature is implicature which occurs by violating the maxim of quality which is 36% while the least is the violation of the maxim of manner which is 18% by the frequency of appearance. the writer also finds more findings that the implicature in daredevil web series movie by violating the maxim utterances uttered by the characters has implicit meaning. to understand how the implicature occurs the writer identifies the context of the utterances. the characters on the daredevil web-series movie tend to use the indirect response to deliver their answer because of a certain reason. in this study, the implied meaning in the implicature that occurs because of the violating of the maxim is usually a refusal or agreement in the form of yes or no question. references crystal, d. (2008). dictionary of linguistics and phonetics. new jersey: blackwell publishing. daredevil web series movie script. (2015). retrieved april 27, 2017, from https://genius.com › d › daredevil daredevil. (2015) retrieved march 2, 2017, from www.netflix.com/title/80018294 daredevil web series movie script. (2015). retrieved april 20, 2017, from www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/episode_scripts.php?tvshow=daredevil-2015 daredevil web series movie script. (2015). retrieved may 1, 2017, from www.simplyscripts.com/scripts/daredevil-pilot.pdf 114  e-issn: 2621-6485 leech, g. n. (1983). principles of pragmatics. new york: longman group limited. levinson, stephen c. (1983). pragmatics. new york: cambridge university press. lyons, j. (1968). introduction to theoretical linguistics. new york: cambridge university press. sudaryanto. (2015). metode dan aneka teknik analisis bahasa.yogyakarta: sanata dharma university press. thomas, jenny a. (1995). meaning in interaction : an introduction to pragmatics. new york: routledge. vanderstoep, s., & johnston, d. (2009). methods for blending qualitative and quantitative approaches. san francisco: jossey-bass. yule, g., & stalnaker, r. (1996). pragmatics. oxford: oxford university press. sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 1, 2019, pp. 32-38 e-issn: 2621-6485 using pictures for teaching vocabulary to the junior high school students khafidhoh, anita carolina universitas ahmad dahlan khafidhoh@pbi.uad.ac.id abstract this research aimed at investigating the impact of using pictures for teaching vocabulary. there are various kinds of teaching media. pictures in the form of both picture series and pairs can be chosen as the media in the instructional process. related to the teaching vocabulary, different kinds of vocabulary require different media for teaching, including the different kinds of pictures if the teacher chooses the pictures as the teaching materials. moreover, the impact of the pictures as the teaching media is affected by several factors. thus, it is interesting to conduct further investigation through a research. the research belonged to the experimental study. the population was seventh-grade students of smp n 2 imogiri while the research groups involved the experimental and control groups. the data collection technique used was pre-test and post-test. the research data were the pre-test and post-test scores. there were several findings of this research. first, using pictures can improve the students' achievement. besides, it can also attract the students' attention so that the students really wanted to participate in the instructional process. keywords: impact, picture, vocabulary, experiment. how to cite: khafidhoh & carolina, a. (2019). using pictures for teaching vocabulary to the junior high school students. english language teaching educational journal, 2(1), 32-38. introduction vocabulary is one of the important aspects to students for mastering a certain language. it becomes the microskills in learning the language. ur (1996) stated that vocabulary is the words taught to people when they learnt a foreign language. it means that vocabulary is used to convey the aims of people and without them people cannot say or write what they want. moreover, wilkins in thornburry (2002) says that people can improve their english language more with words and expressions without concern of grammar. it means that besides mastering the grammar, mastering vocabulary is another way to master english. the fact, nowadays, is that students have low mastery of vocabulary. it can be caused by many reasons. based on the preliminary study, one of the reasons might be caused by the absence used of media in the teaching-learning process. moreover, the used of media might help a teacher to teach or deliver vocabulary to students. it also helps the teacher and students to achieve the goal of the learning process. according to murcia (2001) in silviana (2013), “media are tools or physical things used by the teacher to motivate the students by bringing a slice of real-life into the classroom and by presenting language in its more complete communication complex.” so, media have an important role in the instructional process. one of the media commonly used is the picture. a picture is a part of visual media. visual media are everything which can be seen by the human eyes. then, a picture can be defined as an image that is designing or describing by many sense (merriam webster). while according to shing (1981) as cited in aldhionita (2015) pictures are kinds of visual instruction material. wright (1989) stated some kinds of pictures, they are; pictures of single item, pictures of one individual, pictures of popular individuals, photos of a few people, pictures of individuals activity, pictures of spots, pictures from origin, pictures with eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ khafidhoh & carolina 33 a lot of data, photos of the news, pictures of fictions, pictures of maps and symbol, sets of pictures, pictures and scrips, single stimulating photos, bizarre photos, and explanatory photos. then, wright (1989) stated that pictures contribute to interest and motivation. moreover, pictures can be an illustration of the objects (thing, people, animal, etc.) that the teachers cannot take the real object into the class directly. pictures help students understanding the unfamiliar word. they help students to illustrate or understand the meaning of words. thus, pictures can be good visual media in the instructional process. from the previos studies, most of the finding of using picture showed a positive result. based on astuti (2014) and on soviyah and purwaningtias (2018), pictures can improve students' score of the test. however, there is also the result variation of using pictures for teaching vocabulary based on students' background in the learning process. in line with the statement, the context which is mostly related to the setting of the research plays the keyrole in conducting the research. in this case, the researchers choose a certain junior high school as the setting of this research. this is what makes this study different from the previous one. as this research focused on the impact of using the pictures in the instructional process, there would be two probabilities to happen as the research findings. the first would be the fact that the pictures is effective to use in the instructional process. the second, the fact might be the use of pictures isn’t effective to apply in the instructional process. teaching english for young learners in the learning process, students become one of the important elements. according to experts, the age range of young learners is varied. pinter (2011) classifies three groups of young learners. the first group is children who have the age range about 3-5 years old and they at pre-school, the second group is children at primary school and the age about 6-12 years old and they finish primary school at about 11 or 12 years old, but in some other countries they graduate at 13 or 14 years old. pinter mentions that early teenagers are children who have an age of 13 years old onwards. pinter (2011) in puskás (2016) claimed that in slovakia, children at the age of 6 or 7 years old begin their primary school and graduate at around 15 years old, while the elementary school is usually divided into lower and upper primary ages. it means that children at 13 years old are still in elementary school and do not continue to secondary school yet. then, every person has his/her characteristics. young learners have different characters from adults. generally, young learners are easy to learn something new and they prefer to do the action or learn from real things. according to pinter (2006) cited in juhana (2014), the curiosity that young learners have to try and explore new things is very high. scrivener (2011) explains the characteristics of young learners. he stated that young learners are keen, noisy, curious, have low attention, like to experiment, have a sense of humor and like to have fun. they can't concentrate for very long time span and always want to learn new things. however, in learning english children don’t prosper to respond and work on language components like grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. children may not understand english as a whole, but they may understand by doing interesting activities, games, and tasks. scrivener (2011) also explains how to consider when teaching young learners (middle and higher primary). the first, teaching english to young learners, teachers not only just talk, but they should use pictures, models, short videos, drawing on the board, and toys. the second keeps the focus of the children's and use things that they understand rather than abstract things. the third, don't expect immediate (or even long-term) student use of english. just keep using english. the fourth, find tasks and activities that are exciting and motivating them. 34 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 teaching vocabulary the important aspect of learning english is vocabulary. everything that people want to say and write needs words or vocabulary. the description of vocabulary by hornby (1995) in sholihah (2009) is that vocabulary is the list of words in a language. while ur (1996) says vocabulary as the words taught to people when they learn a foreign language. vocabulary has an important function in english because it will be the basic skills before getting other skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. vocabulary is used to convey the meaning, the opinion, and the aim of someone. wilkins in thornbury (2002) says that people just can say little with grammar but they almost can say anything with word. if people just spend their time to learn grammar, their english will not improve, they will see the progress if they learn about words and expressions. pictures as instructional media media is a tool in teaching and learning. media help the teachers to convey materials to students. learning media can be a hard file or soft file. moreover, picture is a part of visual media. visual media are everything that can be seen by eyes. then, according to merriam webster, "a picture is a design or representation made by various means (such as painting, drawing, or photography). while according to shing (1981) cited in aldhionita (2015) pictures are kinds of visual instruction material. according to wright (1989), there are some types of pictures; pictures of single objects, pictures of one person, pictures of several people, pictures of famous people, pictures of people in action, pictures of places, pictures from history, pictures with a lot of information, pictures of the news, pictures of fantasies, pictures of maps and symbol, pairs of pictures, pictures and texts, single stimulating pictures, bizarre pictures, and explanatory pictures. media have important roles in the teaching-learning process. the use of media can help teacher and students to achieve the aims of teaching and learning. meanwhile, media support teachers' explanation and help students to understand the materials or the lesson. a picture is one type of media that have important roles in the teaching-learning process. it's beneficial to the teacher, especially in learning english. according to werff (2019) pictures have many functions, with pictures teachers and students can practice structures of grammatical, practice comprehension of listening, do activities of writing, do the free practice of speaking (likes problem-solving activities, role plays, discussions, etc.), do guided practice (drills), and teach, practice, or review new vocabulary. wright (1989) also states that pictures play a role in interest and motivation, a sense of language context, and a specific reference point or stimulus. furthermore, wright (1989) also states some roles of pictures in speaking and writing skills. first, they can motivate students, and make students want to participate and give their attention. second, pictures contribute to the use of language context. pictures bring the world into the classroom (such as a specific object like a train). third, pictures can be used to describe the object in an objective way (this is a train) or interpreted (it’s probably a local train) or respond subjectively (i like traveling by train). fourth, pictures can give responses to questions or substitutions through controlled practice. the last, pictures can stimulate and give information to be referred in conversation, storytelling, and discussion. research method the purpose of the research is to investigate the impacts of using pictures for teaching vocabulary to the seventh grade of junior high school. so, this study is an experimental study. the goal of this method is to determine the cause and effect relation between one variable (independent variable) and another variable (dependent variable), in line with the theory proposed by shadish william r., cook thomas d., campbell, (2002), “an eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ khafidhoh & carolina 35 experiment is a study in which an intervention is deliberately introduced to observe its effects.” the researchers used or applied two groups as the sample of this study. the first is the experimental group taught by using pictures and the second is the control group taught without using pictures. the research design can be followed: table 1. the design of the research group pre-test treatment post-test experimental    control   moreover, in giving the treatment, the only way used by the researchers is giving pictures to the students by using cards. the cards contain several vocabularies related to the students’ daily life. the vocabulary is also suitable with the basic competence that the teacher should teach to the students, such as about jobs. related to the ‘job’ as the topic of the materials, the researchers give some cards mentioning kinds of job to the students, such as police, doctor, teacher, seller, etc. the population is total members of people, animal, phenomenon, or thing that stay together in one place (sukardi, 2011), whereas the sample is a quantity or group of the population. this research population is the seventh-grade students of smp n 2 imogiri and the sample involves two classes of all the classses. random sampling is used to determine the research sample. the population and samples are chosen based on the researcher’s experience during the internship program. pre-test and post-test were used for collecting the data. the pre-test is the first step to gather the data. it was conducted before the students got the treatment. the second step is post-test. it was used to gather the data after students got treatment. the data from the pre and post tests are then analyzed in the next step. findings and discussion from table 2, the pre-test and post-test mean score of the experimental group are 63.04 and 90.54. then, the std.deviation is 21.872 and 6.714. while the pre-test and post-test mean score of the control group are 70 and 84.29. the std.deviation is 18.527 and 10.248. table 2. pre-test and post-test data description group pre-test post-test mean score standard deviation mean score standard deviation experimental group 63.04 21.872 90.54 6.714 control group 70 18.527 84.29 10.248 from table 3, the mean score of the experimental group increases 27.5 from 63.05 in pre-test up to 90.54 in post-test, while the mean score of the control group increases 14.29 from 70 in pre-test up to 84.29 in post-test. there is a significant difference between both groups. the mean differences of pre-test between both groups is 6.96, and the post-test was 6.25. the mean difference of the experimental group is higher than the one of the control group. table 3. the mean difference between pre-test and post-test group n mean of pre-test mean of post-test mean difference experimental 28 63.04 90.54 27.5 control 28 70 84.29 14.29 mean difference 6.96 6.25 13.21 36 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 from table 4 on output "independent samples test" on the "equal variances assumed," the sig. (2-tailed) is 0.009. it means that the sig. is lower than 0.05 (0.009 < 0.05). moreover, according to the hypothesis test criterion that the sig. (2-tailed) lower than 0.05 means the ho is rejected and ha is accepted. so, it can be said that there is a significant difference in students’ vocabulary achievement between the experimental group and the control group. thus, the hypothesis of this study was accepted. table 4. the result of the hypothesis test t-test for equality of means t df sig. (2-tailed) mean difference std. error difference posttest equal variances asssumed -2.699 54 .009 -6.250 2.315 equal variances not assumed -2.699 46.570 .010 -6.250 2.315 the experimental group of this study was the seventh graders of class d. in this group the researcher taught using pictures. after getting the treatment, the students’ vocabulary achievement significantly improved. the pre-test mean score is 63.04 and the post-test mean score is 90.54, it means that their mean score increases 27.5. this fact is supported by astuti (2014), in her research finding that picture can improve students’ scores of test and students’ achievement. related to the writing skill, some experts agree that the use of pictures can stimulate the writing skill of the students. raimes (1983) stated that pairs of pictures or picture series provide for a variety of guided and free writing exercises. picture series is helpful for teaching writing text which includes series of events or activities. for example, the teacher can use pictures series to teach narrative or recount text. in narrative text, there are several parts which are orientation, complication, resolution, and reorientation. the flow of the story in a narrative text can be represented by series of pictures showing the illustration of the story. next, in recount text, it has orientation and series of events. the series of event can be represented by the series of pictures in the instructional process. in the other hand, paires of pictures can be used to teach the language aspect one by one in detail. for example, it can be used to teach some parts of speech. in teaching nouns, the teacher may give several pictures showing the illustration of the goods. then, for teaching verbs, the pictures can show the illustration of the activities. moreover, for teaching adjectives, the teacher can give some pictures related to the time, place, and so on. next, for the adjectives, the pictures can show the illustration of the related adjectives. in this research, types of the picture used during the research are pairs of pictures and in fact it is helpful to teach some kinds of occupation. it means that there is interconnection between the theories and the fact found by the researchers through this research. moreover, the use of pictures in the instructional process during this research is beneficial. it can be drawn the attention of students, students want to participate in the learning process, work in pairs, enjoy and have fun in the learning process. this statement is in line with wright (1989) that pictures play a role in interest and motivation. therefore, pictures have a good impact to teach vocabulary to the seventh-grade students of smp n 2 imogiri. then, the seventh graders of class f were the control group. in this group, they were taught without pictures. the mean scores of pre-test and post-test of this group also increase. the pre-test mean score was 70 and the post-test mean score was 84.29, it means the increase was 14.29. the situation or atmosphere in the learning process of the control eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ khafidhoh & carolina 37 group is different from the one in the experimental group. during the research, students in this group are lazy and have low motivation in learning english. only some students wanted to participate in the learning process. according to the explanation above, pictures have impacts on teaching vocabulary. it can be proved from the post-test mean differences of experimental group and control group. the post-test mean score of the experimental group is higher than the control group. the mean differences of post-test of both groups were 6.25. hypothesis test also indicated that there is a significant difference in vocabulary achievement of students (sig.>0.05 = 0.009>0.05). moreover, it can be concluded that pictures are more effective and have a good impact to teach vocabulary. it can be proved from the students' achievement that the experimental group who accepted the treatment is higher than the control group who didn't receive the treatment. this is supported by wright (1990) that pictures can motivate students to give their attention and to participate in the instructional process. conclusion the research objective is to know the impact of using pictures for teaching vocabulary and to find out the difference in vocabulary achievement of students between both groups. in the experimental group taught with pictures, the mean score of pre-test was 63.04 and the mean score of post-test was 90.54. so, the increase in the mean score of the group is 27.5. while in the control group taught without pictures, the mean score increased 14.29 from 70 in pre-test up to 84.29 in post-test. then, the hypothesis testing or t-test [sig. (2-tailed)<0.05 = 0.009<0.05] indicated that there is a significant difference between both groups. this statement is supported by sujarweni (2014; 99) who stated if the sig. (2-tailed) < 0.05 the ho is rejected and ha is accepted, it means there is a significant difference between both groups. thus, teaching vocabulary using pictures to the seventh-grade students of smp n 2 imogiri is effective and pictures have good impacts. references aldhionita, l. 2015. a study on teaching vocabulary using pictures to the seventh grade students at smp muhammadiyah kediri academic year 2014/2015. kediri: artikel skripsi universitas nusantara pgri kediri, page 1-9. astuti, desi sri. 2014. teaching vocabulary by using pictures to the second year students of smp negeri 1 embaloh hilir kapuas hulu in academic year 2007/2008. jurnal pendidikan bahasa vol. 3, no. 2, page 189-200. juhana. 2014. teaching english to young learners: some points to be considered. asian journal of education and e-learning vol. 02, page 43-44. pinter, a. 2011. children learning second languages. london: palgrave macmillan raimes, a. 1983. techniques in teaching writing. new york: oxford university press. scrivener, j. 2011. learning teaching, the essential guide to english language teaching. macmilan education. sholihah, h. 2009. teaching english vocabulary using pictures to the fifth grade students of sdn tugu jebres no. 120 surakarta. surakarta: english diploma program faculty of letters and fine arts, sebelas maret university. 38 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 silviana, dilla. 2013. the use of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures combination to improve students’ vocabulary mastery. semarang: journal of english language teaching. soviyah. & purwaningtias, y.(2018). old but gold: the use of picture cues to teach writing (an experimental research). english language teaching educational journal, 1(1), 38-48. sujarweni, wiratna. 2014. spss untuk penelitian. yogyakarta: pustaka baru press. retrieved from https://www.spssindonesia.com/2015/05/cara-uji-independentsample-t-test-dan.html sukardi. 2011. metodologi penelitian pendidikan. jakarta: bumi aksara. thornbury, s. 2002. how to teach vocabulary. essex: pearson education limited. ur, p. 1996. a course in language teaching: practice and theory. cambridge: cambridge university press. werff. 2019. using pictures from magazines in esl classes. the internet tesl journal, vol. ix, no. 7, july 2003. wright, a. 1989. pictures for language learning. cambridge: cambridge university press. https://www.spssindonesia.com/2015/05/cara-uji-independent-sample-t-test-dan.html https://www.spssindonesia.com/2015/05/cara-uji-independent-sample-t-test-dan.html english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 1, august 2018, pp. 38-48 e-issn: 2621-6485 old but gold: the use of picture cues to teach writing (an experimental research) 1 soviyah, 2 yunia purwaningtias english education department, universitas ahmad dahlan 1 soviyah@pbi.uad.ac.id, 2 yuniatias@gmail.com abstract picture use in an educational setting fits the idiom: old but gold. they have been used in the classrooms of various levels across generations. they are long known and proved to have the ability to help motivate, demonstrate, and instruct the students during a learning process. however, still, there are plenty of studies done revealing how successfully pictures work in theclassrooms up today.this study is a sort of complement to the phenomenon as it focuses on researching the use of pictures in a classroom. specifically it aims at finding out the effectiveness of the use of picture cues in teaching writing. the study belongs to an experimental research involving two groups of experiment and control. the eighth grade students of a private junior high school in central java indonesia are chosen as the subject of the research during 2017/2018 academic year. employing sample population technique, the study involves a total number of 56 students who are equally divided into 28 students as the experimental group and 28 students as the control group. the experimental group is taught using picture cues while the control group is taught without picture cues. pre-test and post-test are used as techniques to collect the data. as for the data analysis technique, it’s done quantitatively applying both descriptive and inferential statistics. the result of the research shows that there is significant difference in the students’ writing ability between those taught using picture cues and those who are not. this can be seen from the difference in the mean score between them. the result of the pretest shows that at the beginning, both experimental and control groups have slightly different ability in writing with the mean scores 51.32 and 47.86 respectively. meanwhile, the result of the posttest indicates an obvious difference between them in which the experimental group gains 65.75 as its mean score and the control group gets 59.14. furthermore, the application of independent t-test calculation results in the score of 0.000, which is lower than 0.05. this means that the use of picture cues is effective. based on these results, it can be concluded that the use of picture cues is effective to teach writing to students. key words: picture cues, writing, experimental research, recount text how to cite: soviyah.,purwaningtias, y.(2018). old but gold: the use of picture cues to teach writing (an experimental research).english language teaching educational journal, 1(1), 38-48. introduction in indonesia, english serves its position as a foreign language and becomes a compulsory subject from secondary school to college level. in elementary school level, english is categorized into one of the extra-curricular subjects, and hence it is optional. in the secondary school level, the learning of english has a purpose that the students of secondary school are able to improve their mastery of the four language skills, i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing. besides, the students are also hoped to have a good mastery on english mailto:soviyah@pbi.uad.ac.id 39 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 soviyah, purwaningtias micro skills such as vocabulary, pronunciation, structure, and grammar. specifically in junior high school level, the target of english learning is to make the students be competent speakers of english, in both spoken and written forms. in other words, it can be said that on completing their three year school schema, the students of junior high school are expected to be able to demonstrate competency in the four skills of english i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing. among four skills of english, writing has been considered the most difficult skill to learn. this is because unlike the other three skills, writing is complicated and requires mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgmental elements (heaton, 1975). in addition to being complicated by nature, the process of writing is demanding as well. it is a skill demanding process (tedrow, 2018). interestingly, in the classroom context, the strong complaints about the complexity of writing are coming not only from the students, quite often teachers also voice complaints about how difficult to teach writing is by stating that the students just can’t write! (tedrow,2018). this situation slowly but surely has caused either students or teachers have a distaste for writing. one of the causes of the catastrophe is because both teachers and students have not done enough of writing. on the one hand, the students’ writing works they’ve done has been scrutinized quite long even before they are ready for inspection. on the other hand, though, very little time and support or guidance is provided by the teachers because the teachers are busy with administrative stuff. practically, much of the writing task is assigned, and then graded, with an eye to finding mistakes and shortcomings. with such a condition, after many mistakes they make along the writing process, students will equate writing with spelling and grammar business rather than finding a voice and space for selfexpression. however in fact, like sports, writing is a skill that requires hours of practice, guidance, and feedback for successful improvement. but like a sports game too, teachers often put the students in a repeated and similar classroom routine in which they give them directions (a writing formula to follow), a topic the students can’t choose (the writing assignment), and a sports game style writing situation (a grade for a writing course or a standardized writing test). consequently, neither such a situation makes the students and the teachers feel that both of them are either good writing teachers or good writers. the portrayed description above is exactly what the english teacher explained during the interview, which marked the beginning of the research. the research started with an intensive preliminary interview with the english teacher and the students of the school in which the research was done. from the interview it was revealed that there were some problems faced by the students when it came to the writing class. to sum up, these problems covered the students’ motivation in writing which was quite low, the students’ interest in writing which was regarded inadequate, the students’ difficulty in expressing their ideas, the presence of writer’s block phenomenon, the monotonous learning activities, and the dependency on one single english textbook. furthermore, it was also found out that the teacher rarely used media during her 40 e-issn: 2621-6485 teaching. the activities of writing class were mainly based on the textbook. all these problems were assumed to have caused the students to get bored easily during the lesson and show constant laziness to do the homework. as a result, the students could not show competence in writing yet. this could be seen from the students’ writing works which displayed some writing drawbacks such as many grammatical errors, limited vocabulary use, and lack of coherence and unity. with these existing problems, the writing class surely needs help and calls for immediate solution. one of the ways to solve the problems is by utilizing learning media, especially the media that best fits the situation explained previously. and it’s picture cues. why picture cues? there are some reasons for this. firstly, picture cues are interesting as they contain various images. moreover as these images are presented in series, they are able to encourage and stimulate the students in composing a text. secondly, picture cues make creative students. as picture cues have a realistic format that helps the students to think and get more ideas in writing, they will definitely make students to be creative writers. furthermore, pictures cues can stimulate language learning process because the pictures they provide usually contain cultural information. in addition, just a cherry at the top of the cake, picture cues are easy to make and inexpensive, it’s only needed pictures from any available sources such as used magazines, newspaper, and internet. these reasons are the center onto which the topic of this study is headed i.e. to have a trial on the use of picture cues in teaching writing and finding out its effectiveness. picture cues literally, picture cues is a word which is made up of two sequential words combined together i.e. picture and cue. the word picture is defined as a visual representation of something, such as a person or scene, produced on a surface, as in a photograph, painting, etc (collins, 2005). in a similar but simpler way, oxford dictionary (2015) gave definition of picture as a painting or drawing, etc that shows a scene, a person, or a thing. meanwhile, cue is referred to an action or event that is a signal for somebody to do something (oxford, 2015). more specifically, collins (2005) specified cue as the part, function, or action assigned to or expected of a person. combining these given meanings, picture cues can be defined as visual representation of something (a person, a scene, or a thing) produced on a surface which contain signals for somebody to do something. more briefly, picture cues can be referred to a number of pictures that contain sequences of signals or events which are related each other. in the language learning field, the role of pictures is noticeably significant. pictures are usually used as learning media function to support and give help to the process of teaching and learning. it’s because pictures can not only motivate but also demonstrate and instruct the students during a learning process (wright, 1989). by nature, as pictures are interesting to see, they are able to attract students so the students are more motivated to learn further. in addition, pictures are stimulating as well, as they can provide cultural information 41 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 soviyah, purwaningtias through images. in sum, pictures have characteristics which can stimulate the language learning process, and thus they are beneficial to use. taking a focused scope on the process of learning writing, the roles pictures and picture cues play are generally the same. in details, the functions of pictures cues are listed below: 1. motivate students in learning writing. pictures cues can increase students’ motivation because it can make the situation of the classroom more interesting. 2. inform students about the object. picture cues can provide information including objects, actions, events, and relationships. 3. train students to arrange the plot story. picture cues can help students to arrange the story plot because picture cues provide sequences of events which interconnected one another. this way, the students will be able to arrange the story plot more easily. 4. facilitate students to expand the story. since picture cues usually show objects, actions and even relationship, they can provide cue answer substitutions and sentence completions. under this function, students will be able to start their written composition more easily and quickly. typically, there are three kinds of picture cues (brown, 2004), they are: 1. short sentence; containing a drawing of some simple actions, and the testtakers are to write brief sentences. 2. picture description; describing something based on the picture. test-takers are asked to describe the picture using four of the following prepositions: on, over, under, next to, around. as long as the prepositions are used appropriately, the criterion is considered to be met. 3. picture sequence description; describing story line picture that can provide stimulation to the students and it must be ambiguous picture, because an test-takers see the following picture 1. 2. test-takers read: 1. what is the man doing in 1st picture? 2. what is the man doing in 2nd picture? test-takers write: 1. he is eating, he is eating his lunch, he is holding the spoon etc. 42 e-issn: 2621-6485 open-ended task at the selective level would give test-takers too many options. completing the functions of picture cues listed previously, harmer (1998) stated that picture cues have some specific characteristic which cover the followings: 1. drilling: with lower level students, picture cues help teacher drill or give exercises to the students how to do cueing different sentences and practising vocabulary in the simple sentences. 2. communication: picture cues are extremely useful for a variety of activities such as describing and drawing activities that have related pictures. 3. understanding: one of the most appropriate uses of picture cues is for presenting and checking meanings. the pictures should be related and easy to guess. 4. ornamentation: picture cues have clear extra visual dimension. 5. prediction: picture cues are useful for getting students into what is coming next. thus students will look at the pictures and guess what is shown. test-takers see test-takers read: describe the man’s morning routine in six sentences test-takers write: he gets up at five o’clock he takes a shower at 05.30 at 06.40 he gets dressed than he eats breakfast about 06.30 he leaves the house then he plays football in the afternoon. 43 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 soviyah, purwaningtias 6. discussion: picture cues can stimulate questions such as “what is showing?” in using the picture cues, there some suggested procedures. prior to the use of picture cues in the classroom, the teacher should decide the theme/topic first. to do this step, it’s best to refer to the course syllabus. next, the teacher provides the picture cues. for this stage, the teacher can make the pictures herself, search the internet, or take the pictures from used magazines or newspaper. in the classroom, these are the suggested procedures of using picture cues: 1. the teacher arranges the pictures based on the theme/topic learned. 2. the teacher divides the class into five or six groups, depending on the size of the class. 3. the teacher distributes one set of the picture cues to each group. 4. the teacher asks the students to pay attention to every object shown in the picture, then write it one by one chronologically according to the order of occurrence. 5. on finishing the writing, the students are asked to submit the work to the teacher. research method with the aim of finding out the effectiveness of using picture cues to teach writing, this study was categorized into an experimental research. the research was conducted in a private junior high school in banjarnegara district, central java province. the research was done in may 2018 and involved56 students of grade eight. these students were divided into groups of experiment and control consisting of 28 students each. there was no sampling technique used as the population served as the sample as well. as for the research variables, there were two variables used, i.e. independent variable and dependent variable. in this case, using picture cues to teach writing was the independent variable (x) and students’writing ability was the dependent variable (y). a writing test in which the students were asked to write a text was utilized as the technique to collect the research data. meanwhile, for the data analysis, it was done quantitatively by applying the descriptive and inferential anlysis, while t-test was used as the hypothesis testing method. research procedures as previously stated, this study was an experimental research and involved two research groupsnamely experimental and control groups. the two groups were given the same material, which was recount text, but different treatment. the experimental group was taught by using picture cues and the control group was taught without using picture cues. the picture cues were used as the learning media. for the picture cues, they were made of some series of pictures which were interrelated and having the common thread among them. the theme of the picture cues was centered 44 e-issn: 2621-6485 around holiday. these picture cues were given in meeting 3, 4, and 5 consecutively. the researcher acted as the teacher. she did the teaching by complying with the lesson plan prepared beforehand. the general teaching procedures were: the researcher explained the material and after that the students of the experimental group were given the picture cues and asked to write a text based on them. on finishing the text, the students submitted their writing works to the researcher. then, the researcher assessed and gave feedback. table 1 depicts the detailed schedule of the treatment. as for the writing test, both groups were given the same pre-test and post-test in which they were asked to write a recount text on their own. to assess the test results, it was used a writing rubric. as the final step, the results of both pre-test and post-test were compared to each other to find out whether or not there was significant difference between them. table 1. schedule of the treatment meeting day topic 1st saturday 5th, may 2018 recount text (function, generic structure, language use) 2nd monday 7th, may 2018 holiday; past tense 3rd tuesday 8th, may 2018 writing sentences based on the given picture cues 4th wednesday 9th, may 2018 writing recount paragraph based on the given picture cues 5th friday 11th, may 2018 writing recount paragraph based on the given picture cues results and discussion based on the findings and anlysis, it could be concluded that in terms of the writing ability, there was significant differencebetween the experimental group and the control group. it means that there was a difference between the students who were taught using picture cues and without using picture cues. table 2 below shows the difference between them. 45 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 soviyah, purwaningtias table 2. descriptive analysis of pre-test and post-test of the experimental and control group class category frequency minimum maximum mean st. deviation experiment pre-test 28 76 51.32 13.894 post-test 35 89 65.75 15.558 control pre-test 34 71 47.86 11.323 post-test 40 78 59.14 12.474 (source: data analysis spss 16) from table 2 of the descriptive analysis of both pre-test and post-test between the experimental and control groups above, it’s obvious that there is a difference between the two groups. the difference lays on the aspects of minimum and maximum score, mean, and standard deviation. seen from these three aspects, it can be said that the experimental group outnumbers the control group. the first aspect is of the minimum and maximum score. in terms of the minimum and maximum score, the experimental group shows an increase from 28 and 76 in the pre-test to 35 and 89 in the post-test. meanwhile, the control group improves lesser from 34 and 71 in the pre-test to 40 and 78 in the posttest. as for the mean score, the experimental group shows better improvement than that of the control group in which it increases from 51.32 in the pre-test to 65.75 in the post-test, while the control group scores 47.86 in the pre-test to 59.14 in the post-test. regarding the standard deviation score, again, the experimental group exceeds the control group with 1.664 points (from 13.894 in the pre-test to 15.558) while the control group only gains 1.151 (11.323 in the pre-test to 12.474 in the post-test). in addition to the descriptive analysis, it’s also done the inferential analysis. this analysis is done in order to check whether or not the distribution of the data is normal. in this study, kolmogorov-smirnov formula completed with spss 16 is utilized as the method to test the data normality. the complete result of the normality test is displayed through table 3 below. table 3. normality test of the pre-test and post-test of the experimental and control groups class category kolmogorov smirnov decision statistic sig. experiment pre-test 0.144 0.200 normal post-test 0.118 0.200 control pre-test 0.113 0.200 normal post-test 0.109 0.200 (source: data anaysis spss16) 46 e-issn: 2621-6485 based on the data on table 3, it can be concluded that both research data of the experimental and control groups are normally distributed. it’s because seen from the level of significance 0.05, both groups show the same result, which is higher than 0.05. the experimental group reaches the data probability (sig.) of 0.200 in both of its pre-test and post-test, which means that the data distribution of the experimental group is normal. the control group shows the same results as well. it gains 0.200 as its data probability (sig.) in both pre-test and post-test run. besides the test of normality, another inferential analysis done is homogeneity test. homogeneity test is done in order to know whether or not the score of one group has the homogeneous variance with the score of the other group’s. in other words, homogeneity test functions to analyze whether the population score is homogenous or not. in this study, the researcher used spss 16. in this case, the data is said homogeneous if the probability (sig.) is higher than the obtained probability, which is 0.05. in contrast, if the probability (sig.) score is lower than the probability score obtained (0.05), the data will be considered not homogeneous. the results of the homogeneity test of this study is illustrated through the following table: table 4.test of homogeneity from table 4 it can be seen that, based on the gained mean score, the significant score (sig) of the data is 0.164, which is higher than 0.05. therefore, it can be concluded that the data variance of the post-test of both experimental and control groups is homogeneous. the last analysis done is hypothesis testing. as previously stated, for hypothesis testing, the research used t-test. the t-test aims at finding out whether or not there is a significant difference in the mean score between the experimental group and the control group. furthermore, hypothesis testing is also used to find out whether the use of picture cues is effective or not to teach writing to students of grade eight of junior high school. theoretically, the hypothesis is rejected if the probability (sig.) is higher than 0.05, which means there is no significant difference between the experimental and control groups. on the contrary, the hypothesis is accepted if probability (sig.) is lower than 0.05, which means there is a significant difference in both groups. the result of hypothesis testing is presented through table 5. table 5. independent sample t-test class n df sig. (2.tailed) decision experiment 28 54 0.000 have a control 28 difference (source: data analysis spss 16) class levene statistic decision statistic sig. experiment 1.198 1.164 homogeneous control 47 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 soviyah, purwaningtias table 5 shows the result of t-test computation of both experimental and control groups, particularly the result of independent t-test of bothgroups in the post-test. from the table it’s clear that the final result is 0.000, which is below 0.05. it means that the proposed hypothesis is accepted and the null hypothesis is rejected. therefore, it can beconcluded that the use of picture cues is effective to teach writing becausethere’s significant difference in writing ability between the students who are taught using picture cues and those taught without picture cues. regarding the findings this research shows, it highlights the theory stating that picture cues as media can be stimulus for students during the learning process (wright, 1989)). furthermore the research findings also support the notion that when used as learning media, pictures (including picture cues) can best serve as an aid to motivate, demonstrate, and instruct the students during the learning process. it also helps students to be able to understand the material more easily because it presents realistic format that helps students to think and get more ideas in composing a text. in other words, picture cues is just an effective tool to support the students’ learning to write in english. in the research field, there are some supporters to the findings of this study. among the researches of the same topic, some of the researches which show similar results, that picture (and picture cues) is an effective tool to use in learning writing, are such researches done by wijayanti (2012), noor (2014), and rizkiani (2016) who have researched the effectiveness of pictures and picture series in teaching writing. the researches of these three resulted in the conclusion that pictures is effective to use in learning writing. furthermore, there’s an interesting fact in regards to the effectiveness of pictures use in the classroom. it’s that surprisingly pictures are serving as a great help in a reading class as well. this is what maulina (2015) proved through her research on the use of pictures in learning reading amongstudents of junior high school. maulina’s research concluded that pictures are effective to improve the students’ reading ability. conclusion in conclusion, picture cues is an effective media to use in teaching writing, particularly in writing recount text. it’s shown through the outcome this research gains which shows that after being given treatment of picture cues, the students show better improvement than that of those who aren’t given picture cues. this fact once again proves that pictures and or picture cues is effective. and there’s no doubt about it. however, there’s another side of the research fields which is interesting to dig more. it’s the issue whether picturecues is also effective to use in teaching other language skills or whether it’s alsoeffective to use among students of higher or lower than junior high school level.this is such an intriguing issue worth further researches. 48 e-issn: 2621-6485 references brown, d. h. 2001.teaching by principle. san fransiscocallifornia: longman. collins. 2005. collins english dictionary. complete and unabridged.new edition. glasgow: harpercollins publisher. harmer, j. 1998.how to teach english. kuala lumpur: longman. heaton, j. b. 1975. writing english language tests. kuala lumpur: longman. maulina, u. 2015. using picture storybook to improve students’ reading ability for the sixth grade students in sd muhammadiyahtegalayang 1, pandak, bantul, yogyakarta in academic year 2014/2015. yogyakarta: universitas ahmad dahlan. noor, f. 2014. implementing sequence picture to improve students’ ability in writing narrative text for grade x of man lab uin in the academic year of 2013/2014. yogyakarta: universitasnegeri yogyakarta. oxfrod. 2015. oxford advanced learner’s dictionary. oxfrod: oxford university press. rizkiani, f. 2016.the effectivenes of using picture to improve students writing skill for eight grade students in the academic year 2015/2016.yogyakarta: universitas ahmad dahlan. tedrow, k., mary. 2018. write, think, learn. tapping the power of daily student writing across the content areas. new york: routledge. wijayanti, i. 2012. the effect of picture series on the writing ability og grade eight students of smpnegeri 1 kalasan, sleman in the academic year 2011/2012. yogyakarta: universitasnegeri yogyakarta. wright. 1989. the media represantation of refuges, visual studies. http//dx.doi.org/10.1080/1472568022000005053/was retrieved on desember 17, 2017 at 20.15 p.m. english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 142-150 142 10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2447 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id a descriptive study on esl learners’ vocabulary knowledge through cognitive and metacognitive strategies b r aravind a,1,*, v rajasekaran b,2 a, b school of social sciences and languages (ssl),vellore institute of technology, chennai, tamilnadu, india 1aravind.abur@gmail.com*, 2rskaran2003@gmail.com *corresponding author 1. introduction “without grammar, very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed” (wilkins 1972, p. 111). vocabulary learning starts at the very early stage of infancy. according to the national research council (1998), the foundations for language and literacy begin in early childhood when children develop vocabulary and use the vocabulary to communicate. 8 to 12 months; children understand 3 to 50 words. those words were normally familiar persons in the family or their favorite objects around them. even in a learner’s mother tongue, there is incessant learning of new words and new meanings for old words (thornbury 2002, p. 1). it is generally accepted that vocabulary is ‘the heart in learning a second language’, but the acquisition of numerous vocabulary items may be one of the most difficult aspects of learning a second language for most l2 learners (meara 1980; read 2000; stoffer 1995). maley (1986) any learner of a foreign language knows very well that words are essential, and the lack of them leads to difficulties in communication situations. decarrico (2001) points out that vocabulary learning is central to language acquisition whether it is a second or a foreign language. vocabulary often seems to be the least systematized, and the least well-catered for of all the aspects of learning a foreign language, such as listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, or even pronunciation. many scholars (e.g. allen, 2009; carter and mccarthy, 1988; hughes, 1989; 2003; jackson & amvela, 2007; lewis, 1993; long and richards, 1997; maley, 1986; meara, 1980; 1982; read, 2000; richards, 1985; schmitt, 1997; seal, 1991; zimmerman, 1996) specifically highlight the neglect of vocabulary studies. a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 10 july, 2020 revised 12 august, 2020 accepted 30 august, 2020 the present research was carried out to study the cognitive and metacognitive vocabulary learning strategies of 36 esl learners’. schmitt’s vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire was used to conduct the study. the study revealed the subsequent array of cognitive and metacognitive strategies employed by esl learners. additionally, semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 10 esl learners’ who completed the questionnaire to get more reliable information about learners’ strategies with vocabulary learning. the findings indicated that ‘using english language media’, ‘verbal repetition’, ‘take notes in class’ were the most popular strategies, whereas ‘skip or pass new word’ and ‘put english labels on physical objects’ were least used. the results of this paper provide many implications for english language teaching. detailed explanations of the participants’ cognitive and metacognitive strategies were given in the discussion this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords cognitive metacognitive vocabulary learning strategies esl learners teaching https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2447 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:aravind.abur@gmail.com mailto:2rskaran2003@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 143 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 142-150 aravind and rajasekaran (a descriptive study on esl learners’ vocabulary knowledge...) fig. 1. types of vocabulary (source: adapted from pikulski and templeton (2004, p. 2) pikulski and templeton (2004, p. 2) demonstrate that vocabulary items play a dominant part in learning to communicate effectively while listening, speaking, reading, and writing. vocabulary items in fig. 1. can be classified in terms of types, meanings, and functions. based on the diagram, vocabulary is categorized into four main groups as meaning/oral vocabulary, literate/written vocabulary, receptive vocabulary, and productive vocabulary. hence, all vocabulary items are interrelated in functions and meanings. vocabulary learning strategies are a part of language learning strategies which in turn are a part of general learning strategies (nation 2001, p. 217). cameron (2001, p. 92) defines vocabulary learning strategies as “the actions that learners take to help themselves understand and remember vocabulary items”. 3.1. survey of literature today, the significance of vocabulary is appreciated both in second language research and in language teaching. the number of studies and books concerning vocabulary instruction has increased. thornbury (2002, p. 4) states, “this is partly due to the recent availability of computerized databases of words (or corpora), and partly due to the development of new approaches to language teaching which are much more word-centered, such as the lexical approach.” burns and richards (2018) emphasized the importance of aptitude tests in second language acquisition (sla). initial learning draws on conscious learning abilities, such as memory, reasoning, and analytic abilities assessed through aptitude tests in sla. mayer (2019) mentioned the influence of multimedia in learners’ deep learning. the impact of deep learning was more from words and pictures than from words alone. amirian and heshmatifar (2013) conducted a study on “a survey on vocabulary learning strategies: a case of iranian efl university students”. 74 students were used for the study. the result showed that determination strategies were frequently used by the students. guessing from context and dictionary usage are the most popular strategies for the iranian learners to acquire vocabulary. ramos (2015) reviewed incidental vocabulary learning under the title, “incidental vocabulary learning in second language acquisition: a literature review”. in the article, he surveyed the understanding of incidental learning and the relationship of reading and the promotion of vocabulary learning through strategies and tasks with technology-based methods. rabadi (2016) investigated a study on “vocabulary learning strategies employed by undergraduate efl jordanian students”. 110 students were used for the study. the study showed 144 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 142-150 aravind and rajasekaran (a descriptive study on esl learners’ vocabulary knowledge...) that memory strategies were the most frequently employed by them and metacognitive strategies were the least frequently used strategies among them. in addition, the study revealed that the variation of jordanian participants’ choice of vocabulary learning strategies were medium strategy users. nosratinia et al., (2017) published a research paper on “promoting second language learners’ vocabulary learning strategies: can autonomy and critical thinking make a contribution?” 100 undergraduate efl learners were used for the study. three questionnaires were given to estimate their critical thinking, autonomy and vocabulary learning strategies, and analyzed by pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient. findings showed the significant relationships between autonomy and critical thinking, critical thinking and vocabulary learning strategies, autonomy and vocabulary learning strategies. in addition, the stepwise method revealed autonomy is the best predictor of vocabulary learning strategies. specifically, efl learners’ autonomy predicts 20 percent of vocabulary learning strategies compared to critical thinking. aravind and rajasekaran (2018) conducted a study on strategies used by research scholars in vocabulary learning. the findings revealed that the frequent strategies employed were using new words in the sentence, note-taking in the class, studying or spelling of words, spoken repetition, and usage of dictionary. other strategies like the peg method, analyzing of parts of speech, flashcards were not preferred by the research scholars in vocabulary learning. 3.2. schmitt’s vocabulary learning strategies strategies in vocabulary learning were intended to retrieve the learned vocabulary in language learning. schmitt’s taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies (1997) was based on oxford’s (1990) social, memory, cognitive, and metacognitive categories. schmitt classifies vocabulary learning strategies into two divisions namely discovery strategies and consolidation strategies. the current study investigates cognitive and metacognitive strategies of esl learners’ which comes under consolidation strategies of schmitt’s taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies. cognitive strategies include mechanical means of learning vocabulary. metacognitive strategies used by learners to manage and assess their individual learning process in vocabulary. 3.3. research objectives there are three research objectives. they are to study the cognitive and metacognitive strategies used by esl learners’ for their vocabulary development, to find out the most and least frequently used cognitive and metacognitive strategies among esl learners, and to determine which of these strategies are more reported by esl learners’ during semi-structured interview. 3.4. research questions the research questions are formulated in three questions. what are the effective cognitive and metacognitive strategies to enrich the vocabulary level of esl learners’? do cognitive and metacognitive strategies motivate esl learners’ in vocabulary enhancement? what are the most and least frequently cognitive and metacognitive strategies used by esl learners? 3.5. significance of the study vocabulary learning strategies play a major part in assisting esl learners to acquire and learn new words easily. studies proved that learners have their own strategies to promote and uplift their vocabulary knowledge. the current study can be beneficial in promoting and assisting esl learners to direct effective strategies to learn vocabulary in english. esl educators and practitioners can enhance the teaching-learning process by exposing the number of strategies employed by other esl learners around the world. also, they can instruct cognitive and metacognitive strategies that facilitate esl learners’ vocabulary development. the findings of this investigation can be an information base for further research in the related field. 2. research method the research methodology employed in this study was a mixed research methodology. schmitt’s vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire was adopted to study the participants’ vocabulary knowledge. especially cognitive and metacognitive strategies were used from schmitt’s vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire to investigate the effectiveness and the impact of 36 esl issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 145 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 142-150 aravind and rajasekaran (a descriptive study on esl learners’ vocabulary knowledge...) learners’ vocabulary knowledge. all the 14 items in the questionnaire (9 cognitive and 5 metacognitive) were collected through online source of google forms 2020 as shown in table 1. the rating scale for the frequency of use of the cognitive and metacognitive strategies as helpful, not helpful, not used but helpful, and not aware. additionally, semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 10 esl learners’ who completed the questionnaire to get more reliable information about learners’ strategies with vocabulary learning. table 1. classification of the items in the questionnaire items cognitive strategies 1 verbal repetition 2 written repetition 3 wordlists 4 prepare flashcards 5 take notes in class 6 use vocabulary section in text book 7 listen to tape of new words 8 put english labels on physical objects 9 keep vocabulary notebook items metacognitive strategies 10 use english language media (songs, newspaper/newscasts etc.,) 11 testing oneself with word tests 12 use spaced word practice 13 skip or pass new word 14 continue to study over time the present study was conducted with 36 third-year esl learners who were randomly selected on single-stage cluster sampling. the participants comprised 20 male and 16 female participants ranging from 18 to 19 years old (see table 2). the sample’s proficiency level ranges between intermediate low and intermediate high. participant’s demographical details, length of time studying english, and other background information were also collected from the participants’ responses. all the participants were exposed to the uniform treatment conditions for the study although they had various language backgrounds. table 2. description of samples category number male 20 female 16 total 36 3. findings and discussion the result of esl learners’ use of cognitive strategies presented in table. 3. the statistical details includes participants’ average, standard deviation and median scores from schmitt’s vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire. 146 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 142-150 aravind and rajasekaran (a descriptive study on esl learners’ vocabulary knowledge...) table 3. statistical details of esl learners’ cognitive strategies cognitive strategies helpful not helpful not used but helpful not aware verbal repetition 32 (88.9%) 4 (11.1%) 0 0 written repetition 30 (83.3%) 3 (8.3%) 3 (8.3%) 0 wordlists 31 (86.1%) 3 (8.3%) 2 (5.6%) 0 prepare flashcards 21 (58.3%) 4 (11.1%) 5 (13.9%) 6 (16.7%) take notes in class 32 (88.9%) 3 (8.3%) 1 (2.8%) 0 use vocabulary section in text book 28 (77.8%) 3 (8.3%) 4 (11.1%) 1 (2.8%) listen to tape of new words 28 (77.8%) 1 (2.8%) 4 (11.1%) 3 (8.3%) put english labels on physical objects 19 (52.8%) 3 (8.3%) 7 (19.4%) 7 (19.4%) keep vocabulary notebook 20 (55.6%) 5 (13.9%) 6 (16.7%) 5 (13.9%) average 26.7 3.2 3.5 2.4 standard deviation 5.3 1.0 2.2 2.8 median 28 3 4 1 table 3 shows the average, standard deviation, and median value of the 9 cognitive strategies. the total group mean of the study is 26.7. the standard deviation of the cognitive strategies is 5.3. the median value of cognitive strategies is 28 as shown in table 3. table 4. statistical details of esl learners’ metacognitive strategies metacognitive strategies helpful not helpful not used but helpful not aware use english language media (songs/newspaper/newscasts etc.) 33 (91.7%) 2 (5.6%) 0 1 (2.8%) testing oneself with word tests 30 (83.3%) 1 (2.8%) 5 (13.9%) 0 use spaced word practice 23 (63.9%) 2 (5.6%) 4 (11.1%) 7 (19.4%) skip or pass new word 13 (36.1%) 14 (38.9%) 2 (5.6%) 7 (19.4%) continue to study over time 23 (63.9%) 9 (25%) 2 (5.6%) 2 (5.6%) average 24.4 5.6 2.6 3.4 standard deviation 7.7 5.6 1.9 3.3 median 23 2 2 2 table 4 shows the average, standard deviation, and the median value of the 5 metacognitive strategies. the total group mean of the study is 24.4. the standard deviation of the metacognitive strategies is 7.7. the median value of metacognitive strategies is 23 as shown in table 4. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 147 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 142-150 aravind and rajasekaran (a descriptive study on esl learners’ vocabulary knowledge...) fig. 2. graphical representation of the comparison of cognitive and metacognitive strategies table 5. most frequently used cognitive and metacognitive strategies of esl learners’ strategies category respondents use english language media (songs/newspaper/newscasts etc.) metacognitive 33 (91.7%) verbal repetition cognitive 32 (88.9%) take notes in class cognitive 32 (88.9%) wordlists cognitive 31 (86.1%) testing oneself with word tests metacognitive 30 (83.3%) written repetition cognitive 30 (83.3%) table 6. least frequently used cognitive and metacognitive strategies of esl learners’ strategies category respondents skip or pass new word metacognitive 13 (36.1%) put english labels on physical objects cognitive 19 (52.8%) keep vocabulary notebook cognitive 20 (55.6%) prepare flashcards cognitive 21 (58.3%) from the responses of the esl learners’, all the cognitive and metacognitive strategies were put together to find the most and least frequently used strategies were reported as shown in table 5 and table 6. based on esl learners’ responses to the ‘helpful’ population, the most and least strategies were calculated. esl learners’ most frequently used strategies were ‘use english language media’ with 33 (91.7%) from metacognitive strategies, ‘verbal repetition’ with 32 (88.9%), ‘take notes in class’ with 32 (88.9%), ‘wordlists’ with 31 (86.1%) from cognitive strategies, ‘testing oneself with word tests’ with 30 (83.3%) from metacognitive strategies and ‘written repetition’ with 30 (83.3%) from cognitive strategies were reported by the esl learners. on the other hand, least frequently used strategies by esl learners are ‘skip or pass new word’ with 13 (36.1%) from metacognitive strategies, ‘put english labels on physical objects’ with 19 (52.8%), ‘keep vocabulary notebook’ with 20 (55.6%), and ‘prepare flashcard’ with 21 (58.3%) from cognitive strategies were reported by the learners for vocabulary learning. esl learners use these cognitive strategies to consolidate new words in vocabulary learning from the perspective of mental process. 32 (88.9%) participants answered the strategies ‘take notes in 148 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 142-150 aravind and rajasekaran (a descriptive study on esl learners’ vocabulary knowledge...) class’ and ‘verbal repetition’ of the dictions to register the words in mind and these two strategies reported the most highly used cognitive strategies. ‘take notes in class’ strategy is though found classical, learners believed this strategy to consolidate the words till date for the learning process. ‘verbal repetition’ is to register the word in the mental process of learning, where the learners’ alleged articulation in the cognitive domain is possible in remembering the word to learn. 19 (52.8%) esl learners’ said that ‘put english labels on physical objects’ as least used strategy in learning the vocabulary. hence, it cannot be taken lightly into the consideration of consolidating the vocabulary in cognitive strategies. learners use metacognitive strategies to deepen the thinking-learning process in vocabulary from the perspective of advanced cognitive levels. 33 (91.7%) learners responded that ‘use english language media’ as a highly used strategy in order to plan and decide the word for manipulation. moreover, this strategy had scored most of the participants’ responses in the metacognitive strategies list. because esl learners believe newspaper, songs, videos give a new angle in remembering the words; they find it novel for learning the vocabulary. surprisingly 13 (36.1%) learners were on the view that it was helpful to ‘skip or pass the new word’ in the learning process and it has ranked the least used strategy in the metacognitive list. at the same time, 14 (38.9%) participants strongly disagree with skipping the new word and it was not helpful in vocabulary learning. as an esl learner, mastery of vocabulary is very much essential in the productive work; words cannot be skipped or passed without learning in the educational progression. fig. 3. 10 8 6 reported strategies by esl learners' use english langauge media take notes in class verbal repetition reported strategies by esl learners’ for vocabulary learning in order to ascertain the responses of esl learners’ attitudes about cognitive and metacognitive strategies, randomly 10 learners were selected and questioned in the form of semi-structured interviews. the learners’ responses were projected in fig. 3. the questions posed to learners as follows. the first question, what is the most frequently used strategy for you, and why? all the 10 participants responded ‘use english language media’ as the most frequently used strategy according to them. they said this particular strategy deepens the understanding level and fasten the learning process. it reported the high number of participants in both cognitive and metacognitive strategies. the second question is named a strategy that is useful in the class. 8 respondents replied ‘take notes in class’ as the useful strategy in the class. during the lectures, learners find this strategy as a powerful strategy since they themselves write the words when they encounter it. the final question to the interviewees is which strategy helps you to remember the word? 6 interviewees said the ‘verbal repetition’ strategy assist them to remember the learned word. learners keep repeating the words again and again to remember the word. all those 3 interview questions were posed to the participants to name a particular strategy from the cognitive and metacognitive strategies. the issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 149 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 142-150 aravind and rajasekaran (a descriptive study on esl learners’ vocabulary knowledge...) participants’ opinions were collected and distributed on the bases of responses to the questions. based on the interview report, ‘use english language media’, ‘take notes in class’, and ‘verbal repetition’ are the cognitive and metacognitive strategies reported by esl learners during the semistructured interviews for vocabulary learning and development. 4. conclusion the prime focus of this research is to study the cognitive and metacognitive strategies on esl learners’ vocabulary learning. it also sought to find out esl learners’ most and least used strategies. the finding of the study revealed the reliability of the research from the questionnaire and interview responses of the participants. data analysis indicated that reported and responded strategy use increased learners’ perceptions towards cognitive and metacognitive strategies on vocabulary. based on the findings of the study, ‘use english language media’, ‘take notes in class’ strategies should be considered to be included in the vocabulary teaching-learning process of esl learners. since both instructors and the learners were in favor of the strategy training in language learning. to conclude, this study reveals that strategies in learning vocabulary may help the learner to discover themselves and it pave way for them into independent learners. the flexibility shown by the esl learners towards being independent is significant in ‘written repetition’ and ‘verbal repetition’ strategies. it indicates that when guided with proper context, they can be more autonomy in learning and developing vocabulary effectively. the least used strategies of this study could help the practitioners to enhance the teaching strategies in vocabulary and also they could introduce the vocabulary learning strategies in the teaching-learning process. references allen, v. f. (2009). techniques in teaching vocabulary. new york: oxford university press. amirian, s. m. r., & heshmatifar, z. (2013). a survey on vocabulary learning strategies: a case of iranian efl university students. journal of language teaching and research, 4(3), 636. https://doi:10.4304/jltr.4.3.636-641 aravind, b. r., & rajasekaran, v. (2018). a study on vocabulary learning strategies research scholars. the international journal of research in teacher education, 9, 16-25. http://ijrte.penpublishing.net/makale/493 burns, a., & richards, j. c. (2018). the cambridge guide to learning english as a second language. cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. cameron, l. (2001). teaching languages to young learners. cambridge: cambridge university press. carter, r., mccarthy, m., channell, j., & mccarthy, m. (1988). vocabulary and language teaching (pp. 6875). london: longman. decarrico, j. s. (2001). vocabulary learning and teaching. in m. celce-murcia (ed.), teaching english as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.) (pp. 285-299). boston: heinle & heinle. hughes, a. (1989). testing for language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. hughes, a. (2003). testing for language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. jackson, h., and amvela, e. z. (2007). words, meaning and vocabulary: an introduction to modern english lexicology. bloomsburry publishing. lewis, m. (1993). the lexical approach (vol. 1). hove: language teaching publications. long, m. h., and richards, j. c. (1997) series editors’ preface. in j. coady and t. huckin (eds.), second language vocabulary acquisition: a rationale for pedagogy (pp. ix-x). cambridge: cambridge university press. maley, a. (1986). series editors’ preface. in j. morgan, and m. rinvolucri (eds.), vocabulary. oxford: oxford university press. mayer, r. e. (2019). the cambridge handbook of multimedia learning. cambridge: cambridge university press. https://doi:10.4304/jltr.4.3.636-641 http://ijrte.penpublishing.net/makale/493 150 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 142-150 aravind and rajasekaran (a descriptive study on esl learners’ vocabulary knowledge...) meara, p. (1980). ‘vocabulary acquisition: a neglected aspect of language learning’. language teaching and linguistics, 13 (4): 221-246. https://doi:10.1017/s0261444800008879 meara, p. (1982). vocabulary acquisition: a neglected aspect of language learning. in v. kinsella (ed.), surveys: eight state-of-the-art article on key areas in language teaching (pp. 100-126). cambridge: cambridge university press. nation, p. (2001). learning vocabulary in another language. cambridge: cambridge university press. nosratinia, m., & zaker, a. (2017). scrutinizing the impact of teachers’ critical thinking and teaching autonomy on their teaching success and learners’ use of language learning strategies. journal of language teaching and research, 8(1), 122-132. https://doi:10.17507/jltr.0801.15 oxford, r. (1990). language learning strategies:what every teacher should know. boston: heinle & heinle publishers. pikulski, j. j., and templeton, s. (2004). teaching and developing vocabulary: key to long-term reading success. current research in reading/language arts, 1, 12. available: http://www.eduplace.com/state/pdf/author/pik_temp.pdf rabadi, r. i. (2016). ‘vocabulary learning strategies employed by undergraduate efl jordanian students’. english language and literature studies, 6(1), 47. https://doi:10.5539/ells.v6n1p47 ramos, f. d. (2015). ‘incidental vocabulary learning in second language acquisition: a literature review’. profile issues in teachers professional development, 17(1), 157-166. https://doi:10.15446/profile.v17n1.43957 read, j. (2000). assessing vocabulary. cambridge: cambridge university press. richards, j. c. (1985). the context of language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. schmitt, n. (1997). vocabulary learning strategies. in n. schmitt and m. mccarthy (eds.), vocabulary: description, acquisition and pedagogy (pp. 77-85). cambridge: cambridge university press. seal, b. d. (1991). vocabulary learning and teaching. in m. celce-murcia, (ed.), teaching english as a second or foreign language (pp. 296-311). massachusetts: heinle & heinle. stoffer, i. (1995). university foreign language students’ choice of vocabulary learning strategies as related to individual difference variables. unpublished doctoral dissertation, the university of alabama, usa. thornbury, s. (2002). how to teach vocabulary. harlow: longman-pearson educational. wilkins, d. a. (1972). linguistics in language teaching, edward arnold, london. us department of education. zimmerman, c. (1996). historical trends in second language vocabulary instruction. in j. coady & t. huckin (eds.), second language vocabulary acquisition: a rationale for pedagogy (cambridge applied linguistics, pp. 5-19). cambridge: cambridge university press. https://doi:10.1017/cbo9781139524643.003 https://doi:10.1017/s0261444800008879 https://doi:10.17507/jltr.0801.15 http://www.eduplace.com/state/pdf/author/pik_temp.pdf https://doi:10.5539/ells.v6n1p47 https://doi:10.15446/profile.v17n1.43957 https://doi:10.1017/cbo9781139524643.003 english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 1, august 2018, pp. 1-12 e-issn: 2621-6485 apology strategies in harry potter movie series 1 intan khoirun nisa, 2 adi sutrisno universitas gadjah mada, indonesia 1 intan.khoirun.n@mail.ugm.ac.id abstract apology is an inevitable part of human communication as an act of face-saving strategy. it is necessarily uttered if an offence is made. this research is an attempt to reveal the apology strategies used as well as to analyse the influence of social distance and relative power to the realization of apology strategies, as seen in harry potter and the order of the phoenix, harry potter and the half blood prince, and harry potter and the deathly hallows part 1 and 2. in total, there are 125 data found and those are classified according the apology strategy employed. the result shows that the majority of the speakers employ indirect apology strategy „explanation or account of cause‟ to apologize. furthermore, this research also found that social distance and relative power are taken into account during the apology process and they affect the linguistic realization of apology strategies in the movies. keywords: apology strategies, social distance, relative power, harry potter. how to cite: nisa, i. k., sutrisno, a. (2018). apology strategies in harry potter movie series. english language teaching educational journal, 1(1), 1-12. introduction uttering an apology is often inevitable. people may be in a situation where they need to apologize due to some offences they have committed to the one spoken to. apology is, hence, considered an important part of human communication, owing to its role as a face-saving strategy. to apologize, people are entitled to choose their ways of apologizing which is commonly called apology strategies. as it has various types of strategies, apology might appear in different linguistic realization for different situation. the situation influencing the speaker‟s choice of apology strategy is called social variables. social variables which influence the realization of apology strategies include social distance and relative power. distance is determined as the familiarity between the speaker and the hearer, while power is defined as the gap of authority between them, seen from the hearer‟s point of view. these variables, which distinctively surround each situation, influence the linguistic realization of apology strategy. for instance, a person would choose different method of apologizing to someone whom he is familiar with compared to apologizing to someone whom he is unfamiliar with. besides, he would also use different apology strategy if he apologizes to his employer or to his colleague. mailto:intan.khoirun.n@mail.ugm.ac.id 2  e-issn: 2621-6485 the more varied the social variables found, the more varied the realization of apology strategies there are. therefore, harry potter movie series are chosen because it has various characters involved, which do not comprise only the students and the teacher, but also the minister, the enemy of the main character, and even the creatures in magic world such as goblin and centaurs. however, the investigated harry potter movie series are only referred to harry potter and the order of the phoenix, harry potter and the half blood prince, and harry potter and the deathly hallows part 1 and 2. this is because in those parts, the majority of the characters have entered their adolescent period, which is assumed that they would have better linguistic realization compared to the moment they were still in their childhood. theoretical framework this research adopted a theory proposed by blum-kulka and olshtain (1984), who divide apology strategies into direct and indirect apology strategies. direct apology strategy is defined as the explicit utterance of apology, which consists of explicit illocutionary force indicating device (ifid) strategy. meanwhile, the remaining strategies are classified as indirect apology strategies. those are explanation or account of cause, taking of responsibility, offer of repair, and promise of forbearance. blum-kulka and olshtain (1984) convey that the linguistic realization of the act of apologizing can take one of two basic forms, or a combination of both. this means the apology strategy expressed by a speaker can be compiled by ranges of apology strategies (blum-kulka and olshtain, 1984). according to them, there are some factors which may influence the reason why the speaker finally decides to apologize by means of bringing back the hearer‟s face even though it risks the speaker‟s face. blum-kulka and olshtain (1984) reveal that social variables including distance and power contribute to the intensification of the apology. briefly, social distance represents the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the hearer. meanwhile relative power represents the level of social gap between the speaker and the hearer. methods the primary data of this research covered the apology utterances taken from the movies. utterance is defined as any stretch of talk, by one person, before and after in which there is silence on the part of that person (hurford, heasley, and smith, 2007). it refers to the use by a particular speaker, on a particular occasion, of a piece of language, including a sequence of sentences, a single phrase, or even a single word (hurford, heasley, and smith, 2007). this is what differs utterance to sentence. utterances include a word, a phrase, a clause, or a sentence, while sentences focus on its grammatical completion consisting of a string of words expressing a complete thought (hurford, heasley, and smith, 2007). hence, apology utterance, as the data in this research, is determined as any utterance containing the strategies of apology. it may consist of only a word, a phrase, a clause, or also a sentence. the data 3 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 nisa, sutrisno were taken from harry potter movie series, namely harry potter and the order of the phoenix, harry potter and the half blood prince, and harry potter and the deathly hallows part 1 and 2. those parts were selected because in those movies, the majority of the characters have entered their adolescent age, which is assumed that they have better linguistic realization to apologize. besides, the movies have covered more than half of the series which means it is quite representative for a research on harry potter. therefore, only those parts amongst all series of harry potter were chosen. there were several steps conducted in collecting the data: 1. downloaded the english subtitles of harry potter and the order of the phoenix, harry potter and the half blood prince, and harry potter and the deathly hallows part 1 and 2 from yifysubtitles.com. 2. watched all the movies which were obtained from the original vcds distributed in indonesia by pt. vision interprima pictures. 3. noted down every utterance containing an apology strategy and described the situational context as a method to understand the cause the speaker uttered the apology. 4. examined and rechecked the rough data to see whether it suited the felicity condition for apology proposed by blum-kulka and olshtain (1984) or murphy (2015). 5. omitted some data which did not suit at least one of the preconditions. 6. grouped the final data according to the movies to make it easier to find. meanwhile, in analysing the data, some step also had been conducted; those are: 1. classified the data according the apology strategies proposed by blumkulka and olshtain (1984) 2. examined the social distance and relative power influencing each apology utterances in the data. 3. counted the result to find out the most frequently used apology strategy. 4. recapitulated the data in table. 5. analysed the table descriptively by also providing the example for each strategy to see how apology strategies were applied in the movies as well as how the social distance and relative power influenced the linguistic realization of apology strategies in the movies. results and discussion according to the research data, there are 5 types of apology strategies found in the movies. those are explicit illocutionary force indicating device, explanation or account of cause, taking of responsibility, offer of repair, and combination strategy. mostly, the speaker prefers to employ indirect apology strategy which reaches up to 69.6%, while direct apology strategy is only used in 30.4% of the total data. to be exact, the most frequently used indirect strategy is explanation or account of cause by attaining 44% data in the movies. furthermore, the social distance and relative power also influence 4  e-issn: 2621-6485 the linguistic realization of apology strategies in the movies. below are some examples of the data in each strategy obtained from the movies. explicit illocutionary force indicating device (ifid) this strategy is signalled by the existence of a performative verbs in ifid such as “i‟m sorry.”, “pardon me.”, “forgive me.”, “excuse me”, “i beg your pardon.”, and “i apologize”. presented below is an example of this strategy found in the movies. (1) hp.7.1. eoa + ifid + eoa. dp= 00:24:30,460  00:24:59,956 context: in this scene, harry invites ron to go together with him and leave the burrows but ron refuses. he tells harry that his plan is insane because they still have many things to consider such as the trace that still lies within harry, as well as her brother’s wedding. ron also does not want to leave hermione. hearing ron’s refusal, harry utters that he apparently does not care about the wedding ron mentioned because the more he postpones to find those horcruxes the stronger voldemort gets. harry potter : come with me. ron weasley : what, and leave hermione? you mad? we wouldn't last two days without her. don't tell her i said that. besides, you've still got the trace on you. we've still got the wedding... harry potter : i don't care about a wedding. i'm sorry. no matter whose it is. i have to start finding these horcruxes. they're our only chance to beat him... and the longer we stay here, the stronger he gets. number (1) is an example of ifid strategy using three strategy combinations namely eoa + ifid + eoa below the influence of dp=. in this situation, the offence is committed by harry for insisting to leave the burrow. for his apology, he employs three strategy combinations, eoa + ifid + eoa. the first explanation is when he says “i don't care about a wedding”. harry explains that he insists to leave because ron brother‟s wedding is apparently not quite necessary for him. his apology is followed by a direct apology “i‟m sorry. no matter whose it is”. he seems to realize that he has offended ron by saying that he does not care about the wedding, therefore, he spontaneously says “i‟m sorry”. following this strategy, harry creates another explanation “i have to start finding these horcruxes. they're our only chance to beat him... and the longer we stay here, the stronger he gets.”. this explanation is aimed to make ron understand that if he stays longer in the burrow, even for the 5 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 nisa, sutrisno wedding, it would postpone his searching for horcruxes, which can make voldemort stronger. in example (1), dis seen through harry and ron‟s close relationship, because they have become friends even at harry‟s first arrival in the magic world. therefore, it can be concluded that there is no distance between them. while p= is caused by their similar status as student at the same level, which makes them has no more or less power towards each other. however, even though the social variable of this situation is dp=, harry as the speaker in example (11) employs longer strategy, unlike other data which typically use shorter strategy. one of the reasons is because harry‟s offence in this situation is quite serious. actually, the cause of the offence in all of the provided examples is quite similar, which is the speaker is leaving the hearer. however, in example (1), harry is not just about to leave the hearer, but also other occupants of the burrow. besides, harry‟s abandonment in this situation is not temporary, he is planning to leave permanently, and there is no indication to return. therefore, even though harry and ron have close distance and equal power, harry uses longer strategies with longer explanation as well. explanation or account of cause (eoa) this strategy contains the reason of the offence committed by the speaker, without providing additional strategies. analysed below is an example of how it is used in the movies. (2) hp.5. eoa. dp 01:40:51,586  01:41:12,472 context: umbridge finds harry sneaking into her room to use the floo network. she insists him to tell where he wants to go but harry does not want to tell her anything. umbridge thinks that harry’s escape trial becomes ministry security’s issue and since harry does not want to tell anything, umbridge plans to use the illegal cruciatus curse to harry so that he will open his mouth. cruciatus curse causes the victim to feel pain and physically tortured. dolores umbridge : very well. you give me no choice, potter. as this is an issue of ministry security... you leave me with... no alternative. the cruciatus curse ought to loosen your tongue. harry potter : (staring at umbridge) hermione granger : that‟s illegal. dolores umbridge : what cornelius doesn‟t know won‟t hurt him. 6  e-issn: 2621-6485 number (2) is an example of eoa strategy influenced by dpvariable. in this situation, umbridge‟s cruel intention for using cruciatus curse becomes the offence of example (2). as seen in above dialogue, for this offence, umbridge explains that cruciatus curse is needed to be done because harry‟s reason for room breaking is suspected to be related to the ministry security. through this utterance, umbridge has indirectly uttered an apology using eoa strategy. influenced by dpvariable, dis shown by harry and umbridge‟s familiarity towards each other because umbridge has become harry‟s teacher in throughout this year and pis caused by harry‟s lower authority as student. due to these social variables, umbridge uses an idiom „loosen your tongue‟, which means „to speak‟, to harry. this idiom would be less used to hearer with higher authority because the chosen diction is quite brave. however, despite the social variables, umbridge creates a longer explanation. the possible cause is that she is about to make a serious violation, which is breaking the law. besides, by using cruciatus curse means she is going to torture harry physically. taking of responsibility (tor) this strategy is used when the speaker takes the blame for the offence he has committed to the hearer. see example (3) to find out how this strategy is applied. (3) hp.5. tor. dp= 00:13:30,783  00:13:37,181 context: in this scene, harry is disappointed because during the holiday harry did not receive any letters from his best friends and that makes him know nothing regarding to what happened in the magic world. harry is rather pissed and ron explains that he and hermione actually wanted to write but dumbledore did not allow them to. harry potter : couldn't have put any of this in a letter, i suppose? i've gone all summer without a scrap of news. ron weasley : we wanted to write, mate. really, we did. only... harry potter : only what? hermione granger : only dumbledore made us swear not to tell you anything. number (3) is an example of tor strategy influenced by dp= social variables. as explained in theoretical framework, there are three sub-categories of tor strategy. one of them is denial of fault. number (3) is an example of this sub category. in this situation, the offence is committed by ron and hermione for not writing any letters to harry during holiday. realizing his fault, he says “we wanted to write, mate. really, we did.” as seen in this 7 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 nisa, sutrisno utterance, actually ron admits that he is mistaken for not writing letters to harry, but he refuses to be accused that it is because he did not want to write it. in fact, he is forbidden by dumbledore. example (3) is influenced by dp= social variable. the negative distance (d-) is caused by harry‟s close friendship with ron weasley, and the equal power (p=) is caused by their similar status as students in hogwarts. due to these variables, ron‟s choice of language in his denial remains casual. he uses a call name such as “mate” which indicates his familiarity and closeness to harry. ron also adds “really, we did.” in his apology as a method to minimize his offence and to show his sincerity. even though they have equal power, this intensification is added because ron‟s offence is quite serious because it has triggered harry‟s anger. offer of repair (oor) this strategy is employed in order to offer the compensation to the hearer for the violation the speaker has committed. discussed in example (4) below is how oor is used in the movies. (4) hp.5. oor. dp+ 00:48:06,884  00:48:30,635 context: in this scene, umbridge is inquiring professor trelawney when she is teaching. in the middle of the scene, umbridge wants professor trelawney to predict her. at first, professor trelawney looks doubtful because the prediction for umbridge will not be positive. however, looking at umbridge’s disappointment, professor trelawney then expresses what she sees, which unfortunately is not a good prediction. dolores umbridge : one teensy little prophecy? pity. professor trelawney : no, wait. wait, no. i think i do see something. yes, i do. something dark. you are in grave danger. dolores umbridge : lovely. in above situation, umbridge now has not just become a teacher but also an inquisitor in hogwarts. in this example, the offence is created by professor trelawney for disappointing umbridge by refusing to tell her the prophecy she wanted. due to this offence, she expresses an indirect apology by uttering her prediction to umbridge. “no, wait. wait, no. i think i do see something. yes, i do. something dark. you are in grave danger.”. in that utterance, it can be seen how she tries to repair umbdrige‟s disappointment by conveying her prediction. 8  e-issn: 2621-6485 this example is influenced by dp+ social variables. dis caused by umbridge and professor trelawney‟s familiarity towards each other because both are teachers in hogwarts. meanwhile, p+ is influenced by umbridge‟s position as an inquisitor which in this situation has higher authority towards the speaker, professor trelawney. due to the variables, as seen through professor trelawney‟s words, it looks that she really wants to repair umbridge‟s disappointment. she even mentioned „no‟ for several times which indicates her „fear‟ towards umbridge as an inquisitor. combination strategy this strategy is newly created in accordance to blum-kulka and olshtain‟s theory (1984) that the linguistic realization of the act of apologizing can take one of two basic forms, or a combination of both. that means an utterance of apology may consist of a combination between the strategies in direct and indirect apology or a combination between strategies in indirect apology. however, combination is only referred to an apology utterance consisting of more than one indirect apology strategies. for any strategy combination consisting of a performative verb in ifid, it remains categorized as ifid. discussed below is the analysis of combination strategy found in the movies. (5) hp.7.2. eoa + oor. d+ p+ 00:13:48,293  00:14:07,443 context: harry, ron, and hermione are in gringotts. to make sure that bellatrix lestrange he sees is not an impostor; the staff wants to check her wand. but the fake bellatrix lestrange (hermione) refuses. the staff explains that it is the bank’s policy. and like it or not, he must insist to do so. goblin : madam lestrange, would you mind presenting your wand? bellatrix lestrange : and why should i do that? goblin : it's the bank's policy. i'm sure you understand given the current climate. bellatrix lestrange : no. i most certainly do not understand. goblin : i'm afraid i must insist. this example is influenced by d+ p+ variable. d+ is caused by the presence of distance between bellatrix and the goblin. even though the goblin knows who madam lestrange is, nevertheless, there is no interaction which happened between them outside the bank. p+ is affected by bellatrix lestrange‟s greater power as the death eater. in this situation, the offence is committed by the goblin for insisting bellatrix lestrange to confirm her identity. influenced by this variable, the goblin uses two combinations of indirect apology strategy eoa + oor. eoa is used to explain that he must insist 9 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 nisa, sutrisno due to the bank policy and oor is shown by the second utterance “i'm sure you understand given the current climate.” this oor is identified as unspecified oor because the goblin only impliedly offers his certainty towards bellatrix. by using oor he shows how madam lestrange is much respected that he „offers‟ his certainty of her understanding to make his utterance as polite as possible. conclusion referring to the result and the analysis, indirect apology strategy becomes the most commonly used strategy in this research. to be exact, the speakers prefer to use an indirect strategy by explaining the cause of the offence rather than to utilize either direct or other indirect apology strategies. in accordance to the influence of the social variables, this research finds that social distance and relative power are taken into account during the process of apologizing. the analysis reveals that these variables affect the linguistic realization of apology strategies used by the characters. the realization seen in the data is the length of the strategy the speaker employs. to a situation in which the social distance between the interlocutors is negative and the relative power is equal or negative, the speakers tend to create shorter explanation by adding a call name such as “dear”, “mate”, or the first name of the hearer. however, to a situation in which the social distance between the interlocutors is positive or negative and the relative power is positive, the speakers more likely create a longer explanation by adding a more formal call name such as “sir”, “ma‟am”, “professor”, or the last name of the hearer. references austin, j. 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(1996). pragmatics. oxford: oxford university press. 12  e-issn: 2621-6485 appendix table 1. the overall use of apology strategy in the movies no apology strategies direct strategy n % indirect strategies n % 1. explicit illocutionary force indicating device (ifid) 38 30.4% explanation or account of cause (eoa) 55 44% 2. taking of responsibility (tor) 9 7.2% 3. offer of repair (oor) 5 4% 4. promise of forbearance (pof) 0 0% 5. combination 18 14.4% total direct 38 30.4% indirect 87 69.6% table 2. the general distribution of social distance and relative power on apology strategy used in the movies no social variables apology strategies total ifid eoa tor oor pof combination n % n % n % n % n % n % n % 1. dp= 13 10.4 23 18.4 6 4.8 4 3.2 0 0 7 5.6 53 42.4 2. dp10 8 16 12.8 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 3.2 30 24 3. dp+ 12 9.6 12 9.6 2 1.6 1 0.8 0 0 3 2.4 30 24 4. d+ p= 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5. d+ p2 1.6 2 1.6 1 0.8 0 0 0 0 3 2.4 8 6.4 6. d+ p+ 1 0.8 2 1.6 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0.8 4 3.2 total 38 30.4 55 44 9 7.2 5 4 0 0 18 14.4 125 100 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 133-141 133 10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2311 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id the quality of an english summative test of a public junior high school, kupang-ntt thresia trivict semiun a,1,*, fransiska densiana luruk b,2 a, b university of timor, el tari km 09, sasi-kefamenanu-east nusa tenggara, indonesia 1tsemiun@yahoo.co.id*; 2 densianaluruk@gmail.com * corresponding author 1. introduction the scholars are in harmony to say that validity and reliability are the two important criteria for the quality of language testing. validity is related to “how well what is assessed corresponds with the behaviour or learning outcomes that should be assessed” (iliya, 2014). it is to see whether or not a test measures accurately what it is intended to measure (hughes, 1989). meanwhile, haryudin (2015) asserted reliability as “the consistency of the examination scores. also, it refers to the scope to which the test produces consistent results if different markers mark it.” according to bachman & palmer (1996), reliability is defined as consistency of test scores. validity and reliability cannot be separated with assessment. assessment is a scientific method of the evaluation to acquire feedbacks related to the information of teaching and learning, make teachers and students see the achievements and shortcomings clearly, and improve teaching and learning efficiently (qu & zhang, 2013). in evaluating students’ achievement, a teacher-made test should bear objective and accurate scores. of course, developing a good test is not easy to do, especially if teachers do not understand or have limited information related to the procedures or principles of a good test. however, if the test is not good, the result yielded by the test is of course not good too. this can harm students since the result is not objective and unfair, and the students’ true competence cannot be reflected. arikunto (2013) stated that teacher-made tests are useful to determine how good students master the learning materials given in a particular time are, to determine whether a learning objective is already accomplished, and to obtain scores. for these reasons, it is important for teachers to possess the skills of creating valid and reliable test and also in analyzing assessments. a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 02 july, 2020 revised 30 july, 2020 accepted 30 august, 2020 this study aimed at examining the quality of an english summative test of grade vii in a public school located in kupang. particularly, this study examined content validity, reliability, and conducted item analysis including item validity, item difficulty, item discrimination, and distracter effectiveness. this study was descriptive evaluative research with documentation to collect data. the data was analyzed quantitatively except for content validity, which was done qualitatively. content validity was analyzed by matching the test items with materials stated in the curriculum. the findings revealed that the english summative test had a high content validity. the reliability was estimated by applying the kuder-richardson’s formula (k-r20). the result showed that the test was reliable and very good for a classroom test. the item analysis was conducted by using iteman 3.0 and it revealed that the test was mostly constructed by easy items, most of the items could discriminate the students, most distracters were able to perform well, and the most of items were valid. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords english summative test validity reliability item analysis https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2311 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:1tsemiun@yahoo.co.id mailto:2%20densianaluruk@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 134 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 133-141 semiun and luruk (the quality of an english summative test...) studies in the area of evaluation had been conducted by scholars (cang & wu, 2012; abedi, 2009; munoz, et al., 2003) on different focuses on teaching and learning english as a foreign language, particularly in countries of non-native speakers of english. abedi (2009) had conducted research to evaluate assessments for english language learning (ell) students in turkey. he focused on evaluating language factors based on the assumption that when instructional materials contained complex linguistic structures, ell students might face serious difficulties in understanding instruction of the test. the result revealed that such unnecessary linguistic complexity seems to affect the validity and reliability of the assessment that lead to the low quality of ell outcomes. so, a good language is very important to gain a good quality of a test and certainly to avoid frustration for the students as the test takers. the sample size of the study presumably could affect validity and reliability too. chang and wu (2012) investigated the validity and reliability of teacher assessment under a web-based portfolio assessment environment. they reported some results of web-based portofolio teacher assessments i.e. (1) achieved an acceptable level of reliability; showed a strong level of inter-rater reliability and inner-rater reliability regarded as a reliable assessment method; (2) demonstrated an acceptable level of validity; (3) and the portfolio scores were highly consistent with the students’ end-of-course examination scores, implying that web-based portfolio teacher assessment was a valid assessment method. based on the results, they confirmed that the smaller sample size might have negative influences on the analysis results. similarly, munoz et al. (2003), in their study had acknowledged that the limited number of samples impacted on the less validity of the test. in the field of english language teaching, especially in the indonesian context, there were valuable studies investigating tests made by english teachers. primadani (2013) and ratnafuri (2011) analyzed an english mid-term test and a final test. both studies revealed that the quality of the tests were not so good due to the reason that the teachers did not follow the rules in how to develop test items which resulted with low quality of the test. furwana (2019) analyzed the validity and reliability of teacher-made english summative test in a vocational high school located in palopo. the result revealed that the teacher made test had good quality regarding content validity and reliability. another study conducted by sugianto (2017) was focused on analyzing an english summative test for senior high school in palangkaraya. the result showed that the english summative test was valid and reliable which was proven statistically. to summarize, the valuable studies presented above reported different results on teacher-made tests because constructing a test also related to the competence of the test developers. this indicated that teachers were lack of conceptual assessment tools or the practical skills to investigate or use tests (fulcher, 2012). the test developers should have been knowledgeable with the issue of constructing a good test. it is important because students’ competence will not be reflected truly if the test cannot function properly. different from the previous studies, the present study was conducted in kupang, the capital city of east nusa tenggara province, where the development of education is still the main concern of the government as the former minister of education and culture muhadjir effendy (seo & setiawan, 2018) said that education in east nusa tenggara was the third lowest nationally, after papua and west papua. this study highlighted teachers’ role in assessing students’ achievement through an english summative test. it was assumed that the result might reveal different outcomes for the quality of the test. the investigation of quality was narrowed to the quality of an english summative test constructed by an efl teacher in a public junior high school in kupang. the goal was to determine if the english summative test was a reliable and valid measure of students’ achievement. the present study investigated the content validity, reliability, item validity including item difficulty, item discrimination, and distracters effectiveness of the teacher-made english summative test. by investigating the quality of the test, the efl teacher would be informed and able to do a selfreflection whether the english summative test had met good quality, or whether the teacher had created a good language test or vice versa. if the test was valid and reliable, the test was useful and truly reflecting the competence of students. in addition, the result of item validity, item discrimination, item difficulty, and effectiveness of distracters could help the efl teacher to see items that worked well. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 135 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 133-141 semiun and luruk (the quality of an english summative test...) 2. research method this research was a descriptive evaluative research to describe and evaluate the quality of an english summative test constructed by an efl teacher in a public junior high school located in kupang. this research used documentation to collect the data such as an english summative test, a blueprint, an english syllabus, and students’ answer sheets. the data analyses were separated into several parts. first, content analysis was done for revealing the content validity of the test. within this research, content analysis was defined as the analysis by matching the content of items or questions in the test with the english syllabus used, and the table specification or the blueprint of the test to examine if each item measured the content or objective of the course or unit being taught. later the proportion of items that measured an indicator would be calculated into percentage. the following considerations were taken as the content review judgments: (1) how appropriate the items are, (2) how complete the item samples are, (3) and the way the items assess the content (mindes, 2003). third, the test reliability was done by applying the kuder-richardson’s formula (k-r20) to obtain inter-item based reliability value. the result of reliability coefficient was interpreted based on interpretation of nunnally (1978). fourth, item validity, item difficulty, item discrimination, and distracter effectiveness were analyzed by the means of iteman 3.0 software. the test items were listed according to their degrees of validity (arikunto, 2013), difficulty and discrimination (salwa, 2012). meanwhile, to reveal the effectiveness of distracters, dibattista & kurzama (2011) definition was used. a properly functioning distracter was defined as a distracter that had been chosen by at least 5% of the students. if no student chose the distracter, the distracter could not perform well, and that should be removed. 3. findings and discussion the quality of test could be seen through the validity and reliability of the test. within the test, the quality of the english summative test of grade vii was evaluated through content validity, reliability, and item quality concerning item difficulty, item discrimination, item distracter and item validity. 3.1. content validity by relying on the content analysis and review judgment, content validity was analyzed. the finding of content validity of english summative test of grade vii signified that the test had a high content validity as represented in table 1. table 1 displayed the distribution of the items which were in line with the curriculum. 50 items in the test had relevance to the indicators and/or the basic competence meaning that the test had 100% agreement with the curriculum. the findings of the test signified that it was only constructed to measure reading and writing skills as informed by the teacher. the test missed listening and speaking skills due to practical reasons such as time allotment, administration, and cost. the findings revealed that the test had high content validity. it had 100% agreement with the curriculum. thus, the test had been constructed with representative samples of materials measured by proper indicators. the english summative test of grade vii showed high content validity which meant the test was constructed properly. in order to have high content validity, a test should be able to represent the materials given during teaching and learning process in a settled period (djiwandono, 2011). the materials used were short functional texts and monolog essays. the reading skill such as reading comprehension was appropriate to be measured by multiple-choice form. on the contrary, the writing skill was not appropriate to be measured through multiple-choice form. brown (2004) asserted that writing was a productive skill and it was best assessed by the product made by the students. it was hard to define students’ writing performance by multiple choice. it would be better if the teacher had another type of test to assess students’ writing performance. 136 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 133-141 semiun and luruk (the quality of an english summative test...) table 1. content validity of the test basic competence indicators test item % reading 1. responding to the meaning contained in a short functional written text accurately given a shopping list, students determine the communicative goal precisely 1 2% provided a greeting card, students determine the implied information accurately 2, 3 4% presented a greeting card, students determine the implicit information in the text clearly 4,5,6,8 8% given a greeting card, students determine the word meaning (antonym) correctly 7 2% provided an announcement, students determine the general description of the text correctly 9,17 4% presented an announcement, students determine the certain information in the text accurately 10,11,12, 18 8% given an announcement, students determine the word meaning (synonym) correctly 13 2% provided a short massage, students determine the certain information in the text clearly 14 2% presented a short massage, students determine the word meaning (synonym) accurately 15 2% given a short massage, students determine the referent precisely 16 2% 2. responding to the meaning and rhetorical steps of descriptive/procedur e texts accurately provided a descriptive text, students determine the general picture appropriately 26 2% presented a descriptive text, students determine the communicative goal precisely 19,24 4% given a descriptive text, students determine the certain information in the text correctly 20, 27, 28, 29 8% presented a descriptive text, students determine the main idea of the paragraph correctly 21 2% given a descriptive text, students determine the referent accurately 22, 30 4% provided a descriptive text, students determine the word meaning (synonym) correctly 23, 25 4% presented a procedure text, students determine the communicative goal precisely 31 2% given a procedure text, students determine the certain information in the text accurately 32, 33, 34, 35,36, 37, 38, 39, 40 18% writing 1. expressing meaning in short functional written text by using a variety of written languages accurately provided jumbled words, students can arrange these words into an announcement 41 2% given jumbled words, students can arrange these words into a greeting 42 2% 2. expressing the meaning and rhetorical steps in a short essay (descriptive/procedu re text) by using a variety of written languages accurately presented a few sentences, students can arrange these sentences into a coherent descriptive text 43 2% given a few sentences, students can arrange these sentences into a coherent descriptive text 44 2% given an incomplete descriptive text, students can complete the text with the correct nouns and verbs. 45, 46, 47 6% provided an incomplete procedure text, students can complete the text with the appropriate verbs. 48, 49, 50 6% the result of this present study was in harmony with the result reported by widowati (2011), husna (2012), haryudin (2015), fathoni (2017), nugrahanto, et al. (2018) and furwana (2019). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 137 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 133-141 semiun and luruk (the quality of an english summative test...) thus, teacher-made tests had evidence indicating the right selection of samples in course materials to reveal high content validity. according to rudner & schafer (2002), teacher-made tests had the advantage of being directly related to the content already taught in the classroom. the content of tests would be based directly on a detailed course syllabus, books, and other materials used in the classroom. however, in contrast to the result of the present study, ratnafuri’s study (2011) reported moderate content validity of the english final test, sugianto (2011) asserted 46% content validity of the english formative test, wulandari (2014) stated that the english summative test was 51% valid in content, and setiyana’s research (2016) revealed that the validity of the english summative test was not good since the percentage in content validity was below 73%. a teacher-made test could contain high content validity. yet, if the content validity was low or moderate then it was presumably related to the competence and/or experience of the test developers in constructing the tests. 3.2. reliability the reliability of the test was assessed by evaluating the internal consistency of the test. based on the inter-item based reliability analysis, it revealed that the reliability coefficient for the test was at .820 so the test was reliable and considered very good for a classroom test. however, there were some items to be revised to maximize the reliability of the tests. the result was in harmony with the result of primadani (2013) and haryudin (2015). the high reliability of the test was due to the number of items which were crucial for test reliability. the teacher-made english summative test of grade vii contained 50 items, so that the test was considered as a long test. according to griswold (1990) carefully written tests with an adequate number of items usually produce high reliability since they usually provide a representative sample of the behavior being measured. in this regard, griswold (1990) also said that long tests can make three things to help maintain validity. firstly, they increase the amount of content that the students must address, ensuring a more accurate picture of student knowledge. secondly, long tests counteract the effects of faulty items by providing a greater number of better items. third, long tests reduce the impact of student guessing. the result of high reliability could be as a result of students who had learned well or because the students remembered the materials given during the instruction. it also could be interpreted that the students had good skills in reading since many students could score high in the test. however, the result of reliability could not be the basis of interpreting students’ writing skills. 3.3. item analysis each conclusion of item difficulty, item discrimination, item distracter, and item validity is provided in table 2, table 3, figure 1, and table 4. table 2. the distribution of classified difficulty index range of difficulty index category item p = 1.00 very easy 1 item .70 < p ≤ 1.00 easy 33 items .30 < p ≤ .70 moderate 15 items .00 < p ≤ .30 difficult 1 items p = .00 very difficult 0 item item difficulty analysis revealed some results as can be seen in table 2. first, one item or 2% of the items had the index of difficulty 1.00 (p = 1.00) which meant this item was very easy to be solved by the examinees. so, this item should be removed. second, 33 items or 66% of the whole items had the index of difficulty .70 < p ≤ 1.00. these items were considered easy and possible to be retained. third, 15 items or 30% of the whole items had the index of difficulty .30 < p ≤ .70, these items were moderate. due to this fact, the items were also possible to be retained. fourth, an item or 2% of the whole items was considered difficult because the index difficulty was .00 < p ≤ .30. however, this item can still be retained. 138 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 133-141 semiun and luruk (the quality of an english summative test...) the findings of item analysis revealed that there were many easy items compared to moderate items. the easy items lead to the interpretation that the items were not changeling for the students hence they could successfully answer the questions. another interpretation of the findings was the teacher might already give the materials during the instruction. they could answer correctly because they already remembered the answers. there was also the last interpretation, i.e., there were many items that looked easy due to the reason that there were also many good students. as labeled with accreditation a, this school has become a favorite school in kupang. to be selected as students in this school, the candidates should follow a placement test. they, who were selected, passed the criterion score of the placement test and they had good or high index grade value of elementary national examination. therefore, most of the students were good students academically. table 3. the distribution of classified discrimination index range of discrimination index category item .40 and above very good 17 items .30 – .39 good 13 items .20 – .29 sufficient 7 items .19 and below poor 13 items item discrimination analysis, as shown in table 3, showed that out of 50 items in the test, there were 17 items or 34% items which were very good in discriminating the performance of the examinees. meanwhile, 13 items or 26% items could discriminate up and low group of the examinees yet these items were not as good as the previous 17 items. next, 7 items or 14% items only had sufficient discrimination power, while 13 items or 26% items could not discriminate the performance of the examinees at all. thus, these sufficient and poor items should be reconsidered. in the test, there were many items with good discrimination power than poor discrimination power. although the items were easy, the items still had good discrimination power. therefore, it could be interpreted that the items looked easy because there were many good students involved in the present study not because the items were below their level of competence. however, it was a need to conduct another study to find out the characteristics of the students involved in the present study. fig. 1. the distribution of distracters within the test figure 1 presents summaries of the findings. the result of distracters analysis asserted that all distracters in item number 10, 11, 12, 29, 37, 38, and 50 were not selected at all. the distracters should be removed because the distracters did not contribute to the questions’ discriminatory ability. next, 22% items (3, 8, 9, 14, 21, 30, 32, 34, 35, 39, and 40) had only one functional distracter and 26% items (1, 2, 5, 6, 16, 22, 28, 33, 36, 43, 44, 48, and 49) had two functional distracters. in these cases, the distracters were reconsidered or replaced with better ones. and, 38% items (4, 7, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 31, 41, 42, 45, 46, and 47) had good alternative answers. hence, all three items can lure the examinees who did not have much information related to the questions. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 139 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 133-141 semiun and luruk (the quality of an english summative test...) the analysis showed that there were many effective distracters as well as ineffective distracters within 50 items. the test for grade vii students had 19 items in which all the distracters could work effectively. when all the distracters could function effectively, it could be assumed that the materials tested by the items were new or never be given to students during the instruction. table 4. the distribution of classified validity index range of item validity category item .81 – 1.00 highly valid 1 item .61 .80 valid 11 items .41 .60 adequately valid 21 items .21 .40 lees valid 11 items .00 .20 poorly valid 6 items the validity of 50 items (table 4) showed that out of the 50 items there were 6 items (10, 13, 20, 34, 35, and 38) that should be removed, and 11 items (3, 8, 11, 12, 21, 22, 24, 25, 41, 49, and 50) that should be revised. the rest items could be accepted because they were considered as valid items. item validity of the test also showed that the number of valid items was greater than the number of invalid items. the valid items had contributed to the reliability of the tests and to maximize the test reliability, invalid items should be removed. 4. conclusion the english summative test to test the achievement of the grade vii students was categorized as a good test, to be specifically presented next. first, in terms of content validity, the test had a high content validity, where 50 items (100%) had an agreement with the curriculum. second, in terms of reliability criteria, the english summative test showed reliability coefficient value at .820 indicating that the test was good for a classroom test. third, in terms of difficulty level, the test was mostly constructed by easy items. the items looked easy presumably because the students were good academically or because the same materials had already been given during teaching and learning instruction. for the discrimination index result, most of the items could discriminate between students who were good and students who were weak. next, in the case of the item distracter it was concluded that most distracters or alternative answers were able to perform well in the test. last, the item validity of the test showed that the numbers of valid items were greater than the number of invalid items. the result of the present study indicated that it was important for the teacher to construct an appropriate test. the test used was aimed at measuring the reading and writing skills as intended by the teacher. however, the 10 items used to measure a writing skill might be reliable but it was not a valid test of the writing skill. therefore, it is a need for the teacher to understand the form of test that appropriately measures the writing skill of the students. for future researchers who want to conduct research on the same topic, it is suggested to involve experts to validate content validity. the judgments of each item need carefully checked in order to make the relevance of each item with the curriculum more precise. in order to reveal more accurately validity results, it is suggested to examine not only content validity but also face and construct validity to give wider views in regard to the appropriateness of the tests. last, it will be better if future studies also observe the characteristics of the students. the characteristics of the students will help in interpreting the findings. references abedi, j. 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(2014). an analysis on the content validity of the summative test items at the even semester of the second grade; a case study of mts al-amanah. syarif hidayahtullah state islamic university. https://nasional.tempo.co/read/1048094 http://www.jurnal.unsyiah.ac.id/eej/article/view/5525 https://doi.org/10.23971/jefl.v1i2.193 english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 3, 2018, pp. 176-190 e-issn: 2621-6485 improving students’ writing skills through the application of synectic model of teaching using audiovisual media 1 ufi ruhama’, 2 dewi ismu purwaningsih 1 universitas muhammadiyah pontianak 2 universitas nahdlatul ulama kalimantan barat ufiruhama@unmuhpnk.ac.id abstract writing might be difficult for some people (alwasilah, 2007). some students can speak english fluently and confidently, although since they have difficulties in conveying their ideas in writing. thus, it needs the effective and efficient model of teaching to improve the teaching learning process. synectic model of teaching is a model applied to enhance students’ ability to write. this model combines various forms of metaphoric thinking to see old ideas in different ways. in this research, the researcher used audiovisual media to support learning. the purpose of this research is to find out students’ improvement in writing descriptive texts using synectic model of teaching. the sample of the research was 36 students of class ixd in mtsn 2 pontianak. the research was classroom action research using kemmis and mc taggart model with two cycles. the result shows that there is improvement in students writing skill. the mean score of pre-test is 56.01, posttest 1 is 66.5, and posttest 2 is 87.46. it means the application of synectic model of teaching using audiovisual media is able to increase students’ ability in writing descriptive text. keywords: writing skill, descriptive text, synectic model, audiovisual how to cite: ruhama, u., purwaningsih, d.i. (2018). improving student’s writing skills through the application of synectic model of teaching using audiovisual media. english language teaching educational journal, 1(3), 176-190. introduction background it cannot be denied that writing is the complex skills because the students need to comprehend spellings, grammars, sentences, vocabularies, and structures as the units in writing. wasilah (2009) said that writing is considered difficult and people will be able to write after they have mastered listening, speaking, and reading skill. writing not only gets the words down, but it also needs the skills to choose the words, spelling, punctuations, grammar, sentence linking, and text construction correctly (phillip, 2003). based on pre-observation in the class, the teacher taught students in monotonous ways, so the students were less motivated in learning. it caused the mailto:ufiruhama@unmuhpnk.ac.id eltej issn: 2621-6485  ruhama, purwaningsih 177 students not interested in learning. the writing skill of the students in class ixd of islamic junior high school (mts) n 2 pontianak was in low category of proficiency. they could not convey their ideas clearly in writing because they had limited vocabularies, low proficiency, and were less motivated in learning english. these factors made them difficult to express their ideas through writing. writing is not just about a skill, but it is more than how the writers can encourage or extend their thinking, ideas, and motivate themselves to communicate with other people through writing (fulwiller,2002). moreover, writing makes our thoughts visible, changing our thinking into print, allowing us to develop and encourage our ideas (harmer, 2007). writing as a complex skill needs a process to be mastered. some students can speak english well and fluently, but they find it difficult to convey their ideas in writing. it requires interesting methods in teaching to change students’ mindset in learning, such as making new habits of students in learning. the effective and efficient learning model can motivate the teacher to create and apply the creative technique in class, therefore, learning writing can be one of the interesting skills to be learnt. writing can be learnt in various models (wagiran and doyin, 2005).one of them is writing an essay. the students are supposed to develop not only their ideas in making an essay, but also strategies to express their ideas, and making the interesting essay to be read. they have to arrange and connect their sentences to be a complete essay. the effective teaching is based on the process of teaching learning itself, such as students learn easily, pleasantly, and learning objectives are achieved. nowadays, the teaching learning process still tends to be teacher-centered, thus it makes the students passive and unable to express their ideas in the class that affected their score (agustina, 2016). learning english at school is mostly boring. english has not been taught using innovative methods. teachers have not used the teaching media in class (prasmono, 2010). on the other hand, curriculum 2013 demands the students to be active and the teachers to be the facilitator in the process of teaching learning. during the process of writing, the teacher can be the facilitator, guide, and motivator (brown, 2001 and harmer, 2001). people who love reading cannot be guaranteed that they can write well. the theory that states that a good reader would be a good writer is a myth because many people who love reading cannot write well (pudewa, 2011). indeed, people who have learning style can be a good writer because the ability to write belongs to all people. anyone who is motivated to learn and always practice writing seriously will be able to write well (schneider, 2011). vivanco stated that the ability to write has nothing to do with the innate nature but related to motivation and attitudes (vivanco, 2009). 178  e-issn: 2621-6485 state islamic junior high school 2 (mtsn 2) pontianak is one of the favorite schools in pontianak. as the favorite school, it demands the students to have good english proficiency. it interests the writer to do the research in this area by applying synectic model of teaching. writing can be learnt in various forms (wagiran and doyin, 2005). one of them is writing descriptive text. in writing, students are expected not only to be able to develop the ability to make an essay, but also expected to express ideas by making interesting essays to read. they have to arrange and connect their sentences to be a complete essay. one learning model that can be applied in improving students' writing skills is synectic model of teaching. synectic was from greek, it means combining the different forms. according to gordon (1980) synectics is a combination of several forms using figures of speech to obtain new views. therefore, the synectic model of teaching is a learning model which brings together several elements by using figures of speech to get new views. the figure of speech in the questionnaire is a metaphorical activity. synectic model of teaching is a creative model of teaching. it focuses on the students’ creativity and students’ strategy to solve the problem using rational and intellectual way with rational and emotional way. this model was designed by gordon and aimed to develop students’ creativity (aunurrohman:2014). synectic process involves the implementation of metaphor, that is the comparison between two objects, ideas or concepts. (estes et al., 2010). most students had difficulties in choosing the main idea when they wrote a descriptive text. even after they have been explained about the main idea, they still had difficulties in developing and exploring their ideas. furthermore, they had the negative perception about writing, i.e. writing was complex and difficult skill to be mastered. therefore, the synthetic model of teaching is used to enhance students’ writing competency. in this research, the writer took audiovisual media to implement the synectic model to transfer the knowledge. .the use of learning model in the learning process could facilitate the accomplishment of the learning objectives. learning media are a vehicle and delivery of information or learning messages to students. by using media during learning, the media can help teachers to improve the student achievement (sari and sasongko, 2013). dunifa (2016) stated that it cannot be guaranteed that anyone who is diligent in reading will be able to write. the theory that states that a good reader would be a good writer is a myth because many people who love reading cannot write well (pudewa, 2011). indeed, people who have learning style can be a good writer because the ability to write belongs to all people. anyone who is motivated to learn and always practices writing seriously will be able to write well (schneider, 2011). vivanco stated that the ability to write has nothing to do with the innate nature but related to motivation and attitudes (vivanco, 2009). eltej issn: 2621-6485  ruhama, purwaningsih 179 according to wahyuningsih et al (2014), audiovisual learning media are one of the media that enable two senses of the students, namely sensory and auditory so they can improve student learning and achievement. furthermore, the audiovisual media are used to make the students more interested, especially when the students were offered with several films which were short duration, have good stories, and contained the simple language to be understood, so the media are able to attract students' interest in understanding the subject matter. synectic model of teaching using audiovisual is an interesting method because it provides the students to explore and experience. it creates the variety of writing because it gives the students many ideas to be written. this model has strengths, it develops the creative thinking of the students and teacher and helps the students to solve the problem. on the other hand, this model has weaknesses, it is difficult to be applied to the class with the oldest methods of teaching and class which does not have adequate facilities (mutmainah, aquami, 2016). teaching writing descriptive text according to wagiran and doyin (2005), writing is a language skill used for communicating indirectly. this skill is obtained through the process of learning and practicing. writing is also a complicated process, such as prewriting, observing, drafting, revising, and the last is editing. it requires the ability to communicate ideas, opinions, and feelings in writing. this research focuses on descriptive text writing. it is related to characteristics, people, or things in a basic way. kane (2000) said that description is about something that can be looked, can be heard and can be tested. these are the steps in writing descriptive text (muchlisoh, 1994): 1. formulating the objective of the writes in writing; 2. observing the object carefully; 3. making the details about what was the writer seen, heard, and felt about the object, especially the object related to the purpose of writing; and 4. giving the additional explanation to give the special things in writing. synectic model of teaching using audiovisual media according to joice, et. al, there are two strategies or models in teaching as the basic of synectic model of teaching, i.e. creating something new and making the strange things become familiar. it can be seen as follows. 1. the first strategy (creating something new). a. first stage: the teacher asks students to describe the situation and topic. b. the second step: students make their own direct analogies, choose them, explore them further. c. the third step: students become their imagining object as they have chosen in the second stage. 180  e-issn: 2621-6485 d. the fourth step: students take descriptions of the second and third stages, proposing some analogies conflict and choosing one of them. e. the fifth step: students make and take their other own direct analogy, that is based on the conflict of analogy. f. the last step: the teacher asks students to do the task and uses the last of analogy or their syntactic experience. 2. the second strategy (making the strange things become familiar). a. the first step: the teacher provides information about the new topics. b. the second step: the teacher proposes a direct analogy and students describe it. c. the third step: the teacher asks students to "be" a direct analogy. d. the fourth step: students identify and elaborate the points of similarity between new topic and direct analogy. e. the fifth step: students elaborate wherever the analogies are not appropriate. f. sixth step: students explain the original topic. g. stage step: students prepare a direct analogy and explore similarities and differences in this research, audiovisual media were used to implement the learning model of teaching. learning media are an intermediary tool that can help the process of teaching and learning which aim to clarify the meaning from the message delivered to make the purpose better and perfect (pulukadang, 2016).sanjaya (2006) in pulukadang (2016) states that audio visual media contain the sound and picture that can be seen, for example the video recordings in various sizes of movies, sound slides and etc. using visualization in giving the material can build students interest in learning, thus the students will have more motivation in learning. they also make the teaching learning process easily and pleasantly so the students’ achievement will get increased.the use of audiovisual as the media of teaching in this research aims to improve the score of writing. research method this research used kemmis and mctaggart’smodel of classroom action researh. this classroom action research focused on efforts to change the real conditions happening to the expected conditions (improvement oriented ).the research used two cycles that each cycle consisted of 4 stages, namely planning, implementation, observation, and reflection. the methods consisted of: 1. planning the teacher and collaborator (researcher) prepared the process of teaching learning, as follows: a. preparing teaching media and constructing some steps in doing the action. the writer as the collaborator assisted the teacher in designing each cycle in four meetings. b. making the lesson plan which was implemented in teaching learning process. eltej issn: 2621-6485  ruhama, purwaningsih 181 c. designing students’ test. d. designing observation sheet. 2. acting in this level, the teacher implemented the planning, i.e. teaching writing description text. the theme in this meeting was based on the textbook. the teaching was done in four meetings divided into two cycles. the teaching learning process used the synectic model of teaching with audiovisual media. 3. observing in this level, observation systematically in the classroom was conducted by the researcher. the observation was done by the observer when the teacher learning process took place to see the process occurring during the action, the impact of using the method, and the problem occurring in the process of teaching learning. this level was conducted to collect the data to improve the next process. 4. reflecting in this level, the writer reflected the impact of implemented method then evaluated the process of teaching learning. it was used to improve for the learning and teaching process in the next cycle. action research model was described as spiral steps by kemmis and mctaggart in burns (2010) as follows: figure 1. spiral of classroom action research the research was held in mtsn 2 pontianak. it involved class ix d, there were 36 students. the data collecting techniques in this research namely 182  e-issn: 2621-6485 observation, interview, and test. the researcher conducted the observation in the class while the teaching learning process was being done. the researcher observed the interaction of the students and all activities in the classroom. the collecting data used field notes as the tool. the interview was done in the pre-research to the english teacher. the interviewed aimed to find out the problems faced by the students in writing. furthermore, the test was given to the students to know the improvement of students particularly in writing. it consisted of pre-test and post-test of the last session. the pre-test was given before the method was implemented. the posttest was conducted to know the progress students’ writing ability of descriptive text. in conclusion, the tests aimed to measure the improvement writing skill of students. qualitative and quantitative were used in analyzing the data. the qualitative was analyzed from the data in observation. quantitative data were gained from the test. it was analyzed to find out the writing skill improvement from the test and both cycle 1 and 2 tests. the improvement was seen from the mean score of the results. the writing evaluation used the analytic method by reid (1993). it elaborated the writing product into five elements, namely content, form/organization, vocabulary/style, language use/grammar, and mechanics. the categorization of students writing skills can be seen in table 1. table 1. the category of the students’ writing skills score categorization 89 – 100 excellent 79 – 88 good 66 – 78 fair 46 – 65 poor 0 – 45 very poor results and discussion the result was taken from the teaching learning process during the research. it was implemented in two cycles. in each cycle, the students were given the test to know their improvement in descriptive writing text using audiovisual media in the synectic model of teaching. the research implementation was conducted collaboratively with the english teacher of mtsn 2 pontianak. before implementing the synectic model of teaching, the researcher had interviewed the students about their difficulties in learning english. from the student’s ’interview, it can be concluded that the they faced the difficulties in writing. they had difficulties in conveying their ideas, selecting the appropriate words, and organizing their ideas in writing. eltej issn: 2621-6485  ruhama, purwaningsih 183 before the action, the writer had conducted pre-test to know the students’ ability of writing. from the test, it can be known that the mean score of students was 56.01. it was categorized as poor. there were 3 students who had high score, 12 students that had medium score and 21 students that had low score in descriptive text writing. the students had difficulties in using the appropriate words or correct grammatical forms. they also had the limited vocabularies. they also found difficulties in making good paragraphs and using the correct punctuations. the questionnaires were delivered in the end of pre-test. it was used to know the attitude of the students toward the teaching learning process in the classroom. table 2. students’ attitude of teaching learning process before applying synectic model of teaching no questions items students’ answer yes no 1 do you like english? 30 6 2 do you like english writing? 20 16 3 do you think that writing descriptive is difficult? 28 8 4 do you feel bored while studying english? 28 8 5 do you enjoy studying by using video/film? 32 4 6 do you always learn english using media? 21 15 7 are you willing to learn descriptive text by using audiovisual media? 33 3 8 do you agree if learning by watching video is interesting? 29 6 9 do you think that using media in learning can motivate you to study? 28 8 based on the problems above, the researcher applied synectic model of teaching using audiovisual media to enhance the students writing skill. 1. cycle 1 the activities as follows: a. planning before doing the research, the researcher had prepared the instrument based on the syllabus and had discussed with the teacher, such as: 1) arranging the lesson plan and composing the step in doing the action. 2) preparing the material and students worksheets and tests. 3) preparing the notes to write and the video recorder to record the activities in the process of teaching and learning. 184  e-issn: 2621-6485 b. acting the researcher was the collaborator who helped the teacher through the teaching and learning in the class. 1) the first cycle a) the early meeting (1) opening the teacher greeted the students in the class and asked some questions as the brainstorming. the questions were about the pre knowledge of the students in describing something.the researcher gave the conclusions based on the students answer. (2) main activity in this stage, the teacher implemented the method. the teacher used videos and images that could attract the students’ attention.the teacher explained about describing an object. then, teacher played a video and asked students to describe the situation or topic they watched on the video. the students expressed a direct analogy, one was selected and developed. after that, students discussed and collaborated the conflicts in the video. next, the teacher asked the students to review their discussion and put it in descriptive writing. students were asked to read their writing in front of the classroom. (3) closing the teacher reviewed the descriptive text characteristic and made a summary. the teacher asked the difficulties of writing descriptive text as well. then, the teacher ended the class. b) the second meeting (1) opening the teacher greeted the students. then, the teacher reviewed the material that was taught in the last meeting. he asked some questions to brainstorm them. (2) main activity the teacher reviewed the previous material and the students still remembered about it. the teacher showed the video and let the students describe the people in the video. afterwards, the teacher gave the test to complete paragraph related to the descriptive text. they were not allowed to ask their friends during the test. (3) closing after the test had been submitted, the teacher asked the difficulties in doing the test. the teacher and students concluded the material. then, the teacher ended the class. c. observing the students’ levels of interest in learning writing can be seen from the first cycle. the students participated actively in the process of teaching and learning. they answered the teacher’s questions eltej issn: 2621-6485  ruhama, purwaningsih 185 enthusiastically. almost all the students paid attention to the explanation and cooperated well in the process of teaching and learning. the students found difficulties in writing the descriptive text, they lacked vocabularies and could not translate particular words. besides, it was still hard for them in organizing the words to make them to be the sentences. some sentences were grammatically incorrect. on the other side, the students participated actively in the class because the application of synectic model of teaching had motivated them in learning. they could also write the text longer than before. d. reflecting the reflecting stage was done to evaluate the process of teaching learning in the first cycle. in this stage, both researcher and the teacher discussed some problems occurring in the class. it was found that the students still had lack of writing the descriptive text. they had difficulties in arranging the words and using the correct grammar. on the other hand, there was the improvement in the students’ score compared to the one of the pre-test. the result showed that the students got 66.5, which was categorized as fair. there were 7 students who had high score, 16 students who had the medium score and 13 students who had low score in writing descriptive text. to conclude, the students still needed the enhancement in their writing, thus it was needed to conduct the cycle 2. 2. cycle 2 the first cycle showed that there was enhancement in students’ writing, however, there were still many difficulties faced by the students in writing descriptive text. thus, the research continued to the cycle 2 conducted in two meetings. a. planning in this stage, both researcher and teacher revised the plan in teaching. they reviewed the material and gave more attention to the structure of descriptive text that was the aim of descriptive text, the generic structure of the text, and the language feature of descriptive text. the teacher also taught the simple present tense because the students had difficulties in language use. b. acting 1) the first meeting a) opening the teacher greeted and asked some questions to the students. after that, the teacher invited the students to describe their friends to recall their information about descriptive text. b) main activity the teacher explained the descriptive text, such as the structure, the purpose, the generic structure; moreover, the 186  e-issn: 2621-6485 language feature of descriptive text. after that, the teacher explained about simple present tense. students were asked to discuss and describe the building in the video. students wrote a description text assisted by the researcher especially in vocabularies and structures. the students who have finished first were asked to write on the board while others read their friends' writing. the teacher asked students to observe their friends' writing and the teacher corrected. then, the teacher asked the students' understanding by giving an ad-shaped video and then giving the questions and answering the students. c) closing the researcher concluded the lesson that has been taught. after the question and answer session, the class ended. 2) the second meeting in this session, the researcher gave the second post-test to the students to know the improvement of writing skills after applying the second cycle. the students did the test by themselves. they were not allowed to ask to their friends and look at their friends’ writing. c. observing in this cycle, there was improvement in students’ participation. when the teacher conducted aperception, students showed their enthusiastic in answering questions. the teachers also provided motivation to make the students not feel hesitate and silly in asking and answering questions. students participated actively in process of teaching learning because of the media used in the classroom. according to the result of post-test 2, they were 34 students who had high score and 2 students had medium score. there were no students who had low score in writing descriptive text. the mean score of the students in writing descriptive text was 87.46. d. reflecting in the cycle 2, it was found the improvement in students’ writing skill and participation in the class. the students were more motivated and interested in the process of teaching and learning. it can be seen from the observation in the teaching learning process. furthermore, the analysis data on questionnaire showed that there was enhancement in the students’ attitude toward the process of teaching learning in the class. it could be seen from table 3. eltej issn: 2621-6485  ruhama, purwaningsih 187 table 3. the result of the second questionnaire no questions items students’ answer yes no 1 do you like english? 33 3 2 do you like writing in english? 27 9 3 do you think that writing descriptive is difficult? 31 5 4 do you feel bored while studying english? 33 3 5 do you enjoy studying by using video/film? 34 2 6 do you always learn english using media? 30 6 7 are you willing to learn descriptive text by using audiovisual media? 35 1 8 do you agree if learning by watching video is interesting? 33 3 9 do you think that using media in learning can motivate you to study? 34 2 discussion the data collected from interview, observation and test show that there is improvement in students writing skills and attitudes toward learning english. at first, the researcher identified that the students had the low score in writing. the students faced the difficulties on it, such as the lack of vocabularies, the use of the correct grammar and punctuation, the use of the appropriate words, and the content of writing. they also had low motivation in writing because it was the most difficult skill to learn. related to the problems, the researcher applied synectic model of teaching using audiovisual media. 1. the application of synectic model of teaching using audiovisual the teacher has applied the synectic model of teaching using audiovisual media to teach writing descriptive text to class ix d students in mtsn2 pontianak. this method is effective in teaching writing because the application of synectic model gives two effects, they are the effect of learning and co-effect (djudin, 2017). it improves the general creative ability and creative ability of the students. as the result, it increases the students’ ability in writing descriptive text. 2. the students’ improvement in writing ability from the analysis of students’ mean score in writing descriptive text, it can be concluded that the application of synectic model of teaching using audiovisual can improve the students’ ability in writing. it can be seen from their improvement in writing test. the improvements are the ability of choosing the correct words in vocabulary, making good sentences, making longer sentences, using the correct grammar and punctuation in the sentences. besides, their regular writing practice had shown significant improvement in their writing result just as what pratolo suggested in his study (2015). their improvement in writing descriptive text can be seen in figure 2. 188  e-issn: 2621-6485 figure 2. students’ mean score in writing descriptive text test based on figure 2, it can be summarized that the students make the improvement in writing skill. the mean of pre-test is 56.01, post-test 1 is 66.5, and post-test 2 is 87.46. it means that the application of synectic model of teaching using audiovisual media can improve students’ ability in writing descriptive text. conclusion based on several stages of the research that has been done, it can be concluded that the use of the synectic model of teaching in writing was very effective to increase the students’ abilities in writing descriptive text. the implementation of this method helps the students in understanding and expressing their creative ideas in writing through the learning activities. this method not only makes students able to put creative ideas in writing but also help students be more motivated to learn and discuss groups and train them to participate actively in the process of learning. the results of this study indicate that this method is very effective in improving students' writing in english. therefore, it is expected that english subject teachers at mtsn2 pontianak can apply this method in the process of teaching learning to make the students active in thinking, expressing their ideas and participating in class discussions, so it can create the fun teaching learning process. 0 20 40 60 80 100 pre-test post test 1 post test 2 60 70 80 eltej issn: 2621-6485  ruhama, purwaningsih 189 references alwasilah, c. 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(2021). integrated task on students’ writing quality: is it more effective? english language teaching educational journal, 4(1), 25-33. doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3336 1. introduction a great number of research studies have been focusing on the role of task design in foreign or second language learning, (in’nami & yokoizumi, 2016; leaper, 2014; nitta & nakatsuhara, 2014). the interest is mainly inspired by the learners' experiences as well as teachers’ expectation regarding the quality of the spoken performance. yet, many studies on writing are becoming increasingly familiar and have already widely seen as a great source of writing inquiry. writing, as the field of the second language, considers the authenticity and meaningfulness of connecting writing with other skills (plakans, 2010). traditionally, writing assesses other skills independently and examines global construct and individual experiences in response to a given exposure. this old-fashioned type of measurement was changed into the integrated one. writing, then, was not seen as an isolated, solitude construct, and independent assessment task. the skill of writing is not concerned with autonomous but, rather allied with reading, listening and speaking (plakans, 2010). integrated writing tasks that include distinctive language skills such as both reading and listening skills are mostly considered as tools to determine the writing quality academically. they are predominantly investigated by many researchers in relation to language writer’s strategy use and performance (ghavamnia, tavakoli, & esteki, 2013; gu, 2014; yang & plakans, 2012)(grace & malang, 2018), task representation, (pertiwii, dian, ngadiso, & drajat, 2018; plakans, 2010; shi & a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 04 january 2021 revised 29 march 2021 accepted 20 april 2021 integrated tasks are popularly known and accepted as an effective way of improving students’ writing quality. however, it is still not clear to what really accounts for its effectiveness. this study examined whether the students who were facilitated by integrated task achieved higher writing quality than those who were not. twenty two students participated within the group experiment utilizing a counterbalance technique in controlling the order effect. in the first session, twelve students were asked to write an essay based on an integrated (int) task while the other 12 wrote based on an independent (ind) task. then, the task division was switched in the second writing session. students’ writing quality were scored by three raters and were analyzed descriptively and inferentially using wilcoxon signed rank test (wsrt). the results confirmed that the quality of students’ writing using both integrated and independent tasks was not significantly different. there are still other aspects contributing to writing quality. thus, task types do not guarantee the students’ writing quality. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords independent task integrated task quality of writing https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3336 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:hieronimusdarong@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0050-0040 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3336&domain=pdf 26 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 25-33 darong (integrated task on students’ writing quality: is it more effective?) ma, 2016) and scoring system in conjunction with writing performances of different context, (gebril & plakans, 2013; knoch & sitajalabhorn, 2013; sawaki, quinlan, & lee, 2013; wolfersberger, 2013). however, the investigation on the quality of writing was, in fact, carried out and was considerably influenced by various factors such as the strategy of giving task to the students, (abrams & byrd, 2017; rassaei, 2014; thi, nguyen, pham, & pham, 2015; wette, 2014) and accounts for task scores and rater skills effect, (barkaoui, 2014; in’nami & yokoizumi, 2016; ling, mollaun, & xi, 2014; plakans, gebril, & bilki, 2016; shin & ewert, 2015; yan, 2014). the test takers’ proficiency level and comprehensive corrective feedback, (cho, rijmen, & novak, 2013; kuiken & vedder, 2014; zhang, 2017) were also the main concern of the previous research studies. even though there have been many research findings showing attention toward writing, most of them are focusing on the way of teaching writing which is considered as partial study due to their target at linguistic features. as such, there is a tendency to regard it as explicit knowledge through an explicit instruction. this present study, on the other hand, concerned the integrated task of writing in which explicit knowledge carried out in a focused task of implicit instruction. besides, the findings on the effectiveness of integrated task might not be definitely generalized to the participants’ education level. most of the previous findings found that it is more effective than independent task as it was applied on the secondary level and the students who took the admission test to the university. however, this result is still questionable for its consistency if it is applied to a different level of students, for example, college students who have learned english for a long period of time. based on the aforementioned gap, this study aims to know whether the college students who are facilitated by integrated task achieve higher writing quality than those who are facilitated by independent task. then, the study might contribute to teacher viewpoints in employing a particular task type for teaching writing. in this respect, the task type should be constructed in such a way that it might be of benefit for improving students’ writing quality. 2. integrated task in practice, integrated task cannot be separated from independent task. to measure students writing quality, the task type in question has been broadly utilized to see the students writing quality. students are required to make an essay independently and examine global construct and individual experiences without having any exposures. even though it is a challenging work, learning to write through such a task type is widely practiced for teachers to gain students’ writing quality. yet, as time went by, this old-fashioned type of measurement was changed into the integrated one. writing, then, was not seen as an isolated, solitude construct, and independent assessment task. the skill of writing is not concerned with being autonomous but, rather allied with reading, listening and speaking or being integrated, (plakans, 2010). with respect to the remodeling highlighted above, there have been many definitions of integrated task proposed by scholars. for example, integrated task is a sort of task in which test takers are asked to compose a certain text that display appropriate and meaningful uses of and orientations to source evidence, both conceptually such as apprehending, synthesizing, and presenting source ideas from the text and textually involving stylistic conventions for presenting, citing, and acknowledging, (cumming et al.2005). meanwhile, highlighting the construct of reading-to-write tasks, it is regarded as an instructional task combining reading and writing for various educational purposes (delaney, 2008). meanwhile, plakans (2009) has provided the conception by involving other skills. integrated writing task is the task type which elicits writing performance that includes other aspects such as reading or listening abilities. furthermore, in her other work, a very broad definition is proposed that is a task requiring more than one skill for completion (yang & plakans, 2012). in the most detailed definition, integrated writing task is a task type in which test-takers are provided with one or more languagerich source texts and are asked to compose an essay requiring extraction of the source texts for opinions, choosing and constructing ideas, synthesizing ideas from one or more source texts, transfiguring the language used in the input, managing opinions and utilizing stylistic conventions such as linking ideas and recognizing sources. the rating scale employed to grade such an essay needs to consider these features specific to integrated writing tasks (knoch & sitajalabhorn, 2013). in short, the definitions provided above have confirmed that integrated task particularly in writing task has been welldefined in the issue of skill combination and source use. e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 27 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 25-33 darong (integrated task on students’ writing quality: is it more effective?) with such conceptions mentioned above, integrated writing tasks have been assumed widely as an effective task to measure student writing quality. then, it is not surprising this type of task has been largely used by the teachers to examine students’ writing quality. they are provided with reading material and require students to construct a text based on the information given in the text. subsequently, the questions are given to the students for the sake of their text. (knoch & sitajalabhorn, 2013). in other words, the students are required to summarize the text given by the guidance of predetermined questions. a modification of the task in question is a reading stimulus with two or more texts. in this regard, learners might compose to synthesize several source texts or confront ideas on the similar issue then think of their stance and write a text to argue it. the elaboration might be by taking the main ideas from the passages with their own ideas and examples to combine (grabe & zhang, 2013). this task type, in fact, is not only upon reading input but also in listening skill. in the toefl test for example, the students or test takers might be asked to compose or summarize, synthesize their opinions after they listen to a text. as such, reading or listening text are regarded as an alternative writing task serving as a tool highlighting topical information, text rephrasing blueprint, and writing evaluation (hayes, 1996). progress reports in the field have shown different findings. integrated task is still considered difficult as the students have limited reading and writing proficiency, the challenge of reading long passages, a lack of fluency in reading and limited l2 background knowledge, and relatively little experience (and practice) integrating reading and writing skills for academic purposes. besides, students also face challenges with l2 reading/writing tasks that require a large amount of inferencing (grabe & zhang, 2013; zhang, 2017). apart from those mentioned the factors that affect performance on such tasks contributed to the quality of writing. for example, different test taker variables on the performance on integrated task might lead and influence task difficulty (cho, rijmen, & novák, 2013). differently, the quality of performance on rtw tasks might be determined by human raters who make scores. rater and rater-related interaction effects account for the considerable degree of variance in ratings. in this context, the rater variable is one of the main consideration and often affects score reliability in assessing students’ writing quality (barkaoui, 2014; ling, mollaun, & xi, 2014; plakans, gebril, & bilki, 2016; shin & ewert, 2015; yan, 2014). along with the same line, regardless of analytic rating domain could capture the difference in variability of test takers’ proficiency utilized in the reading to write (rtw) task, person and rater facets contributed to score variability in students’ writing quality (cho, rijmen, & novak, 2013; kuiken & vedder, 2014; shin & ewert, 2015; zhang, 2017). as such, those two variables need to be taken into account. meanwhile, in’nami & yokoizumi (2016) emphasized that context, methods, scoring criteria, might lead to varied performance over tasks. consequently, the task should be constructed in such a way that it really measures what to measure. thus, empirically, reading to write (rtw) as an integrated task might be seen differently in the context of its focus. this might be seen as a learning tool as the focus is on skill combination and source use (knoch & sitajalabhorn, 2013). yet, this tends to be considered as an alternative task (hayes, 1996). this provides a topical idea, text revision types, and writing assessment, (shin & ewert, 2015). however, regardless of how it is viewed, reading to write task is concerned with the ability in the sense of reconstructing any single information from the source text which, in turn, be synthesized into students’ composition. as such, the task refers to the process level which influences and affects their understanding and the ability during the task completion. however, to date the examination toward the level where the integrated task is applied has not yet been sufficiently investigated. in this regard, a clear picture of students’ writing quality needs to be examined for the sake of having a clear insight into what and how the integrated task should be employed. 3. method this study was carried out in 2020. twenty-two students of english study program, enrolled in a single class, participated in the study. there were seven males and fifteen females. before entering the college, they studied english for 6 to 8 years including the time in which they were given treatment. at the time of the investigation, the subjects were taking a compulsory 100 minutes essay class. sentence writing course was given in advance, as a requirement to the essay class and all succeeded up to this level. all the participants have not taken any standardized english proficiency test. this is a within groupexperimental study that utilized a repeated measure design. counterbalance technique was utilized to control the treatment order effect. each of the students was given both types 28 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 25-33 darong (integrated task on students’ writing quality: is it more effective?) of task in which they had to write an argumentative essay twice both integrated and independent. before asking the students to write, in the first session, the researcher divided the students into two sub-groups. the first group consisting of eleven students was given an independent (ind) writing task and the second group involving the rest eleven students were given an integrated (int) task. both were given 10 minutes to read a passage, and then write their essay in 30 minutes. in the following session, the task administrations are switched. two topics with equal complexity were selected after consulting with their english teacher. the topic for the first session that was given to both independent and integrated tasks was about the teacher knowledge and ability. the second session was about the social status and material possession. both topics convincingly and effectively held the students’ interest and elicited clear standing points generating their idea for argumentation. each student was asked to write an essay consisting of 400 hundred words in 40 minutes based on the topic given. holistic scoring rubric was applied to score students writing, two experienced teachers with master’s degrees and are still taking a doctoral program in english language department participated in the scoring process. for the sake of subjectivity, the teacher and researcher were not involved as the raters. after writing activity, the researcher coded the essays based on the names and was given to the raters with anonymous work. the scores then were analyzed using descriptive statistics which in turn were followed by inferential statistical analysis (wilcoxon signed rank test -wsrt) to compare the quality of students’ writing produced through both task types. 4. findings and discussion 4.1. findings the primary goal of this study is to investigate the difference between the quality of students’ writing which is composed based on integrated and independent tasks. the result of descriptive statistical analysis in table 1 showing the means of the writing using integrated task (reading to write) was 3.54. meanwhile, the means of writing using independent task was 3.36. the means of both writing, in which integrated tasks are bigger than independent were analyzed by using wilcoxon signed ranks test (wsrt). table 1. descriptive statistics of the quality of independent and integrated writing task group n mean std. deviation min max indq 22 3.3636 .72673 2.00 5.00 intq 22 3.5455 .59580 3.00 5.00 a. indq = independent task group b. intq = integrated task group table 2. rank of task types n mean rank sum of ranks intq – indq negative ranks 4a 5.88 23.50 positive ranks 7b 6.07 42.50 ties 11c total 22 a. intq < indq b. intq > indq c. intq=indq with respect to the ranks as displayed in table 2, there were four students belonging to a negative rank. it means that the students who were given an integrated task got lower score than the students who were given an independent task. seven students were in positive rank which means that the integrated task gives more benefit toward the quality of writing than the independent task. meanwhile, eleven students were in an equal position. they got the same scores indicating that their quality of writing was similar as they wrote and were treated by both the integrated and independent task. this indicates that the integrated task did not affect the majority of the students’ writing quality. the integrated task results were only differently found in seven students whose scores were better than as they were asked to write using independent tasks. e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 29 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 25-33 darong (integrated task on students’ writing quality: is it more effective?) table 3. wilcoxon signed ranks test intq – indq z -.884b asymp. sig. (2-tailed) .377 in response to the research question and regarding the effectiveness of using integrated task yielded surprising results as shown in table 3. based on negative rank (b), the result of the analysis indicated that the quality of students’ writings using integrated (intq) task (reading to write) were not significantly different from those who were given the independent task (z=-.884, p > 0,05). it means that students could write essays in an equal quality regardless of the task types. saying it differently, the facilitation of reading to write was not effective. it is notable that the three raters used the same scoring rubric for both independent and integrated task. what is meant here is that the focus of the raters was not only on the products so long the rubric embodies them in the criteria but also language use component was taken into consideration. in addition, holistic rating raters’ attention are concerned much more on grammar and vocabulary as the linguistic features than rhetorical features in determining the overall quality of essay. regarding the feedback, the students writing was more or less dealt with those aspects. this is to say that the grammar and vocabulary are regarded as being bad which, in turn, definitely influence the rhetoric features development. 4.2. discussion with respect to the gap, this present study examined the effect of the integrated task reading to write (rtw) task toward the quality of students writing in the level of college students who have learnt english for many semesters. the counterbalancing effect was fulfilled since the students were divided into two groups in terms of having an opportunity in writing using integrated and independent task. as such, the method in question was meaningful to avoid experience factors and being fatigue toward the writing production. the result of this present study is beneficial to our comprehension of the concept of reading to write (rtw). as such, this present study might help us to justify the way of employing the task type and determine the quality of students’ writing. this is to say that understanding the sort of writing atmospheres and tasks are needed and more beneficial for bringing students toward increasingly more fluent and coherent expression of their ideas, experiences, and feelings in composing an essay. moreover, as the area of second or foreign language, writing embraces the authenticity and meaningfulness of relating writing to other skills (plakans, 2010). consequently, language teachers and testers should have a good understanding of how writers deal with and compose for integrated tasks. in a study which was conducted by gebril & plakans (2013) in the integrated tasks, the source text provides language support. some keywords and ideas might be taken by the writers which lead them to write a longer essay. besides, having a number of words in the writing are the logical consequence of having good language proficiency in comprehending the source text. likely, the nature of integrated tasks is to force the students to process the source materials, understand the idea, synthesize and present that source information into writing (plakans et al., 2016). the requirement to integrate the sources in integrated task goes with an expectation that the writers can get some input which might be helping them to generate their ideas. this, definitely, would be beneficial in contributing to a higher proficiency of the writers in producing writing quality as a product involving the task representation and the writing itself. in agreement with the findings above, some previous studies also found that reading to writing task had a significant effect on students’ writing, (zhang, 2017). there was a significantly better performance as the students employed reading to write tasks. what language they have in the reading passage was proper and helpful to do an essay. in addition (plakans et al., 2016) found that the contribution of integrated writing tasks increases as score level increases. however, the findings of this present study contrasts to those previous findings mentioned. as it has been proved, the wsrt analysis yielded surprising results. there was no significant difference between the use of independent and integrated task in the quality of students' writing. although it was assumed that the integrated task might be better in terms of the quality compared to the independent one, providing exposure to writing in which other skills are integrated should not ideally bridge the needs of generating ideas into a discourse level as a product. 30 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 25-33 darong (integrated task on students’ writing quality: is it more effective?) this present study mirrors the report of (plakans, 2010) noting that integrated does not mean to make writing easier. the source text might be helpful for some students in understanding the topic of the passage which is so-called content schematic task representation. however, some might have difficulties in writing or even to consider it as a barrier. moving further, it is worth mentioning that writing using independent task deals with the why the students cope with their background knowledge regarding the topic as they concern themselves. writer’s background knowledge seems influenceable in the point of the interpretation toward the given task (integrated and independent tasks). as such, it would be beneficial to generate their ideas into writing. in this present study, data of the raw score showed that few students could do the writing well. in this context, they might have good background knowledge which goes together with the language competence accumulation of the topic which could lead them to generating the idea in writing an essay. meanwhile, the independent task requires more writing and cognitively demands more generation, planning, and organization than in the integrated tasks in which ideas from reading are definitely summarized. moreover, regarding the scores, without having an exposure of a passage, the students, in fact, produced a good quality of writing. it was found that there were four students out of twenty-two who have higher scores as they were asked to write by independent task than the students who were treated by the integrated task. in agreement with previous research, (plakans, 2010), other aspects such as the background knowledge of the topic given might contribute to the writing. while the integrated task was not really supporting as it was assumed. four students’ writing indicated having no effect on writing quality. this, then, weakened the previous studies of (barkaoui, 2014; gebril & plakans, 2013) as previously mentioned. another issue came up to this surprising fact is that the complexity of the demands in the task compared to the independent one leading to the reconsideration or so-called recirculation of ideas in the process of writing. in this regard, language proficiency might be one of the sources toward such problem. this present study corroborates the previous findings emphasizing the contribution of writing ability in english and english language proficiency are beneficial to the score of the tasks, (barkaoui, 2014; gebril & plakans, 2013; yang & plakans, 2012). however, it is not the only one and one only. noticing the feedback from the three raters, students have some problems in language features resulting in the scores. this is to say that the types of task do not really matter in this present study. the total number of students whose writing scores were the same, both independent and integrated, does not reflect the finding of abrams & byrd (2017) saying that the task type improved the overall writing quality involving grammatical accuracy and lexical richness. in agreement with yang & plakans (2012) and plakans (2010), students’ performance in writing mainly rely on their strategy employing their language into production level. as such, the language production deals with an understanding of the information from the source text. in other words, this may indicate that task types are not really influential in the students’ writing but tend to be influenced by other factors which contribute to the writing. what is more interesting is that this embraced the students on average, no matter, they belong to the independent or integrated task. yet, there were four students who were supposed to at least better as they belong to integrated but then, are negatively positioned from independent. besides, there were also four who are better than those employed independent tasks. again, the raw score confirmed that their language proficiency was another aspect to cope with. again, this corroborates the findings emphasizing the language proficiency and accuracy can result in writing an essay, (barkaoui, 2014; gebril & plakans, 2013; zhang, 2017). thus, types of tasks do not guarantee the writing quality. many other aspects such as language proficiency, accuracy and background knowledge involving the ability to generate idea into a discourse should be taken into account. by and large, the students' writing quality by means of the integrated task was not significantly different from the independent one. the majority of students writing remain the same in terms of having the effect of integrated task (rtw. then, no matter to what level students belong to, high, medium or low, aside from task types, discourse competence and knowledge background are highly required. in this regard, the two aspects in question might be of benefit in constructing ideas from sentences to a text in employing a certain task type and its complexity. when we choose tasks, it might be better to consider those as they also affect writing quality. any single provided task will be a features’ bundle. we might have a task that has simple input, involves the here-and-now and has the same topic (features making the task easy) but the information covers much more elements and is not well-constructed (features making the task complex). briefly, a task may be simple in some ways but complex in others. e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 31 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 25-33 darong (integrated task on students’ writing quality: is it more effective?) 5. conclusion the study found that the use of integrated task was not more effective than the independent task. regardless of task types, the result of this study should be recognized as a standing point to shed light on considering other aspects of the quality of writing. therefore, this present study provides an implication both theoretically and pedagogically. regarding the theoretical implication, this study may contribute to the existing conceptual framework of how to design features and task complexity with the involvement of discourse competence. meanwhile, the pedagogical implication is concerned with what and how a task type is employed. with the consideration of knowledge background and language proficiency, the instructional techniques and approaches to employ a task type are highly needed in gaining students’ writing quality. regarding the limitations of this present study, this present finding provides possible paths for further studies. first, the understanding of source texts, in fact, might be beneficial or being complex for the students or writers. it might be better if further research studies deal with how the correlation of understanding the source text, language proficiency with writing quality. besides, a further research might be able to reveal the extent of students’ background knowledge on the topic given that influence the quality of writing. as such, it deals with how the students transfer their knowledge by means of a language they possess following the possible topic given. thus, the relation of topic familiarity, background knowledge and the language used 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(2017). reading – writing integrated tasks, comprehensive corrective feedback, and efl writing development. language teaching research, 21(2), 217–240. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168815623291 https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.6 https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168815623291 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 188-197 188 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id how silence facilitates verbal participation dat bao a,1,*, nguyen thanh-my b,2 a monash university, wellington rd, clayton vic 3800, australia b ho chi minh open university, 97 võ văn tần, phường 6, quận 3, thành phố hồ chí minh 700000, vietnam 1 dat.bao@monash.edu.au*; 2 my.t.nguyen112@gmail.com * corresponding author 1. introduction this article, which draws upon research evidence, argues that language teachers should not simply promote learner talk by discouraging learner silence. we believe that doing this would represent a serious misunderstanding of how silence works because, without productive mental processing, talk either cannot happen or happens in poor quality. we would like to challenge the scholarly view, such as one advocated by canary and macgregor (2008), that ideal students are those who participate in classroom discussion and less ideal students are those who remain silent. justified by that view, many intervention projects have been conducted to ‘rescue’ learners from silence. for instance, a study by smith et al., (2005) was designed to put introverted students through pedagogical therapy with remedies for articulation. such an experiment would produce temporary results rather than long-term educational impact because it treats students as if they were patients in the hospital. in other words, those treatments might help lessen the symptoms of being quiet but barely remove silence completely when it comes to introverted students’ personality. this is only one example of research of this type among others, including classroom experiments by boniecki and moore (2003), canary and macgregor (2008), dallimore et al., (2004), weaver and qi (2005), to cite a few. classroom intervention sometimes oversimplifies silence and ignores the fact that many learners employ silence to incubate thoughts and rehearse internal performance. once such preparation brings readiness, these students would speak out and contribute to the lesson at their best. any attempt to cut off silence from talk would mean to stop this productive process from happening and cause damage to students’ learning mechanisms. to support our argument, we collected evidence about how learners use silence to prepare for talk. we hypothesise that although there may be a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 28 october 2020 revised 10 december 2020 accepted 14 december 2020 the article reports a qualitative-quantitative case study of 239 vietnamese university students’ perspectives on the effects of their silence on the formulation and quality of their talk. it presents participants’ voices with regards to whether and how their silent thinking influences verbal communication in the english language classroom and discusses the dynamics of productive learning strategies that would benefit the quality of speech. data from an open-ended questionnaire reveal insights into students’ silent and verbal learning with a focus on the logical relationship between the two modes. three findings coming out of this project include different nuances of the silent learning behaviour, the frequency of success in producing speech after mental processing practice, and a range of practical strategies that helps turn thoughts into verbal output. the study unpacks the importance of silence as autonomous learning and proposes relevant classroom activities for more rewarding outcomes. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords silence talk learner perception learning experience http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:dat.bao@monash.edu.au mailto:my.t.nguyen112@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 189 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 188-197 dat bao & nguyen thanh-my (how silence facilitates verbal participation) students who may use silence passively to relax and switch off from classroom discussion, there might be others who thoughtfully employ silent processing to build talk and hope to participate once they are ready to do so. with this in mind, the study investigated vietnamese university students’ perspectives on the effects of their silence on the formulation and quality of their talk. without pre-conceived evaluation of the value of learner silence in this community, the study is open to participants’ voices with regards to whether and how their silent thinking influences verbal communication in the english language classroom, which can be either negative or positive, or both. in the case where positive use of silence is noted, the project looks further into the dynamics of such productive moments for learning strategies that would benefit the quality of speech. learner silence has gained a great deal of scholarly attention due to the challenge to both the understanding of silent behaviour and the use of silence in learning. to many teachers, quiet learners who seldom verbally contribute to the lessons are underestimated as being passive and unenthusiastic (kalamaras, 1994). silence is often viewed as a cultural phenomenon. over the years, students’ quietness in many east-asian educational settings is construed as the demonstration of its unique culture. as ramirez (1989) asserts, cultural factors and early experiences often direct learning styles; students from different backgrounds might develop divergent thinking, learning, and behaving. studies into the relationship between socio-cultural aspects and learning habits (see, for example, abede & deneke, 2015; bista, 2012; santosa & mardiana, 2018) have pointed to learner background of confucian and collectivist society to explain silence. common characteristics associated with these philosophy systems are the appreciation of mercy, social order, responsibility, and interdependency. a study by bao (2014) however, discovered that many east-asian students who have studied in australia do not believe in confucianism as the explanation of their behaviour. instead, they admit having adapted and modified their learning styles to a great extent to suit the new academic culture. because of this, to hold on to students’ cultural origins and deny students’ ability to be flexible learners represents narrow-mindedness. it is unhelpful to develop research designs based on stereotypical thinking. in confucian and collectivist societies, students often refrain from impulsive talk as a way of maintaining social harmony. arguments and critique are not highly recommended in these educational contexts; thus, the communication between teachers and students in the classroom is usually one-way, initiated by teachers in most cases (wursten & jacobs, 2013). some students speak only when being called by teachers to show respect to status. talking less or keeping quiet also serves to refrain from negative behaviour during a conversation when one feels upset. in many international settings, when learners behave within such cultural reasoning, they may be perceived as uncooperative and over-dependent on knowledge transmission (nguyen, a. t. h., 2002; nguyen, h. t., 2002; tran, 2013). while each culture embraces its values, it seems to be senseless to determine which is more rational without consideration of the social context of learning. while becoming too busy looking into cultures to explain silence as a problem, many forget that silence is laden with important cognitive values, which contain preconditions for composing thoughts that can become verbal participation. for example, in the context of a law-school setting, the fast pace of high-pressure discussion where both the accuracy and fluency in speaking contribute to the persuasiveness of a speech seems to be required of eloquent students. a silent pause provided during such discussion may encourage silent learners to express their voices and join a debate. silence allows less verbal students to think and break eloquent peers’ verbal dominance when needed (roberts, 2010). silence can be a preparatory step for verbal involvement after learners have sufficiently employed their personal space for attentive listening and proactive thinking. the internalization of language input usually occurs in silence when the stimulus domain in the learner’s brain turns on a more conscious mode. as krashen's distinction (1981) between acquisition and learning indicates, simple data are stored in explicit knowledge source and the more challenging abstract rules are stored in implicit knowledge source. simply put, when the mind struggles with complex data, learners need more thinking time to boost the creative ideas and problem-solving skills (nijstad et al., 2010). besides ideas, mental processing also benefits language rehearsal. if in actual conversation, linguistic self-repair is constructed through pauses, hesitation, tracks, and corrections such as ‘ah’, ‘well’, ‘i mean’, in the mind, such repair manifests in silence (goodwin, 1981; tannen, 1993). according to guerrero (1991), many learners practice self-talking, a kind of metatalk or inner speech, consecutively over the years before the time an accurate and meaningful 190 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 188-197 dat bao & nguyen thanh-my (how silence facilitates verbal participation) utterance is officially produced. thus, the quality of language output can be improved thanks to the adequate amount of time devoted to thoughtful participation. there are also other circumstances under which silence is advisable. for instance, silence is preferably observed in libraries for its favourable earning conditions (ollin, 2008; zembylas & michaelides, 2004). silence serves as disciplinary classroom management and precondition for studying (bista, 2012), especially when excessive talk turns into chaotic noise and distraction. although many teachers are acutely aware of this, when it comes to academic performance, some disvalue the use of silence and regard it as inferior to speech. the current study challenges this common perception and presents a more truthful picture of learning by collecting students’ voices. these voices will help justify the nature of their use of silence as well as how such silence supports or fails to support verbal participation in the english language classroom. after all, learners themselves must be given the opportunity to explain their own behaviour instead of scholars or teachers always speaking for them on the basis of presumption. 2. research method this case study was conducted at a tertiary school located in ho chi minh city, vietnam in 2020. the choice of research location has to do with the researchers’ professional network and travel practicality. students from various bachelor year levels in a wide range of discipline majors were recruited on the foundation of voluntary participation in the project. their english proficiency ranged from basic (a2) to upper-intermediate (b2) in the common european framework of reference for languages (cefr), as identified by the name of their current english classes reported in a questionnaire. data on learner reflection were collected to explore both silent and verbal learning with a focus on the relationship between the two modes. more specifically, the questionnaire including eight open-ended questions was developed to seek data in response to four research questions: 1. do students prefer silence or talk in their everyday learning? 2. why do they make such choices? 3. how much silence can turn into talk? 4. what strategies enable that to happen? the reason for open-ended questioning has to do with the need to foster free thoughts and encourage participants’ voice, a philosophy inspired by johnson and christensen (2017). the open nature of this questionnaire acts simultaneously as a qualitative and quantitative tool of data collection. it is qualitative in the sense that participants can write their thoughts in free-styled reflection; it is quantitative in the sense that it yields statistical data to show the proportion of different inclinations in the use of classroom silence. thanks to this mixed-method exploration, the outcome of the project will be presented both statistically and insightfully. 3. findings and discussion this section presents students’ favourite learning behaviour with regards to silent and verbal learning. in this regard, participants stated how much they enjoy talking, cherish silence, prefer to think then talk, or prefer to talk then think. these four varieties were created to tap into the nuances of learning behaviour as we do not want silence and talk to be the only choices of behaviour. research conducted by bao (2014) on international students has demonstrated that between speech and silence there are often a variety of learning modes that are in-betweens. below is the breakdown of students’ choices. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 191 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 188-197 dat bao & nguyen thanh-my (how silence facilitates verbal participation) 3.1. preference for silence and talk fig. 1. student choice of silence and talk although the study focuses on silence, talk stands out as the most favourite choice in students’ learning modes. the chart above shows the number of students (out of 239 participants) who opt for their favourite mode of practicing communicative skills. talk (coded in orange) takes up the most choice among 137 participants (57.9%) as their ultimate aim of classroom learning; while silence (blue) represents the preference of a quarter of the participants (60 students) who enjoy practising verbal skills quietly (24.9%). silence first (gray) is the choice of 39 students who wish to incubate thoughts and will try to speak (16.3%). talk first (yellow) is the choice of only 3 students (0.9%) who feel the need to speak first and reflect later. the open-ended data reveal four reasons for silence and three reasons for talk. 3.2. four reasons for silence first, silence benefits speech. half the number of participants acknowledge that their ultimate aim in learning is to speak rather than keep silence. however, without planning on the intended performance, that aim would be impossible. for example, some would polish their words in the mind until they are ready to speak, elaborating that such autonomous space is important if one wishes to exercise control over the quality of speech. autonomy is sometimes interpreted in the discourse as personal freedom (bosacki & bosacki, 2005). as one student reflected: after formulating the ideas, i will arrange how to speak about it, and check my language to be accurate so that my talk has fewer mistakes. second, silence has its value without the need to speak. the remaining students, on the contrary, emphasise silence as a learning tool in itself, that is, to serve comprehension and analytical thinking without having to finally say that out loud. one explained: not all the time i say aloud helps me understand the lesson. when i keep silent, i understand better. i have more time to brainstorm. third, silence plays the role of maintaining communication rules. it occurs in between two talking turns, that is, when one person finishes what they need to say, a moment of silence would indicate that the turn is now ready to pass on to the next person, turn-giving. suppose this rule is not well observed, everyone might be confused, as one participant reasoned: 192 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 188-197 dat bao & nguyen thanh-my (how silence facilitates verbal participation) talking out of turn will cause distraction. the speaker must have a listener. it is very common for everyone to take turns to say. this way of practicing the silent rule is acknowledged in the relevant discourse as having a communicative function (see, for example, jensen, 1973). fourth, silence allows an internal dialogue between the listener and the speaker. while being attentive to someone else’s verbal contribution, the listener not only tries to comprehend the message but also quietly interacts with that message. such interaction, according to the data, involves interpreting information, forming an opinion, and planning a response. these ways of utilising silence are not mutually independent but rather interrelated. they demonstrate several graded ways of thinking, ranging from silence for understanding and thinking to silence for supporting the rule and performing. the choice of such a decision would be contingent upon classroom situations, personality, and the degree of learning challenge. 3.3. three reasons for talk students who opt for talk as their optimal learning choice also share their rationale. first, the aim of talk is to receive feedback. one student explains: even when i know how to pronounce the words and make a sentence; i still want to say it aloud so that my teacher can listen and fix my mistakes. sometimes what you perceive is not always correct; therefore, communication is to learn from each other which makes our perspectives richer. second, talk serves to build confidence in communication, as one reveals: when we share our thoughts, we have a chance to know how good our communication skills are. we notice our current level from that awareness and know what gaps in our knowledge should be filled. doing is always harder than thinking. third, talk makes teamwork possible. silence affects teamwork efficiency since the lack of communication among members leading to low performance of roles and responsibilities. one participant expresses concern over excessive silence: it is great to prepare before speaking but thinking too long will lead to stagnation. a person who thinks too carefully cannot give quick responses. someone who thinks too much may forget the initial ideas. as data speak, silence can be useful or useless. although silence proves to be a useful conceptual tool to construct ideas and language, excessive silence might turn out to be a negative factor in learning. simply put, thinking about how language works in silence is advantageous; however, it is not advisable to remain silent all the time. learner silence becomes productive when one utilises quiet space for thoughts and output, while not properly employing it might also result in low learning impacts. 3.4. how much silence transforms into talk this discussion takes a closer look at the productive side of silence in supporting verbal output. the finding illuminates the extent to which the students’ mental processing practice yields speech performance. it is important to note that not all moments of preparation for verbal participation are successful. sometimes, one thinks hard for a way to participate but might end up producing little or nothing to say. in the questionnaire design, we lined up such possibilities in a nuanced frequency ranging from the most to the least often when they attempt to use silence works or fails to work as planned. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 193 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 188-197 dat bao & nguyen thanh-my (how silence facilitates verbal participation) fig. 2. how often silence become talk figure 2 demonstrates various degrees of student confidence in silent learning or the possibilities of how often cognitive processing in silence can lead to immediate verbal participation reported by the participants in this case study. it is interesting to see that the percentage mostly distributed in the middle of the scale, demonstrating the fair effectiveness of learner silence in preparing the talk. as revealed by the data, is that on average, 18 students (7.5%) disclose that their attempts to turn silent thinking into verbal participation always succeed and 45 students (18.8%) remember they frequently succeed (as shown in the dark blue and orange columns). that is, one quarter of the 239 participants (26.3%) have that confidence that there is a strong connection between mental processing and verbal articulation. these are students who feel they have great control over the efficiency of their silent learning. one participant internalised: i usually keep quiet when i need to brainstorm ideas. while my friends are talking, i will arrange the ideas in mind, translate my thoughts into english. that approach is much better because thinking and talking at the same time is too risky to make mistakes. the gray column in the middle shows that nearly half the number of participants are less certain about how silence can become talk. that is, 69 students (40.2%) remember that out of ten times they try to think for talk, 4 times they might end up talking and 6 times they might remain silent. although this group do not have great control over their mental rehearsal, they do believe in the value of silence in forming speech. one of the reasons for silence is students’ ambition of highquality participation, that is, the belief that talking meaningfully is far more important than talking nonsense. below are some thoughts from participants: a vietnamese proverb says, words must be weighed not counted; spend time on saying what is worthwhile. i usually concentrate silently on thinking about the answers. funny talks are only useful for socialisation. while studying, students should think more and talk less. the remaining 80 students (33.5%), as shown in the yellow and light blue columns, do not make effort in verbal participation but most of the time stay within their silent thinking. in this group, some students do not see the lack of participation is a problem but feel that they can learn to listen and observe without having to speak. as several participants elaborate: 194 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 188-197 dat bao & nguyen thanh-my (how silence facilitates verbal participation) when i am quiet, i focus more on the ideas and i feel like i can complete my work in silence more quickly rather than talking with someone else. you should probably keep quiet for a while waiting for someone to answer first. then you will understand how to tackle the task and be more ready to contribute the next answers. when i stop talking, i can watch other people working and i learn more from them. that is why the following speakers will often make fewer mistakes than the antecedent ones. when i was quiet to observe and listen to my friends, i was able to refine what i agreed with and i had plenty of time to formulate sharper ideas before joining the discussion. others take a cautious stance towards participation for different psychological reasons, as stated in students’ words: i did not want people to judge me when i contribute something new first. i would rather listen to others and join the discussion to express my agreement or disagreement. i usually keep quiet at the beginning of the lesson or before the presentation. probably i cannot speak anything until i feel ready enough. overall, the data show a reasonable balance between silent thinking and verbal contribution. this reality reflects what the discourse highlights about communication, that is, effective communication is about both speech and silence (bao, 2020a). as evident in the data, silence proves to be useful for speech as it is employed more proactively than demonstrate passively in the learning process. these figures, which represent the efficiency of silence, are not commonly documented in the current discourse in silence research. although this is only a case study of 239 students in one context, the breakdown in the silent-talk relationship signifies the extent to which learners treat silence as a learning tool. it also consolidates the significant reality that silence has a closer relationship with talk than we often know. from this awareness, it would be unhelpful if teachers think twice before blaming quiet students for not learning. depending on students’ intellectual ability, character traits, and classroom dynamics, silent rehearsal might experience a delay until students feel ready to speak. teachers might learn to be tolerant of all this and maintain a conducive atmosphere for mental engagement among individuals. 3.5. strategies for transforming silence to talk it has been proved from research from research that learner behaviour is never static, because learners constantly adjust their participation mode (bao & ye, 2000). when taking a closer look at how students treat silence as a set of learning skills we realize that silence is not one single behaviour but is made up of a range of practical strategies with the potential to connect thoughts into verbal output. data collected from one of the open-ended questions reveal eight different ways of employing silence as outlined below. table 1. list of strategies for transforming silence to talk silent learning strategies frequency percentage of cases gathering thoughts 181 75.7 mental rehearsal 179 74.9 writing down ideas 163 68.2 self-talk 125 52.3 listening to peers 107 44.8 doing nothing 6 2.5 using a dictionary 5 2.1 visualising others the strategies in table 1 are not employed separately from one another. instead, most students resort to more than one strategy as arising from both classroom circumstances and individualised ways of learning. as the data show, the five most frequently employed strategies in this case study issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 195 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 188-197 dat bao & nguyen thanh-my (how silence facilitates verbal participation) include gathering thoughts (75.7%, n=181), rehearsing talk in the mind (74.9%, n=179), writing down ideas (68.2%, n=163), self-talk (52.3%, n=125), and listening to peers (44.8%, n=107). visualising was reported by a minority of participants (2.1%, n=5 in all). very few students treat silence as an idle time and do nothing, that is, making no effort to think or speak (2.5%, n=6). it is important to note that a large percentage of students, that is, between 52.3% and 75.7% of all respondents, acknowledge that they employ silence in intensive mental work such as gathering thoughts, rehearsing participation in the mind, talking to oneself, and writing down what they wish to say. such practices demonstrate an autonomous tendency to make pro-active use of silence for learning rather than to use silent time for relaxation. 4. conclusion three implications can be drawn from this study to benefit elt pedagogy. first, teachers need to be attentive to learner needs for silent processing. a time can be allocated for this practice when tasks are designed, with instructions for how much time students might need as well as how to follow up on that in the end. second, silence needs to have an outcome, whether it is speech, or it results in students’ enhanced l2 input, the latter of which can be evident in form of note-taking or improved assessment performance at a later time. third, teaching needs to recognise silence as multiple learning strategies rather than perceive it as one type of behaviour. with this understanding in mind, classroom activities can include these ways of learning to be communicated to learners for clear expectations and for maximizing the potential of mental processing. the study has provided evidence of students’ diverse ways of using silence. this goes well with the discourse that recognizes silence as a form of engagement (bao, 2020b) and a strong association with vocal manipulation (bao, 2019). we appeal for teacher support to ensure that learners can exercise more choices and control over the learning process. the ultimate aim of such endeavour is to help learners take advantage of productive silence for speaking practice through various strategies. from a learner perspective, silence both facilitates and hinders the learning process. besides, it is important to be mindful of learners who might be off task during silence, that is, simply relaxing and not knowing how to employ mental rehearsal for learning. teachers might wish to develop a balanced understanding that not all positive silences lead to speech, but it all depends on class time availability, classroom circumstances, and individual decisions to contribute. the exploration of learner perspectives on the role of silence in producing verbal output in this article only representes one specific case. there is the need to replicate this type of research in other contexts for a more generalised view on how silence can boost speech. a second recommendation for research is how pedagogy responds to this silence-speech productive model with a relevant instructional procedure and strategies. a third topic is to compare teacher and learner attitudes towards reflective learning and how that understanding influences classroom learning. references abede, d. t. & deneke, d. g. 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(2004). the sound of silence in pedagogy. educational theory, 54(2), 193–210. http://www.jalt.publications.org/old_tlt/articles/2002/01/an https://doi.org/10.1080/10463281003765323 https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/1318 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 197 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 188-197 dat bao & nguyen thanh-my (how silence facilitates verbal participation) appendix – questionnaire 1. do you feel comfortable or uncomfortable when keeping silent in an english-speaking classroom? why? 2. do you feel annoyed or comfortable if your partners tend to keep quiet without sharing ideas with you in a speaking activity? please explain. 3. do you think silent students are unintelligent and passive or do you have another opinion? 4. in a speaking activity in a classroom, do you initiate or respond? 5. do you improve english speaking skills by talking aloud or processing ideas quietly? how? 6. does your teacher provide sufficient thinking time during english speaking activities? please comment on how and in what case you might need such a time. 7. how often does your silent thinking result in talk? if possible, give an example of how silence help you prepare for class participation. 8. which of these do you usually do during your own silence while preparing for interaction? writing down ideas, self-talk, mental rehearsal, listening to peers, gathering thoughts, doing nothing, others (please explain). english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 15-24 15 10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3935 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id virtual or face to face classes: ecuadorian university students’ perceptions during the pandemic julia sevy-biloon universidad nacional de educacion (unae), 54wh+6h chuquipata centro, ecuador julia.sevy@unae.edu.ec a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 07 april 2021 revised 16 april 2021 accepted 21 april 2021 due to the pandemic, classes have moved online for 2020-2021, and a return to face-to-face classes in the national university of education (unae) in ecuador is unknown. students studying in the undergraduate program to be english language teachers are slowly adapting to this new form of e-learning, and some have found that they prefer online classes, while many are waiting for the day they return to classes. the objective of this study is to look at the pros and cons given by 69 students discussing why taking classes virtually or face to face is a better option for efl and being an elt professional in these turbulent times. some prefer online learning for various reasons such as safety, comfort, economic reasons, and having more time in general. some find elearning difficult and want to return to synchronous classes because they feel there is little interaction between classmates and teachers, they cannot practice english authentically, cannot get clarification from the teacher, have a hard time concentrating online, and there are constant internet connection issues. in conclusion, this information has great importance for teachers today who are struggling to teach in this new medium and teach to the needs of their students to aid in their planning and will contribute to future teachers who will teach online. this is an open-access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords elt efl virtual learning and teaching face-to-face learning and teaching e-learning how to cite: sevy-biloon, j. (2021). virtual or face to face classes: ecuadorian university students’ perceptions during the pandemic. english language teaching educational journal, 4(1), 15-24. doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3935 1. introduction since the pandemic started, teachers have had to reevaluate and reformat how classes are taught and delivered. allo (2020) and raveendran (2021) explains how around the world, schools have closed and are no longer providing face-to-face classes. this is no different in ecuador. though students and teachers alike are still being expected to complete the same tasks but in a new way. teachers still must teach, and students still must learn but through a new medium of e-learning. cabero (2006) explains how e-learning is a new form of distance education that allows the teachers to use innovative technologies to create a more interactive class while the teacher and students are in different geographic places. in the national university of education (unae) in ecuador, this has proven to be almost impossible since teachers and students alike are struggling in the new medium of e-learning where classes were previously designed to be face to face. allo (2020) makes it clear that students have various opinions about e-learning and their new reality, and it is important to understand these perceptions to improve online learning environments. this paper looks into students’ perceptions and opinions of staying https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3935 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:julia.sevy@unae.edu.ec http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2285-2696 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3935&domain=pdf e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 16 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 15-24 sevy-biloon (virtual or face to face classes: ecuadorian university students’ perceptions during the pandemic) home and taking classes online through an e-learning format. it looks at what students think are the pros and cons of this new learning form due to the covid-19 pandemic and how teachers are attempting to adapt. akande and samson (2009) discuss how perceptions can help understand a person’s motivation and how they will react to different situations. in terms of the classroom and this new environment, it is important to understand what students think to help teachers plan for the future. allo (2020) describes how teachers are adapting to this new reality by giving lectures, using various online learning tools, online forums, applications for virtual assignments, and e-classrooms to continue student education and how these adaptions affect their students’ abilities to learn and their motivation. layali and al-shlowiy (2020) explain how focusing on students’ perceptions to understand this new reality can give new insight into how the covid-19 pandemic has changed the face of education and how to move forward. at the beginning of the pandemic, teachers had little time to prepare for online classes and had to learn how to teach through video conference applications. they also had to learn how to base their classes around their virtual classroom. agung, surtikanti and quinones (2020) describe how the initial problem of e-learning was lack of or unstable internet connection creating a situation where everyone had to quickly adapt and find solutions to continue education during the pandemic. many students were initially faced with the basic problem of not having internet access in their homes. in ecuador (la educacion en ecuador, 2020), 4.5 million students were affected when schools closed in march of 2020 due to the pandemic. according to an article in the newspaper el pais by constante (2020, june 16), over 70% of students do not have internet access in their homes or the necessary technology for them to successfully study. these sources show how this occurrence is like the rest of the world. in unae, efl students and teachers have been adapting to this new medium for the last year. teachers have had to adapt and learn new forms of teaching and assessment, teach longer hours, take courses about technological tools to aid in teaching and support the student’s needs. while students have had to struggle with finding consistent internet connection, handle many personal problems, adapt to staying home most of the time, and learn how to learn a language and become a teacher through independent online learning. maison, kurniawan, and anggraini (2021) have described situations during the pandemic where students are becoming more independent and in charge of their own learning. some are taking advantage of an autonomous learning environment and striving through improving their e-learning skills. however, after teaching and learning online for two semesters, many teachers and students are learning to adapt to the new normal of e-learning in english as a foreign language (elt) and english language teaching (elt). agung, surtikanti and quinones (2020) discussed the adaptations that have been made to a typical efl classroom, teachers' strategies, and the student's perceptions about learning online because of the covid-19 pandemic. some students are even finding taking classes online is an improved learning mode for them to advance in their studies. evisen, akyilmaz and torun (2020) completed a study in turkey and found that students thought there were some advantages to e-learning during the pandemic. some students liked having more time to complete tasks, work more independently, and ultimately many felt more comfortable learning in their own home in a safe environment. whiles others are still struggling and feel their education is lacking because they cannot attend face-to-face classes. evisen, akilmaz and torun (2020) explained many students had connection problems, many were still trying to get accustomed to the new learning process, have many distractions while studying outside of the classroom, and some just missed going to classes and socializing with other students and teachers in a face to face environment. nartiningrum and nugroho (2020) found similar findings in indonesia, explaining that their students had similar challenges during the time of changing from face-to-face to online learning. this is not different in continental africa, where adeoye, adanikin, and adanikin (2020) found with the pandemic a clear divide between the poor and wealthy students in the country. many students have not been able to afford to keep studying as education changes from a classroom setting to virtual or online education. many students are falling behind because they do not have adequate internet access throughout the country. these advantages and disadvantages of online classes are similar to the ones that were found in ecuador. this study found that understanding the student’s perceptions of what aids in their learning and what is difficult allows for teachers to better plan their online classes and help students who do not have internet access. this contribution to the area of education will aid teachers around the world who are attempting to plan classes and teach to the needs of their students. 17 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 15-24 sevy-biloon (virtual or face to face classes: ecuadorian university students’ perceptions during the pandemic) 1.1. perceptions when discussing students’ perceptions, it is important to understand how this idea can be defined. mcdonald (2011) explains how perceptions can be one’s reality and how one person sees that experience. he goes onto explain how many factors such as religion, geography, cultural expectations, level of education, and personal background can all affect how a single person can perceive an event or activity taking place. meaning most people having similar experiences can all have different perceptions. qiong (2017) defines perception as to how people understand and internalize knowledge, experiences, or expectations. the author goes onto to explain that first, people choose what they will perceive from the world around them. then they must construct a format that makes sense to them to understand the information being internalized. finally, they decipher the organized information to create individual perceptions of a person, place, thing, or experience. perception can be manipulated and different depending on factors that affect the students. akande and samson (2009) go even further and explaining that a person’s prior knowledge of the situation can also play a role in affecting how that person perceives the situation was occurring, especially in education. de lange, heilbron, and kok (2018) make it clear that what people know before the thing or experience can shape people’s perceptions about that area. 1.2. distance learning, e-learning, and face-to-face learning to understand the changes that have occurred in the past year and the effects they have had on university students, first, we must understand the different mediums that have been used in education. radha, mahalakshmi, kumar and saravanakumar (2020) explain that education is how students can learn. in turn, this is how students gain knowledge about a certain subject or area of importance. it is important to understand how learning outside of the classroom has evolved over time. teachers had always taught in a traditional face-to-face classroom, though before the pandemic, many universities had created distance learning programs. these programs were defined by moore and kearsley (2012) as a way for students to obtain classroom-based instruction outside the classroom using various forms of technology, so students can receive courses while physically in a different place than in a traditional classroom. today, students have not been given the option of being in a classroom, and therefore, physically being in a different place is the only feasible option available. therefore, taking courses has become what finch and jacobs (2012) explain as distance learning or being in a different place and still allowing students to have a classroom experience. bell and fedeman (2013) suggest that these distance learning programs have adapted because of the egregious amounts of technological advances on the internet or worldwide web. however, it is important to point out that distance learning has rapidly evolved into an updated medium called e-learning. this can be defined by layali and alshlowiy (2020) as the use of all online tools such as video conferencing applications, messaging applications, and social media applications that promote interaction. these researchers go on to explain how these tools can aid in students learning and allow for mimicked social interactions that once occurred in a face-to-face classroom creating an optimal learning environment for some participants. 1.3. pandemic problems and solutions from around the world in the area of education around the world, teachers and students have experienced many of the same struggles that have been brought about by the covid -19 pandemic. azzahra (2020), agung, surtikanti and quinones (2020), and nartiningrum and nugroho (2020) describe how in indonesia, many low-income students whose families live outside large cities do not have access to the internet or have very limited resources to be able to study online. this broadens the inequality between students even more than before the pandemic. they go onto describe how having stable internet has been a major impediment for changing to an e-learning environment. azzahra (2020) goes onto to explain how these new problems also have come with big solutions. the government and private organizations have been working nonstop to increase access to technology for low-income students and create new forms of learning online to aid in the teaching and learning process around the country. nartiningrum and nugroho (2020) have shared how teachers who have experienced the problems of students not being able to connect or becoming less motivated to learn have innovated teachers to learn new teaching strategies and create powerful online learning tools. other countries discussed by evisen, akyilmaz and torun (2020) are turkey, which has had similar problems and is working to find new solutions. students have made it clear that they feel as though they cannot interact as well with their classmates and teachers in an e-learning mode verse a face-to-face class, according to adnan and anwar (2020). this e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 18 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 15-24 sevy-biloon (virtual or face to face classes: ecuadorian university students’ perceptions during the pandemic) is a common complaint and perception of students around the world. in the philippines, toquero (2020) mentions how curriculum adaptions are necessary for higher education to improve the learning of students. the author explains how universities and institutions were not ready for the pandemic, and changes are necessary for education to improve. ecuador is no different. asanov, flores, mckenzie, mensmann, and schulte (2021) found that students struggle with an internet connection, and not everyone has access directly from their home or has the tools necessary to take online classes. lynch (2020) goes even further, saying that even with the correct use of technology and access to the internet, online classes need to be adapted to the new format. students find many teachers are not adapting the curriculum to fit the new normal. this is creating a disconnect between the virtual classes and the material. teachers and institutions around the world have begun to adapt to the new form of education and learning that is necessary because of the pandemic. teachers have begun innovating their teaching strategies and utilizing technological tools to better their online classes. in india, jena (2020) explains these are the ways the pandemic has actually created opportunities in education. teachers have learned new tools and are applying strategies that were not used in the past. not only are teachers adapting, but the government has invested in educational platforms to aid in student learning. in chile, sepulveda-escobar, and morrison (2020) explain how the pandemic has created an environment for new innovations and for teachers to expand their knowledge and technological abilities. this has been a huge advantage of moving to online learning in the country. velle, newman, montgomery and hyatt (2020) explain that at first, the teachers struggled with changing to online teaching, but with a push for teacher training programs for new technology and strategies to teach online virtual courses are improving. they found many teachers are taking courses to improve their technology use to gain more strategies for interactive online teaching methods. these training have been opportunities for teachers to participate in professional development courses and become better teachers. tejedor, cervi, tusa and parola (2020) found in ecuador that students enjoyed e-learning classes when the teacher was prepared and used ict interactive strategies for teaching. however, they explained that for many of their classes, the teachers were not prepared with these types of tools and did not have the knowledge to make classes innovative. another factor that was found is how fast many young students were able to adapt to virtual or online classes if they had internet access. in greece, kamarianos, adamopoulou, lambropoulos, and stamelos (2020) found many students adapted to the new norm faster than many teachers, considering how comfortable they were with using technology. however, they found that access to new technology played a major role in their ability to adapt. through various studies around the world, it can clearly be seen that access to technology, materials, and the internet are very important for being successful and play an important role in students’ perceptions of online learning. 2. method this paper proposes the question of how students have perceived changes to efl classes at a university level, their opinions and lived experiences about the positive and negative effects of elearning and teaching, and students’ personal life during the time of a pandemic. the objective of this research was to find out why some students prefer online learning, while others are still struggling to improve and feel comfortable taking classes in this mode to better prepare future online classes and be more prepared to teach them. it is based on qualitative research following a phenomenological approach as it is based on how student educational lives have changed because of the pandemic and describe the pros and cons of these changes when participating in e-learning given by the students themselves. this approach allows the readers to understand how the population has felt during the pandemic and their personal experiences in virtual class situations. the research is based on an online questionnaire. this questionnaire had eight questions, and some were open-ended, and some were structured. the questions asked about students learning preferences, perceived positive and negative effects of elearning, factors which affected their ability to learn in a positive or negative way. this allows for interpretation of the student’s opinions of their experiences from changing from face-to-face to online learning during the pandemic. this paper is based on a sample of 69 upper intermediate elt teacher trainee students from unae. the researcher observed virtual meetings, using answers from a semistructured questionnaire asking about students’ experiences, feelings, and opinions about the changes 19 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 15-24 sevy-biloon (virtual or face to face classes: ecuadorian university students’ perceptions during the pandemic) that have occurred based on online learning and 15 one on one interviews of various students’ personal experiences throughout the last year of their education during the pandemic in the elt teacher training major. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. findings this paper shows students' perceptions about online learning verse face to face learning. figure 1 explains the percentage of students that prefer virtual to face-to-face classes. fig. 1. comparison of virtual to face to face classes figure 1 shows the number of students who prefer virtual learning to face-to-face learning. it can be seen about 70 percent of students prefer face-to-face classes, to about 30 percent of students prefer virtual learning. the mind map in figure 2 explains why some students prefer face-to-face learning verse virtual learning. figure 2 shows 47 students’ different reasons why they prefer taking classes face to face instead of the current virtual mode. fig. 2. mind map of students’ preference on face to face class figure 2 lists the reasons why 47 students prefer face-to-face learning. thirty students explained that when studying in the classroom, they are able to concentrate better and have fewer distractions than when studying online. forty students said that they do not have to worry about their internet connection or any technical problems. twenty students explained that they have more opportunities e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 20 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 15-24 sevy-biloon (virtual or face to face classes: ecuadorian university students’ perceptions during the pandemic) for real interactions in english, such as spontaneous conversations with their teachers and peers. fifteen students made it clear that they can interact more with their peers, and they can ask questions to their teachers when they need to. figure 3 shows 22 students’ reasons as to why taking classes virtually aids in the learning process. fig. 3. mind map of students’ preference on virtual class figure 3 identifies the reasons why 22 students prefer virtual or an e-learning mode to face-to-face classes. eighteen students explained that they now have more time to spend with their family and to complete tasks and responsibilities at home. ten students described how when they were attending university, they used to spend more money on food and transportation, and now they can save this money. seven students found it is much easier for them to concentrate in class while learning virtually. they have found they are less distracted while staying home to learn. twenty students feel safer at home because of the coronavirus and are happy they are not exposed to getting sick. ten students have less anxiety and find themselves participating more in english virtually. they expressed they are less embarrassed if they answer incorrectly while studying behind a screen. 3.2. discussion the research began with twenty class observations of intermediate english language classes online over the course of one semester or four months. these observations gave important information about factors that can show how well virtual classes are functioning, such as how students participate in class, general types of questions they had, and difficulties students had while attending these classes. it is important to understand students’ perceptions. qiong (2017) explains how perceptions can help understand a person’s situation, and this can aid the teacher in creating a better learning environment for the students. in every class observation, 60-90% of the students did not turn on their video cameras for the entire class, while only about 50% of the students actively participated in a class by sharing answers and asking pertinent questions connected to the class content. when asked about why they did not turn on their videos in the one-on-one interviews, many students explained that they either did not have a working video, their internet connection was not good enough to allow them to turn on their video, or they were doing other activities while attending class and therefore could not turn them on. just as kamarianos, adamopoulou, lambropoulos, and stamelos (2020) found, students can participate and increase their abilities to learn when technology and internet connection are not a problem. one student said: “i do not have a computer, and we do not have the internet at home. i have to use my cell phone for class and use the internet from my cell phone provider. i simply do not have enough internet to turn on my camera.” 21 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 15-24 sevy-biloon (virtual or face to face classes: ecuadorian university students’ perceptions during the pandemic) in the questionnaire, students explained that they did not turn on their video cameras and sometimes did not participate in class because they were worried about their appearance, they were working, cooking a meal, taking care of their younger siblings or their children, or felt uncomfortable turning the camera on. many explained they did not participate because they were embarrassed, felt they did not know the right answers, would say the wrong thing, or we're doing other activities while signed into class. one student explained that she is home with her younger siblings and baby and must help her siblings in their online classes, take care of her baby and attend class at the same time. she is doing her best to pay attention in class but cannot actively participate or turn on her camera for the aforementioned reasons. because of the pandemic, many students have needed to get a job to help their families financially. one student commented: “i now have to work to provide for my child since my husband lost his job. i am working while i am attending your class, and this is the reason i cannot turn on my camera.” the reasons mentioned above were observed in the virtual classes, and when asked in the questionnaire if students prefer face to face classes or e-learning, they said they prefer going to class because they are distracted at home and cannot focus or pay attention like when they were in classes in the university. one student described how when she could attend class in unae she could focus only on her studies and not taking care of her family and going to work at the same time. this gave her the ability to study more and learn more in her classes. many students all agreed the most difficult aspect of e-learning is having a stable internet connection and the use of a computer for classes. many students described how they share one computer with their siblings or must take classes on their cellphones. there are a few who do not have stable internet access in their homes and have had to go to a public area with free internet. one student said: “at least once a week, the internet in my house does not work, and i must put myself in danger of getting the virus (covid) by taking a bus to the city center and find free wi-fi to take my classes.” on the other hand, there were some students who said they have found they prefer taking classes online and not having to go to the university each day. some students explained that they live extremely far from the university and now they have more time for homework, their personal life, and studying because they do not have to travel more than two hours each day. ten students described how they feel more comfortable and participate more through zoom classes than they did when they attended classes face to face. they explained how they have found they learn better independently and have more confidence actively participating in class from behind a screen. these students voiced that they are improving and learning much easier since beginning classes in an online format. students have found when teachers have adapted the curriculum and use new technological tools. they find online learning easier for them. tejedor, cervi, tusa and parola (2020) found that in ecuador, teachers’ knowledge of technology and how they adapted their classes changed the perceptions of the students who were learning online to a more positive perspective. the results of the findings have shown that many of sixty-nine students from the english language teaching major from semesters four, five, and six have various feelings about studying online and face to face. forty-seven students explained that they prefer learning in a face-to-face classroom, while twenty-two students find e-learning a better format for their individual needs. twenty-two students who said they preferred face-to-face classes had various reasons. twenty students explained they have internet connection problems, platform problems, and general technology issues, which make studying online more difficult for them. eleven students explained they have more opportunities to improve their oral and listening english language skills and have better interaction with the teachers and other students for the purposes of studying understanding topics, and asking questions while attending face-to-face classes. nine students said they could not e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 22 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 15-24 sevy-biloon (virtual or face to face classes: ecuadorian university students’ perceptions during the pandemic) focus at home and have many distractions when taking synchronous classes, and trying to study at home can be a very difficult task. these findings explain why many students prefer learning in a faceto-face setting instead of online learning. however, there were twenty-two students who have adapted to e-learning and have come to prefer taking classes online. ten students explained that they feel more relaxed at home because of the pandemic and do not have to worry about getting sick. nine students said they have found that learning from the comfort of their home has made them feel more relaxed and less anxious about speaking in front of others in the class. they have found they participate more in class because they are behind a screen and do not feel like the spotlight is on them, and they are saving a lot of time and money because they do not have to travel to the university. this has allowed them to have more time for homework, studying, working, and for their families. 4. conclusion before the pandemic, technology was being used in classrooms and advancing at a rapid rate, these changes in technology have changed the way students learn, and teachers teach. then the pandemic began, and this research found students have different opinions about learning face to face verse elearning. most students would like to go back to face-to-face classes as soon as possible for many different reasons. however, some students have found learning online to be beneficial to their individual learning styles and needs. since converting to e-learning was so difficult for most, finding out that some students are more comfortable and learning more comes. this research has proven to be interesting since it shows how students learn and improve in different ways depending on their individual needs and living conditions. this paper also found that there are many uncontrollable outside factors in each students’ life that can affect their ability and interest to learn in an online mode. the implications of this research shows how technology can affect teaching and learning. it also explains how students perceive this use of technology, which in turn can influence the teacher’s abilities to teach effectively. without stable internet access, all of the planning and creation of online courses for students can be deemed useless since the students cannot participate properly. students made it clear that without this, assisting classes online is almost impossible and demotivating. they had also expressed that having many other responsibilities in life such as a job, a family, children, and siblings make studying at home not as important as when they were able to study in a classroom. this can implicate that many students need more support financially and personally to strive and learn in an online setting verse a face-to-face classroom setting since students who have these types of support tend to enjoy online learning more, and some students enjoy this new mode of learning at the university level in ecuador. declaration author contribution : the author confirms sole responsibility for the following: study conception and design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of results, and manuscript. funding statement : the research is funded under no research project. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references adnan, m., & anwar, k. 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(2020). initial teacher education in england and the covid-19 pandemic: challenges and opportunities. journal of education for teaching, 46(4), 596-608. doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2020.1803051 http://dx.doi.org/10.29240/ef.v4i2.1494 http://flr-journal.org/index.php/sll/article/view/10055 https://www.forbesindia.com/blog/education/lessons-on-learning-how-the-pandemic-changed-education/ https://www.forbesindia.com/blog/education/lessons-on-learning-how-the-pandemic-changed-education/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310503884_online_education_and_its_effecti https://doi.org/10.29333/pr/7947 https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2020.1803051 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 254-262 254 10.12928/eltej.v3i3.2277 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id utilizing learner language to craft well–targeted endorsements in english language teaching practices nasrullah a,1,*, elsa rosalina b,2, eka puteri elyani c,3 a, b, c lambung mangkurat university, jl. brigjen h. hasan basri, kayu tangi, banjarmasin, kalimantan selatan, indonesia 70123 1 nasrullah01@ulm.ac.id *; 2 elsa.rosalina@ulm.ac.id ; 3 eka.elyani@ulm.ac.id * corresponding author 1. introduction the phenomena of learning english as a foreign language have been spread over the world. slow and fast, success and failure in learning the language become ‘pieces of stuff’ that depict teaching and learning achievement in an academic setting. in indonesia, the learning of english has been started since students in the secondary level, yet the attainable mastery of the language performance in the level of either written or, in particular, spoken does not reflect the duration of learning the language. hence, there is a belief the system of immediate education is not as successful as expected in teaching english (tosun, 2012). a number of academic papers have supported this notion (aktas, 2005; bayraktaroglu, 2012; enginarlar, 2003; darancık, 2008; gunes, 2011; hamamcı, 2013). therefore, in learning english, there is a space to reflect on whatever ways in which how learners learned the language to ensure the learning quality process in terms of aspects in language that have been completely learned and acquired from every developmental stage. in order words, by paying the attention to the pace of learners’ learning, the opportunities to witness and nurture their language development can be addressed appropriately. a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 11 june 2020 revised 14 december 2020 accepted 22 december 2020 learning a foreign language for those who have their first and second language often puts learners in imperfection mastery such as irrelevant lexical choice, and source cultural bounds language utterances. knowing the concepts merely cannot guarantee the process of avoiding mistakes or errors that learners have. there has been an amount of research on learner language which focuses on language corpus but little on highlighting the research specific language components grammatically contributing to language learners’ competence. therefore, to fill the void, this study aimed at scrutinizing and yielding information on the practical way of phenomena in indonesians’ interference by knowing the students’ feature descriptions of language competence. in this research, a guided interview was used to sub-ethnic of banjarese which covered several banjar kuala and banjar hulu preservice english teachers in getting the data of this study. the findings reveal language problems in lexical aspect, semantic confusion, incorrect use of word-formation pattern, prepositional misuse, and problems in language syntax and discourse. the implication of this study calls for recommendations to adopt techniques in mitigating suggested learner language in the area of subject-verb concord, tenses, and lexical problems in a process of language development this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords banjar kuala banjar hulu pre-service english teachers english language practices learner language http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:nasrullah01@ulm.ac.id mailto:elsa.rosalina@ulm.ac.id mailto:eka.elyani@ulm.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 255 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 254-262 nasrullah et.al (utilizing learner language to craft well –targeted endorsements) the discussion on how learners learned will be closely related to historical based knowledge on the concept of contrastive analysis (ca), error analysis (ea), and interlanguage (il) since they had been major areas of inquiry in second language acquisition (sla) research studies (he, 2019). he highlighted that contrastive analysis became a paradigm in foreign language learning during 1950s and 1960s. the concept of contrastive analysis (ca) was first developed by charles fries in 1945 as an integral component of the methodology of fl teaching. it ca, it was noted that in learning an fl, the learner tended to bring with him the knowledge of the l1, and suggested that this should be taken into consideration in teaching the l2 (al-khresheh, 2016). such descriptive comparison serves to show how languages differ in their sound system, grammatical structure, and vocabulary. however, contrastive linguists had made over claims or high expectations from the teacher. in fact, a few parts of the learning problems can be predicted. many problems are of the native language. the main problem is that language learning cannot be comprehended by a purely linguistic study; those who were concerned with language learning shift their attention to the new disciplines of error analysis, performance analysis, or interlanguage studies. likewise, the contrastive analysis was denied by many as an applied discipline. since its inception in 1970s, agbay& reyes (2019) uttered that error analysis had been a subject of interest of many scholars in the past in identifying, classifying, and systematically interpreting flaw forms done by learners based on linguistics perspective. moreover, it pictures out what problems occurred, through a systematic study or learners’ error not just to identify learning problem but also to open the mind of language learner (johanssen, 2008). it is not merely a matter of revealing the surface position of where the spots of language deficiency are, but also heed the focus to correct version and something that underwrites to learner’s progress in target language mastery. in order words, the heart of instruction has been a shift from the teaching of second language acquisition whose main concern is language teacher to analyzing the learner language in the classroom (tarone & swierzbin, 2009). in the following phase, problems were also found ea. the study of errors is not sufficient to recognize learners’ difficulties rather the entire learners’ performance was very crucial to be the object of study, whether as it talks about errors and non-errors, through performance analysis. then, the next phase of development was interlanguage studies (ils). it was the study of learner language as a system to show the gradual development towards the target language. the central attention is on the learning process as a comparison with first language acquisition. özkayran & yılmaz, (2020) explained that there are two types of error categories, namely, intralingual and interlingual. while the former is perceived by learners who feel that second language patterns are similar to first language forms, the latter is an incomplete application of rules of second language learned. as the part of interlanguage study, rustipa (2011) added that interlanguage is resulted from l1 transfer, strategies of second language training (e.g simplification), and overgeneralization of second language forms. morover, lasaten (2014) categorized errors in taxonomy comprising of (a) grammatical (prepositions, articles, reported speech, singular/plural, adjectives, relative clauses, infinitives, verbs and tenses, and possessive case); (b) syntactic (coordination and conjunctions, sentence structure, nouns and pronouns, and word order, fragment and run on); (c) lexical (word choice); (d) semantic (literal translation); and (e) substance/mechanics (punctuation, capitalization, and spelling). previous studies have been conducted on ea and interlanguage. several of them such as turkish efl learners’ linguistics and lexical errors by ozkan kirmizi and birten karci in (2017), and the nitty-gritty of language learners’ errors conducted by bandar mohammad saeed al-sobhi in 2019, and contrastive analysis study of interlanguage errors by gibriel in 2020. the first study reported that the most causes errors made is l1 interference while the second study examines the errors caused by negative language transfer and why such errors occur. the third study elaborated theoretical review on ca, ea, and il. even a bulk of previously mentioned studies have been elaborated, however, a little research is conducted in the indonesian context particularly in interlanguage perspective. therefore, the main aim of this study is to find out a linguistic analysis on interlingual process done by indonesian pre-service english teachers and formulate recommendations as its contribution for language teaching practices. 256 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 254-262 nasrullah et.al (utilizing learner language to craft well –targeted endorsements) 2. research method this study employed a qualitative method. the research subjects were the pre-service english teachers recruited from students of english department academic year 20172018. the total number of subjects was 108 students in which there were 83 students categorized as banjar people speaking banjarese in their daily lives. from the total number of banjar people, 70 was specified as banjar kuala while 13 students were classified as banjar hulu. the techniques in collecting data used by researchers were elicitation and documentation. the former technique was to get the information about learner language through interview which then to be transcribed into written form to see erroneous sentences of spoken way. the latter one was to scrutinize grammatical error which might occur obtained from written one. both ways were applied to get a better picture in error analysis framework toward the students’ performance to apply comparative taxonomy to search for whether the source of errors came from interlingual or intralingual. furthermore, having those series of activities, the researchers could reveal several learner language characteristics e.g., lexical characteristics, syntax, and discourse. 3. findings and discussion this part discusses research aims which address a linguistics analysis on interlingual process followed by discussion based related theories and recommendations to english language teaching. 3.1. a linguistics analysis on interlingual process learner language not only covers the discussion of phonological areal in language transfer, but it also talks about another aspect of interlanguage errors. there are two models of analyses. learner language areas are stated by lightbown et.al. (2013) who explained them into developmental sequences, grammatical morphemes, negation, questions, relative clauses, and reference to past. furthermore, the other study was conducted by johanssen (2008) encompassing the lexical, syntax, and discourse characteristics of learner language. here is the table which elaborates the findings: table 1. banjar kuala learner language error identification no banjar kuala (place of origin) the number of subjects learner language error identification 1 banjarmasin 32 article and plural, lexical error, equivalence error, concord, nominal sentence construction, simple sentence muddle, tenses confusion, relative clause problem, the use of negative, spelling problem, verbal sentence construction, pronoun problem, conjunction problem, active sentence, to infinitive problem 2 banjarbaru 10 verbal sentence construction, tenses confusion, concord, prepositional phrase, plural noun problem, conjunction problem, reference, complex sentence problem, combining sentence problem, to infinitive problem 3 martapura 4 combining sentence problem, lexical error, concord, determiner problem 4 barito kuala 2 sentence construction, noun phrase/word order, preposition misplace, concord, lexical error 5 pelaihari 9 concord, mechanics problem, prepositional gerund, lexical error / confusion, singular/plural noun, comp adjective problem, tenses and verbal problem, verbal concept problem, conjunction problem, quantifier problem, complex sentence problem, passive voice, article problem 6 tanah bumbu (batulicin, pagatan) 9 apostrophe, modal, relative clause, mechanics problem, miscellaneous problems in sentence construction [ no clear nominal sentence ], verb form confusion, concord, determiner confusion, tenses, complex sentence problem, comp adjective problem, verb phrase problem 7 kotabaru 4 conjunction problem, subject determining problem, nominal sentence, verb missing, lexical confusion, relative clause, spelling problem, negation problem total 70 subjects issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 257 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 254-262 nasrullah et.al (utilizing learner language to craft well –targeted endorsements) with regard to language learner errors done by pre-service teachers of banjar kuala, it was found that concord, lexical confusion, tenses become the most frequent errors possessed by them from several regencies besides other problems such as spelling problem, sentence types, the use of modal. this finding has been pinned by ferris (2011) who said that ‘morphological, syntactic, and in particular lexical forms deviate patterns of learned language, expected from learners who learn the target language. in this respect, the errors are caused by limited resources patterns of mother-tongue language which lead learners to decide what has been possessed previously in the first language in actuating language performance in the target language (james:2013). table 2. banjar hulu learner language error identification no banjar hulu (place of origin) the number of subjects learner language error identification 1 hulu sungai utara (amuntai) 3 tenses confusion 2 hulu sungai tengah (barabai) 2 part of speech confusion, negation (developmental sequence ), verbal confusion, concord problem 3 hulu sungai selatan (kandangan) 3 lexical choice, the absence of verb, concord, clause construction problem, spelling, verbal sentence problem, clause construction problem, lexical confusion, tenses confusion 4 rantau 2 mechanics problem, nominal sentence problem, plural noun problem, demonstrative pronoun, tenses problem concord, lexical problem, verbal confusion 5 balangan 6 tanjung 3 tenses problem, preposition, plural noun total 13 subjects from table 2, it is noticeable that tenses problems, verbal confusion, case of singular and plural also become considerable hurdles reflected in speech produced by pre-service english teachers. in line with ferris (2011), james (2013), and gibriel (2020) also emphasized that errors in tenses and verb forms are frequently found for those who learn english in the process of their foreign language learning. geographically, south kalimantan consists of 13 regencies, they are: kotabaru, tanah bumbu, tanah laut [pelaihari], banjarmasin, barito kuala, banjarbaru, banjar [martapura], tapin, hulu sungai selatan [kandangan], hulu sungai tengah [barabai], hulu sungai utara [amuntai], balangan and tabalong. all regencies’ inhabitants are mainly inhibited by the ethnic of banjar who speak banjarese in their daily lives even though several ethnics reside in that region like dayak, java, bugis and arab. although this province has many regencies at which banjarese is the primary language used, there are two main dialects of banjarese: bahasa banjar kuala and bahasa banjar hulu (hapip, 2008). banjar kuala is spoken by people who live in kotabaru, tanah bumbu, tanah laut [pelaihari], banjarmasin, barito kuala, banjarbaru, banjar [martapura], while banjar hulu dialect is used in tapin, hulu sungai selatan [kandangan], hulu sungai tengah [barabai], hulu sungai utara [amuntai], balangan and tabalong. several researches in phonological area in terms of vowel as well as problems in spelling for foreign language learners had been conducted regarding to one of sub-dialect, banjar hulu. mcmahon (2012: 103) who explained that bbh, in terms of vowel, has only 3 vowels: /ʌ/, /i/, and /u/, compared to english which entails 12 vowels: /ɪ/, /ɛ/, /æ/, /ʌ/, /ɒ/, /ʊ/, /i:/,/ɑ:/, /ɔ:/, /u:/, /ɜ/, and /ə/. the investigation of banjar dialect had been strengthened by two previous studies. firstly, suryadikara, et. al. (1981) stated that bahasa banjar hulu has three vowels /i/, /u/, and /a/, and 258 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 254-262 nasrullah et.al (utilizing learner language to craft well –targeted endorsements) bahasa banjar kuala has six vowels /i/, /u/, /a/, /o/, /`e/ and /e/. secondly, kawi (2002) mentioned that banjarese has six vowels recognize six vowels, namely: low vowels /a/, high vowels /i/ and /u/ and middle vowels /e/, /ə/, and /o/. as the second language that learners learn english, the phenomenon of language transfer in which the first language is believed by many researchers is to be one of the main factors that influence second language production (dewaele, 1998; cenoz, 2001; liu, 2001; ortega, 2008; tremblay, 2006; torrijos, 2009). different sound systems between english language and the native language of the learners can lead to phonological errors as the learners tend to substitute the english features with what is familiar in their native language during oral communication (rahmah & sari, 2016). from the findings, it can be highlighted 2 classifications: an overview of learner language in the area of lexical characteristics and area of syntax and discourse. learner language in the area of lexical characteristics errors which include overuse of common words and lack of variation become lexical characteristics of learner language. there are 12 times lexical problems that are done by english learners of banjar kuala learners (bkl) and 4 times done by banjar hulu learners (bhl) as they are challenged to make a written text regarding their perception of what they want to be in the future. they are the following identified selected problems that banjarmasin pre-service english teachers have. one of the problems identified here is improper choice of diction. as bkl are asked under topic future profession, one of them stated that “…because they parent did not have money” instead of saying ‘their’ word, he mentioned ‘they’. it is done by the learner unconsciously. the other example includes the statement of “i also want to be the indonesian embassy”. the word embassy here is not appropriate. in this context it is better to be replaced by the word ambassador. the other error produced by learner is reflected in the statement of “i aspire to be a translator”. in this case, the word ‘aspire’ is better taken over by ‘am inspired.’ in the meantime, the similar errors had been shown by bhl. one of them corresponds the question by stating “i choice this dream because i want to be useful person. the diction of ‘choice’ here is not properly stated. in this ‘verb’ position, the noun ‘choice’ is better replaced by the word choose. moreover, there was also a learner who stated “every day i do reproduce friends. instead of saying ‘make’, the learner mistakenly said improper word utterance. the second area is mistakenly done by bhl and bkl is word confusion. conceptual confusion is the learning of target language’s words, but still semantically confused, for example, “after i graduate from degree, i hope i can get scholarship”. the word ‘degree’ is better substituted by this undergraduate level because the word ‘degree’ is still too general and interpretable. the next area that is difficult for learners from banjar kuala is the use of proper preposition/prepositional phrases. the discussion over preposition is not only talking about the use of which to state about the place or position but also become complementary in completing the other lexical verb. as the statement spoken by one of them said that “i want to be a good teacher because when i was on junior high school”. even he has learned it overtime when he was in secondary school, and now he is in the university level, the use of that proper preposition is still a problem as is shown in the oral production performance. likewise, banjar hulu learner also showed a similar mistake reflected in his statement such as “i took my first step to reach my dream by learn english of this time”. in this respect, the preposition ‘by’ is supposed to be followed by verb with gerund, and the preposition ‘of’ is better changed with the use of ‘at’. the last area which sometimes confuses learners both for banjar kuala and banjar hulu is the use of apostrophe. as one of the selected sample of learners who said the statement of “i want to make my father happy and achieve my father dream”. in this case, ‘my father dream should be completed with the existence of apostrophe to become my father’s dream. thus, even this seems simple, the use of such punctuation will bring a good meaning of a possession. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 259 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 254-262 nasrullah et.al (utilizing learner language to craft well –targeted endorsements) learner language characteristics in the area of syntax and discourse as it deals with the area of syntax and discourse, there are four main errors that were observed here despite its high frequent level of errors produced by banjar kuala and banjar hulu pre-service english teachers. the first is the use of inappropriate pronoun (gilquin, g., & granger, s.,2015). to be more specific, the use of reflexive pronouns is fairly common to be the spot of errors. the example of the asked learners who corresponds the answer said “future work i want is bank employee because of his big salary”. the pronoun ‘his’ here might be changed into ‘its’ to express the possession of a thing. the second is the use of verb and verb phrases. of the analysis, there are several errors that banjar kuala [around 11 errors and banjar hulu [4 errors] leaners do in this study. several learners form banjar kuala said “it is can make me always remember”. in this case, there is a possibility that learners are still confused to distinguish use of nominal sentence and verbal sentence. so as the modal comes, it is usually not preceded by the existence of ‘to be’. the other error also done by learners is reflected by the statements “i still thinking to try another job” and “when i know the doctor is costs a lot. in this matter, there is an appearance of ‘to be’ in the former sentence, while at the latter sentence the existence of ‘to be’ is not necessary. similarly, banjar hulu learners also did errors as some of them produced sentences such as “it because our prophet said good for everybody” and “my attempt to do that is always study and learn”. in the first sentence, the absence of ‘to be’ is not seen there while in fact it is important to show the good sentence construction. while in the second sentence, confusion over sentence types of nominal and verbal sentence has occurred here. a solution offered, there might be two ways; one way is by deleting ‘is’ in maintaining the other parts, and the other way is keeping the ‘to be’ and making the verbs become a progressive sentence. the third focus in the area of syntax and discourse is the use of proper concord (johanssen, 2008). interestingly, the most common error done by the learners either banjar kuala or banjar hulu is concord (around 20 errors). concord is the connection between the subject and verb. they are inseparable one another. here are several descriptions of concord errors of banjar learners. for banjar kuala, several learners produced sentences as follow “one of the advantages are…”, “i want to be a person who have a permanent job.”, and “i want to become a person who learn better”. the earlier example statement needs to change to ‘are’ to become ‘is’ because subject from ‘one of’ is customarily classified as singular. for the second sentence and third sentence, even in the adjective clause structure, the concord is still applied, and in this case, the learner failed to identify its rule; therefore, in this case, the italic word ‘have’ is better replaced by ‘has’ while the last sentence the word ‘learn’ is added the ending -s to be ‘learns’. similarly, the banjar hulu learners still did errors in their utterances as two of them stated “he always work hard for my family” and “why i really want this dream come true”. the word ‘work’ in the first sentence is supposed to be added -s there while the word ‘come’ is also added -s to be ‘comes’. the last main errors problem discussed in this study is tenses problem (simbolon, 2015). like any other indonesian learners as they learn english as a foreign language, bkl and bhl also got tenses problem. for both of these learners, it is hard to differentiate between past tense and present tense as they tell a past story. for example, one from banjar kuala said “i always change what i want to become since i am kid”, and the other from banjar hulu stated, “my family always supported me recently as i want to plan my future action in my life”. the first sentence from bkl uses present by the existence of ‘am’. however, it should be expressed in the past tense by the use of ‘was’, while for the second sentence, the word ‘supported’ which is stated in past form should be expressed in present form to be ‘supports’ because its time period as it is spoken and meant for is in the present occasion. 3.2. recommendations to english language teaching practices. regarding the problem in sv concord as the agreement between subject and verb in a sentence, it is a very essential part of sentence formation. if the existence of a subject or verb is absent, the sentence cannot be formed and the meaning is corrupted in that structure. in light of the problem of concord that the students have, the teacher can use a variety of techniques; one of them is by using 260 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 254-262 nasrullah et.al (utilizing learner language to craft well –targeted endorsements) direct exposure. in this discussion, it is better for english teachers to bring about the theme of concord within its detail like interrupting phrases or preposition with usually follow the subject in order that students will be able to identify the availability of either subject or verb as predicate. another technique to handle the issue of subject and verb issue might be the use of the handshape coding technique. it is a combination of hand technique and shape coding technique. shape coding is a variant of the technique using types of shapes such as circle, rectangle, oval, triangle, and others or arrows to code the structures of a sentence such as detecting subjects, verbs and predicates. besides, shapes are used to cipher the phrases and objects such as “line up” in the sentences (ebbels, 2013). with regard to tenses, since the different use of tenses of english as the target language and only single fewer tenses for the indonesian language, the difficulties of indonesian learners are dominantly found here. for example, deductive and inductive techniques can be used to learn tenses. while deductive one can be used to easily remember rules of english grammar, the inductive one can be used for making them easier to use in the communication area. the other technique that can be used is by using tenses simplification. in this talk, the 16 tenses of english can be reduced become 3 main tenses: present, past, and future. the other subdivisions can become the detail for those three main tenses that are used rarely in daily conversation. by this strategy, indonesian learners can be familiar to understand tenses of english because of its similarity. with respect to lexical problems, there are several ways that can be taken to get out of it; one of them is by utilizing word net; lexical database for both english and indonesian language. the learners are introduced to the dictionaries or glossary which provides detailed information on the word use. it is done to select words appropriately based on the context of utterance. another way to make learners aware of lexical choice as they speak to the target language, english in particular, is by introducing material of collocation, phrase, clinch, idiom, and so forth; it is supposedly done to make them realize that english does not only consist of a row of single word complied one after the other but also have words that stick together which carry a new meaning rather than in the separate position. 4. conclusion the findings of this study as a corresponding to research aims show that there are several phenomena of interlingua process carried on by pre-service english teachers as foreign language learners to a certain degree. the most three frequent problems that happen to both banjar kuala and banjar hulu people in south kalimantan, one of the ethnic variants in indonesian are concord, tenses, and lexical. while the others are: verbal and nominal sentence, conjunction, and singular plural noun determination. the rests comprise other sentences’ construction determiner, reference prepositions, comparative adjectives, and active and passive sentences. these findings can inform 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(online), 34: 109-119. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.11n.2p.48 https://core.ac.uk/reader/79443038 https://doi.org/10.23971/jefl.v5i2.368 http://ojs.upv.es/ english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 86-94 86 10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2361 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id efl students’ attitudes towards learner autonomy in english vocabulary learning thao quoc trana,1,* a ho chi minh city university of technology (hutech), 475 a dien bien phu street, ward 25, binh thanh district, ho chi minh city, vietnam 1 tq.thao@hutech.edu.vn * * corresponding author 1. introduction many researchers (e.g., nation, 2001; richards & renandya, 2002; schmitt, 2010) have claimed that vocabulary is one of the most important components of language learning in which learners are able to use it in order to support for four language skills. likewise, balci and çakir (2011) have confirmed that vocabulary plays a vital role in any stages of the learners’ language development. moreover, it is impossible for a learner to communicate without the required vocabulary. indeed, a number of scholars (e.g., willis, 1990; lewis, 1993; folse, 2004) in the field of vocabulary believe that communication can occur without syntax and grammar, but not vocabulary. as such, it cannot be denied that if learners have no vocabulary, they cannot express their ideas, thinking or feelings as well as are unable to understand the meaning of written and spoken texts. thus, vocabulary learning is a prominent domain to approach a satisfactory language proficiency level (boers & lindstromberg, 2008). the concept of learner autonomy (la) has generally been focused as an alternative approach (e.g, gremmo & riley, 1995; benson, 2001; duong & seepho, 2013, 2014; duong, 2015; tran & vo, 2019), and it has been emphasized in educational environments and particularly in language learning (e.g., holec, 1981; dickinson, 1995; little, 1991; benson, 2003). mcdevitt (1997) states that “the end product of language learning is an independent learner” in every aspect of the language” (p. 34). therefore, vis-à-vis the aspect of vocabulary, helping learners to learn how to learn vocabulary autonomously is an immensely important element which esl/efl teachers have to take into account in teaching. nevertheless, in the vietnamese context as well as other efl ones, it is noticed that the matter of la in english vocabulary learning is not yet much emphasized (e.g., duong, 2015; tran & nguyen, 2017). many efl learners are still educated with the passive style along with the teacher-centered belief (nguyen, 2014), and their proficiency in vocabulary today is still poor as they focus on a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 22 june, 2020 revised 03 august, 2020 accepted 25 august, 2020 whether efl learners can use english well or not depends much on vocabulary they possess. learner autonomy (la), however, plays a pivotal role in amassing efl learners’ vocabulary. this study endeavored to explore students’ attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning. two hundred english majors from a ho chi minh city based higher institution, vietnam got involved in answering the closed-ended questionnaire, and ten students took part in semistructured interviews. the findings indicated that participants were cognitively aware of the importance of la in english vocabulary learning, but affectively and behaviorally they showed low interest in la in english vocabulary learning. such findings may shed light on how to improve the teaching and learning of the english language in general and english vocabulary in particular at the research context and other similar efl contexts. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords attitude english major english vocabulary learning higher institution learner autonomy https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2361 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:tq.thao@hutech.edu.vn http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 87 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 86-94 thao quoc tran (efl students’ attitudes towards learner autonomy in english vocabulary learning) memorizing a long list of english vocabulary provided by efl teachers (nguyen, 2013). in addition, learners are spoon-fed with vocabulary rather than learning the vocabulary independently (e.g., duong, 2015; tran & nguyen, 2017). therefore, this study endeavors to explore the students’ attitudes toward la in english vocabulary learning at the context of a ho chi minh-based higher institution, vietnam. the research question is ‘what are english majored students’ attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning at a ho chi minh-based higher institution?” the notion of la has been differently defined by scholars and researchers (e.g., holec, 1981; little, 1991; littlewood, 1996; macaro, 1997; benson, 2001; vanijdee, 2003). holec (1981) defines la as the ability of learners to take charge of one’s own learning. likewise, littlewood (1996) defines la as “learners’ ability and willingness to make choices independently” (p. 427). in addition, macaro (1997) states that la is “an ability to recognize the value of taking responsibility for […] learning” (p. 168). in the same vein, benson (2001) highlights that la is “the capacity of taking control of learning management, learning content” (p. 47), and other researchers (e.g., duong & nguyen, 2018; tran & duong, 2018; tran, 2018; tran & vo, 2019) have pinpointed that la as a complicated process in which learners must become more active and independent agents of language classrooms and even outside classrooms in different arenas such as selecting extra materials, selecting learning strategies, and self-evaluating their learning outcomes. in short, there are different ways to define learner autonomy. within the scope of this study, la is considered as learner’s willingness and ability to take responsibility for his/her own learning. vocabulary learning is one of the major challenges faced by language learners (ghazal, 2007), and it is impracticable for a learner to communicate without the necessary vocabulary items. however, a learner cannot learn all vocabulary in language classes, so he/she must seek other useful ways to help her acquire language vocabulary in the best way. la is an extreme support for learners in vocabulary learning because it provides many advantages for learners (gu & johnson, 1996) as follows. la not only enhances the learner’s motivation to help them learn vocabulary more effectively but also accommodates learners with more opportunities for language communication. in addition, it caters to the individual needs and abilities of learners as well. moreover, it heightens the learners’ readiness towards active learning and helps them become more self-confident. in another aspect, according to nada (2015), la is very valuable because of two following reasons. the first reason is that la helps students to develop their learning. the next reason is that it helps them to become interactively motivated learners. therefore, the importance of la in language learning process is undeniable. during that process, attitude is the core element that helps to build la. according to qui and li (2006), positive attitudes are considered as a crucial factor which leads to the success of the development of la. attitude is defined as “a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor and disfavor” (eagly & chaiken, 1993, p. 1), and it is composed of three components, namely cognitive, affective and behavioral components (luu, 2011). according to kara (2009), learners’ attitude has an important impact on their behaviors as well as on their performance. attitude can shape the way students think, understand, feel and behave. in other words, it is believed that attitude shapes all decisions and actions (e.g., brown, 2001; eagly & chaiken, 1993; tran, duong & huynh, 2019; tran & seepho, 2016; tran & tran, 2017). richardson (1996) asserts that “attitudes and beliefs are a subset of a group of constructs that name, define, and describe the structure and content of mental states that are thought to drive a person’s actions” (p.102). furthermore, dörnyei (2007) states that not only intellectual capacity but also attitudes do contribute to the success of language learning. more academically, ellis (1994) mentions that learners’ attitudes have been identified as an important variable on learning outcome. there are two tendencies of attitudes, i.e. positive and negative ones. a student who has a positive attitude towards a target language will attempt to do well in the classroom and study hard. in contrast, negative attitudes can impede language learning continuity. prior studies have shown that research on different areas of la in english language learning has been conducted. in respect of attitudes towards la in english language learning, many researchers (e.g., chan, 2001; joshi, 2011; mohamadpour, 2013; chen & pan, 2015; sedighi & tamjid, 2016) have conducted studies on this area. remarkably, chan (2001) investigated the degree of la from the learner perspective in hong kong. her research explored the learners’ attitudes of language learning, teacher and learner roles, their learning preferences and perception of learner autonomy. to achieve the aims of her research, 20 second-year english majored students in polytechnic 88 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 86-94 thao quoc tran (efl students’ attitudes towards learner autonomy in english vocabulary learning) university were asked to fill in four questionnaires. the findings revealed that the participants had a positive attitude towards autonomous learning. in addition, they had a clear understanding of learner autonomy and the role of the teacher. chen and pan (2015) carried out a survey with the use of questionnaire on students in a junior high school in central taiwan. findings from 130 ninth-grade students revealed that the students held positive attitude towards autonomous in language learning, however, they are medium autonomous learners. the researchers also found that there was a correlation between learners’ learning autonomy levels and the use of language learning strategies. in the context of vietnam, researchers (e.g., luu, 2011; le, 2013; duong & seepho, 2014; nguyen, 2014) have conducted studies on learners’ language learning strategies in general and vocabulary learning in specific. luu (2011) carried out his study at university of finance-marketing to investigate learners’ attitudes toward vocabulary learning autonomy and strategies they utilized in vocabulary learning. the participants belonged to two groups. the first group consisted of 140 first year students from four pre–intermediate english classes. the second group consisted of 13 teachers. the findings indicated that although the students found their vocabulary very poor, and understood the importance of vocabulary learning autonomy, they still did not have a good habit of autonomous vocabulary learning. they even had low intrinsic motivation to learn and their confidence level for vocabulary learning is also not high. they thought that vocabulary learning was hard and they self-assessed their ability for the skill as rather low. for learning strategies, the students reported high familiarity to using bilingual dictionary, asking for l2-l1 translation, spoken repetition and word list for vocabulary retention. le (2013) did a study on students’ belief about and performance of la, and designed an integration between learner training with language courses of listening and speaking 3 at a private university in ho chi minh city, vietnam. the findings indicated the major perception of la relevant to taking initiative in self-study and some hindering factors such as time constraints, a stringent syllabus, and relationship between teachers and students. it is noticed that different studies have been conducted exploring various aspects of la in english language learning; however, the research area on attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning seems not to be much focused. therefore, there is a niche for this current study which aims at exploring attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning of english majors at a higher institution in ho chi minh city, vietnam. 2. method 2.1 research location and participants this mixed methods study was conducted at a higher institution located in ho chi minh city, vietnam. the research participants were 200 first and second-year english majored students who were purposively sampled to answer the questionnaire. table 1 indicates that there were 88 male students (44%) and 122 female students (56%). in respect of the number of hours of learning english vocabulary, over a half of the students (68.5%) spent less than one-hour, while a very small number of students (2%) allocated more than two hours to learning vocabulary daily. in addition, 17% of whom spared about one hour, and 12.5% of students spent from one to two hours. of 200 participants, ten students were purposively invited for semi-structured interview. they were chosen based on their volunteering and number of daily vocabulary learning hours. table 1. research participants’ general information no. information n=200 f % 1 gender male 88 44.0 female 112 56.0 2 number of daily hours of learning english vocabulary less than 1 hour 137 68.5 about 1 hour 34 17.0 1 2 hours 25 12.5 more than 2 hours 4 2.0 note: f: frequency; %: percent issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 89 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 86-94 thao quoc tran (efl students’ attitudes towards learner autonomy in english vocabulary learning) 2.2. research instruments two research instruments, viz. closed-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interview, were employed for data collection. the questionnaire consists of two parts: part a asking the respondent’s background information; part b (main content) asking the respondent’s attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning. the main content which was adapted from luu (2011) includes 12 closed-ended items with five-point likert scale (from strongly disagree to strongly agree). items 1 to 8 are for the significance of autonomous english vocabulary learning (cognitive component), while items 9 12 are for interest in autonomous english vocabulary learning (affective & behavioral components). the questionnaire was translated into vietnamese so that respondents did not encounter any language difficulty in answering the questionnaire. the cronbach’s alpha value of the whole questionnaire was .79, which means that the reliability of the questionnaire was high. the semi-structured interview includes three main questions for in-depth information on participants’ attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning. the interviews were conducted in vietnamese so that learners could express their ideas and thinking fully. 2.3. procedures for data collection and analysis with respect to data collection, the official questionnaire and interview protocol were conducted after they had been piloted. the questionnaires were administered to respondents in person, and instruction was conducted. it took the respondents approximately 15 minutes to finish the questionnaire. the questionnaires were returned after that. then, ten students were invited for faceto-face semi-structured interview. the interviews were conducted at break time and after class. the interview protocol was explained to interviewees. each interview lasted from 20 to 25 minutes. all the interviews were recorded for later analysis. regarding data analysis, the quantitative data from questionnaires were analyzed by spss in terms of descriptive statistics, while the qualitative data from interviews were analyzed by the content analysis approach. the interval scores of the five-point likert scale were interpreted as 1.00 – 1.80: strongly disagree; 1.81 – 2.60: disagree; 2.61 – 3.40: neutral; 3.41 – 4.20: agree; 4.21 – 5.00: strongly agree. the interviewees were coded as s1, s2 to s10. in order to make sure that qualitative data analysis was valid and reliable, two researchers in the field of english language studies were invited to re-analyze the three randomly chosen pieces of data. the percentage of convergent results among researchers should be at least 95%. 3. finding and discussion 3.1 finding 1) english majored students’ attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning as can be seen from table 2, the overall mean score of english majored students’ attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning is 3.42 (out of 5). particularly, the mean score of the significance of autonomous english vocabulary learning was very high (group 1: m = 4.32, sd = .44); however, the mean score of the interest in autonomous english vocabulary learning was relatively low (group 2: m = 2.51, sd =. 92). it can be indicated that cognitively, the participants were well aware of the importance of autonomous english vocabulary learning, but affectively and behaviorally they were not much interested and engaged in learning english vocabulary autonomously. table 2. english majored students’ attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning no. n=200 m sd 1 cognitive component 4.32 .44 2 affective and behavioral components 2.51 .92 total 3.42 .51 note: m: mean; sd: standard deviation 90 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 86-94 thao quoc tran (efl students’ attitudes towards learner autonomy in english vocabulary learning) 2) english majored students’ attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning in terms of cognitive component the results in table 3 illustrate the significance of autonomous english vocabulary learning. cognitively, the participants strongly agreed that autonomous english vocabulary learning “is necessary” (item 2: m = 4.60, sd= .62) and “plays an important role in english language learning” (item 1: m = 4.32, sd = .74). in addition, they strongly believed that autonomous english vocabulary learning could help them to improve their language skills, i.e., speaking skill (item 4: m = 4.21, sd = .69), listening skill (item 5: m = 4.35, sd = .88), reading skill (item 6: m = 4.52, sd = .69), writing skill (item 7: m = 4.37, sd = .78) and to understand english grammar (item 8: m = 4.36, sd = .79). however, the participants were in agreement that autonomous english vocabulary learning “helps [them] to develop my english language proficiency” (item 3: m = 4.07, sd = .89). table 3. english majored students’ attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning in terms of cognitive component no. autonomous english vocabulary learning… n=200 m sd 1 plays an important role in english language learning. 4.32 .74 2 is necessary in english language learning. 4.60 .62 3 helps me to develop my english language proficiency. 4.07 .89 4 helps me to improve my speaking skill. 4.21 .89 5 helps me to improve my listening skill. 4.35 .88 6 helps me to improve my reading skill. 4.52 .69 7 helps me to improve my writing skill. 4.37 .78 8 helps me to understand english grammar. 4.36 .79 note: m: mean; sd: standard deviation qualitatively, the findings from the semi-structured interviews showed a consistent tendency with those of questionnaires that interviewees highlighted the importance and necessity of autonomy in english vocabulary learning. they shared as follows: i think that autonomous english vocabulary learning is very important because it helps me understand new words which i learned in class more carefully and from that it also helps me comprehend and remember the previous lessons in general and vocabulary in particular better. (s2) i think learner autonomy is extremely vital and necessary in not only learning vocabulary but also in learning other english skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. i recognize that the help from friends and english teachers is very helpful, but they are not always available to help me at any time. (s1) to me, autonomous english vocabulary learning is very significant because i think the more i self-learn vocabulary, the better english i will have. (s4) 3) english majored students’ attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning in terms of affective and behavioral components as shown in table 4, it is noticed that the participants did not have clear affective attitudes towards whether they found it “interesting to learn english vocabulary autonomously” (item 9: m = 2.64, sd = 1.17) and “enjoyable to learn english vocabulary autonomously” (item 10: m = 2.73, sd = 1.04). regarding behavioral component, they did not “set the goals for autonomous english vocabulary learning” (item 11: m = 2.39, sd = 1.03), and they did not “often prepare vocabulary before class” (item 12: m = 2.28, sd = 1.06). regarding the standard deviation scores of items 9, 10, 11 and 12, they are relatively large, which means participants’ answers to the mentioned items were scattered. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 91 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 86-94 thao quoc tran (efl students’ attitudes towards learner autonomy in english vocabulary learning) table 4. english majored students’ attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning in terms of affective and behavioral components no. n=200 m sd 9 i find it interesting to learn english vocabulary autonomously. 2.64 1.17 10 i find it enjoyable to learn english vocabulary autonomously. 2.73 1.04 11 i set the goals for autonomous english vocabulary learning. 2.39 1.03 12 i often prepare vocabulary before class. 2.28 1.06 note: m: mean; sd: standard deviation the findings from the semi-structured interview exhibited some similar trends as those of the questionnaire. for example, some students said that: it is very difficult for me to learn vocabulary autonomously after class. although most of the students are advised to learn vocabulary autonomously by our teacher, we do not know how to do it. therefore, i usually only set the time to learn vocabulary only before tests or exams. (s3) i admit that i am not interested in learning vocabulary. i know that it is very important, but to me, but learning vocabulary is very boring. (s2) i hate learning vocabulary because i do not know how to learn it effectively and fast. i found it difficult to learn vocabulary autonomously after class without the help and instruction of my english teachers. (s5) in addition, infrequent planning of any specific goals for vocabulary learning was also found in the interview results. for instance, i don’t set any goals for my learning vocabulary. i am not good at english. i just wish to pass the exams. (s7) to tell you the truth, i seldom plan any specific goals for my vocabulary learning. after class, i have to study other classes and do a lot of homework. thus, i often concentrate on learning it in my free time when my english teacher asks me or before important english exams or tests. (s10) 3.2. discussion this study revealed some significant points. participants, in general, had positive attitudes towards la in english language learning. this finding is in alignment with that in previous studies (e.g., chan, 2001; chen & pan, 2015) which have significantly asserted that the students held positive attitudes towards la in learning english in general and english vocabulary learning in particular. this is viewed as a favorable condition which can strengthen the teachers’ efforts and beliefs in teaching vocabulary to their students. in other words, english majored students’ positive attitudes towards learning english vocabulary autonomously can be considered as a powerful motivating source for students to pay serious attention to vocabulary learning. cognitively, participants perceived that la played important roles in english vocabulary learning. this piece of evidence may show that the efl high school students were ready to take responsibility for their own english vocabulary learning. this finding was confirmed by the results from sedighi and tamjid (2016) who found out that the respondents were willing and capable of taking responsibility for their own learning. conversely, the findings from mohamadpour (2013) found out that the awareness of efl students of learner autonomy and their readiness to become autonomous learner were relatively low. one of the possible explanations may be that the participants were english majored students who had learned english for many years. that is why they were well aware of the importance of english vocabulary learning, and perceived the importance of la in english vocabulary learning in order to improve their english language skills. notwithstanding, the participants had neutral affective attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning, and they had negative behavioral attitudes towards la in english vocabulary 92 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 86-94 thao quoc tran (efl students’ attitudes towards learner autonomy in english vocabulary learning) learning. in another aspect, many of the participants may have had positive affective attitudes as the standard deviation scores were not convergent. such findings contradict their cognitive attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning. it can be understood that although the participants believed that la in english vocabulary learning was very important and useful to improve their english, they seemed to be quite reluctant to perform it. there are some possible explanations for such findings. the first reason may be that many participants may find learning english vocabulary independently boring, and they may have a tendency of dependence on their teacher who can supply them with new words in each lesson. the second reason may be due to the fact that participants were firstand second-year students, so they did not know how to use vocabulary learning strategies appropriately. the next reason may be that participants were not autonomous in learning as the fact shows that nearly 70% of the participants reported that they allocated less than one hour to learning english vocabulary daily. these findings are consistent with joshi’s (2011) finding which found that although the learners were ready to take responsibility for their own language learning, they had tendency to accept the teachers’ power and authority in the learning process, and they are supported by the finding of sedighi and tamjid (2016) who have found that when students explored appropriate language learning strategies, they could develop their autonomy gradually through individual selection and application of different words in various circumstances. this may imply that there seems to exist a gap between participants’ awareness of la english vocabulary learning and their emotion and action of autonomous english vocabulary learning. the implication seems to be consistent with the result from luu (2011) which has shown that students were clearly aware of the role of autonomy in learning vocabulary; however, their level of interest in broadening their english vocabulary knowledge was only neutral. 4. conclusion some conclusions can be drawn up in this study. participants perceived that la played important roles in learning english and improving their english proficiency, but some participants were in favor of la in english vocabulary learning affectively and behaviorally. a gap exists between participants’ cognitive attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning and their affective and behavioral attitudes towards la in english vocabulary learning. such conclusions can suggest some implications. the findings showed that although students were well aware of the importance of la in english vocabulary learning, their interest (affective and behavioral attitudes) in english vocabulary learning was low. hence, it is imperative that teachers should motivate students and show them how to learn vocabulary independently by learning vocabulary by listening to english songs and watching english captioned movies. additionally, students should be encouraged to make plans, set goals and manage their learning as well as selfevaluate their english vocabulary learning. along with that, teachers should get involved in monitoring and checking their students’ english learning process in general and english vocabulary learning in specific. this small-scale study is subject to some limitations. first, this study focuses on only one aspect of la in english language learning. secondly, this study involved only first and second year students. hence, it is recommended that further research should include a wide range of students so that the results can be generalized to larger populations. references balci, ö., & çakir, a. 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(1990). the lexical syllabus: a new approach to language teaching. london: collins elt. english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 263-271 263 10.12928/eltej.v3i3.2463 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id varying strategies to maximize the effectiveness of elt: lessons from training sessions a. dzo’ul milal a,1,*, zuliati rohmah b,2, wahju kusumajantib,3 a, b, c uin sunan ampel surabaya, jl. ahmad yani no.117, jemur wonosari, kec. wonocolo, kota sby, jawa timur 60237, indonesia 1 dzoulmilal@uinsby.ac.id *; 2 zettira@gmail.com ; 3 wahjukusumajanti@uinsby.ac.id * corresponding author 1. introduction despite the advancement of technology and the popularity of distant teaching and learning, teachers still play an essential and strategic role in determining the success of instructional programs including language learning. weaknesses in the curriculum, meager materials, incomplete facilities can be compensated with the presence of resourceful and skillful teachers. therefore, their knowledge needs to be always updated and their skills developed. this implies the importance of teacher professional development. what knowledge and which skills are to be trained on the teachers, and how the training makes any difference in the teachers are addressed in this study. several studies on teacher professional development (tpd) have taken some focuses, neghavati (2016) on the importance of online literacy to be given in teacher training program, van driel & berry (2012) on the significance of teachers’ understanding of how learners learn (pedagogical content knowledge) to be included in tpd programs, and girvan et al. (2016) on the need of teacher’s understanding of experiential learning. farrell (2012) said the time gap between graduation and starting to work causes some challenges on teachers either in planning, delivering, or managing the lesson. hence, they need some transitional training to cope with those problems. dixon et al. (2014) found that differentiating instruction is positively related to a teacher’s efficacy and their belief about efficacy. they recommend that differentiating instruction be one of the subjects of a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 05 july 2020 revised 10 august 2020 accepted 21 december 2020 several factors determine the effectiveness of language learning, one of which is the variety of strategies carried out by the teacher in the teaching and learning process. defined as any efforts made to maximize the learning achievements, strategy encompasses material development, classroom management, and teaching techniques. the question is in what ways the teacher implements such a variety, and what the effect is. this study used a descriptive technique in the sense that it described the existing phenomenon as it was without giving any treatment to bring about the data. it was conducted in an in-service teacher training which aimed to improve the trainees’ mastery of elt strategies and the teaching language. the data were collected using questionnaires, observation, documentation, interviews, and reflection. the subjects were the trainers and the teacher trainees who have mixed language abilities and teaching experiences. having been collected, the data were analyzed by classifying the topically relevant facts, displaying them, scrutinizing their interconnections, and drawing some conclusive points. the findings show a range of varieties was employed during the training process, covering the use of diverse materials, fun classroom activities, learner-centered approach, affect-lowering classroom management, and varied interaction patterns. as effective learning is dependent on the fresh minds, teachers should always strive to prevent their students from exhausting monotony. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords classroom management fun activities interaction patterns learner-centered approach teaching materials http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:dzoulmilal@uinsby.ac.id mailto:zettira@gmail.com mailto:wahjukusumajanti@uinsby.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 264 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 263-271 a. dzo’ul milal et.al (varying strategies to maximize the effectiveness of elt) teacher training. however, they did not explain what aspects of teaching should be differentiated and how to implement it in classroom practice. due to its significance, they suggested that differentiating the instruction be taken as the focus of future studies. this present study is, on the one hand, in line with such a recommendation, on the other hand, it filled the niche left out by other researchers. it focused on the various types of materials, differing techniques of presentations, varieties of interaction patterns, and divergent ways of classroom management. those points have not been dealt with by the aforementioned studies. this study was conducted by exploring the in-service teacher professional development program of which aim was to expand english teachers’ knowledge about the variety of teaching strategies and simultaneously improving their ability in using teacher language. strategy defined as any efforts made by the teacher to maximize the learning achievement encompasses preparing relevant teaching materials, managing a conducive classroom, and conducting effective teaching techniques. varying the strategies is a logical consequence because in a big class consisting of various learners’ characteristics, mixed abilities, and different preferences (dörnyei, 2014; skehan, 2014), following a learner-centered approach (schreurs & dumbraveanu, 2014), the teacher should vary her/his strategies so that each student feels not only catered individually; thus, increasing their motivation and engagement in learning, but also satisfied and could learn best because the materials and activities are made appropriate with the learners’ differences. according to merrill (2001), a classroom teaching and learning process is an interaction among interrelated components: knowledge component, strategy component, and instructional transaction component. knowledge is conveyed by the materials, strategy includes methods and techniques, and instructional transaction refers to interactions among instructional participants, such as teacher and students. a teacher uses techniques to present the materials to be learned by students in a certain learning condition. it is the teacher who decides what kinds of materials, techniques, and learning conditions are most effective for the students to learn. therefore, the teacher needs to be well-trained to be able to make such a decision. here lies the importance of teacher professional development (hughes et al., 2018). managing the classrooms is the teacher’s effort to prepare a conducive learning condition so that the learning process can take place efficiently and effectively. this should also be done in various ways following the learners’ variabilities. they will learn best when the instruction is suitable for their differences. learning will likely happen when the learners have the feelings of autonomy and responsibility (najeeb, 2013), no anxiety (horwitz, 2010), secure, not threatened, low-affective filter (krashen, 1985). the classroom, therefore, should be managed in such a way to create such a learning condition. among the differences of the learners are their personality traits (dörnyei, 2014; petric, 2019), multiple intelligences (gardner, 2015), and learning styles. to cope with such divergent learners’ variables, numerous types of materials also need to be prepared, either pedagogical or authentic materials (tomlinson, 2012), in terms of multimodal materials (kress, 2010), either verbal (spoken or written), image (still or moving), or music. with these various materials, as many students as possible may get an advantage. due to learners’ differences, the teacher can also conduct different activities to accommodate those learners’ variabilities, such as classical, group, pair, or individual works (spratt et al., 2005). the main consideration is how to make the students actively involved in the activities. active engagement in the learning process is effective for learning to happen. 2. research method this study used a qualitative approach because it was based on verbal data. it applied a descriptive technique in the sense that it merely described the existing phenomenon as it was without giving any treatment to produce the required data. the site was the teaching and learning process in the teacher training sessions in sidoarjo, gresik, and malang regencies. the training in each site lasted in three successive days, done consecutively with two-week intervals. the subjects were three trainers who have been trained as master trainers for the training of junior secondary school english teachers, who have obtained an in-service certificate in english language teaching (icelt) certificate from cambridge university, and a total of 60 trainees (20 teacher trainees in each place). they were teachers of english at islamic junior secondary schools (mts) and have mixed language abilities and heterogeneous ages and teaching experiences. the training was designed as a teacher professional development that aimed to improve english teachers’ knowledge about the variety of teaching strategies and simultaneously improving their ability in using teacher issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 265 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 263-271 a. dzo’ul milal et.al (varying strategies to maximize the effectiveness of elt) language. as the data were obtained from a teacher training program, it was expected that the experiences that the trainees got during the training would be implemented when they return to their schools. hence, the trainers were always aware of the contents, the activities, and the procedures. the trainers were supposed to become models that were imitated by the trainees. the data were collected through questionnaires, observations, documentation, interviews, and reflections. the first questionnaire used to get information about the teachers’ needs was responded to before the training. its results were taken as a basis to design the training contents. observations were done by the researchers while training (participant observation) and sitting in the training room writing field notes when one of the trainers was teaching (non-participant observation). it was done to record the teaching procedures, interaction, activities, and classroom management. the documentation study was to see the materials and media used by the trainers during the sessions. interviews were done to the trainers to gain information about the reasons and purposes regarding their teaching performance and to the trainees about their attitude towards and perception of the sessions. the second questionnaire to get input about the trainees’ evaluation of the training was filled up by the end of the training. reflections were made by the researchers based on the feeling and experience as supplementary to the existing data. the data were analyzed following miles, huberman and saldana’s (2020) qualitative analysis techniques consisting of data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. data reduction means that there were processes of selecting, organizing, and simplifying. the observations notes describing the detailed teaching steps and activities, for example, were selected and organized to gain relevant and orderly points. the results of documentation and interviews were simplified to get clear ideas. the data were displayed to facilitate concluding, by explaining the relationship, such as that between the activities and their purposes, and tendencies of the trainers’ being always friendly and warm with the trainees. in that way, it is easier to make inferences and interpretation. finally, some conclusive points were made, discussed, and interpreted within the framework of teacher professional development purposes. 3. findings and discussion the findings are related to pre-training input about teachers’ needs, whilst-training process covering contents and procedures, and post-training evaluation including the impact on the trainees. the training contents were focused on elt strategies included how to develop materials, how to manage the classroom to establish a conducive learning condition, and how to vary the activities to prevent students from boredom. it was based on the humanistic teaching principle, i.e. the teaching and learning process was underlain by a learner-centered approach of which consequence is that the teacher accommodates the learners’ differences. 3.1. trainees’ profile and needs the trainees were teachers of english at islamic junior secondary schools (mts) in the districts of sidoarjo, gresik, and malang. the total number of participants was 60 teachers. the recruitment was done by the local teacher’s associations, so it was considered representative of all islamic school english teachers in the districts. the results of needs analysis questionnaire showed that the genders were proportionally distributed with varying ages between 44 – 31 years old with the average age of about 40 years. most of them were teaching at public schools, only a few were at private ones. their educational backgrounds were relatively varied. ninety percent were graduates of english education departments, the rest from the non-english departments. their teaching experience also varied, ranging from 20 to 6 years. they are all working as full teachers and have no extra job. viewing their teaching load, 60% teaching for more than 30 hours per week, the rest is around 20 hours per week. what they liked in being teachers is that they love meeting and interacting with students. what they did not like was related to administrative tasks, such as correcting test results, making academic reports, and writing lesson plans. the data showed that the difficulties they faced in the teaching and learning process was how to manage the class, conduct communicative activities, face the students who have low learning motivation, use varied strategies, and how to motivate students to learn english. some of them faced the difficulty of implementing the curriculum contents, developing fun and varied teaching techniques and media, and evaluating learning achievements. considering those divergent backgrounds of the trainees, the training that aimed to cope with some of those problems was 266 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 263-271 a. dzo’ul milal et.al (varying strategies to maximize the effectiveness of elt) designed and conducted to satisfy those empirically existing needs on the one hand, and to comply with some theoretical language teaching requirements on the other, such as teacher language (walsh, 2002). 3.2. varying teaching materials regarding the teaching materials, trainees were introduced to and trained on how to select, adapt, and develop a range of materials. the findings showed that one of the training materials was about the kinds of language teaching materials, how to select and how to adapt them. the teacher trainees were taught, first, how to select the authentic materials which is dictated by their suitability for the teaching and learning objectives. second, they were also trained on how to adapt the authentic materials to make them relevant to the learners’ life. in using the train schedule, for example, the teacher may modify the names of the cities of departure and destination so that they are familiar to the learners, thus, becoming more meaningful. in using e-mails as the teaching materials, the teacher can modify the names that exist in the mails, for instance, by using the names of the students in the class. in that way, the e-mail becomes more contextual. in short, adaptation needs to be done to make the authentic materials more relevant to the learners. first, using the materials needs to consider variety and relevance. to cope with learners’ divergent characteristics, materials should be developed in such a way that they become effective for each learner’s learning. to accommodate students with visual learning style, for example, the materials were in forms of written texts, graphics, pictures, figures, tables, maps, or any other materials which can be perceived by the learners using their visual senses. for auditory learners, the materials are spoken texts either in the forms of oral announcements, speeches, stories delivered orally, tv news, conversations, lectures, airplane pre-flight instructions, classroom presentations, videos, audio-recordings, talk shows, or any others. in sum, materials should be so varied to accommodate learners’ differences. there are two kinds of language teaching materials: pedagogical and authentic (tomlinson, 2012). pedagogical materials are the materials which are developed intended to be used for teaching and learning purposes, such as students’ handbooks, students’ working booklets, school textbooks, etc. these materials are rigorously developed and strictly graded in their level of difficulty according to the grades of the learners. the topics are carefully selected and the educational values are integrated to make them appropriate to achieve certain target competences. the basic consideration is how to develop the materials relevant to the predetermined learning objectives. authentic materials are those taken from the real-life communication which is not intended for teaching and learning purposes, such as taken from newspapers, magazines, television broadcasts, in the forms of advertisements, news, editorials, pictures, etc. there are things to consider in using authentic materials, such as whether they are suitable with the teaching objectives, and whether they are relevant with the learners’ characteristics, level of their language competence, their cognitive capacity, and their age and experiences. since the materials are not intended for teaching and learning purposes, to use them in the classroom, teachers need to select them and adapt them to make them appropriate for the learning goals and relevant for the students. some examples of authentic materials that can be used in elt classrooms are newspapers, advertisements, wrappings, train schedules, song lyrics, announcements, diaries, restaurant menus, e-mails, manuals, job contracts, maps, identity cards, driving license, etc. any of those texts are adaptable and usable as the teaching materials depending on the topic of the lesson. therefore, to use any of them in the language lessons, the teacher should think of adapting the materials or selecting the tasks which are appropriate for the students. 3.3. varying ways of managing classroom the findings show that the teacher trainers implemented some strategies to make the learning condition conducive for learning. they tried to create a good rapport with the trainees by showing solidarity and a close or intimate relationship with the trainees. the trainers smiled a lot, called the trainees by names, asked some personal questions to some trainees. one of the trainers did not seem to be pushy, authoritarian. in instructing to do an activity, she used a more inclusive invitation than an exclusive order. for example, the trainer said, “ok. now let’s look at number 9” (pointing to question number 9 on the worksheet) rather than saying, “ok. look at number 9.” the former issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 267 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 263-271 a. dzo’ul milal et.al (varying strategies to maximize the effectiveness of elt) indicated involvement of the speaker implying a closer relationship between trainer and trainees and not superior-subordinate commands. the findings also demonstrated that the trainers gave greater autonomy and responsibility to the trainees and suggested that they also do the same to their students. the teachers should trust their students by giving them freedom in the learning process. for illustration, in conducting a group discussion activity, students are let to choose their members to create a group. in giving a reading task, students are instructed to go to the library and given the freedom to choose what to read. then, they are assigned to write a report of what they have read. to maintain a good relationship between the teacher and students, trainees are also advised not to be angry with the students when they cannot or do not make their homework. what the teacher needs to do is not to be angry but to ask them personal reasons, why they do not do the assignments, and ask if they can comply with the tasks. when the students seem to get difficulty complying with the work, they can be given the freedom to choose to compensate for it. in that way, students feel secure, not threatened, and not intimidated; hence, preserving a good feeling with the teacher. the harmonious social relationship between teachers and students will prevent students from feeling of anxiety when they meet and interact in the classroom. that was exemplified by the trainers’ smiley behavior, who always tried to retain unintimidating, and did not keep distant from the trainees. the trainers always interacted closely and intensively with the trainees although they were relatively having a distant relationship. that was evidenced by the fact that they had not known each other before the training. the trainers were senior lecturers at a state university and the trainees were junior secondary school teachers, the trainers and trainees had never met before and had never communicated either. still, they interacted as if they had known each other before, even since the first meeting. that was because the trainees put their name tags on the table in front of them, and the trainer stuck it on her dress. also, the first meeting was commenced with a personal introduction. therefore, the trainer and trainees knew and called each other by name. managing a classroom is an effort made by the teacher to create a learning condition that is conducive for learning. there were ways conducted by the teachers to establish a good learning condition, related to physical and psychological conditions. the classroom is physically conducive for learning, for example, when it is clean, tidy, not noisy, and cool. in such a condition, students will feel convenient to stay and to learn because they are not bothered by any external disturbances, hence, they can concentrate on learning. what is more important is the psychological condition that exists in the classroom. the condition is favorable for learning when there is a good social relationship among the people in the classroom, for instance, between teacher and students, and among students. the condition is also effective when students feel to have autonomy and responsibility. the learning condition is also supportive when students feel secure and safe, and do not feel anxious, or threatened. this goes in line with the principles of suggestopedia (larsenfreeman, 2000; richards and rodgers, 1986) which claims that there was a positive connection between learners’ knowledge change and their non-anxious condition (warr & downing, 2000). 3.4. varying activities the training was held in three successive days, lasting for six hours each day, starting from 08.00 a.m. and ended at 03.00 p.m. the break time was one hour, 12.00-13,00. this background is important to imagine the density of the program and the workload. if only had the activities not been varied and fun, the trainees who were adult learners might have been bored and dropped out. the trainees’ comments in the final training evaluation showed that they enjoyed the sessions and felt satisfied with the program. the findings show that the trainers carried out an array of activities not only to prevent the trainees from boredom but also to give a model of how to conduct it in their teaching. a range of activities were done, such as working in groups matching words, board race, guessing the words, mingling interviews, role plays, jigsaw reading, etc. when the topic was about discussing the variety of teacher and student roles, for instance, trainees were asked to match which activities match one another. for example, when the teacher has the role of informer, the students are listeners and notetakers, when the teacher is monitoring, the students are doing tasks, when the teacher acts as a consultant, the students as clients. a range of interaction patterns were also practiced, such as classical work, group work, pair work, individual work, and mingling activities (harmer, 2007). an example of mingling activity 268 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 263-271 a. dzo’ul milal et.al (varying strategies to maximize the effectiveness of elt) was that the trainees were divided into two groups, each of one group had words, the other had the corresponding definitions. they mingled to find out their partners of words and their definitions. after that, each of the pairs told the class about their findings and got feedback from the other trainees as well as the trainer. the benefits of such an activity were that besides collaborating to understand the concepts, the trainees were actively engaged in an inquiry learning, and practiced using the target language. also, all trainees with visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and social learning styles would get advantages because such an activity stimulates all senses. more importantly, the trainer did not need to give a too lengthy and boring explanation. the findings also showed that the trainers most of the time used english as a medium of instruction. that was beneficial for the trainees in some ways. first, the trainees became accustomed to listening to the target language speech, thus improving their listening ability. second, since the interaction, questions, and answers, were done in english, the trainees also got a lot of chances to communicate using english, hence increasing their communicative skills. third, as the trainees were of mixed language abilities, the trainers needed to accommodate their talks so that everyone can understand. while doing it, the trainers also tried to raise the trainees’ awareness of the type of language they were using, i.e. modified and simplified exerting all possible strategies to make the talk comprehensible, such as using gestures, realia, mimics, and other instructional media. besides, the trainers also encouraged and reminded them of the importance of maximum use of the target language when teaching the students, even from the initial stage of their learning. in that way, the trainees found a model to imitate and were enthused to practice it in their schools. fourth, because english was always used throughout the sessions during the training, the trainees got an abundant amount of understandable linguistic input to promote their language acquisition (krashen, 1985). thus, the trainees could also improve their language skills. in sum, the training impacts expected on the trainees were not only the improvement of cognitive knowledge and understanding, but also the development of awareness, as well as the enhancement of their language competence. by the end of the training, trainees were asked to fill up a questionnaire about their perception of the training focusing on the training management, content relevance, training strategy, the trainers’ competence, and the training impacts on the trainees. most responses implied that the training had a good quality. only a few gave medium scores, and nobody viewed negatively. when asked about what needs to be maintained if conducting the same training again, the participants' responses indicated the existence of varied games, relevance to the needs of teachers and students, various ways of delivering materials, and suitable methods used by the trainers although the participants are mostly senior. regarding what still needs to be improved among others are teaching practice using electronic media, making online tests, and making scientific writing. the general comment from the trainees showed that the training was useful, interesting, and fun. the findings showed the variability of the trainees’ profiles, experiences, and needs. that the trainees have different ages, abilities, lengths of teaching experiences, and teaching loads entailing their divergent needs necessitate the diversification in their instruction. that was aimed not only to respond to their various needs effectively but also to cope with the problem of boredom that the trainees might have suffered due to the long and exhausting proceeding of the training sessions. since the learners (trainee teachers) have different concentration-span capacities, various motivations and needs, instruction will be effective when it is done diversely in accordance with those differences. this goes in line with dornyei (2014) and skehan (2014) who assert that varying the strategies is a logical consequence in a class which consists of various learners’ characteristics, mixed abilities, and different preferences. besides those objective realities, another determinant factor confirming the importance of varying the instruction is the currently developing trend towards the implementation of humanistic instruction, viz. the realization of a learner-centered approach. the learner-centered teaching requires that each of the individual participants in the classroom be addressed and catered so that they feel satisfied; hence, increasingly motivated to learn. this high motivation, in a later stage, will promote success in the learning efforts. this is consistent with masgoret & gardner (2003) who claim that there is a correlation between motivation and achievement. while the importance of variety is confirmed in the instructional purposes, the findings also demonstrated the teaching aspects which are to be varied, namely the materials, the ways of classroom management, and the activities. these facets as the research results seem to fill the gap left away by the previous studies conducted by neghavati (2016), van driel & berry (2012), girvan et al. (2016), and farrell (2012). this study also successfully responded to dixon et al. (2014) who issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 269 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 263-271 a. dzo’ul milal et.al (varying strategies to maximize the effectiveness of elt) recommended that diversifying the instruction be focused in the future studies. therefore, in designing teacher professional development, the ways of differentiating those components for instructional purposes need to be taken into consideration as the contents not only of the teacher training, lesson planning, mentoring, and school supervising, but also of the curriculum of teacher education. the findings presented above have several implications on elt. the humanistic teaching and learning requires the implementation of learner-centered approach (jingna, 2012). learners have differences and each of the learners needs to be paid attention and satisfied. teaching cannot ignore individual student’s strengths and weaknesses, motivation and preferences, talents, and potentials. each of the students’ needs to feel satisfied, and their needs catered. the implication is that teachers are demanded to pay greater attention to the learners’ variabilities. the corollary is that the teaching should be differentiated to accommodate such a variability (dixon et al., 2014) and the teacher’s competence ought to be up-dated and up-graded in line with the advancement of the required skills. consistent with the above findings, the teaching aspects that must be differentiated encompass all classroom components, such as contents, strategies, and instructional transaction (merrill, 2001). the demands of the teachers are not only coming from student personality factors but also from the advancement of external factors, like the current development of information technology. to be successful in the future, students need to acquire four competencies, called 4cs of the 21st century skills, namely creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication (d’addario, 2020). creativity is described as the capacity to have a solution over the problems. critical thinking is indicated by the ability to think critically, by identifying and describing the problem, analyzing the information, formulating solutions, and taking action. collaboration is the ability to work in teams, learn from, and contribute to the learning of others, use social networking skills, and work empathically with others. communication refers to the ability to communicate effectively, spoken and written, receptively and productively (d’addario, 2020). furthermore, the revitalization of character education permeating all national education programs, such as the case in indonesia, has given greater responsibility on the shoulders of the teachers. it is intended to emphasize the inculcation of moral values on the students, in line with the development of their cognitive intelligence (silvia, 2015). the character education, according to lickona (1997), is making students accustomed to being virtuous. its realization in everyday life is manifested in terms of honesty, responsibility, kindness, and courtesy. these might bring about effects on the teacher development programs, especially in connection with the training contents and techniques. the significance of this study with those teachers’ tasks lies in the ability to use diverse strategies. when the teacher is aware of and able to implement this principle of varying the strategies, any contents can be delivered using such tactics. a teacher training program is a way to improve such a capability. 4. conclusion consistent with the aims of this study, describing the ways the trainers implemented a variety in the teaching process, this study revealed the trainers’ use of diverse materials, fun classroom activities, learner-centered approach, affect-lowering classroom management, and varied interaction patterns. in relevance to the second aim of whether such a variety was effective, it found out the positive effects on the trainees as evidenced by their positive comments and most of their responses which implied that the training had a good quality and impacts on the improvement of their knowledge and experiences. despite the fact, this study is acknowledged to have limitations. the training effects were viewed based on the questionnaires of which the truth of the responses was based on assumptions. it was also gained through subjective reflections of the trainees and limited only to the time when they had just finished having the training. it is suggested that further research be conducted to reveal the longer-term impacts to see whether the trainees implement the knowledge and experiences as the training results in their actual teaching at schools. so, teacher training for professional development is seen as a trigger to improve the teacher’s quality which in a later step affects the improvement of the quality of the learners. 270 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 263-271 a. 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(2000). learning strategies, learning anxiety and knowledge acquisition. british journal of psychology. https://doi.org/10.1348/000712600161853 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315831664 https://www.cambridge.org/core/search?filters%5bauthorterms%5d=brian%20tomlinson&eventcode=se-au https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/language-teaching/volume/4b6ede9ee0b479812e9e7e05f9ada1b4 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/language-teaching/issue/75b5c620750ca3874066ea050b9c2276 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x11431010 https://doi.org/10.1191/1362168802lr095oa https://doi.org/10.1348/000712600161853 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 163-173 163 10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2349 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id exploring efl students’ perception of online learning via microsoft teams: university level in indonesia ahmad ridho rojabia,1,* a iain jember, indonesia 1 ahmadridhorojabi@gmail.com * * corresponding author 1. introduction an internet connection has been crucial in the era of globalization to enhance human activities in various activities of economic, culture, defense, and many others (fallows, 2004). furthermore, allen & seaman (2017) found that there were approximately six-million students who took part in at least one higher education online course in 2015, compared to 1.6 million in 2002. it means that in the era of globalization, technology is capable of promoting human life, one of which is in the education field. by exploiting technology, teaching and learning activities are now not only carried out in schools, but it can also be carried out in long distances. as reported by dorf (2019), educational technologies are classified into learning tools, educational resources, learning environments, as well as learning methods. firstly, both digital and non-digital technologies used to promote learning through internet connection is defined as learning tools secondly, educational resources provide textbooks, tutorials, and other learning materials. thirdly, providing the learners to learn both in conventional as well as in online learning management systems in various locations, contexts, and cultures is defined as a learning environment. fourthly, exemplifying an action of the specific contents of a subject that may be a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 19 june, 2020 revised 10 august, 2020 accepted 8 september, 2020 an internet connection has been crucial in the era of globalization to enhance human activities in various activities of economic, culture, defense, and many others, especially in the efl classroom setting. microsoft teams as an innovative online learning platform provides unique features to enhance its potential to help efl teachers to conduct better interaction as well learning environment in online learning. this research aimed at exploring students’ perceptions of online learning via microsoft teams. the study was conducted with twenty-eight sixthsemester students at open university (universitas terbuka-upbjj jember). data were collected by using questionnaires to gain information about the efl students’ perception of online learning via microsoft teams. the questionnaire was distributed to the students through google forms after all materials in online learning had been conducted. the questionnaires data obtained were analyzed descriptively. the finding of the research revealed that online learning via microsoft teams is categorized as something new for the students but this interaction and learning environment motivated students in participating online learning, as a result, they can easier to comprehend the learning materials. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license keywords students’ perception online learning english language teaching 10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2349 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:ahmadridhorojabi@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 164 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 163-173 ahmad ridho rojabi (exploring efl students’ perception of online learning via microsoft teams:…) properly understood by learners is defined as a learning method. for instance; drill and practice, memorization, collaborative learning, and competency-based learning. it can be concluded that the learners’ experiences covering learner’s perceptions, as well as learners’ performances of the learning tools, educational resources, learning environment, and methods can be gained through educational technology. learning systems by integrating internet connections with teaching and learning processes are identified as online learning systems or virtual learning systems (bentley et al., 2012). providing all courses of distance learning exclusively over the internet is called online learning (nguyen, 2015). in brief, this kind of teaching differs from conventional or face-to-face learning where students are expected to enter a classroom physically. in a face-to-face classroom, some students lose opportunities to communicate, unless they are self-confident, and can respond quickly, whereas online learning provides the learner with the flexibility and offers them with an engaged learning environment. bakerson et al. (2015) states that in online learning, the learners are offered unique opportunities for an engaging learning environment. in an online learning environment, face to face interaction is replaced by virtual interaction which provides convenience and flexibility (bower et al., 2015; hoi et al., 2018; landrum et al., 2020; smith et al., 2019). virtual learning provides unique features of a learning management system, for instance, authoring tools, rubrics, feedback tools, chat discussion, comment field, assignment submission, and files or document sharing. an online instructor can assess the sense of community by observing who is taking part and who is performing in the group (tinto, 2009). in line with this statement, martin et al. (2019) argues that it is important for an online teacher to be enthusiastic and extract resources at their institution by implementing both asynchronous and synchronous learning of a variety of platforms. moreover, hamilton (2015) states that in an online digital device, the students teach and learn each other spontaneously, they turn a teacher-directed, technology-based, non-individualized activity into a project that expressed their interests and viewpoints as well as demonstrate creativity and collaboration. in brief, this online learning creates an engaging as well as enjoyable learning by providing unique features to gain better interaction as well as a learning environment. hamilton (2015) confirms that instructional technology used by the teacher is more important than the equipment used. the purposes of the activities are to develop background knowledge, model an activity, to read, to demonstrate, to solve a problem, to explore, to review information, to respond to an idea, fee senses, as well as to engage students in critical thinking. furthermore, identifying the learning objectives and providing the appropriate students’ needs in learning is the most important step in designing an online learning environment. the objectives provide all learning objectives, teaching strategies, learning activities, and assessments that are listed on the syllabus (sewell et al., 2010). sebastianelli (2015) confirms that learning material was the most important factor for both grasped learning and student satisfaction. furthermore, teachers should know that what the student does is more important than what they do. to construct a meaningful and valuable user experience, the materials and learning activity in online learning platforms should be useful, usable, desirable, findable, accessible, credible as well as valuable (dorf, 2019). in english language teaching, efl lecturers provide the learners integrated skills, namely; listening, speaking, reading, and writing by implementing various methods or strategies to increase the students’ motivation and involvement in the teaching and learning process. at university, the english language teaching aim is to improve the student’s language skills both oral and written. there are various methods that efl lecturers may exploit in the classroom based on the students’ character and students’ needs. the methods provide them to an engaged learning process, improve their language skills as well as develop their critical thinking skills. one of the effective methods is by exploiting online learning. online learning supports the learners’ autonomy and enhance selfdiscipline for their learning progress (zayapragassarazan, 2020). in sum, online learning is designed to encourage the student’s participation, motivation, self-discipline, and learners’ autonomy in an online learning environment. one of the effective online learning platforms is microsoft teams, it is a cloud app digital hub that brings conversations, meetings, files and apps together in a single learning management system (lms) (microsoft, 2018). microsoft teams applications can easily be downloaded through desktop and mobile applications, and its features are exploited by people everywhere. microsoft teams provides better features like other social media covering chat rooms, collaborative issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 165 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 163-173 ahmad ridho rojabi (exploring efl students’ perception of online learning via microsoft teams:…) discussion, content sharing, and video conferencing (buchal & songsore, 2019; henderson et al., 2020; hubbard & bailey, 2018; ilag, 2020; mcvey et al., 2019; tsai, 2018). tsai (2018) predicts that microsoft teams will exist in advance over the next two years. by the end of 2020, 41% of organizations expect to use microsoft teams globally. tsai’s research covered a survey of 901 respondents from various organizations including small to medium-sized businesses and enterprises. respondents came from a variety of industries, together with manufacturing, healthcare, non-profits, education, government, and finance. this research is somewhat limited for educational research, however, it provides a type of environment students will experience as they turn into the workplace. teachers can post assignments to individuals, small groups, or the full class using the assignment function in teams (allison & hudson, 2020; pretorius, 2018). they explained that in their practice they could adjust assignments to everyone in their diverse classroom of learning styles and academic abilities. in brief, the teachers can exploit features provided in microsoft teams. the features include scheduling the meeting, sharing invitation links to the students to join the meeting, conducting web conference, interacting in the web conference, sharing files or documents, sharing screen or desktop, communicating in chatting box, changing the role of participants to attendee or presenter, recording web conference, as well as downloading the recording. materials, students interaction, as well as a learning environment, are the important factors which help students in achieving their learning goal optimally (fortune et al., 2011). as mentioned earlier, microsoft teams as one of the online learning platforms provide those three factors which can be applied in an online learning environment. one disadvantage in online learning is the inability of the teachers to see the students’ body language. there is a missing nonverbal hint expression of confusion on a student’s face, for example, or distracted doodling in a notebook that could help them measure understanding. in online learning, the teachers need to take extension time to assess students from the beginning (bakerson et al., 2015). another cause of failure in online learning environments is the lack of an arranged schedule, repeatedly studying, disciplined as well as self-motivation (sun, 2014). it means that teachers need to provide nice facial expressions and body language, good learning materials, and learning instructions to create nice interaction and motivate the learners in participating in an online class. some previous studies were conducted to measure the level of satisfaction on students’ interaction as well as students’ learning environment. according to fortune et al. (2011), the dimensions of online learning cover learning environment, face to face, technology, learning, preferences, and collaboration. meanwhile, gray & diloreto (2016) confirm that course structure/organization, learner interaction, student engagement, instructor presence, and student satisfaction are the appropriate dimensions of online learning. hence, in this study, measuring student interaction as well as learning environment in online learning are conducted. considering the above explanations, the researcher is interested to conduct this study to explore the efl students’ perception in online learning via microsoft teams. the perceptions cover the students’ interaction as well as the learning environment in online learning via microsoft teams. furthermore, the research questions are; (1) how is the students’ interaction in online learning via microsoft teams? and (2) how is the students’ learning environment in online learning via microsoft teams? 2. research method after finishing the online class via microsoft teams, 28 students from undergraduate students pursuing a bachelor degree of early childhood study program in indonesian open university, jember branch were selected by purposive sampling and they were required to complete a questionnaire. a questionnaire survey was given and collected to know the result of students' perceptions. the questionnaire was used to describe students’ perception in online learning from 2 aspects of perception: students' interaction as well as students' learning environment. the data were collected from the students by using the questionnaire after finishing the online class via microsoft teams. the questionnaire was developed to describe students’ perceptions of online leaning for english class. the questionnaire has 16 items of 2 dimensions. the dimension of student interaction was developed by gray (2016), while learning environment was developed by fortune (2011). 166 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 163-173 ahmad ridho rojabi (exploring efl students’ perception of online learning via microsoft teams:…) the questionnaire contained a 16 five-point likert format: (5) strongly agree, (4) agree, (3) neutral, (2) disagree, and (1) strongly disagree which was distributed to know the students’ perception in english online class. this instrument was developed by the researcher based on the review of the literature of perception theories. the students responded to the questionnaire once, after finishing all the materials in an online class via microsoft teams. all the responses were collected online through the google forms website. the validity and reliability of data were processed by using spss software. the validity was tested by using the pearson correlation method, while reliability was tested by using the cronbach’s alpha method. furthermore, the questionnaire distributed to the learners was adopted, modified, and translated into the indonesian language. one expert was involved in editing each item of questionnaire into the indonesian language. furthermore, the data obtained from the questionnaire is presented in the form of tables and figures to determine the tendency of students' perceptions related to students’ interaction as well as students’ learning environment in online learning via microsoft teams. 3. finding and discussion from the analyzed questionnaire, the following results were obtained, and the results of the validity and reliability, students' perception of students’ interactions in online learning are presented in the following tables and figures. table 1. the validity and reliability items r value sig r table conclusion cronbach's alpha critical point conclusion q1 0,770 0,000 0,374 valid 0,956 0,7 reliabel q2 0,870 0,000 0,374 valid q3 0,879 0,000 0,374 valid q4 0,409 0,031 0,374 valid q5 0,806 0,000 0,374 valid q6 0,795 0,000 0,374 valid q7 0,535 0,003 0,374 valid q8 0,739 0,000 0,374 valid q9 0,896 0,000 0,374 valid q10 0,729 0,000 0,374 valid q11 0,791 0,000 0,374 valid q12 0,582 0,001 0,374 valid q13 0,844 0,000 0,374 valid q14 0,882 0,000 0,374 valid q15 0,891 0,000 0,374 valid q16 0,892 0,000 0,374 valid in this study, the validity test was carried out using the pearson correlation method. if the correlation value (r-count) obtained is greater than r table, it is concluded that the question is valid. in the number of samples (n) 28, the value of r-table is 0.374. based on the table above, the lowest calculated r value is 0.409, namely q4 and the highest calculated r-value is 0.896, namely q9. because all questions have a calculated r value greater than r-table, it can be concluded that all questions are valid. meanwhile, the reliability test was carried out using the cronbach's alpha method. if cronbach's alpha value is greater than its critical point, which is 0.7, it is concluded that the variable is reliable. based on the table above, the cronbach's alpha value obtained was 0.956. as the value is greater than 0.7, it can be concluded that the data is reliable. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 167 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 163-173 ahmad ridho rojabi (exploring efl students’ perception of online learning via microsoft teams:…) table 2. the number or respondents who took questionnaire on students’ interaction in online learning via microsoft teams no score criteria frequency item 1 item 2 item 3 item 4 item 5 item 6 item 7 item 8 1 5 strongly agree 7 7 2 5 3 3 7 5 2 4 agree 12 7 7 18 11 5 15 9 3 3 neutral 2 6 5 2 0 6 4 4 4 2 disagree 7 7 13 3 12 12 2 9 5 1 strongly disagree 0 1 1 0 2 2 0 1 total 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 table 3. the percentage of the students who took the questionnaire on students’ interaction in online learning via microsoft teams no score criteria percentage (%) item 1 item 2 item 3 item 4 item 5 item 6 item 7 item 8 1 5 strongly agree 25.00% 25.00% 7.10% 17.90% 10.70% 10.70% 25.00% 17.90% 2 4 agree 42.90% 25.00% 25.00% 64.30% 39.30% 17.90% 53.60% 32.10% 5 3 neutral 7.10% 21.40% 17.90% 7.10% 0.00% 21.40% 14.30% 14.30% 3 2 disagree 25.00% 25.00% 46.4.00% 10.7% 42.90% 42.90% 7.10% 32.10% 4 1 strongly disagree 0.00% 3.60% 3.60% 0.00% 7.10% 7.10% 0.00% 3.60% total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% the results in the form of the above tables are then analyzed to find out the percentage of students' perceptions of each question item, which is reflected in the figure below. fig. 1. the percentage of students’ perception on students’s interaction in online learning via microsoft teams 168 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 163-173 ahmad ridho rojabi (exploring efl students’ perception of online learning via microsoft teams:…) based on the above diagram, it illustrates that students show the perception of disagreeing if the students' interaction in online learning supports them in studying. this is proven by several reasons after they gave their response through a questionnaire that they have problems to communicate with both their students and lecturers. the following is the students' response to each item of the questionnaire. item no 1: online learning makes me easier to interact with the lecturer. from the above question, there are 7 out of 28 students (25%) who said strongly disagree, 12 students (43%) who said agree, and 7 students (25%) who said disagree. this warns us as teachers that interactions between students and lecturers are very important to build communication in the process of teaching and learning. this happens due to the lack of intensity of interaction between students and lecturers in which there is a limited face to face interaction between students and teachers in an online class. this is evident from the students' respond who disagreed that online learning does not make them easier to interact with the lecturer. item no 2: interaction with lecturers becomes closer to online learning. the above question was responded by 7 out of 28 students (25%) who said strongly agree, 7 students (25% ) who said agree and 7 students (25%) who said disagree. from the responses, it can be said that some students still find difficulties in getting closer to their lecturers. this is due to the less intensity of face to face interaction between students and lecturers or they are not comfortable with technology to interact. item no 3: expressing the problems faced in online learning to the lecturers is more comfortable than face to face. the above question was responded by 13 out of 28 students (46%) in a questionnaire who said disagree. that percentage indicates that most students face problems in expressing problems to their lecturers in online learning classes. things might become worst because if students experience problems dealing with the lecture in an online class, they should consult their problems to their lecturers in order to get the solution. item no 4: miscommunication between lecturers and students often happens in online class. there are 18 out of 28 students (38.89%) who said agree. this happens because students and lecturers only interact through written language in english like chat discussion on microsoft teams and whatsapp group as well and it often causes miscommunication as there is no face to face communication directly. item 5: online lecture makes interactions between students easier. besides the problem of interaction with the lecturer, it turns out that online class gives difficulties for students interacting with other students. this is proven by 12 out of 28 students (46%) who responded disagree to this question. as teachers, we need to find out a solution. if students face problems dealing with interaction between students, it can influence the learning process. hence, it can affect the students' learning outcomes. item 6: interaction between students becomes closer in online class. that statement was responded disagree by 12 out of 28 students (43%). it means that there is a problem of interaction between students in the online environment as they are not accustomed to student-student interaction virtually. they prefer to have face to face interaction in a conventional class than in online classes. item 7: miscommunication between students often occurs in online classes, for example in conducting the paper of presentation in the group. for this statement, most students responded agree by 15 out of 28 students (53.60%). it shows that there is often miscommunication between students in online learning due to the poor signal or the well-preparation in conducting the paper of presentation virtually. in brief, they prefer presenting a paper of presentation in a conventional class to a virtual class. item 8: overcoming complications between students becomes easier in online learning, for example in completing the group paper. for this statement, 9 out of 28 students (32%) responded agree and 9 out of 28 students (32%) responded disagree. in online learning, some difficulties in completing group paper could be solved by some students by chatting with their friends through social media, but for other students, they cannot get a solution to overcome complications regarding group paper completion because they are not accustomed to the technology. furthermore, the results of students' perceptions of students’ learning environment in online learning are presented in the tables and figure below. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 169 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 163-173 ahmad ridho rojabi (exploring efl students’ perception of online learning via microsoft teams:…) table 4. the number or respondents who took questionnaire on students’ learning environment in online learning via microsoft teams no score criteria frequency item 1 item 2 item 3 item 4 item 5 item 6 item 7 item 8 1 5 strongly agree 5 5 2 2 3 3 4 4 2 4 agree 7 13 9 13 5 5 8 3 5 3 neutral 6 5 11 9 6 11 8 10 3 2 disagree 10 5 6 4 13 9 8 9 4 1 strongly disagree 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 total 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 table 5. the percentage of the students who took questionnaire on students’ learning environment in online learning via microsoft teams no score criteria percentage (%) item 1 item 2 item 3 item 4 item 5 item 6 item 7 item 8 1 5 strongly agree 17.90% 17.90% 7.10% 7.10% 10.70% 10.70% 14.30% 14.30% 2 4 agree 25.00% 46.40% 32.10% 46.40% 17.90% 17.90% 28.60% 10.70% 5 3 neutral 21.40% 17.90% 39.30% 32.10% 21.40% 39.30% 28.60% 35.70% 3 2 disagree 35.70% 17.90% 21.40% 14.30% 46.40% 32.10% 28.60% 32.10% 4 1 strongly disagree 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 3.60% 0.00% 0.00% 7.10% total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% fig. 2. the percentage of students’ perception on students’s learning environment in online learning via microsoft teams 170 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 163-173 ahmad ridho rojabi (exploring efl students’ perception of online learning via microsoft teams:…) item number 1: learning environment in online class helps me to understand the materials easier. that statement was responded disagree by 10 out of 28 students (36%). it happens due to the students feel that online learning could not support their learning environment comfortably. for example, in online learning, some difficulties in comprehending materials could not be solved easily by some students because they are not accustomed to the technology. some learners had no selfconfidence to ask questions virtually. in brief, some students are comfortable to have face to face interaction when they get problems with the tasks. item number 2: learning environment in an online class arouses me to learn and understand the materials actively. this statement was responded by 13 out of 28 students (46%) of students who responded agree with it. it indicates that students have good enthusiasm for understanding the materials in the online environment due to nice materials, videos, and fun activities collaboratively in an online class. item number 3: learning environment in online learning pushes me to take online learning. this statement was responded by 9 out of 28 students (32%) who agreed with it. they took online classes due to the system of learning during covid-19 by using an online learning platform, in this case, is by exploiting microsoft team. for the first time, it was difficult for them in adapting with the features provided by microsoft teams. however, when the lecturer introduced and provided learning materials, and discussions in fun and meaningful tasks in an online class, it motivated them to join and learn english more. item number 4: i feel comfortable in answering questions in an online class. this statement was responded by 13 out of 28 students (46%) who agreed with it. they felt comfortable answering questions from their lecturer due to the easy and interesting materials they got and it is something new and challenging to learn english in online learning. some students felt comfortable to be volunteers to read the texts provided in the online class as well as to answer some questions or discussions given by the lecturer. item number 5: i prefer to learn online to face to face. this statement was responded by 13 out of 28 students (46.40%) who disagreed with it. most students feel that face to face lecture is more comfortable in helping them comprehending the materials easier. besides, in online learning, they need to have enough data and good signal to support the teaching and learning process. sometimes, the lecturer or student can get poor signal and they try to re-join the class. item number 6: learning environment in online learning gives me a huge contribution to the study. this statement was responded by 11 out of 28 students (39%) who said neutral and 9 out of 28 students (32%) who disagreed with it. the reason why some students said neutral, it is due to the flexibility. in brief, the students can learn english enjoyably at home. for instance, when they got experience in speaking tasks “talking about home”, they could easily describe rooms in their house as well as their functions. while other students disagreed with this question, it is due to the sense of discomfort while they were involved in the online learning environment. item number 7: learning environment in online class makes it easier to find my learning needs. this statement was responded by 8 out of 28 students (29%) who agreed with it. one of the reasons why some students agreed with it is due to the easiness of accessing the materials on the internet. while 8 out of 28 students (29%) disagreed with it as they prefer face to face interaction in the teaching-learning process. in face to face interaction, they can directly ask some questions when they find difficulties understanding the materials and there are 8 out of 28 students (29%) who said neutral with it because they had no option, they just followed the class either face to face or online class. item number 8: i recommend conducting online learning in the future due to the comfortable learning environment. this statement was responded by 10 out of 28 students (36%) who said neutral. the reason why some students said neutral because they have already got experience in online learning, and it provides them the benefits as well as challenges. in brief, they have got preparation in learning english either face to face or online class for the future. while 9 out of 28 students (32%) who disagreed with it because they feel more comfortable when english class is conducted by face to face, for example when they have to study writing or grammar with various patterns of tenses. in face to face interaction, they can create their own sentences or paragraphs well as they can directly be evaluated by the teacher in the classroom. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 171 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 163-173 ahmad ridho rojabi (exploring efl students’ perception of online learning via microsoft teams:…) from the above results dealing with student’s responses towards the learning environment in online learning, it can be debated that the learning environment in online learning does support students in learning. hence, all supports from teachers, staff as well as parents are needed to enhance the quality of the online learning environment. in line with this, radovan & makovec (2015) confirm that the learning environment becomes one of an essential part of helping students have a better enthusiasm for learning. for this reason, the learning environment should create an impressive atmosphere and motivate students for a better education. dealing with student’s interaction with the learning environment in online learning, it can be discussed that the student’s interaction is also beneficial to support students in online learning. in line with this, lin & lin (2015) confirm that student-students interaction as well as teacher-student interaction should always be constructed to improve communication and discussion of each activity in the process of teaching and learning. the previous studies conducted by peterson et al. (2018) and martin & tapp (2019) confirm that the implementation of synchronous learning has facilitated students’ interactions and collaborative learning. hence, they can access all the materials comprehensively. however, based on this current finding, there were still 46% of students who disagreed that online lecture helps them interacting and collaborating. that weakness of synchronous learning should be solved by the teachers by providing enjoyable activities, and easy tasks so that the learners can engage, interact, as well as collaborate in online learning optimally. moreover, poston et al. (2020) argue that microsoft teams will be very beneficial when it starts in a small class, the learners can complete group work of their collaborative paper by exploiting powerpoint, and the teachers should convince the learners that they already have good understanding of how teams can be exploited in an online course. it is in line with the current finding that by conducting a small class of 28 students only has resulted in an excellent learning process and learning outcomes. it was revealed that the learners felt comfortable in answering questions, and discussing paper collaboratively due to the interesting materials they got, and they actively engaged to learn english in online learning as it is something new and challenging. 4. conclusion based on the findings and discussion, it can be concluded that online class via microsoft teams supports the students’ learning environment optimally. most respondents of this study gave their positive perception toward the students' learning environment in an online class. the positive judgment from the respondents came from their experience in online learning by using microsoft teams. furthermore, online learning supports their interaction between student-student interaction, as well as student-teacher interaction. the current study employed a small sample; the generalizability of these results is limited. however, this study has given a view of students' perception of online learning. future research should investigate the importance of student interaction, as well as the learning environment in online learning. additional research could expand the student sample to explore a broader selection of majors and grade levels. future qualitative analyses could focus on the student’s perceptions, students’ attitudes, and students’ satisfaction of taking online classes as well as the benefits of taking online classes via microsoft teams. a focus on student’s interaction and learning environment would also be advised to identify the impact of students successful in participating in online learning. references allen, i. e., & seaman, j. 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(2020). covid-19 : strategies for online engagement of remote learners. jawaharlal institute of postgraduate medical education and research (jipmer), 9(246), 1–11. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.7490/f1000research.1117835.1 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 49-60 49 10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3489 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id efl students’ perspectives on the employment of language learning strategies tham my duong a,1,*, hang thi thu nguyen b,2 a ho chi minh city university of economics and finance (uef), 141-145 dien bien phu street, ward 15, bình thạnh district, ho chi minh city, vietnam b pham phu thu high school, 425-435 gia phu, ward 3, district 6, ho chi minh city, vietnam. 1 thamdm@uef.edu.vn*; 2 hangntt.168t@ou.edu.vn * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 20 january 2021 revised 31 march 2021 accepted 20 april 2021 it is widely acknowledged that language learning strategies (llss) are beneficial to learners’ academic achievements, learner autonomy, and motivation; however, it is indicated that vietnamese students, particularly high school students, have found it hard to employ llss. this paper aims at exploring language learning strategies used by high school students and underlying reasons at a high school located in ho chi minh city. the study involved 238 efl high school students in responding to a closedended questionnaire and twenty of them in answering the semi-structured interview questions. the quantitative data collected from the questionnaire were processed by spss version 25.0 in terms of descriptive statistics, and the qualitative data were analyzed by the content-based approach. the results of the study indicated the efl high school students’ moderate use of llss. remarkably, metacognitive strategies were the most commonly used category, compared to memory strategies – the least employed category. the findings may serve as a guideline for efl teachers on facilitating high school students' english language learning. it is also hoped that the results of this study may contribute to the literature about english language learning strategies in efl contexts. this is an open-access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords contribution language learning strategies frequency high school students vietnamese efl context how to cite: duong, t. m., & nguyen, h. t. t. (2021). efl students’ perspectives on the employment of language learning strategies. english language teaching educational journal, 4(1), 49-60. doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3489 1. introduction it is undeniable that the active use of language learning strategies (llss), language aptitude, and learner motivation play a pivotal role in optimizing the language learning process (e.g., hardan, 2013; nguyen, 2013; tran, 2012; tran & nguyen, 2020, 2021). aljuaid (2015) discovered remarkable benefits for efl learners who make use of strategies in learning foreign languages, e.g., making learners’ language learning efficient, self-conducted, and motivating, enabling them to be responsible and independent in using a language, and gaining higher grade point average (gpa) than those with lower use of strategies. as llss are regarded as one of the most indispensable factors in improving learners’ academic achievement, it is crucial to help learners utilize llss during the foreign language process (e.g., bui & vu, 2018; griffiths & cansiz, 2015; lee et al., 2011; lee & heinz, 2016; tran & tran, 2021). in other words, if students are provided with llss, they are able to control their learning. file:///c:/users/muhammadwildan/downloads/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3489 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:thamdm@uef.edu.vn http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5341-5918 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3489&domain=pdf 50 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 49-60 duong & nguyen (efl students’ perspectives on the employment of language learning strategies) llss are defined with different perspectives. cohen (2014) viewed llss as techniques for learners’ knowledge acquisition and target language competence development. in another aspect, llss are a particular form of learners’ observable behavior employed by learners when they cope with language learning difficulties. furthermore, oxford (1990) has provided quite a comprehensive definition of llss, which are “specific actions taken by learners to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable” (p. 8) in internalizing knowledge learned, and then applying it in real situations. with reference to the classification of llss, oxford (1990) proposed a framework showing a distinction between direct and indirect strategies with six major sub-categories. direct strategies, including cognitive, memory, and compensation strategies, refer to specific ways to use a language, while indirect strategies involving affective, metacognitive, and social strategies support language learning. turning to the details, cognitive strategies are assumed to deal with a target language directly, e.g., taking notes, organizing ideas, and exercising activities, whereas memory strategies are composed of activities relating to storing and/or retrieving linguistic elements such as making mental connections by using pictures and sounds to enable learners to remember lessons. learners use compensation strategies to substitute strategies associated with making a guess, switching into their mother tongue, or using gestures for the lack of linguistic knowledge. with regard to the indirect strategy group, metacognitive strategies consist of making a plan, identifying learning objectives, and assessing learners’ learning performance. meanwhile, affective strategies are related to feelings and affection, and social strategies concerning social cooperation with others may help better language learners’ understanding, practice a target language in real situations, and experience new cultures. as far as the previous studies on the use of language learning strategies are concerned, qingquan et al. (2008) endeavored to examine differences in the lls use by the first-year students at a chinese university. the findings indicated that the high achievers employed a wider range of llss at a higher level and more various types of llss than the low achievers did. in another efl context, osman and manan (2010) conducted a survey with 20 successful and 20 less successful language students from an urban school in ipod, perak, to explore the most frequently used strategies and any differences in lls use between the successful learners and the less successful ones. furthermore, it was shown that affective, compensation, and metacognitive strategies used at a moderate level were preferred by the participants. in the context of vietnam, ngo (2019) employed the sill questionnaire constructed by oxford (1990) to assess the lls use of 83 vietnamese tenth graders. the findings demonstrated that these high school students employed a variety of llss at a moderate level. it was also indicated that metacognitive strategies were the most used, whereas affective strategies were the least used. at the tertiary level, duong (2020) aimed to investigate resource management strategies (rmss) used by non-english majors. a closed-ended questionnaire was administered to 177 students in a toeic class. the findings revealed that the students often used these strategies during their english learning process. more importantly, the study discovered a positive relationship between the frequency of rmss and academic achievement. meanwhile, duong and intaraprasert (2012) discovered a twogroup classification, namely specific language skills with 43 strategies and general language skills with 11 strategies. this study involved 30 students from six universities in northern vietnam in responding to the one-on-one interview. vo and duong (2020) conducted a study addressing metacognitive strategies at a ho chi minh city-based college with the participation of 243 nonenglish majors. the instruments included a closed-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. it was indicated that the participants recognized the importance of metacognitive strategies in their english learning. however, significant differences between their perceptions and actual use of metacognitive strategies were found in this study. the study of henno (2012) examined the relationship between vietnamese learners’ lls use and their language proficiency. the results collected from the self-report questionnaire and the participants’ course assessment reports showed that there were no relationships between the lls use and their academic achievements. also, no significant differences in terms of types and frequency of lls between male and female learners were found. it is the significance of llss in language education that various aspects of llss have been explored worldwide. in the context of vietnam, however, there have been only a few studies in which high school students take part as research participants. at the research site – pham phu thu high school, it is observed that students are unlikely to apply llss to facilitate their learning. therefore, the research aims at identifying high school students’ actual use of llss at pham phu thu high e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 51 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 49-60 duong & nguyen (efl students’ perspectives on the employment of language learning strategies) school. the research question is formulated based on this research objective.” to what extent do the students at pham phu thu high school employ language learning strategies (llss)?” the preliminary findings of the present study probably bring some theoretical and practical contributions towards facilitating students’ learning through the employment of llss. 2. method 2.1. participants the research involved 238 out of 1700 students attending grades 10, 11, and 12 at a high school in ho chi minh city, vietnam. at first, forty-five respondents from six classes (i.e., two classes from each grade) were conveniently selected, i.e., the researchers chose those who were approachable and willing to take part in the study. however, only 238 responses were recorded because thirty-two students did not send their responses via google forms. as for the demographic information, the participants were in their fifteenth to eighteenth and had been studying english as a foreign language for at least seven years. it is noteworthy that most of the participants have not experienced official guidance in llss. 2.2. instruments the data of this study were collected through a closed-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interview. firstly, the questionnaire was adapted from oxford’s (1990) classification of language learning strategies as this is supposed to be “the most comprehensive classification” (ellis, 1994, p. 539). the questionnaire containing six parts, namely memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies, was constructed based on a five-point likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neutral, 4=agree, and 5=strongly agree). the mean scores were interpreted based on ali and paramasivam’s (2016) classification of levels as follows: 1 2.4 (low level), 2.5 3.4 (moderate level), and 3.5 5 (high level). secondly, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted since interviews allow for a more thorough exploration of issues. the interview questions focusing on the participants’ opinions on lls employment in their english language learning were developed based upon the questionnaire. the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed for data analysis. the participants were labeled according to gender and grade, e.g., m5-g11 refers that the fifth student is male and in grade 11. to increase reliability and validity of the instruments, the questionnaire and the interviews were translated into the vietnamese language to ensure that the participants could understand it at ease. the researchers cross-checked the accuracy of the translated versions then. furthermore, the questionnaire was tested through cronbach’s alpha to make sure the reliability of the questionnaire. particularly, cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the strategy categories were found from .70 to .92. this means that the questionnaire items were reliable enough to collect data. finally, two experts were invited to check either linguistic issues or the content of the instruments. 2.3. data collection because this study was carried out in the stage of the pandemic covid-19 outbreak, all the students were not present at the research site. as a result, the sill questionnaire was designed online via google forms and delivered to the surveyed participants via students’ regular contact. in particular, most of the teachers have been using zalo – a popular social network in vietnam to contact their students, so the researchers asked the teachers-in-charge to send the link to the participants. after that, twenty students were invited for the individual interviews through zalo at their convenience. each interview lasted between 5 and 10 minutes, depending on the participants’ responses. 2.4. data analysis the quantitative data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed using the spss software version 25.0. specifically, descriptive statistics (i.e., mean & standard deviation) were processed to examine the overall preference of llss among the high school students. six sill categories were further analyzed for detailed information. following this, the qualitative data gained from the interview were analyzed based on the content analysis approach with three main steps, namely 52 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 49-60 duong & nguyen (efl students’ perspectives on the employment of language learning strategies) familiarizing with and organizing the data, coding and recoding the data, and interpreting and representing the results. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. findings six lls categories were statistically analyzed in terms of mean and standard deviation. it is also noted that the mean scores were ranked in descending order. overall, it is observed from table 1 that the participants employed llss at a medium level (m=2.89, sd=0.80). the metacognitive strategies were identified as the most common strategy category (m=3.16; sd=0.86). next, compensatory occupied second place with quite a high mean score (2.97, sd=0.81). this was followed by cognitive strategies (m=2.87, sd=0.73) and social strategies (m=2.83, sd=0.96). meanwhile, affective and memory strategies were found as the least used strategies with quite low mean scores of 2.76 (sd=0.72) and 2.72 (sd=0.69), respectively. table 1. descriptive statistics for six lls categories category level n=238 m sd metacognitive strategies moderate 3.16 0.86 compensation strategies moderate 2.97 0.81 cognitive strategies moderate 2.87 0.73 social strategies moderate 2.83 0.96 affective strategies moderate 2.76 0.72 memory strategies moderate 2.72 0.69 average moderate 2.89 0.80 to gain an insight into the lls employment among the surveyed students, the descriptive statistics for each category, together with the qualitative data gained from the semi-structured interview, is presented in table 2. table 2. metacognitive strategies category item level n=238 m sd metacognitive strategies (mets) mets3. i attentively listen to someone when he/she is speaking english. high 3.66 1.04 mets4. i explore ways to learn english better. high 3.61 1.11 mets2. i try to recognize mistakes to use english better. high 3.60 0.98 mets8. i set learning goals clearly to improve my english language skills. moderate 3.00 1.16 mets7. i seek any opportunities to read english texts. moderate 2.99 1.13 mets9. i think about my english learning progress. moderate 2.95 1.16 mets5. i make a study plan to arrange a time for studying english properly. moderate 2.92 1.06 mets1. i try to look for different methods to learn english. moderate 2.90 1.09 mets6. i try to approach people that i can communicate with within english. moderate 2.85 1.18 among the nine metacognitive strategies, the high school students tended to pay attention to what one is talking about in english, discover better methods to learn english, and learn from mistakes. statistically, the mean scores of these strategies, which were 3.66, 3.61, and 3.60, respectively, were at a high level. the remaining strategies of the metacognitive category were used at a moderate level, and there were no significant differences in terms of frequency among those strategies. e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 53 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 49-60 duong & nguyen (efl students’ perspectives on the employment of language learning strategies) the interviewees provided reasons for their substantial choice of metacognitive strategies, such as showing their respect to speakers, improving their english pronunciation and comprehension. moreover, they were aware of the role of the english language in the digital era and attempted to discover effective ways to improve their english. “i am trying to find the most appropriate methods to learn english such as joining english speaking clubs, reading english materials extensively, and talking with classmates outside the classroom.” (m5-y11) “although i have made lots of mistakes, i keep talking in english as much as possible.” (f1-g12) “at first, english was one of the subjects i did not like. then my english teacher advised me to make a plan to learn it. day by day, my english skills have improved. now, i am really into this subject.” (f13-g11) the number-one strategy in compensatory strategies in table 3 was making guesses when the participants dealt with unfamiliar words (m=3.36, sd=1.02). besides, they made an attempt to guess what a speaker is going to say in english (m=2.81, sd=1.17). apart from guessing, non-verbal communication was considered a useful compensatory strategy because they employed this strategy at the second rank when they failed to figure out a proper word during an english conversation (m=3.18, sd=1.10). table 3. compensation strategies category item level n=238 m sd compensation strategies (coms) coms1. i try to guess unfamiliar english words. moderate 3.36 1.02 coms2. when i fail to figure out an english word, nonverbal communication is used. moderate 3.18 1.10 coms6. when i fail to figure out an english word, a word or phrase that has a similar meaning is replaced. moderate 3.05 1.17 coms5. i make a guess about what someone will say in english. moderate 2.81 1.17 coms3. i make up new english words when i do not remember the right ones. moderate 2.74 1.18 coms4. i do not look up every word when i do not know the meaning in an english text. moderate 2.65 1.06 the qualitative data gained from the interviews confirmed the above-mentioned quantitative results. the interviewees reported that guessing was the most common strategy they used in case they were struggling with unknown words. according to m13-g11, his teacher taught him how to make a guess based on a speaker’s behavior and intonation, and prior knowledge when he dealt with difficult words in spoken communication. meanwhile, m17-g11 preferred using non-verbal communication (e.g., movement of hands, facial expression, body language, eye contact, etc.) to overcome breakdowns in communication. of the fourteen cognitive strategies in table 4, practicing was a frequent cognitive strategy reported by the participants. more specifically, watching english language tv shows in english headed the list with the highest mean score (m=3.29, sd=1.11), making it slightly more frequent than practicing english pronunciation (m=3.27, sd=1.04) and using the english words in different ways (m=3.20, sd=1.05). however, they showed hesitation in initiating a conversation in english (m=2.38, sd=1.21) and reading extensively (m=2.29, sd=1.02). qualitatively, the interviewed participants were likely to be reluctant to start a conversation in english as they had little chance to do so (f4-g12 & m6-g11), or they were not good at getting their ideas across (f1-g12). most of the interviewees would rather watch english tv shows, movies or listen to english music than read books or newspapers in the target language. “i do not read the newspaper or magazine in english for pleasure, instead i watch english movies or listen to us-uk music. in my opinion, this way is easy for me to 54 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 49-60 duong & nguyen (efl students’ perspectives on the employment of language learning strategies) learn english, and i can relax. if i like any song or movie, i can remember the words, the structures easier and longer.” (f4-g12) “i read bilingual books. however, i prefer watching movies or music videos in english or joining a chat room to communicate with foreigners. accordingly, they can help me to correct my spelling mistakes, and i practice my speaking skill.” (m5g11) table 4. cognitive strategies category item level n=238 m sd cognitive strategies (cogs) cogs6. i watch movies/ tv shows in english to practice english language skills. moderate 3.29 1.11 cogs3. i practice pronunciation by reading english words aloud. moderate 3.27 1.04 cogs4. i use new words in different ways. moderate 3.20 1.05 cogs1. i learn new words by saying or writing them repeatedly. moderate 3.19 0.99 cogs13. i try not to use the word-by-word translation approach. moderate 3.14 1.16 cogs9. i first read through an english text and then reread it carefully. moderate 3.10 1.25 cogs2. i try to speak native-like english. moderate 2.91 1.15 cogs10. i relate words in my mother tongue to those in english. moderate 2.90 1.09 cogs14. i summarize the information i have listened to or read in english. moderate 2.85 1.08 cogs11. i try to identify english patterns to memorize the lessons. moderate 2.65 1.17 cogs12. i try to understand an english word by dividing it into smaller parts. moderate 2.55 1.13 cogs8. i practice producing writing pieces, e.g., messages, notes, reports, or emails in english. moderate 2.41 1.04 cogs5. i start a conversation in english. low 2.38 1.21 cogs7. i read english texts extensively. low 2.29 1.07 finally, all of the six social strategies in table 5 obtained medium-level mean scores, ranging from 3.10 to 2.50. these strategies included asking interlocutors to slow down (m=3.30, sd=1.23), initiating questions in english (m=2.88, sd=1.12), practicing english with other students (m=2.84, sd=1.12), exploring native speakers’ cultures (m=2.81, sd=1.27), and asking native speakers for correction and help (m=2.64, sd=1.29; m=2.50, sd=1.22). table 5. social strategies category item level n=238 m sd social strategies (socs) socs1. in case of misunderstanding something in english, i ask my speaking partner to slow it down or repeat it. moderate 3.30 1.23 socs5. i try to make questions in english. moderate 2.88 1.12 socs3. i practice english with my classmates. moderate 2.84 1.12 socs6. i explore native speakers’ cultures before talking with them. moderate 2.81 1.27 socs2. i ask native speakers to correct my mistakes when necessary. moderate 2.64 1.29 socs4. i need help from native speakers when i have communication breakdowns. moderate 2.50 1.22 e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 55 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 49-60 duong & nguyen (efl students’ perspectives on the employment of language learning strategies) when being asked reasons for the infrequent use of social strategies, most of the interviewees admitted that anxiety and learning habits were the common causes. “i dare not approach native speakers, even my english teachers because i am not confident about my english skills.” (m3-g12) “i prefer learning alone, so when i have learning problems, i just deal with them on my own. i do not ask anyone for help. i think it is not a good way, but i am familiar with that.” (m6-g11) for effective strategies in table 6, the surveyed students usually encouraged themselves to speak english, although they were worried about making mistakes (m=3.16, sd=1.15), notice if they were tense or nervous when using english (m=3.12, sd=1.12), and tried to lower their anxiety (m=3.06, sd=1.08). noticeably, they did not note down their feelings relating to english language learning in the diary (m=1.81, sd=1.02). table 6. affective strategies category item level n=238 m sd affective strategies (affs) affs2. i make an effort to speak english despite the fear of making mistakes. moderate 3.16 1.15 affs4. i notice whether or not i am under pressure while i am using english. moderate 3.12 1.12 affs1. i endeavor to relax when i feel worried about using english. moderate 3.06 1.08 affs3. i reward myself for doing english tasks well. moderate 2.76 1.20 affs6. i share my feelings with my classmates in my learning process. moderate 2.68 1.24 affs5. i jot down my feelings in a learner diary. low 1.81 1.02 the informants reported that they made a great effort to speak up despite their fear. however, most of them did not write down their daily experiences in a diary due to learning habits and low level of proficiency. “i do not know what i should write in the diary. i am not good at literature or writing in both languages. moreover, i am not confident in my vocabulary size and grammatical structures to write in english.” (f1-g12) “i see no point in writing a diary. i am not a person who likes to write a diary even in either english or vietnamese. if i want to practice my writing skills, i will write an essay with a particular topic.” (m7-g10) “i prefer sharing with my friends how i feel and find solutions together to writing down my thoughts.” (f15-g11) top of the list in the memory category in table 7 was reviewing english lessons regularly (m=3.06, sd=0.90). linking the previous knowledge and new things while studying (m=2.98, sd=0.93) came next, followed by learning new vocabulary by relating them to pictures and places (m=2.96, sd=1.07; m=2.82, sd=1.19; m=2.76, sd=1.08). remarkably, the high school students used flashcards to learn new vocabulary at a low level (m=2.06, sd=1.13). the results from the interview also confirmed that reviewing english lessons regularly was employed by almost all the interviewed participants. therefore, this strategy is regarded as one of the best ways to enhance language knowledge as well as all language skills, e.g., listening, reading, speaking, and writing. as one informant (m7-y10) said, “memory strategies helped to create a habit of using new vocabulary, and i can also use them for a long term.” outside the classroom, they tried to remember new vocabulary, grammatical points, and expressions in different ways. “i always note down the new vocabulary during the lesson or when i find out new words in english movies and music. then i put them around my house. i also use 56 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 49-60 duong & nguyen (efl students’ perspectives on the employment of language learning strategies) new words in the conversation with my friends, so i can remember them longer.” (f4-g12) “i sometimes make connections between new vocabulary with the real subjects and situations. imagination helps me a lot in learning english.” (m5-g11) when being asked about the reason for the low use of applying these strategies, the participants revealed that they seldom learned english using flashcards because of the following reasons. “it is not an effective way for me as we actually do not have enough flashcards for many topics especially for discrete subjects.” (m7-g10) “sometimes, i want to change the way of studying new words, and i will use this way. nevertheless, i also need to write down to remember the words. in my opinion, this way is not as effective as writing down repeatedly.” (m14 – g11) “i have no idea about flashcards, it seems a strange way to learn new words for me. my teachers never explain to us how to use it.” (f6-g12). table 7. memory strategies category item level n=238 m sd memory strategies (mems) mems8. i review english lessons frequently. moderate 3.06 0.90 mems1. i try to connect the prior knowledge with new knowledge in english. moderate 2.98 0.93 mems3. i link the image or picture of a word to memorize the new lexical item. moderate 2.96 1.07 mems4. i acquire a new word by relating a mental picture to a practical situation. moderate 2.82 1.19 mems9. i memorize a new word or a phrase by locating its place such as on the page, on the board, or on a street sign. moderate 2.76 1.08 mems7. i physically enact a new english word. moderate 2.66 1.20 mems2. i put new english words in a sentence to remember them. moderate 2.63 1.01 mems5. i remember new vocabulary using rhymes. moderate 2.58 1.08 mems6. i learn new vocabulary through flashcards. low 2.06 1.13 3.2. discussion it can be seen that the overall mean score of lls use was 2.88, which indicates the students’ moderate use of llss. furthermore, they used most of the llss at a medium level, ranging from 2.72 to 3.16. this finding is consistent with those found in nguyen et al. (2012), nguyen and jang (2016), ngo (2019), who also found out that vietnamese learners moderately used llss. in other words, the high school students have not fully exploited llss to enhance their learning outcomes. it may be because the majority of the participants have not taken any lls-related courses yet, which leads to the reluctance to use these strategies in their learning process. in terms of six categories listed in oxford’s (1990) sill, metacognitive strategies were the high school learners’ first priority. this result is supported by the previous studies (e.g., kunasaraphan, 2015; nguyen, 2007; nguyen et al., 2012; tabeti, 2017; vo & duong, 2020). however, this finding contradicts ngo’s (2015) conclusion that metacognitive strategies were not used as frequently as social and affective strategies. more specifically, duong et al. (2019) found out that cognitive and affective listening learning strategies were the most commonly used while metacognitive and social strategies and compensation and memory strategies were used at moderate and low levels, respectively. it is assumed that when metacognitive strategies were the first choice for managing their learning process, the high school students became more aware of their own english language learning because they had an obvious target. more specifically, βρεττού (2011) affirmed that this awareness helps learners hold e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 57 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 49-60 duong & nguyen (efl students’ perspectives on the employment of language learning strategies) positive attitudes towards their learning, identify learning objectives, create a study plan, self-evaluate their learning performance, and seek opportunities to practice the target language, which may lead to life-long learning (duong, 2015). on the contrary, memory strategies were in the last place on the list, which means the students used this category least of all. the result is in line with oxford’s (1990) viewpoint that “even though memory strategies can be useful to enhance english learning, the students simply do not use memory strategies” (p. 40). memory strategies are essential in the language learning process since a lot of knowledge needs to be acquired. in a similar vein, hong-nam and leavell’s (2006) study conducted in the context in which college students had various cultural as well as linguistic backgrounds showed that the college students used metacognitive strategies as the first priority, compared to affective and memory strategies, which were the least employed ones. however, this finding is different from nguyen and ho’s (2013) results indicating that affective and memory strategies were preferred by the female students while compensation and social strategies were preferably selected by the male counterparts. this finding probably arises from the gender difference, which is excluded from the focus of the present study. the top three strategies frequently used by high school students include paying attention when someone is speaking in english, finding out how to be a better learner of english, and noticing english mistakes. this means that the high school participants paid a lot of attention to look for opportunities to enrich the vocabulary and improve pronunciation and become better language learners. these findings are similar to those found in some previous studies (e.g., nguyen et al., 2012; ngo, 2019; phan & tran, 2020). meanwhile, the high school students seldom wrote down their daily experiences in a diary, used flashcards to memorize new english lexical items, read extensively, and initiate a conversation in english. despite the benefits of free reading and writing activities, these activities were not viewed as the favorite strategies among vietnamese high school students. in fact, ngo (2019) also discovered that extensive reading and writing tasks were not usually employed by the participants to develop their language proficiency. writing in english is known as the most challenging skill for either vietnamese efl learners or other efl learners. the low frequency in writing english of efl learners may be attributed to the insufficient practice of freewriting activities even though the free reading experience is of great advantage to language learners such as developing vocabulary size, reading comprehension, spelling, and writing. 4. conclusion the research was carried out to scrutinize the frequency of llss employed by vietnamese high school students. the results of the study demonstrated that the students utilized the six categories of llss at a medium level. particularly, the metacognitive strategies were identified as the most commonly used category, whereas the memory strategies were selected least. it can be inferred that the vietnamese high school learners seemed to be aware of the importance of learning english, thus applying strategies to facilitate their own learning; however, the frequency of llss is not high. based on the findings of this research, some pedagogical implications are made as follows. it is assumed that llss may contribute to learner autonomy development and teaching methodology enhancement. to achieve the effective use of language learning strategies, llss should be introduced in each language lesson because learning strategies are teachable. it is suggested that language teachers should consider the following steps for applying llss in a language classroom. first, the teaching context consisting of learners’ behavior, learning goals, and learner motivation should be analyzed by language teachers. moreover, teachers are supposed to clarify, demonstrate and exemplify possible strategies, organize discussions in groups or the whole class about llss, and integrate the hands-on strategies into everyday lessons in a typical lls-based classroom. it is advisable to give learners a lot of opportunities to enact the new strategies through language assignments and counsel them to flexibly use llss in various contexts. finally, language teachers should notice the influence of students’ use of strategies on their academic achievements. teachers are expected to provide learners with a chance to choose llss for their learning practices and to guide them how to be autonomous learners through evaluating their own progress. 58 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 49-60 duong & nguyen (efl students’ perspectives on the employment of language learning strategies) declaration author contribution : the first author was in charge of most of the sections. the second author collected the data and searched for some previous studies relating to the topic. funding statement : the research is funded under no research project. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references ali, h. h., & paramasivam, s. 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(2020). non-english majors’ perceptions and use of metacognitive strategies at a vietnamese efl context. tnu journal of science and technology, 225(12), 131–138. https://doi.org/10.34238/tnu-jst.3703 https://doi.org/10.34238/tnu-jst.3703 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 229-240 229 10.12928/eltej.v3i3.2560 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id constructing identity: experiences of indonesian esp teachers in a language institute aloisius wisnu mahendra sanata dharma universityjl. affandi, santren, caturtunggal, kec. depok, kabupaten sleman, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55281, indonesia aloisiuswisnu.mahendra@gmail.com 1. introduction current educational changes have become global forces affecting teachers’ professional lives. in the united states, for example, grosse and voght (2012) found that structural changes have been employed in most language departments to embrace the notion of teaching language for specific purposes. in some asian countries, moreover, the constitution of policies concerning the internationalization of business and education has shifted the area of english language teaching to teaching english for specific purposes (chang, 2014; cheng & anthony, 2014). these emerging changes reflect priorities and current societal demands of english language learning. they directly link to the english teachers’ professional lives and to the construction of their identity. a study conducted by kubanyiova and crookes (2016) pointed out that teacher identity serves as an influential factor, both for novice and experienced teachers, to adapt to changing educational contexts. teachers need to acquire new knowledge about the subjects taught and suitable teaching and learning approaches to enhance their teaching performance and to meet situational needs in the working environment (xu, 2014). therefore, exploring how english teachers cope with the educational changes essentially contributes to a growing framework of literature in relation to teacher’s professional identities (campion, 2016). given attention on the trends of teaching english for specific purposes, there is a complex process of becoming esp teachers. the teachers are encouraged to transform their professional practices and construct their professional identities through subject knowledge acquisition via professional development activities and engagement with workplace communities (tao & gao, 2018). however, some challenges possibly occur among teachers adapting to the esp teaching priority. a study conducted by hoa and mai (2016) revealed that one major challenge of esp teaching in university contexts dealt with the quality of lectures and textbooks utilized to teach esp. a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 22 july 2020 revised 10 december 2020 accepted 21 december 2020 this study focuses on examining four indonesian english for specific purposes (esp) teachers’ experiences regarding their identity construction and negotiation in a language institute. given the concern on an analytic framework by an adapted model of tesol teacher identity, the teachers’ experiences were explored through life-history interview. the results revealed a complex process of transforming professional practices and constructing identities in relation to the struggles of becoming esp teachers. the participants constructed esp teacher identities through acquiring subject knowledge via professional development activities and building a sense of intrinsic fulfillment in becoming esp teachers. however, the participants found challenge to cope with the students’ demands of learning esp. furthermore, a need to equip the esp teachers with esp skills in various subject knowledge areas became the participants’ concern in order to meet the students’ expectancy as well as to enhance their professional development. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords esp teacher language institute teacher identity http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:aloisiuswisnu.mahendra@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 230 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 229-240 aloisius wisnu mahendra (constructing identity) consequently, it affected students’ readiness to acquire the new terminologies and concepts. furthermore, poedjiastutie (2017) pointed out that teachers’ pedagogical knowledge, such as communicative skills, teaching-learning approaches, and materials development, became the main concern in managing esp programs in language center (lc) of malang state university, indonesia. such issues might significantly affect teachers’ performance in teaching esp, starting from developing suitable teaching-learning materials to conducting the classroom practices. those shifts of educational priority and several accompanying challenges are believed to influence the construction of teachers’ identity. although several studies have investigated teacher identity construction in particular teaching contexts, it should be noted that the notion of identity among esp teachers is under-researched topic (chang, 2014). the current study, therefore, aims to seek out the english teachers’ identity mediated amid stream of esp teaching and learning. it focuses on exploring experiences of four indonesian esp teachers teaching in a language institute. this context of study draws broader scope of esp teacher identity construction within the area of english language teaching in indonesia. it depicts how the teachers engage with their professional lives to meet the demands of esp learning. 1.1. teacher identity the notion of teacher identity has become an emerging subject in educational research and teacher development (varghese, morgan, johnston, & johnson, 2005). beijaard, meijer, and verloop (2004) highlighted four elements of teacher’s professional identity, stating that professional identity is “an ongoing process” of meaning experiences that connects “person and context,” consists of “sub-identities” and needs the exercise of “agency” (p. 122). in a narrower context, these four elements are constituted in barkhuizen’s (2017) conceptualization of language teacher identity, perceiving that identities incorporate teacher’s “cognitive, social, emotional, ideological, and historical” aspect depicted on the process of “being and doing, feeling and imagining, and storying” how they are personally and professionally struggled in social interaction (p. 4). essentially, teacher identity is dynamic and it is mediated through experience and the sense made in meaning that experience (sachs, 2005). this conceptualization of teacher identity does not only emphasize on the relation between identity with the relevant experience, but it also embraces its multifaceted and person-context elements, which are reconsidered and examined as the core of teacher identity. to some extent, language teachers construct multiple identities when they shift their identity from being a learner to a teacher (tsui, 2007); and when they position and involve themselves in different social agents (whitsed & volet, 2013). the multiple identities negotiation, then, involves interaction between the individual and the community (bukor, 2015). some studies have revealed that teacher identities are constructed through social discourse on teachers and the teaching profession (gu & benson, 2015), the educational discourse on internationalization (whitsed & volet, 2013), and the school culture in particular institutions (buchanan, 2015). these interplay between individual and context in term of instructional practices raise tension in relation to how teachers mediate their identities in order to fit to the contextual needs. thus, by positioning esp teachers as the subjects involved in the different layers of identity construction, this study aims to explore a more contextualized picture of esp teachers’ professional identity through their life experiences. 1.2. tesol teacher identity framework to investigate esp teachers’ professional identity manifested in changing contexts, a model of tesol teacher identity was adopted as the framework of analysis (pennington, 2014). this model allows the researcher to draw a comprehensive picture of teacher’s identity within professional practices in particular contexts. the original model consists of two frames, namely practice-centered and context-centered frames (pennington, 2014). the practice-centered frame is derived from five elements, including instructional, disciplinary, professional, vocational and economic frame. the instructional frame demonstrates the classroom persona and the roles enacted by teachers in classroom practice, including instructional content and methods (pennington, 2014); the disciplinary frame reflects specific fields where teachers engage with, covering knowledge and research; the professional frame describes individual teacher’s beliefs, knowledge and engagement in a particular field; the vocational frame includes affective aspect of teacher identity encompassing a teacher’s commitment and attachment in a specific field of practices; and the economic frame addresses a issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 231 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 229-240 aloisius wisnu mahendra (constructing identity) teacher’s academic and economic position in a specific occupational field. these five frames, moreover, are negotiated by different frames of context: global, local, and sociocultural. the global frame is perceived as global trends of teaching and learning english; the local frame draws a context of teacher’s engagement in the workplace and community; and the sociocultural frame refers to the linguistic, ethnic, and gender identity of a teacher, as perceived by people in contextual interaction. these multi-faceted elements were employed to capture esp teacher identity in which esp teachers possess a wider range of roles compared to their general english teaching (dudley-evans & st. johns, 1998). furthermore, this study adopted a new model of tesol teacher identity framework proposed by tao and gao (2018). the model emphasizes on the adjustment of contextual frames to the contexts of the study. the coverage of local frame is considered too broad to break down the influence of different contextual forces on esp teachers (tao & gao, 2018). the local frame, then, is constituted into institutional and societal frame since both of which have been proven to have consequential effects on teacher identity construction (varghese et al., 2005; layder, 1993). the sociocultural frame described in pennington’s (2014) is included in the societal frame as it focuses on the linguistic, ethnic, and gender, in which are they contribute limited relevance to the study. fig. 1. an adapted model of esp teacher identity frames (tao & gao, 2018) the current study aims to shed light on esp teachers’ identity construction. a life-history interview based on pennington’s (2014) tesol teacher identity framework was employed to explore the experiences of esp teachers teaching at language institute. there are five frames examined to answer how the english teachers constructed their esp teacher identity, namely instructional, disciplinary, professional, economic, and vocational frame. 2. research method 2.1. research context and participants the study was conducted in a language institute managed under a private university in yogyakarta, indonesia in 2019. this language institute used to be language center since it was 232 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 229-240 aloisius wisnu mahendra (constructing identity) founded in 1992, and developed into a bigger unit named lisdu (language institute of sanata dharma university) in 2005. there are four major division in the institute, namely asian language center, english language center, language testing center, and translation center. the english language center consists of the center of english for international communication (ceic) and the center of english for specific purposes (cesp). ceic offers general english (ge) courses, focusing on developing students’ communication skills. the courses consist of several levels (beginner up to advanced level) and they are conducted in terms. on the other hand, cesp offers customized courses. the courses are designed based on the students’ needs and wants. in addition, the course participants, both in ceic and cesp, are adults. they are mostly university students and working people around yogyakarta, indonesia, who need english skills to support their study or their performance in the workplace. to begin esp courses, a diagnostic test and need analysis are conducted to measure student candidate’s initial language proficiency and to identify and analyze their strengths and weaknesses in using english regarding their needs. the results, then, become considerations for designing the course syllabus and the materials. moreover, the esp courses designed are commonly related to academic purposes such as english for academic reading, writing, and speaking, and occupational purposes such as english for business communication, for missionaries, for teachers, for medical doctoring, and other professions requiring english as the language communication. as these courses serve as customized course, the language levels may vary (beginner up to advanced level) depending on the student candidate’s results of the diagnostic test and the need analysis. furthermore, the teachers teaching esp courses are those who involve in teaching the general english course. they began their career with teaching the general english and they were promoted to teach esp after they got an esp training. the training aimed to equip the english teachers with knowledge about esp and the roles of esp teachers (dudley-evan & st john, 1998), including the experience of course and materials development. importantly, the participants involved in the study were four english teachers teaching esp in the language institute in yogyakarta, indonesia, namely christine, dion, rebecca, and stella (names were pseudonym). they were invited to participate in the study through inform consent given. christine, dion, rebecca took english education major in their bachelor program, while stella took non-english education major. however, they had finished their graduate study majoring english studies and had more than five-year-experience of teaching general english and esp since they they began their career in the language institute. dion and stella were the esp course coordinators as well as teachers in the language institute. rebecca managed the language testing center but she had many experiences teaching esp. while, christine was an english language and indonesian language teacher. like rebecca, she also experienced in teaching esp, specifically for english academic writing and public speaking. for some esp courses, the teachers were required to develop the teaching materials based on the topics constituted in the course syllabus. additionally, the researcher acknowledged the participants’ role as language instructors at the intended language institute. however, in this study the term ‘teacher’ was applied to refer to ‘instructor’. both teacher and instructor are assigned to conduct teaching and to achieve educational goals. this reference, thus, would not affect the intention of achieving the purpose of this study. 2.2. data collection and analysis this study employed life-history interview in order to explore and to elicit each participant’s life story. the focus of the interview was on teachers’ learning, teaching, and working experiences which were critically believed to construct teacher identity (olsen, 2008). the adoption of lifehistory interview allows the researcher to understand the participants’ professional experiences through their respective accounts (gao, 2008). the interviews embraced the idea of guide approach and informal conversation where the researcher utilized interview protocol, which was in form of open-ended questions, to explore the participants’ experiences, and led them into deeper discussion (johnson & christensen, 2008). the participants were also encouraged to raise their own topics related to esp teacher identity construction. the interviews were conducted in indonesian–the participants’ first language–in order to avoid language barriers in communication. thus, all interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. to analyze the data, the researcher adopted a biographic approach to obtain whole understanding or each participant’s life history (gibbs, 2008). the approach was employed to reveal a complete picture of individual’s story uniting a chain of events with inherent causal relationships and an issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 233 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 229-240 aloisius wisnu mahendra (constructing identity) overview of each individual’s professional trajectory (gibbs, 2008). then, a mini-biography was composed from each participant’s transcript. the mini-biography contained a comprehensive picture of the whole experiences shared by each participant. all were analyzed using data analysis technique in qualitative approach (strauss & corbin, 1998). adopting the framework of tesol teacher identity simplified by tao and gao (2018), the researcher generated some categories to organize the data. the categories included instructional frame, disciplinary frame, professional frame, vocational frame, and economic frame. the collected data were read and reread to sort and to search for patterns so that the materials bearing on a given category could physically be separated from other data (bogdan & biklen, 2007). they were examined in the following section. 3. findings and discussion the results revealed that the participants constructed esp teacher identity through acquiring subject knowledge via professional development activities. there was a sense of intrinsic fulfillment, as becoming an esp teacher contributed to their professional development. on the other hand, as teaching and learning esp in the language institute served as a customized course, the participants found a challenge to cope with the students’ demands for taking esp course. to demonstrate these complex results, the five frames of their teacher identity are elaborated in the following section. 3.1. instructional frame the instructional frame mainly emphasizes on the teacher’s roles in regards to classroom instruction (pennington, 2014). through working experience, the four participants described their engagement with professional development activities. these included the development of their lesson plans and the teaching materials affecting their teaching practices. on the other hand, the participants considered the importance of acquiring related subject knowledge to support their classroom instruction, since they were only trained to adopt esp teaching approaches in their preteaching qualification training. therefore, they highlighted teaching preparation as one of the influential activities to enhance their pedagogical practices. this manifestation of the preparation of pedagogical materials serves as an essential source of mediation to support their esp teacher identity construction. [christine] to teach esp, we need to design the materials, ensure whether the materials can cover the students’ needs, and pay attention on the complexity of the activities regarding the students’ language proficiency. [rebecca] i always put much effort on the preparation … i often refer to the books provided by the institute and online sources regarding the development within the students’ subject areas to organize lesson plans and determine the learning activities. [stella] i look for some information from articles or the internet related to the students’ background (subject knowledge areas), including the specific terminologies and the recent issues happening to rise the contexts of the students’ learning concerning on developing the lesson plans, and the learning materials and activities, the participants found that teaching esp was more complex compared to teaching general english. they required to provide specific exposure and relevant contexts where the students might use the language to meet situational needs (chen, 2014). these professional development activities influenced how these teachers engage to the classroom instruction. as stella took non-english education major in her bachelor study, she possessed limited understanding of english teaching and learning theories at the beginning of her teaching career. nevertheless, stella’s working experience in teaching the general english positively contributed to her struggles of teaching esp courses. 234 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 229-240 aloisius wisnu mahendra (constructing identity) [stella] it looks like trial and error … i can implement the teaching materials and monitor the teaching-learning process so that i can evaluate the students’ learning and develop my teaching performance as well. on the other hand, rebecca constituted a narrower role in her esp class. she believed that teaching esp required collaboration between the teacher and the students. creating a collaboration with the student provides an advantage for the teacher since the student is the one who generally more familiar with the target discipline (dudley-evans & st john, 1998). [rebecca] i position myself as a companion for the students. i think that i am not the only source of knowledge so that they should not rely on me only … but i tend to collaborate with the students since they know better about the areas they engage with. the participants’ narratives demonstrate that their prior professional experiences became an essential source of teacher learning and authority in designing the materials and developing the learning content. as the esp course in the language institute serve as a private program and the students taking the course are varied in terms of subject knowledge areas and language proficiency, the teachers are required to provide suitable materials with considerable complexities promoting crucial content that the students need. given attention on authorship of teaching contents and materials, the teachers show confidence in teaching esp as well as in constructing the instructional element of their teacher identities (pennington, 2014). in addition to the role of a teacher in esp class, rebecca’s narrative illustrated an esp teacher’s persona in classroom instruction. the role of being a collaborator for the students’ learning enriched the teachers with various subject knowledge. this helps the teachers to draw learning contexts and to provide specific language assistance. 3.2. disciplinary frame the disciplinary frame incorporates teacher identity into a specific field or discipline (pennington, 2014). based on the interview data, despite promoting esp teaching and learning in the language institute, the participants successfully developed a sense of identification of esp field into an independent course managed by the cesp division. the demands for esp learning in surrounding society contributed to the participants’ experiences interpreting the esp courses they taught and in negotiating their professional identities as esp teachers. [stella] teaching esp means teaching specific students with special needs … of course, the course would be specified regarding the students’ background (subject knowledge areas) and needs, for example, teaching english for missionaries. the context would be about christianity and priests’ life. [rebecca] it is good to understand esp as an independent course here (in the language institute) ... the course outline designed by the coordinators should represent the students’ request for learning english specifically. drawing on these two teachers’ narratives, both stella and rebecca were able to associate esp with language learning in specific ways. they have the same self-positionings towards what esp is and how it should be implemented. as one of the esp course coordinators, stella attempted to emphasize esp as a customized course designed for specific individuals. she possessed an authority to design the course syllabus based on the result of diagnostic test and need analysis, and coordinate teachers in conducting classroom instruction. this demonstrates how esp course is independently implemented as well as how the teachers’ knowledge base affects the disciplinary frame of their teacher identities (clarke, 2008). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 235 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 229-240 aloisius wisnu mahendra (constructing identity) furthermore, it should be taken into account that the status of esp in the language institute is influenced by demands of learning english in surrounding society. the participants recognized a shift of learning priority during their experiences of teaching esp (occupational to academic purposes). this shift of learning priority potentially affects the participants’ identity development as esp teachers in a way that they embrace and cope with those emerging situations (campion, 2016). [christine] the demands of eap are getting higher in the last three years. the students expect that they can use english to support their academic needs, such as seeking for scholarship, writing research paper, and speaking in a conference. [dion] we need to see the reality that most of the esp courses we designed recently focus on improving students’ academic skills, specifically for research paper writing and presentation … we (esp teachers) also need to improve our academic skills to walk along the trends. the construction of the participants' disciplinary frame is generally influenced by the institutional setting which has immediate effects on their professional lives (hayes, 2008). through their narratives, the participants showed an awareness towards the changing priority of esp learning in the surrounding environment. this situation affects the teachers’ viewpoint and action to perform their professional practices. taken the role as the esp course coordinator, dion tried to cope with the societal demands by facilitating students who needed eap assistance. in classroom instruction, moreover, christine began to be aware of what the students expected from their course in regards to learning english for academic purposes. this potentially influences how she perceived the development of esp in the language institute and how she conducted her classroom instruction to meet the students’ expectancy. 3.3. professional frame the professional frame covers teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, and practices of a specific field, which are developed through individual’s perspectives and participation in professional activities (pennington, 2014). for these esp teachers working in the language institute, the construction of the professional element of the teacher identity was examined through their interpretations and engagement with professional practices, as mediated by their learning and teaching experiences. the interview data illustrated that the participants formed their individualized professional practices through different ways. rebecca, an esp teacher who was responsible to teach other classes in english testing center, such as ielts and toefl, and the general english, constituted a sense of ‘being alert’ towards the development of esp and related subject knowledge areas to strengthen her professionalism as an esp teacher. [rebecca] i need to be aware of new changes and the development of knowledge … i cannot just rely on what i learned … to become an esp teacher, i should keep learning. rebecca’s narrative implies that being well-informed and up-to-date on changes and development of subject knowledge areas have been internalized as part of her own professional practices. this connects her identity construction to the global facet of the context (pennington, 2014). meanwhile, dion developed his professional practices from his engagement with esp discussion forum and workshop related to esp and esp teaching held by educational institutions in surrounding workplace. he found that these professional development activities contributed to broaden his knowledge horizon on the development of esp in indonesia, including the adoption of new strategies to conduct classroom instruction and understanding of challenges experienced by other esp teachers attending the forum and the workshop. 236 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 229-240 aloisius wisnu mahendra (constructing identity) [dion] i got pictures of how esp was taught in other institutions, what the challenges were, and what techniques they (other esp teachers) implemented to boost their teaching. it was a great experience to have sharing with them … i guess we can make such kind of activities here. dion’s narrative suggests the significance of joining esp discussion forum and workshop in relation to the construction of his professional element of esp teacher identity. dion’s participation in those professional development activities impacts on further identification of how esp teachers working in the language institute are able to develop their esp skills in order to enhance their performance. additionally, stella shared her interpretation towards the essence of conducting esp research and participating in seminars to enrich the teachers’ knowledge on issues related to esp. she believed in the potential of esp teachers in the language institute to develop their professional practices. [stella] we have some experienced teachers and most of them have earned their master degree … it is better for us to conduct research on esp and we can participate in seminars to share ideas about esp, such as the trends, the difficulties, the teaching strategies, and even exchange experiences in teaching particular esp courses. stella’s narrative implies her projection of the way of developing esp teachers’ professionalism in the language institute. it is believed to be clear that stella’s perspective strengthens her professional elements of teacher identity (pennington, 2014). being involved in the supportive environment, these esp teachers find it easy to sustain intellectual exchanges with the other colleagues or to construct professional identities as esp teachers in the language institute (pennington, 2014). 3.4. vocational frame the vocational frame highlights the affective element of teacher identity. it includes teaching commitment and enjoyment (pennington, 2014). as the participants were assigned in different positions in the language institute, they felt a positive sense of teacher identity based on the shared belief in the benefits of teaching esp. a primary theme of the narratives concerns on the relevance of esp teaching to the participants’ intrinsic fulfillment as a teacher. [rebecca] i feel changes in me … in the first year i taught esp i felt that i was timid. i was afraid of something unexpected happened. through the preparation, i learn many new things and i enjoy this process … now i just let my teaching run and i feel that i am a teacher. [stella] learning by teaching, that is the point … i feel that teaching esp can fulfill my personal needs as a person who likes to meet new people with different background and learn from them. these two teachers’ narratives reveal a further interpretation of becoming an esp teacher. both rebecca and stella, they believed that becoming an esp teacher requires continual learning over life and working experiences. as rebecca found a sense of enjoyment through her esp teaching preparation, her vocation of becoming a teacher is constructed along with her experiences as she could interpret the benefits of teaching esp. while, stella expressed a sense of fulfillment through her position as the esp course coordinator and the teacher as well. she told her experiences of meeting new students shared different subject knowledge areas, aiming at promoting intellectual exchanges. starting from analyzing the students’ needs until conducting the classroom instruction, she highlighted her inner self-positioning as a continual learner in dealing with esp. on the other issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 237 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 229-240 aloisius wisnu mahendra (constructing identity) hand, christine formed her vocational element of teacher identity by taking another role of an esp teacher. she pointed out her enjoyment of becoming a materials designer and evaluator (dudleyevans & st john, 1998). [christine] if there are two choices, teaching the students or developing the learning materials, i would prefer to develop the learning materials … i find myself more comfortable when i deal with materials design and evaluation. here i have experienced teaching in the classroom for eight years and now i want to try something new, which is ‘working at the back stage’. christine’s engagement with esp field has been accumulated through her teaching experiences in the language institute for eight years. as she was responsible to develop am devaluate the learning materials for the esp courses she taught, christine found her comfort during the process of teaching esp. her experience has led to the construction of her esp teacher identity in regards to the importance of becoming a materials designer and evaluator for esp courses in the language institute. above all, these self-positioning enable the participants to see alternative perspectives on what they experience that go beyond the ideological construction of esp at the language institute. these alternative perspectives positively contribute to the vocational element of being an esp teacher (pennington, 2014). 3.5. economic frame the economic frame connects teacher identity to the feeling of being compensated and extrinsically and intrinsically recognized in terms of both economic and academic position regarding one’s work in the field (pennington, 2014). apart from the status of esp in the language institute, the participants’ narratives indicate challenging situation encountered by these teachers towards the students and their demands for learning esp. [dion] we should maintain the privacy of the course, meaning that we give all for our students. that is the way to promote our esp course. [stella] this is a private course and we design it for specific students … we often face the students who are demanding on the choice of the lessons and the results of taking this course. both dion and stella, they compensated their position as the coordinators of the esp course in the language institute, who were responsible to design a specific esp course based on the students’ needs and wants. in order to promote the course as well as the division of cesp, they provided well services to the students during the course. those two narratives illustrate that the students possess superiority in term of economic position as they contribute to the development of the cesp division in the language institute. this might affect the students’ attitudes towards the course they are taking, importantly the demanding changes of the learning topics. in line with the students’ demands, dion’s narrative below would best describe his experience in responding to this concern. [dion] some lecturers taking english academic writing or public speaking course for doctoral study preparation often demanded for the lessons they expected and were instantly applicable … should we follow them or stick to the course outline that we have designed before? that is the question … we open for discussion then. the experience of dealing with students who possess superiority in terms of academic and economic positions provide dion with space to mediate his teacher identity to come up with decision making (toom, pyhältö, & rust, 2015). he suggested an alternative way by deciding to 238 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 229-240 aloisius wisnu mahendra (constructing identity) have discussion about the students’ expectancy towards the course. this raises the notion of promoting privacy for the students where the students have space to share their expectancy towards the course. concerning on such experience, the economic frame of teacher identity could be reflected through these teachers’ challenging situations towards the students’ demands that provides the compensation for teacher-student economic and academic position (pennington, 2014). the participants’ experiences illustrate a complex picture of indonesian esp teachers’ professional lives in a language institute. based on their life-history accounts, these teachers revealed that becoming an esp teacher positively contributed to their instructional practices and transformed their professional lives, as captured in different frames of teacher identities. the instructional frame pointed out the participants’ prior professional experiences. their experiences became an influential source of teacher learning and authority in developing teaching-learning materials and adopting appropriate teaching methods in accordance with the target subject knowledge areas (dudley-evans & st john, 1998). the manifestation of these pedagogical practices serves as an essential source of mediation to support their esp teacher identity construction. in classroom instruction, a sense being a student’s collaborator was believed to provide an advantage for the participants, as they needed to cooperate with the student, the one who was generally more familiar with the target subject knowledge area (dudley-evans & st john, 1998). therefore, building teacher-student collaboration would promote intellectual exchanges to integrate the english language into the specific context that the student involves in. in addition to teacher learning, the participants suggested that becoming an esp teacher required continual learning process over life and working experiences. this belief strengthens their vocational frame of teacher identity construction, as they found the relevance of esp teaching to their intrinsic fulfillment as a teacher. although the participants were assigned in different positions in the language institute, they felt a positive sense of teacher identity based on the shared belief in the benefits of teaching esp. their self-positionings, whether as a course coordinator, a classroom teacher, or a materials designer and evaluator, enable them to see alternative perspectives on what they experienced that go beyond the ideological construction of an esp teacher (pennington, 2014). despite promoting the classroom instruction, further exploration of the esp teacher identity construction reveals that the participants successfully developed a sense of identification of esp field as an independent course managed by the cesp division in the language institute. they were also able to associate esp with english language learning in specific ways and how it should be implemented amid the changing priority (eop to eap) and the societal demands for learning esp. such understanding incorporates the participants’ knowledge base to the projection of their professional practices and specifically affects the disciplinary frame of their teacher identities (clarke, 2008). on the other hand, the economic frame of the teacher identity demonstrates challenging situation encountered by the participants towards the students’ demands for learning esp as the result of being customized course in the language institute. the students possess superiority in term of economic position as they contribute to the development of the cesp division in the language institute. this impacts on the students’ attitudes towards the course they are taking, importantly demanding for course changes in term of the lessons that go beyond their language competence. in line with the concerned theme about the student’s superior position in the esp course, the participants develop their professional frame of teacher identity by promoting teacher-student dialogue. the activity aims to evaluate the course and the students’ progress during classroom instruction, and to make necessary adjustment to the course syllabus and the materials (pennington, 2014). on the other hand, based on the participants’ life-history accounts, the increasing demands of esp learning encourage the teachers to be well-informed and up-to-date on changes and development of particular subject knowledge areas. the participants acquired sufficient subject knowledge related to the course by reading some literature to enrich their understanding on the subject area they taught, and searching for and adapting some teaching resources to develop the materials for classroom instruction. this activity has been internalized as their part of enhancing professional practices and connects their identity construction to the global facet of the context (pennington, 2014). to promote intellectual exchanges on esp topics, moreover, participating in esp academic forums and internal esp workshop were pointed out to give significant influence to the teachers’ professional identity. these professional development activities contributed to broadening the participants’ knowledge horizon on esp teaching resources and strategies, and the challenges to resolve. the participants might acquire sufficient knowledge and skills to enhance issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 239 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 229-240 aloisius wisnu mahendra (constructing identity) their professional lives and to cope with challenges and changes in teaching esp. involved in the supportive environment, thus, these participants find it easy to sustain intellectual exchanges with the other colleagues or to construct professional identities (pennington, 2014). 4. conclusion the current study reveals the struggles and negotiation of esp teacher identity construction at language institute context. it illustrates the complex interaction in the workplace community through five frames of tesol teacher identity (pennington, 2014). although the number of participants was limited and merely constituted broad generalization, the findings could capture each participant’s identity construction through their professional lives at the language institute context. the findings highlighted that the participants constructed esp teacher identity through acquiring subject knowledge via professional development activities within the workplace community or surrounding educational institutions. a sense of intrinsic fulfillment also enveloped these participants, as their self-positionings, as esp teachers in the language institute, contributed to their professional development. on the other hand, the participants showed subordination to the students’ demands for learning esp as esp courses in the context of language institute served as an independent and customized program designed for specific students. however, this condition encouraged the participants to develop their professional practices by making some course adjustment based on the result of teacher-student dialogue, in order to meet the students’ needs. taken the results together, the need to equip esp teachers in the language institute with sufficient skills in various subject knowledge areas became the concern of the participants. the teachers might struggle to sustain their teacher identities through professional development activities related to esp and esp teaching. then, it is essential for the institute to provide facilitation for the teachers to conduct esp research and training by problematizing the current esp development and how the esp teachers implement their classroom instruction. creating such a supportive learning environment positively contributes to the formation of a teacher community sharing the same beliefs (song & kim, 2016). these professional development opportunities would increase the growing number of language teachers who transform their careers to teach esp in a wider context in asia. references beijaard, d., meijer, p. c., & verloop, n. 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(2013). positioning foreign english language teachers in the japanese university context. teachers and teaching: theory and practice, 19(6), 717-735. xu, y. (2014). becoming researchers: a narrative study of chinese university efl teachers’ research practice and their professional identity construction. language teaching research, 18(2), 242-259. english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 75-85 75 10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2477 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id a case study on the impacts of advising on efl teacher development metin esen a,1,* a ankara yıldırım beyazıt university, school of foreign languages, milli i̇rade binası ayvalı mah. gazze cad. no: 7 etlik-keçiören / ankara, 06010, turkey 1 esen.metin@outlook.com * corresponding author 1. introduction with the advancements in technology and the ease of access to knowledge provided by smartphones, computers, and the internet connection, being an active language learner is presented with a huge inventory of opportunities, sources, and interaction patterns. according to harmer (2007) and genç i̇lter (2015), it is a good idea for teachers to guide their learners in identifying and utilizing suitable digital material to boost their language learning processes. harmer (2007) also specify that cooperation between learners can be maintained through the use of computerised language learning processes. though the opportunities of being an effective language learner has become abundant, it is still challenging for learners to locate the appropriate paths leading to these opportunities. this is the exact point where advising in language learning proves a required and significant procedure in establishing those paths. in its broadest sense, advising is associated with several concepts such as mentoring, supervising, encouragement, tutoring, counselling, guidance, and in some cases friendship (hemwall & trachte, 2005; melander, 2005; rawlins & rawlins, 2005). kato and mynard (2016) associate advising in language learning with learner autonomy as individual learners with autonomy are highly aware of their own learning procedures being in charge of various a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 09 july, 2020 revised 17 august, 2020 accepted 31 august, 2020 advising in language learning is one of the new ways of creating aware, reflective, and autonomous learners in the area of second language acquisition (sla). some language learning institutions help their learners with their learning issues through advising in self-access centres practices by advisors and teacher-advisors. this case study aimed at exploring the presence of advising in teacher development frameworks assessing various teacher skills and behaviours. the research also asked 12 teacher-advisors form ankara yıldırım beyazıt university, school of foreign languages if they believed advising had an impact on their professional development. both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from the participants through a 38-item questionnaire and a 10-question written interview. the analysis of the results suggested that teacher development frameworks directly or indirectly assessed some teacher behaviours that can also be attributed to a teacher, and teachers seemed to believe that the practice of advising had positive impact on their teaching skills. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords advising in language learning learner autonomy in-service teacher education teacher development framework continuous professional development 10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2477 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:esen.metin@outlook.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 76 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 75-85 metin esen (a case study on the impacts of advising on efl teacher development) elements such as planning, monitoring, time management, evaluation, and contextualisation (little, 1991). kato and mynard (2016) emphasize that autonomy cannot be achieved with a “one size fits all” approach, and advising could help in “engaging learners in reflection, in discovering different ways to learn, and in making decisions about the ways which are most effective for them” (p. 18). it would not be irrelevant to claim that advising is a reciprocal process, and it is pragmatic for the advisor, who is the language teacher, in the same rate it is for the advisee, who is the language learner in the context of the field of second language education (sle). kato and maynard (2016) also underline the fact that building skills as an advisor is a continual phase just as the process of becoming an autonomous learner is. ciekanski (2007) defines this process as the concept of educational reciprocity, and she suggests several pedagogical roles embraced by advisors such as being an advisor, a teacher, a tutor, or even a companion, and lists five fundamental emotional strategies and values practiced by advisors, which are a) “the meaning of negotiation” during which the advisor learns about the advisee and the topic to be advised on while the advisee gathers information on how to think reflectively, b) “preservation and creation of language learning knowledge” which is about the advisee regarding the advisor as the source of language learning knowledge also having the freedom to shape their own learning styles, c) “personal and professional exchanges” that necessitates the inclusion of the affective factor as well as the cognitive domain to create an unspoken agreement between the two, d) “engagement” which concerns to what degree the advisors involve themselves in the process in terms of sparing time, effort, and knowledge, and e) “recognition of otherness” that clarifies how the goal of autonomous learning is shared by all but the way to achieve it differs for everyone (ciekanski, 2007, pp. 123-124). although the process might seem highly structured and relatively easy to master for an experienced sle teacher, advising shares some characteristics of counselling in terms of a dialogue concerning learning, which is described by kelly (1996) as “a form of therapeutic dialogue that enables an individual to manage a problem” (p. 94). this thin line between psychological counselling and language learning advising, implied by the term “therapeutic dialogue” (kelly, 1996, p. 94), creates a considerable challenge for the teacheradvisors as standard language teacher education does not train them to cope with the therapeutic cases that may come up in the classroom anytime. in order to keep the conversation within the limits of advising and carry out an effective session with the advisee, the advisor/teacher-advisor is required to possess certain skills and personal traits. according to aoki (2012), the most important ones among these skills and traits are to 1) build rapport and maintain empathy, 2) keep positivity and avoid judgmental remarks, 3) be enthusiastic to aid the advisee, 4) maintain a structured dialogue, 5) ask the correct question, 6) listen effectively, 7) observe closely and decipher meaning, 8) present timely and meaningful alternatives, and 9) be able to identify the reasons behind learner issues. kelly (1996) also suggests two lists of several macro and micro skills that an advisor should have. the macro skills are ones that an average teacher is supposed to have, such as goal-setting, modelling, and giving feedback. micro skills, on the other hand, are those necessary for a language learning advisor to carry out a successful advising session with the learners. these include skills such as attending, paraphrasing, questioning, and confronting. similarly, kato and mynard (2016) suggest several basic strategies to carry out an intentional reflective dialogue with the learners, and the list is made up of items such as repeating, mirroring, restating, summarizing, giving positive feedback, empathizing, complimenting, using metaview/linking, and using metaphors. these skills are not direct components of the curricula of language teacher education programs mainly because advising is a totally different role than teaching, and partly because it is a newly emerging field with inadequate amount of research that examines these two distinct roles under the same roof. however, this fact does not diminish the importance of advising in language learning processes. unlike other subjects learnt at school, english does not only stand as the “ends” but also serves as the “means” being a device for communication held in an unlimited number of cases from shopping in a supermarket to listening to a lecture at a college. therefore, guiding a learner in transforming into an autonomous and self-aware language learner might help that learner manipulate his/her personal life, experiences, notions, and will power to learn more effectively (kato & mynard, 2016). as this is an unneglectable fact for teachers of english, perhaps they might already be acquiring some of the traits of an advisor in their pre-service and in-service trainings, and some of the performance features that would be expected from an advisor are also expected from an issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 77 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 75-85 metin esen (a case study on the impacts of advising on efl teacher development) ordinary language teacher as the core aim of advising, achieving transformative learning, is parallel to the core aim of language teaching. with this notion taken into utmost consideration, this case study is designed specifically to establish if advising in language learning is already assessed directly or indirectly in language teacher development frameworks. additionally, the research is intended to find to what degree and in what ways participant teacher-advisors believe the practice of advising has affected their continuous professional development. in the scope of the study, answer to the following research questions were sought: rq1: is the concept of advising directly or indirectly assessed in various teacher development frameworks? rq2: do teacher-advisors believe advising had an impact on their continuous professional development? 2. methods 2.1 research design the research was designed to collect data as a case study to have closer look at a context both peculiar to its own nature and representative of similar environments. a case study might be defined as intensively and systematically investigating a particular person, a group, or a society, and the process involves researcher(s) analyzing data in the light of various variables (woods, 1980). according to crandall (2000), the use of case studies in teaching professions is an excellent way of bringing theory and practice together since they portray detailed contexts of agents shaping teacher profiles and decision-making processes. through the case method, kelch and malupa-kim (2014, p. 12) teachers can “interact with theoretical principles by drawing upon their own and others’ experiential and practical knowledge in addressing real-world problems.” 2.1. maintaining the integrity of the specifications the template is used to format your paper and style the text. all margins, column widths, line spaces, and text fonts are prescribed; please do not alter them. you may note peculiarities. for example, the head margin in this template measures proportionately more than is customary. this measurement and others are deliberate, using specifications that anticipate your paper as one part of the entire proceedings, and not as an independent document. please do not revise any of the current designations. 2.2. context and participants the research took place at ankara yıldırım beyazıt university, a state university in ankara, turkey, at school of foreign languages, acting as the compulsory english preparatory school of the university. the school, with over 2500 students and 112 instructors, aims to help students gain proficiency in academic english to follow fully/partially english-medium instructed classes in various departments in faculties after a year of compulsory english training. to help these learners with various issues in their language learning endeavours, the school promotes 18 trained teacher-advisors who conduct 40-minute one-to-one sessions with learners building their structured conversations on the strategies and tips suggested in reflective dialogue by kato and mynard (2016). the core aim of the sessions is to create autonomous learners who are 1) aware of their learning processes; 2) can identify issues blocking learning; 3) help advisees gain selfconfidence; and 4) foster independent learning in advisees permanently. the participants of the study are 12 efl instructors (n= 12) from ankara yıldırım beyazıt university, school of foreign languages, who also act as language learning advisors. as can be viewed on table 1, 8 participants were female teacher-advisors and the remaining 4 were males. the profile was consisted of highly experienced teachers of efl, with the great majority of them having a teaching experience of more than 10 years. most of them completed their graduate studies with an ma degree, and two had phd degrees. their weekly teaching load was imbalanced as some of them worked as regular teachers (17, 21, and 23 hours) while some of the had administrative and office duties (4 and 12 hours). their experiences as teacher advisors were 78 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 75-85 metin esen (a case study on the impacts of advising on efl teacher development) also quite different. there were 7 teacher advisors who were involved in advising over two years while 5 of them were in their first year of advising. lastly, the number of advisees they welcomed varied a lot as the newer advisors had a lower number of sessions whereas 2 of them advised more than 50 learners in total. table 1. profile of the participants teacher -advisor gender teaching experience educational background weekly teaching load advising experience number of advisees star female 16-20 years ma 21 hours 0-6 months 5-10 learner-forever female 16-20 years ba 12 hours over 2 years over 50 phoenix male 6-10 years ma 12 hours 0-6 months 5-10 pearl female over 20 years ma 12 hours 6-12 months 0-5 allie female over 2 years silver male over 20 years ma 4 hours over 2 years 10-20 ebby female 16-20 years ma 12 hours over 2 years 20-50 gabriel male 6-10 years ma 17 hours 0-6 months 0-5 pennywise female 16-20 years ma 23 hours over 4 years over 50 freedom female 10 – 15 years 23 hours 6-12 months 5-10 timothy male 10 – 15 years phd 4 hours over 4 years 20-50 la-x female 16-20 years phd over 2 years 20-50 2.3. data collection and analysis the study included the scanning of three sample teacher development frameworks to detect criteria relatable with the main purpose of advising. these were: 1) british council continuing professional development (cpd) framework for teachers (british council, 2015), 2) cambridge english teaching framework competency statements (cambridge assessment english, 2014), and 3) the eaquals framework for language teacher training and development (eaquals, 2013). to carry out this detailed search within these three frameworks, the method of conceptual analysis was used. according to kahn and zeidler (2017), this method “involves testing whether common usage of a word, that represents part of a larger construct, would be appropriate in various situations, or cases” (p. 5). the process included a systematic inquiry into the existence and the frequency of some predefined terminology about advising and learner autonomy taken from the descriptions of kato and maynard (2016). these keywords selected were: effective, awareness, reflection, connection, responsibility, motivation, autonomy, individual, differences, lifelong, plan, monitor, selfevaluate / self-assess, transfer, decision, need, independent, action, progress, and affect. once the relevant teacher performance criteria that explicitly or implicitly contain one or more of these keywords were determined, they were collated together and transformed into a likert-scaletype questionnaire1 of 38 items in total. the participant teachers were instructed to evaluate their development under the guidance of the items selecting appropriate one among the five scales between strongly agree and strongly disagree. a reliability analysis was carried out on ibm statistical package for the social sciences (spss) statistics version 25, and the cronbach’s alpha for these 38 items was .94. descriptive statistics were used to depict the results of the questionnaire. in the final step, the participants were provided with 10 in-depth written interview questions2 that required the teacher-advisors reflect deeply on their advising practice and its impacts on their professional development as teachers. there were no face-to-face or focus group interviews due to time constraints. however, the items were comprehensive enough to cover several aspects of both advising and teaching, and the participants tended to write quite long reflections under each interview question, requiring no transcription process. as there are no scientific theories regarding the effects of advising on teaching, the results of the written interviews were analysed with the application of grounded theory (corbin & strauss, 2008). with the help of open coding and 1 https://cutt.ly/questionnaire-and-interview 2 https://cutt.ly/questionnaire-and-interview issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 79 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 75-85 metin esen (a case study on the impacts of advising on efl teacher development) conceptual labelling, the themes that recurred the most were identified for each interview question, and the answers by the interviewees were rescanned for a heightened validity in coding. the participant teacher-advisor’s beliefs towards their professional development under the impact of advising could be meaningfully interpreted with the possibilities provided by grounded theory. the categories that were identified in the answers for each interview question were: independent learning, empathy, needs analysis, strategy training, and learning management system (lms). 2.4. ethical considerations as this was a case study conducted with a limited number of participations from a renowned state university, the biggest ethical considerations were the written formal consent of the ethics committee and the participants individually, the former having been obtained from the ethics committee of the faculty of humanities and social sciences, and the latter having been collected at the beginning of the questionnaire and the interview questions. furthermore, the results and discussions reported did not reveal the identity of the participants with the use of pseudonyms either chosen by the participant during the questionnaire or appointed by the researcher. 3. findings and discussion rq1: is the concept of advising directly or indirectly assessed in various teacher development frameworks? all three teacher development frameworks, though indirectly, are intended to assess teacher performance and development in areas such as raising awareness, creating autonomous learners, helping students shape their self-directed learning, identifying learners’ individual as well as collective needs, and instilling the use of technology to aid learning. the framework by british council (2015) had five different categories containing teacher development criteria with a direct or indirect link to advising and autonomous learning, and these were: planning lessons and courses, understanding learners, integrating ict, using inclusive practices, and using multilingual approaches (appendix a). for example, the category of integrating ict had this criterium which would be a joint goal of a teacher and an advisor likewise: promoting autonomous learning by exploiting digital content and technologies inside and outside of the formal learning environment. similarly, the teacher development framework by cambridge assessment english (2014) two main and four sub categories than can loosely or strongly be associated with advising and learner autonomy, which were: learning and the learner and teaching, learning, and assessment, the latter with the sub categories of planning language learning, using language-learning resources and materials, teaching language systems, and assessing language learning (appendix a). as an illustration, the sub category of teaching language systems showed the criterium assessing teaching how to learn vocabulary; as the difference between “learning the meanings of specific words” and “learning strategies to become independent word learners” is highly stressed (blachowicz & fisher, 2000, p. 505): lesson plans and classroom practice demonstrate a variety of techniques for teaching vocabulary, and strategies to encourage learner autonomy. the teacher development framework by eaquals (2013), on the other hand, seemed to prove the most inclusive framework in terms of advising and learner autonomy. starting from the values and attitudes section, the developmental categories of planning teaching and learning, teaching and supporting learning, and assessment of learning had various key areas with teacher development criteria directly and indirectly related to advising and learner autonomy (appendix a). different from the other two frameworks, eaquals had area had a specific key area of learner autonomy under the category of teaching and supporting learning. one of the criteria aimed at assessing the teacher behaviour of creating lifelong learners out of language learners, which can only be achieved through learner autonomy (holec, 1981): 80 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 75-85 metin esen (a case study on the impacts of advising on efl teacher development) developing learner autonomy by helping them to set their own objectives and discussing different ways of continuing learning outside the classroom. tassinari (2012) listed the key elements of learner autonomy as “a cognitive and metacognitive component, an affective and a motivational component, an action-oriented component, and a social component” (p. 28). while the impact of affective/motivational component on learning is openly stated in key area 1 within the section of teaching and supporting learning, learner autonomy section of the eaquals framework met all the other three of these essential components with spot-on criteria such as: including activities to develop learner autonomy as appropriate, bearing in mind individual learner needs (cognitive/metacognitive component) involving learners in decision making within the lesson and course encouraging learners to take responsibility for their learning, and advising them on independent learning options (action-oriented component) setting up and managing simple individual and group out-of-class projects for language activation and practice (social component). in the light of these criteria, it was easier to claim that some teacher development frameworks assessed teacher behaviours as if they were all language learning advisors. they were expected by these frameworks to create autonomous learners, help their students set their own objectives and check their own progress, manage their time and environment efficiently, take individual learning needs into consideration while preparing lesson plans and language learning material. rq2: do teacher-advisors believe advising had an impact on their continuous professional development? the questionnaire items collated from the advising and learner-autonomy-related teacher development criteria in the three frameworks were received positively by the participant teacheradvisors in general. all the teachers either agreed or strongly agreed with the items 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24, and 27, which were about understanding learners and autonomy levels, encouraging goal-setting, recognising learner diversity and background, strategy training, providing individualised feedback, belief in the value of lifelong learning, creating awareness of aims and progress, recognising cognitive and affective differences, and design of tasks/activities to foster learner autonomy. totally positive reaction towards nearly half of the items on the questionnaire showed that teacher-advisers believed the practice of advising might have had an impact on their performance and professional development. items 1, 2, 4, 9, 12, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 25, 28, and 32 were items where some of the teachers were not sure about the effects of advising on their development in teaching areas, and these areas were palling for differentiated learning, describing learning needs, applying and understanding of motivation in teaching and assessment, recognizing cognitive abilities, individualised assessment, understanding and targeting learner difficulties, selecting appropriate material, fostering self-assessment, being aware / creating awareness of learning styles, planning activities to develop learner autonomy, use of lmss to support autonomy, including activities targeting learning needs, and incorporate a wide range of techniques to develop learner autonomy. only a few of the items met with a relatively negative reception by some of the teacher-advisors who disagreed with the criteria. one of these, item 6, was related to the promotion of autonomous learning by exploiting digital content and technologies inside and outside of the formal learning environment. this is quite a normal challenge for the teachers as raya and fernandez (2002) state: “there are degrees of student involvement that the individual teacher can determine, taking into consideration the amount of responsibility he is prepared to transfer and the amount of responsibility learners are prepared to assume” (p. 65). items 29 and 33, which were related to learning and autonomy outside the classroom, were the other two with which the teacher-advisors disagreed. according to benson (2007), some ways of implementing autonomy outside the classroom are distance learning, call (computer assisted language learning), and studying at a self-access centre. however, benson (2007) also emphasizes the complexity of the situation by pointing to the issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 81 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 75-85 metin esen (a case study on the impacts of advising on efl teacher development) fact that these autonomous learning styles require a certain amount of autonomy, which may be provided with the support of the teacher. this case requires the utmost cooperation between the two roles of the teacher: the traditional in-class-teacher and the advisor. finally, items 31, 36, and 37, assessed the teachers’ development in terms of fostering self-assessment habits in their learners, and this was where the rate of disagreement was considerable. though self-assessment is crucial in the way leading to autonomous learning, gardner (2000) warns that self-assessment comes with its own drawbacks which are the issue of reliability and the switching roles between learners and teachers. if the teachers are unable to show their learners to assess their learning in reliable ways, and be their own teachers in terms of assessment, the degree of autonomy instilled will not matter for selfassessment. unlike the questionnaire, the written interview results yielded more meaningful findings regarding the participant teacher-advisors’ beliefs on their professional development thanks to the practice of advising. 3.1. understanding of learner autonomy all the teacher-advisors defined the concept of autonomy in similar ways, and five of them used words such as own-learning, awareness, responsibility, management, method, and decision which can be brought together under the category of independent learning. these terms are also among those used by kato and mynard (2016) to describe learner autonomy. for example, the teacheradvisor la-x describes autonomy as follows: autonomy is taking the responsibility of one's own learning from the very basic decisions regarding what one wants to learn to more complex aspects as to how it can be learnt efficiently making use of relevant material and human resource, contacting the right people for help at the right stage and capable of making independent decisions at various stages of the process. 3.2. recognising individual issues and needs the most significant words occurring in the answers to the interview questions were session, understanding, deep, problem, feel, and want pointing to the category of empathy. empathy can be broadly and phenomenologically defined as an emotional reaction to the other side’s observed, pictured, or deduced emotional state (batson, 2009). in the context of advising, kato and mynard (2016, p. 49) define it as “understanding a person’s internal state and imagining how she is thinking and feeling.” all the participants stated that advising gave them opportunities for a better understanding of their learners in various senses. as an answer to the second question, phoenix wrote: … one-to-one sessions teach me to listen to my learners effectively, and most of the time, what matters for the learners more than any solution to their issue is the fact that they are being listened to. listening brings along understanding, and understanding helps me guide the student in clearly seeing the situation. allie, another teacher-advisor, made a clear comparison of her two different mindsets before and after being introduced to the practice of advising, emphasizing a “cooperative” type of understanding: before advising, i would have been truly stumped if a learner said, “teacher, why can’t i listen?” but as an advisor, i was instantly intrigued and i tried to feel what the student was feeling and i used that plus their body language and facial expressions as a guide. once we both had a better understanding of what was really happening, i was able to get an idea of that the learner’s needs were. empathy is a significant teacher quality regardless of the requirements of advising, and teacher development frameworks, including the ones in the scope of this study, aim at empirically assessing empathy in the form of the ability to identify learners with regards to their individual features, needs, and issues to address the learners with a consideration of these analyses. it was established by cooper (2004) that self-efficacy and high levels of motivation to learn can be evoked in learners 82 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 75-85 metin esen (a case study on the impacts of advising on efl teacher development) with the help of teacher empathy, and these are two distinct features of an autonomous language learner. 3.3. lesson planning and material design to the fourth interview question asking the participants if they took their reflections from their advising sessions into consideration when planning lessons and designing learning material, 6 teachers-advisors replied affirmatively while the other half said no. the most frequent codes captured from the collected answers were score, needs, experience, reflection, observe, and consideration, words implying the category of needs analysis. the participants expressed their enlightenment regarding a better understanding of their learner’s needs. under the fourth question, briefly summing up the remarks of the other 5 teacher-advisors, la-x wrote: … i do not only aim to exploit their cognitive resources while designing learning materials, but also focus on the affect. here, what la-x consciously or unknowingly meant by the word choices of “cognition” and “affect” might be pointing to perceived/objective and felt/subjective needs of language learners. brindley (1994, p. 70), describes the two as follows: the first of these terms refers to needs which are derivable from different kinds of factual information about learners, their use of language in real-life communication situations as well as their current language proficiency and language difficulties. the second term refers to the cognitive and affective needs of the learner in the learning situation, derivable from information about affective and cognitive factors such as personality, confidence, altitudes, learners' wants and expectations with regards to the learning of english and their individual cognitive style and learning strategies. considering the nature of self-directed and autonomous learning, subjective needs would be more important for learners, and it interesting, though not surprising, to observe that the practice of advising might have helped these teacher-advisors to make a distinction between objective and subjective needs of their learners, and take the latter more into consideration while making lesson plans and designing learning material. 3.4. teaching ‘learning to learn’ and training lifelong learners under the sixth and ninth interview questions, the most frequent codes recorded were mistakes, time, activities, self-esteem, outside, individual, motivation, weekly, encourage, and plan, all indicating the category of strategy training. when the category was tracked within the answers, it was found that most of the teacher-advisors aimed at teaching their students how to apply correct strategies and organize their studies after their reflections following advising sessions. as a good example of the case, ebby wrote: … i believe learning training is most of the time more effective than teaching itself. the very first week of each period, after getting to know activities, i allocate most of my class hours to “how to organize my studies” activities. one of them is like this: everybody opens the blended syllabus document on his/her phone, and lists the weekly duties and responsibilities they are supposed to complete. then they order these tasks according to their needs and priorities. then i distribute one of the advising tools about setting goals and making plans. by the end of the lesson, they come up with a weekly plan. many studies aiming to detect elements that contribute to learning a second language discovered that learner autonomy was one of these factors (deng, 2004; holec, 1981; little, 1997). therefore, wenden (1991) proposes that the when teacher promote strategy training (e.g. metacognitive learning strategies), they also foster autonomy in their learners. 3.5. technology and learner autonomy under the final interview question, the most frequently used words were applications, learning environment, platforms, online, access, and tasks; and these concepts referred to the higher category issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 83 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 75-85 metin esen (a case study on the impacts of advising on efl teacher development) of learning management system (lms). when the replies were rescanned under the lead of this category, it was obvious that some of these teacher-advisors directed their students towards various learning management systems which include platforms such as edmodo and google classroom, self-paced online courses such as future learn and coursera, and online applications such as quizlet. silver, one of the participant teacher-advisors, quoted: … the most extreme case was a student who had issues with her teacher. i asked her what they were doing in class and wanted her to think if she could do all outside. there was a brief aha moment for her when she realized that she did not need her teacher to learn english. despite promoting self-paced, individual learning and collaboration, godwin-jones (2011) discusses that lmss are teacher-centred, as it is teachers who decide on the content, organisation, presentation, and pace of the learning. there are also other problems related to the incorporation of technology into autonomous learning, and allie portrayed one of the most significant issue, which is the reliability on and the prevalence of technological tools, quite vividly: i would love to change that and embrace technology more, but i feel that’s an expensive proposition. i would need classes and a much more expensive cell phone data plan. my students would need data plans too. many of them, esp. the foreign and/or refuge students, don’t even have consistent access to the internet outside of the school –and as i’ve said, the school’s wi-fi is iffy at best. this is why some of them can’t do the online homework or online tasks. they can’t afford the book (and its online access code) and/or they know they can’t do the online stuff anyway outside of school. another teacher-advisor, pearl, draws attention to the fact that one needs to know the advantages and disadvantages of a convenience before being able to recommend it to someone else: first, i need to be more competent and autonomous in using technology so that i can plan that. so, i need to work on myself before i do on them. 4. limitations this research had a number of limitations stemming from its nature as a case study (mcleod, 2019). first of all, as the study only analyses a particular group consisting of a limited number of people, the results reached through the data obtain from this narrow sampling may not be generalised to the population represented by this group. other teacher-advisors in other language teaching institutions might be going through totally different experiences embracing different values and beliefs. other than that, the researcher is one of the participant teachers who are also serving as advisors at ankara yıldırım beyazıt university, school of foreign languages. therefore, his inclusion in the data collection process might have had a negative impact on the results through researcher bias. additionally, the case study is quite challenging to replicate for other researchers to replicate as other sle teachers and language learning advisors might not be working under similar conditions, which could cause similar studies to yield different results due to the differences in variables. the sampling was far too narrow for the quantitative part of the questionnaire consisting of 38 likert-type items. to prevent sampling error, the exact size of the sampling proportional to the complex population, the goals of the study, and analysis methods to be used during the process should be taken into consideration (taherdoost, 2016). the final limitation of the study was the inclusion of only three teacher development frameworks to scan in terms of learner autonomy. the inclusion of other frameworks could have caused creation of a different, larger, or more comprehensive questionnaire with more development criteria. more comprehensive items could have helped the participant teacher-advisers to reflect on more teacher development areas which might be affected by the practice of advising. 84 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 75-85 metin esen (a case study on the impacts of advising on efl teacher development) 5. conclusions and further research this case study was aimed at scanning three professional teacher development frameworks to see if language learning advising is directly or indirectly assessed, and if the teacher-advisors at ankara yıldırım beyazıt university, school of languages believed if the practice of advising had an impact on their professional development. it was found that all three frameworks had development criteria that are loosely or strongly related to the skills a teacher-advisor is supposed to have. the results of the questionnaire, prepared under the guidance of the development criteria located in the frameworks, revealed that teacher-advisors at the institution had positive beliefs towards the contributions of advising to their teaching skills. the replies to the interview questions also pointed to 9 main categories yielded through the coding of most frequent words: independent learning, empathy, needs analysis, strategy training, and learning management system (lms). researchers who would like to replicate this study or build on it should take the scope into consideration and emancipate the reach from a case study into a more inclusive one to have more representative sample to be able to generalize the findings to the whole teacher-advisor profiles. they should also include a larger number of teacher development portfolios in the scanning process to create more criteria to assess joint characteristics of teachers and advisors. references aoki, n. 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(1980). nursing research: theory and practice. st louis: mosby. english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp.151-162 151 10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2461 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id video cartoons and task-induced involvement: effects to pupils’ l2 incidental literacy acquisition elaiza flor s. arabianaa,1,, dayvin adrian ember a. maliferb,2, helen r. betoniob,3* abc english department, msu-iligan institute of technology, philippines 1 elaizaflor.arabiana@g.msuiit.edu.ph; 2 dayvinadrianember.malifer@g.msuiit.edu.ph; 3 helen.betonio@g.msuiit.edu.ph* * corresponding author article info abstract article history received 04 july, 2020 revised 29 july, 2020 accepted 3 september, 2020 while most studies that explored children’s incidental literacy acquisition focused on input from written text, this quantitativequalitative study investigated the effects of using audio-visual input through close-captioned aesop’s fables cartoons from pinkfong and task-induced involvement (n=6 eight-year old pupils). wilcoxon signed rank test reveals that there is a significant difference in the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttests scores after the intervention as shown in the 90%-95% confidence level. this study also examines quantitatively the interconnectedness of the four areas of children’s literacy skills: vocabulary, oral vocabulary and pronunciation, orthographic skill and comprehension after watching cartoons and engaging in tasks. findings reveal a high correlation between the four literacy skills reflected as 95% confidence intervals. these findings reveal that incidental literacy acquisition is approached holistictically: the acquisition of one skill leads to the acquisition of the other literacy skills. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords incidental literacy acquisition task-induced involvement close-captioned videos 1. introduction the early years of a child’s life provide avenues for language and literacy development (mielonen & paterson, 2009). years ago, children’s exposure to language in their early years was only limited to their social interaction among their family members and other children. however, for many families now, “media has become a fabric of daily life” (rideout, hamel & kaiser family foundation, 2006, p.4). the digital age has created a huge impact in the children’s routine and daily interactions (vulchanova, baggio, cangelosi & smith, 2017). with the availability of new digital tools and media and them becoming commonplace, today’s children have more opportunities to listen, hear and see language in different platforms and environments allowing them to develop emergent literacy skills through their exposure. these emergent literacy skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing (blanchard & moore, 2010). the term "emergent" denotes the “developmental process of literacy acquisition and recognizes numerous forms of early literacy behavior” (gunn, simmons & kameenui, 2004, p.1). zhao (2008) defines literacy as “the ability to interpret and understand messages relayed from others” (as cited in mielonen and paterson, 2009, p.15). it is a “fundamental skill that unlocks learning” (terry, 2020) which is used as a tool for an individual to acquire knowledge independently. for children, language development and literacy start even before they enter primary school. this is referred as emergent literacy which refers to the information, capacity, and frame of mind that children develop as they start to learn reading and writing in the whole early childhood period (save the children, n.d.). 10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2461 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:elaizaflor.arabiana@g.msuiit.edu.ph mailto:dayvinadrianember.malifer@g.msuiit.edu.ph mailto:helen.betonio@g.msuiit.edu.ph http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 152 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp.151-162 arabiana, et.al (video cartoons and task-induced involvement:…) whitehurst and lonigan (1998, p.1) refer to these skills and knowledge as “developmental precursors to reading and writing.” the ubiquitous use of english in media has exposed children to the english language prior to the start of their formal l2 english learning which allowed them to receive rich syntactic and semantic input for language learning (de wilde & eyckmans, 2017). the development of these emergent literacy skills continues as children explore the world filled with awe (blanchard & moore, 2010). emergent literacy as the first stage in reading development (save the children, n.d.) is also developed even when children are engaged in “non-intentional activities” especially with the use of media and technology. hulstijn and laufer (2001) define incidental learning as a “by-product of any activity not explicitly geared to lexical learning” (as cited in zhao, et al., 2016). blanchard and moore (2010) use the term “non-intentional activities” referring to opportunities in which children are exposed to language and pictures but the exposure does not have an intended learning objective or curriculum. young children may simply be watching, listening, and talking to others who are sharing the digital media experience. this digital experience can be considered play, but learning is achieved in this phenomenon without them even noticing it happening. huckin and coady (1999, p.18) define this incidental language acquisition as a “by-product, not the target, of the main cognitive activity” (as cited in de wilde & eyckmans, 2017). saracho and spodek (2006) explain that reading and writing skills are developed even when the learner is playing (as cited in mielonen and paterson, 2009). in second language acquisition, input plays a major role which makes audio-visual input, the video, a good source of l2 input (perez & rodgers, 2019). as early as the late 1970s, research on the impact of the mass media on language development began (vulchanova, baggio, cangelosi & smith, 2017). one of the few earliest studies that dealt with audio-visual input among young learners was conducted by winn (1977 as cited in vulchanova, baggio, cangelosi & smith, 2017) which utilized the effect of the children's television programme sesame street on language development. the findings reveal that it has significant effects, however, only in combination with adult intervention. d’ydewalle and van de poel (1999) in denmark utilized subtitled television programs in a foreign language as language input to dutch speaking children. they found that children tend to acquire more when the foreign language is in the sound form than in the written form (subtitles). in the following years, the dearth of studies that explored the effects of digital media on emergent literacy skills development emanate from television and computer studies (blanchard & moore, 2010). recently, studies that explored incidental literacy among young learners include jensen (2016) which explored extramural english activities that include gaming, watching television and listening to music in relation to vocabulary learning. language input and the child's interaction with the environment play a significant role in language development as highlighted in the language acquisition theories (vulchanova, baggio, cangelosi & smith, 2017). as such, this study aims to determine whether the integration of digital media (audio-visual input), particularly animated cartoons with closed captions (cc) as language input and task-induced involvement (tii) as child’s interaction with the environment will lead to the pupils’ l2 incidental literacy skills acquisition (ilsa). with this new digital reality, the study intends to explore its effect on the children’s acquisition of the basic human skill: language. harun and tedlos (2013) found that children have the tendency to take cartoons as their models and to reflect the characters in their daily games through the imitation of a few lines uttered or the behaviors acted by the cartoon characters they associate themselves with. children who experience and are exposed to media-digital input such as animated cartoons may lead to more opportunities to incidentally learn more language items. de wilde & eyckmans (2017) findings confirm that language is incidentally acquired by children before the start of formal english instruction through the exposure they receive from media, specifically, gaming and computer use which showed a significant relationship to the children’s test results. the dearth of studies mentioned prove that few studies deal with younger language learners’ incidental literacy skills acquisition since most studies dealt with older participants (teenagers and university students). these studies on adult learners also addressed learner’s incidental literacy input usually through reading from written texts and which focused only on gains obtained from one skill especially vocabulary (zhao, et al., 2016; ponniah, 2011). this is not surprising since vocabulary is the most significant component of l2 knowledge for all learners to develop whether the learner aims for academic or interpersonal competence (savielle-troike, 2012). these studies include vocabulary issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 153 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp.151-162 arabiana, et.al (video cartoons and task-induced involvement:…) gains from reading and listening (xiaoning & feng, 2017), l2 listening using a dimensions framework (zeeland & schmitt, 2013) and reading and translation (huang, 2008). previous research on audio-visual input still focused on older learners only (lin, 2010), gaming and learning l2 vocabulary (sylven & sundqvist, 2012), and gaming frequency and game type as predictors of l2 vocabulary learning (sundqvist, 2019). integrating task-induced involvement (tii) after the audio-visual input, this study investigates the processes of the children’s incidental acquisition of new words or lexical items (vocabulary), understanding how these words are put together and understanding the plot of a story (comprehension), acquiring the ability to write and spell the words they have seen and heard onscreen (orthography) and acquiring the ability to pronounce new words or lexical items by imitating the sound from the video (pronunciation) after multiple exposure to two video cartoons. this process is operationally defined in this study as incidental literacy skills acquisition (isla), the phenomenon in which learners unintentionally learn new literacy skills: vocabulary skill, pronunciation, orthography skill and comprehension skill. this study aims to answer the following research questions: (1). what is the level of literacy skills of the students before the intervention? (2). is there a significant effect on the children’s literacy skills before and after the intervention? (3). what is the extent of the learners’ incidental literacy skills acquisition? the null hypothesis (h0) is that there is no significant effect in the student’s incidental vocabulary acquisition after the intervention of animated cartoons with closed-captions with the facilitation of task-induced involvement where the extent of comprehension does not lead to the incidental acquisition of vocabulary, pronunciation, comprehension and orthographic skill. while the alternative hypothesis (h1) is that there is a significant effect in the student’s incidental vocabulary acquisition after the intervention of animated cartoons with closed-captions with the facilitation of task-induced involvement where the extent of comprehension leads to the incidental acquisition of vocabulary, pronunciation, comprehension and orthographic skill. in this study, the process of incidental literacy skills acquisition is explored anchoring on dual coding theory by paivio (2006) and involvement load hypothesis developed by laufer and hulstijn (2001). anchored on the dual coding theory (dct) by paivio (2006), this study examines how the verbal, nonverbal and textual cues affect the learners’ sla in terms of comprehension, vocabulary, orthography, and pronunciation. the dct has been directly used in literacy and language learning as a general cognition theory (kanellopoulou, kermanidis and kanellopoulou, 2019). according to paivio (2006), the dual coding theory involves the two distinct subsystems activity—the verbal and the nonverbal system. the verbal system specializes in dealing with language (text, sound, or sign language) and the nonverbal specializes in dealing with non-linguistic objects (symbols, pictures, or videos) (paivio, 2014 as cited in kanellopoulou, kermanidis and giannakoulopoulos 2019). paivio (2006) further adds that these two systems are composed of internal representational units, which he calls logogens and imagens, which are both activated when one recognizes, manipulates, or thinks of words and things. hence, these units can function unconsciously to improve cognitive performance (paivio, 2014 as cited in kanellopoulou, kermanidis and giannakoulopoulos, 2019). the representations of these units are modality-specific (paivio, 2006) so every visual, auditory, haptic or feel and motor properties of language that one encounters correspond to a different logogen and imagen. these representation units are connected to a sensory input and response output systems as well as to each other so that they can function independently or cooperatively to mediate nonverbal and verbal behavior (paivio, 2006). in simpler terms, this theory proposes that both the verbal and nonverbal systems are involved in the learners’ language phenomena. the children’s exposure to animated digital media, which comprises verbal and nonverbal cues, makes this theory relevant to this study. language learning as a process in which verbal and image representations are absorbed by the brain is a complex process. when the learners already acquired language items comprehensible and appropriate for their level from the video materials, their ability to remember and recall what they have learned—immediate or after a span of time— becomes the next concern. thus, this paper also probes at the learners’ retention of information anchoring on the depth of processing (dop) model by craik and lockhart (1972) which states that there are three forms that a learner deals with information. the first form is structural processing which refers to encoding the appearance of something that resembles typescript of the word (orthographic skill when acquired and imitated). 154 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp.151-162 arabiana, et.al (video cartoons and task-induced involvement:…) this is also referred to as formative processing which is at shallow level (liu, 2015). the second form is phonemic processing which associates the sound (pronunciation skill when acquired and imitated). these two forms are both ‘shallow processing’. the last form is semantic processing which happens when learners encode and analyze the meaning of a word and then relate it to similar words with similar meaning (vocabulary skill and comprehension skill) (liu, 2015). this study focuses on both ‘shallow’ and ‘deep processing’ of the lexical items mediated through digital media which involve meaningful and complex analyses (sound, text, image, thinking, association) of information that would lead to longer retention time and enhance easy access from memory (liu, 2015). in the present study, dop is associated with incidental literacy skills acquisition, in which structural, phonemic, and semantic elements are integrated into one medium. this study takes on a material that can put these elements together into test with cartoon videos containing captions embedded on them. this multimedia material contains text, sound and image that would further motivate and facilitate the acquisition of the mentioned literacy skills and then guarantee retained knowledge. in relation to dop, a study by hulstijn & laufer (2001) identified the components of incidental tasks which are conducive to the kind of elaborate processing and measurement of the dop. they proposed the task-specific construct and named it as task-induced involvement (tii) for l2 vocabulary acquisition. the fundamental idea of this hypothesis named as involvement load hypothesis is that the acquisition of new words and retention of unfamiliar words are affected by the amount and gravity of involvement in processing these new words. involvement load has three components: need, search and evaluation (liu, 2015). following the principles cemented by the theories in the study’s framework, the research proposes that children who repeatedly watch videos with verbal, visual, and textual cues which they never encountered before, and who participate in the integration of activities in the tii will incidentally acquire l2 literacy skills. these audio-visual-textual cues from the videos viewed by the learners all represent the conceptual meaning of the word absorbed during the cognitive processes of the viewers. these cues are arranged and integrated in the memory through the activation of and interaction between visual and verbal cognitive processing. the audio cues are aimed to induce the learners’ pronunciation skills. the visual cues together with the audio and textual cues are aimed to induce the learners’ vocabulary, orthography, and comprehension skills, thus their l2 incidental literacy skills acquisition. task-induced involvement facilitates the comprehension, new vocabulary and concept absorption after the viewing experience which leads to knowledge processing, hence the incidental literacy skills acquisition. producing competent readers and writers in the later stage of their life is achieved when there is a support for children’s language and literacy development (timothy & christopher, 2017). as such, there is a need to enrich the literature conducted among young learners or children’s incidental literacy skills development through audio-visual input. there is also a lack of empirical research that investigated the interconnectedness or the holistic process of incidental language acquisition of comprehension, vocabulary, pronunciation and orthographic skills. furthermore, no recent study has further utilized both audio-visual input and task-induced involvement as tools in incidental literacy skills acquisition. these are the gaps that the current study aims to address. 2. method the study is a quantitative-qualitative pre-experimental research design (single group) which did not employ a comparison group. this study used a pretest, a one-time immediate posttest and a onetime delayed posttest method to determine the effects of video materials with closed-captions and the task-induced involvement (tii) in the pupils’ literacy skills acquisition. the design of this study compared the change in the subjects’ literacy skills scores before and after the experimental intervention. the qualitative aspect of the study is the assessment of the incidental acquisition of the comprehension skills of the respondents through the tii. the study was conducted at a public elementary school in the southern part of the philippines. owing to the school’s locality which is a 30-minute motorcycle ride to the city area, the residents have limited access to media found in the internet and cable tv which is of primary importance considered in this study. the class distribution of its pupils was also considered where the classes are heterogenous, and the pupils are not sectioned according to their ranks. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 155 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp.151-162 arabiana, et.al (video cartoons and task-induced involvement:…) participants were selected based on a given set of criteria. all participants must be 8 years of age, a current grade 2 pupil of the research locale, have no exposure to english language cable television and internet at home, be a sebuano native speaker, uses his or her native tongue in speaking outside the school and at home, interested and willing in participating, and must not have watched pinkfong aesop fables videos before. also, a very important criterion is the children should be in the instructional level based on their philippine informal reading test result. to ensure that the pupils have the same literacy skills level, those who passed the given criteria were also subjected to a short standardized reading test, spelling and comprehension test. only six pupils passed the criteria given and the tests conducted. these pupils also had no prior knowledge about the methodology and the video materials. research instruments utilized for the intervention were two aesop fables videos from pinkfong’s youtube channel, “the lion and the mouse” and “the greedy dog.” these videos were also validated to be free from violent scenes and appropriate for the grade 2 level by a developmental psychology professor and her developmental psychology class. the length of the videos was less than 3 minutes which was a primary consideration in determining the 10-minute attention span of eight-year old children (kapur, 2011). there were also 16 target words for each video. furthermore, the validated tasks for the task-induced involvement integrated in this study were classified as basic, moderate, and advanced based on hulstijn and laufer (2001). these were given to the participants collectively every after the audio-visual input as fun activities and were nor graded at all. these also used various colorful activity materials such as flash cards and poker chips. the tasks allowed the children to discuss and deliberate answers as a group. table 1 below presents the summary of the data gathering procedure which was applied to both videos 1 and 2. table 1. summary of data gathering procedure data gathering stages research instrument day 0 pilot testing day 1 pre-test audio-visual assessment tool through powerpoint day 2 (video 1) first video exposure video 1 and tasks in basic category day 3 (video 1) second video exposure video 1 and tasks in moderate category day 4 (video 1) third video exposure video 1 and tasks in advanced category day 5 immediate posttest audio-visual assessment tool through powerpoint 4 days after the last video exposure and 8 days after the pretest: delayed posttest audio-visual assessment tool through powerpoint the scores were recorded and compared across all skills and per accumulated score from the pretest, immediate posttest and posttest. furthermore, the scores were statistically analyzed via nonparametric analog t-tests for paired data sets: wilcoxon signed rank test. this test was used to determine if there are significant differences between the pupils’ pretest scores vs. immediate posttest scores, immediate posttest scores vs. delayed posttest scores, and pretest scores vs. delayed posttest scores before and after the intervention. due to the small sample size, kendall rank order correlation test is the ideal test (de wilde & eyckmans, 2017) which was used to determine the significant interrelationships between the scores. the qualitative analysis was also applied to the observational data obtained from the pupils’ performances in the tasks. 3. results and discussion 3.1. significant effect after the intervention this study found that multiple exposures to english animated video cartoons with closed captions (cc) and task-induced involvement can lead to the incidental literacy acquisitions of vocabulary, pronunciation and orthographic skills which also facilitate comprehension skills of children language learners. test scores for each video exposure are presented separately in this section: video 1 and 156 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp.151-162 arabiana, et.al (video cartoons and task-induced involvement:…) video 2. the succeeding tables present a comparison of the scores obtained by the pupils in the pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest. it is important to note that the increase of test scores is compared in this manner: pretest and immediate posttest; immediate posttest and delayed posttest; and pretest and delayed posttest scores in the three literacy skills. table 2 presents the scores of the pupils after their exposure to video 1. the figures alone show that there are score differences as shown in the significant increase in particular to the pretest versus immediate posttest scores and changes in the immediate posttest versus posttest scores across the three skills. this supports the claim that there are literacy skills acquisitions after the intervention. table 2. score comparisons of pretest, immediate posttest and posttest for video 1 pupils vocabulary pronunciation orthography accumulated pre ip p pre ip p pre ip p pre ip p a b c d e f 0 2 1 0 0 0 6 10 4 4 0 9 6 9 7 3 2 9 0 1 1 0 0 0 5 9 3 3 0 8 5 6 5 2 2 7 0 1 0 0 0 0 4 5 2 1 0 6 3 6 3 1 1 6 0 4 2 0 0 0 15 24 9 8 0 23 14 21 15 6 6 5 22 ip immediate posttest pposttest table 3 presents the statistical presentation of the summary of the significant differences between the pretest and immediate posttest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest, and pretest and delayed posttest scores in the three literacy skills. as presented in the table, the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest scores in the pronunciation and orthographic skill have no significant differences which means that the scores in the immediate posttest were mostly retained in the delayed posttest. this is similar for the accumulated immediate posttest and posttest score. table 3. table of significant differences of scores for video 1 as tested via wilcoxon signed rank test (nonparametric analog of the t-test for paired data sets) variable imm vocab post vocab imm pron post pron imm ortho post ortho imm total post total pre vocab imm vocab pre pron imm pron pre ortho imm ortho pre total imm total legend:percentage of confidence level 90% 95% table 4 presents the pretest, immediate posttest, posttest scores for each literacy skill and the accumulated scores of the vocabulary, orthographic and pronunciation literacy skills tests for video 2. it clearly presents the increase of the scores from pretest to immediate posttest, the increase of the scores from pretest to posttest and consistent scores from immediate posttest to the posttest. as shown, the scores of the participants have increased and there are acquisitions in the vocabulary, pronunciation, and orthographic skills on the target words in video 2, and some of these acquisitions were retained by the children after four days. the immediate posttest-posttest scores of pupils a and c were maintained. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 157 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp.151-162 arabiana, et.al (video cartoons and task-induced involvement:…) table 4. score comparisons of pretest, immediate posttest and posttest for video 2 pupils vocabulary pronunciation orthography accumulated pre ip p pre ip p pre ip p pre ip p a b c d e f 1 2 1 1 2 1 6 11 5 3 2 5 6 9 5 3 2 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 9 5 2 2 2 5 7 5 1 1 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 4 8 4 1 1 2 4 6 4 0 1 2 2 3 1 1 2 1 15 28 14 6 5 9 15 22 14 4 4 10 ip immediate posttest pposttest table 5 presents the statistical presentation using the wilcoxon signed rank test of the pretest vs. immediate posttest, immediate posttest vs. posttest and pretest vs. posttest scores in video 2 which compares all of the test scores across all the three literacy skills to determine if the differences in the scores are significant. the results show that there is a significant difference in the literacy skills’ pretest vs. immediate posttest and pretest vs. posttest score comparisons with 90%-95% confidence levels. this indicates that the pretest-immediate posttest and pretest-posttest score differences are significant, thus, the increase in the test scores from the pretest to the immediate posttest and to the posttest as shown in table 3 is significant. table 5. table of significant differences for video 2 as tested via wilcoxon signed rank test (nonparametric analog of the t-test for paired data sets) variable imm vocab post vocab imm pron post pron imm ortho post ortho imm total post total pre vocab imm vocab pre pron imm pron pre ortho imm ortho pre total imm total legend: percentage of confidence level 90% 95% consistently, it can be gleaned in the preceding tables, both in the two videos, that the pretest scores across the three skills are generally 0 to 2 only which have increased as shown in the immediate and the delayed posttest scores. tables 2 and 4 have confirmed that the increase is statistically significant after the video exposures. however. no significant differences were found between the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest scores which means that their acquired literacy skills were mostly retained even days without exposure to the intervention because there was no significant decrease or increase of scores between the two posttests. 3.2. extent of incidental literacy skills acquisition the degree to which the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest scores in all literacy skills for both videos are correlated with one another is also a part of this study’s investigation. how one literacy skill has correlation within its test results and with other literacy skills are determined through statistical tools and qualitative discussion. since in this study, language is seen to be operating as a whole in the context of l2 incidental literacy acquisition, this paper determined the significant interrelationship between the scores within one skill and across the three literacy skills. the following findings support the paper’s claims that 158 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp.151-162 arabiana, et.al (video cartoons and task-induced involvement:…) language or literacy acquisition is wholistic – the acquisition of one literacy skill leads to the acquisition of another skill. as presented in table 6 that follows, the blue intersections follow a 95% confidence level. this means that there are high correlations between the vocabulary, pronunciation, and orthography skills. table 6. table of significant correlations as tested via kendall rank order correlation test for video 1 (nonparametric analog of the pearson’s test for test of correlation) test variable video 1 immediate posttest vocabulary 100% 83% pronunciation 83% posttest vocabulary 89% 93% pronunciation 96% table 7. table of significant correlations as tested via kendall rank order correlation test for video 2 (nonparametric analog of the pearson’s test for test of correlation) test variable video 2 pronunciation orthography immediate posttest vocabulary 81% 89% pronunciation 92% posttest vocabulary 89% 79% pronunciation 96% table 7 above presents the significant correlations of the literacy skills scores in the second video. consistently, there are also positive interconnections between the vocabulary, pronunciation, and orthography skills outcome results with a 95% confidence level. this high correlation of one literacy skill with the other literacy skills implies that when one literacy skill is acquired by the learner, there is a high probability that the learner will also acquire the other literacy skills in the process. the results from the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest are highly correlated, interconnected with each other as well and across the other literacy skills. this justifies the claim that literacy acquisition works holistically. the acquisition of one literacy skill leads to the acquisition of another literacy skill. the vocabulary acquisition primarily also leads to the other literacy skills. this implies that if the learner gave an incorrect vocabulary (failure to recognize a word and its meaning), there is a high probability that the pronunciation and orthographic skills will be incorrect as well (failure to spell and pronounce a word). one aspect that was also explored is the frequency of the target words presented in the video. it should be noted that target words need to be present in the video in three forms audio-visual-textual cues. it was found that the target words with the highest frequency (words mentioned many times) in the two videos were acquired by more than half of the pupils across the three skills. we refer to frequency here as the input frequency (ambridge, kidd, rowland & theakston, 2015). in contrast, low frequency target words were only acquired by less than half of the learners. examples are the target words mouse (video 1) and meat (video 2) which were the sole words mentioned eight times in each video while the rest of the words were mentioned only once or twice. results show that four out of six children (video 1) and five out of six children (video 2) acquired the words, respectively. this corroborates the findings of schwartz and terrel (1983 as cited in ambridge et. al, 2015). 3.3. relationship of comprehension skills to the other literacy skills task-induced involvement after each video exposure facilitated not only the incidental acquisition of comprehension skills but also the incidental acquisition of vocabulary, oral and orthographic skills. the tasks provided a way for the participants to share their ideas and issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 159 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp.151-162 arabiana, et.al (video cartoons and task-induced involvement:…) understanding of the two stories presented in audio-visual input. since tasks were presented as play, all of them enthusiastically did the tasks while interacting with the other children when the wh questions were asked as part of the task completion. typical among children, arguments also arose among them in completing the tasks, but these arguments were tolerated with the aim that these can induce critical thinking and more team discussion allowing them to receive more incidental linguistic input. the participants’ comprehension skills were, therefore, incidentally acquired within the process. this was shown when the children were able to recognize the characters of the story, describe their traits, understand, and discuss the story’s plot and share the moral lesson of the story. in answering the basic wh-questions, answers to these questions included the target words that will supply the answer. hence, to answer the comprehension questions, the children utilized their vocabulary and oral acquisitions to explain events in the story. this became an indicator how tasksinduced involvement facilitates incidental literacy skills acquisition. consequently, with attentioninducing and effective task-induced involvement and multiple exposures to videos, children will obtain complete incidental acquisitions of the literacy skills. the result on vocabulary acquisition findings of this study corroborate previous research (e.g. jensen, 2016); sylven and sundqvist, 2012) who both explored the relationship of gaming and the development of english vocabulary knowledge. their study found that the frequency of the children’s exposure to gaming was correlated significantly to their high score on the vocabulary test. consistently across all literacy skills, the 90% to 95% confidence level in the pretest vs. delayed posttest scores indicates that the participants had retained most of the target words from the pretest to the delayed posttest even with an eight-day interval. the results also imply that the longer the students are exposed to a word, there is a strong likelihood that they will retain the meaning associated with the word. the repetition of the words in the video was also significant before the pupils fully acquired them. in terms of pronunciation (oral vocabulary), the video exposure and the tasks which required them to use the target words in their conversation with their peers contributed to these target words’ oral vocabulary skill to be acquired. as presented in the statistical data above, the extent of the literacy skills acquisition reaches to the orthography skills thus proving a complete acquisition from comprehension, vocabulary, pronunciation, and orthography. though in few cases, some pupils obtained partial acquisitions only, such as correct vocabulary and correct pronunciation with incorrect spellings. however, it is greatly evident in all the data presented that when one literacy skill was acquired, the participants also acquired other literacy skills which led to complete literacy skills acquisitions (ilsa). in a similar way, the incorrect answer to one literacy skill affects the other literacy skills causing partial acquisitions. llach & gomez’ (2007) study supported this claim where they found that a child spells a word according to his/her pronunciation. spelling affected pronunciations, pronunciations affected spellings, incorrect vocabularies affected both spellings and pronunciations. these literacy skills correlated with each other. furthermore, the kendall rank order test proved that the vocabulary posttests scores are correlated or covaried with each other including the pronunciation posttests scores and the orthography posttests scores. the vocabulary, pronunciation and orthographic skills are also found out to be correlated or interrelated to one another based on the scores. in other words, correlations and interconnectedness exist within test scores of one literacy skill and across test scores of other literacy skills. the findings on the high frequency words with more children acquiring them across the three skills corroborates the dual-coding theory by paivio (2006) which state that these units presented as verbal and non-verbal cues in audio-visual input can function unconsciously to improve cognitive performance (paivio, 2014 as cited in kanellopoulou, kermanidis and giannakoulopoulos, 2019). the non-verbal and verbal codes occurring frequently may have positive impacts on recall (kanellopoulou, kermanidis and giannakoulopoulos, 2019). this supports ambridge, kidd, rowland & theakston (2015) claim that “all other things being equal, frequent forms will be acquired before less-frequent forms” (p.241). focusing solely on input frequency, schwartz and terrel (1983) as cited in ambridge, kidd, rowland & theakston (2015) also found that highfrequency words were correctly recalled significantly and consistently than low-frequency words. hence, for pedagogical implications, language input in both cues is undoubtedly effective and more importantly, if the frequency is increased. 160 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp.151-162 arabiana, et.al (video cartoons and task-induced involvement:…) lastly, findings of this study contribute to the existing researches that prove the effectiveness of the involvement of tasks that created the levels of need, search and evaluation of meanings (laufer and hulstijn, 2001). thus, the preceding data show that there is a significant effect in the pupils’ incidental vocabulary acquisition after the intervention of animated cartoons with closed-captions with the facilitation of task-induced involvement where the extent of comprehension leads to the incidental acquisition of vocabulary, pronunciation, comprehension and orthographic skill. hence, the null hypothesis is rejected. 4. conclusion the quantitative and qualitative data in this study proved that there is a significant difference in the children’s pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttests scores after the intervention. hence, incidental literacy skills acquisition is possible using animated videos with closed-captions and taskinduced involvement. the extent of acquisitions is complete and wholistic which begins with the acquisition of comprehension skills followed by vocabulary, pronunciation and orthographic skills. in addition, retention of acquired words after a period of time is possible. furthermore, literacy skills are significantly correlated to one another. l2 incidental literacy skills acquisition works as an interconnected cycle where the acquisition of one skill leads to the acquisition of another literacy skill. thus, proving the interconnectedness and relationship of each of the literacy skills. this further provides another view towards l2 literacy learning. lastly, integrating fun group activities that involve language tasks after video exposures will serve as good motivations of cognitive noticing processes and facilitating incidental acquisition of comprehension skills which lead towards incidental acquisitions of other literacy skills among young learners. therefore, animated videos and task-induced involvement can be effective classroom tools for young learners to incidentally acquire second language literacy skills and eventually retain these acquisitions days after the last intervention. the investigation into this occurrence will also be helpful to the curriculum designers and teachers in incorporating digital media to the lessons they teach in the classroom. hence, the use of tii and animated videos such as pinkfong’s aesop fables to early grade schoolers is an effective teaching strategy for l2 incidental learning in the filipino classroom. with the limitations of this study which include a pre-experimental research design and shorter viewing session, the findings of this study can be further explored and confirmed with the utilization of static group comparison. furthermore, a long-term consumption of audio-visual input with a delayed posttest conducted after a month to further assess retention is suggested to further the findings of this study on the effects of the audio-visual input to the children’s incidental literacy skills. children as recipients of audio-visual input should also be explored more with the limited literature in this area that focus more on teenagers and university students. references ambridge b., kidd, e., rowland, c. & theakston, a. 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(2016). exploring learner factors in second language (l2) incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading [pdf file]. reading in a foreign language, 28 (2), 224-245. retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5db0/ae9e65a498542b6fb03dd6fc92ff36d2ae4a.pdf https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00447 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14678624.1998.tb06247.x https://doi.org/10.1515/cjal-2017-0004 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2013.07.012 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5db0/ae9e65a498542b6fb03dd6fc92ff36d2ae4a.pdf english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 95-107 95 10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2255 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id written corrective feedback in english compositions: teachers’ practices and students’ expectations wan noor miza wan mohd yunus a,1,* a faculty of education, university of malaya, 50603 kuala lumpur, federal territory of kuala lumpur, malaysia 1 wmizayunus@gmail.com * * corresponding author 1. introduction writing is one of the important skills english language learners learn, apart from speaking, listening, and reading. although there have been changing perceptions on effective and meaningful ways to give students feedback, the general agreement is that corrective feedback is undeniably essential to facilitate l2 knowledge, as mistakes and errors are expected in all stages of learning (lee, 2017). feedback in writing may encompass many aspects of writing, including composition skills, style, organization, content, and others, although there have been changing perceptions on effective and meaningful ways to give students feedback. in this particular study, wcf is defined as “a feedback which specifically indicates errors of language, such as in grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics” (al shahrani, 2013, p. 4). many researchers agree that written corrective feedback (wcf) is important because the lack of such feedback may lead to anxiety or resentment, which could decrease students’ motivation to learn (ferris, 2004). however, the amount of wcf that should be given to students is debatable. studies have shown that attending too many errors and providing effective feedback to help learners in their a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 06 june, 2020 revised 18 august, 2020 accepted 31 august, 2020 written corrective feedback (wcf) has been the subject of many studies in the field of second language (l2) writing. this study sought to investigate: (1) teacher’s practices in marking students’ english language compositions, (2) students’ expectations of teacher’s wcf, and (3) compare whether students’ expectations correspond to teachers’ practices of wcf. sixty-four students and three teachers of an upper secondary school in malacca, malaysia participated in this study. teachers’ wcf practices and students’ preferences were elicited from two different sets of questionnaires. findings revealed that both students and teachers generally believe that wcf is beneficial in improving students’ writing skills. it was also discovered that students prefer direct, specific, and comprehensive feedback over indirect feedback. however, the study showed some discrepancies between students’ preferences and teachers’ practices in composition classrooms in terms of the amount, type, and necessity of the feedback where most students were found to require more wcf than the amount their teacher was capable of giving. this misalignment calls for teachers’ and students’ adjustments to ensure the effectiveness of wcf strategies employed by teachers. findings from this research also imply that the study of contextual factors and beliefs influencing preferences with regard to wcf may also be necessary. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords written corrective feedback second language writing esl students language learning error correction https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2255 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:wmizayunus@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 96 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 95-107 wan noor miza wan mohd yunus (written corrective feedback in english compositions) writing development is too demanding for teachers and learners. it is even more complicated when students make too many errors that teachers do not know which particular aspect to focus on to help the learner improve. according to ellis et al. (2008), “learners are more likely to attend to corrections directed at a single (or a limited number of) error type(s) and more likely to develop a clearer understanding of the error and the correction needed” (p.356). however, most teachers sometimes result in correcting all students’ errors and spending ample time to mark the students’ writing tasks paying attention to how students might respond to the wcf. a recent study conducted by lee (2019) produced a surprising finding as it highlights that giving students less cf is better than giving more. the argument also lies in the type of feedback that should be corrected. ellis (2008) listed six major corrective feedback strategies: direct, indirect, metalinguistic, focused/unfocused, electronic, and reformulation. sanavi and nemati (2014) specifically studied the effects of these different types of feedback trough an experimental study of five groups of iranian english language learners. it was found that reformulation strategy, which focuses on teachers’ reconstruction of inaccuracies to make it more accurate, had the most obvious effect on students’ performance in international english language testing system (ielts) writing task 2. a recent study conducted by rashtchi and abu bakar (2019) on 103 esl students in malaysia discovered that students mostly favour direct and explicit feedback and want teachers to correct as many errors as possible. these researches suggest the importance of studying the type and amount of corrective feedback since there are multitudes of factors that may contribute to different attitudes towards corrective feedback. nunan (1987) argued that one of the most severe problems to learning is the mismatch between teacher and learner expectations about what should happen in the classroom, which can result in learners being disengaged in class (park, 2010). bitchener and knoch (2008) further assert that “motivation is more likely to be gained if teachers negotiate with students about how frequent the feedback will be given, about the type of feedback that will be given, and about what the students will be expected to do in response to feedback” (p. 210). it is, therefore, essential to investigate students’ preferences towards teachers’ error correction as different learning styles may result in varying levels of cognition and engagement (katayama, 2007). several studies have shown that there are discrepancies in what students and teachers define as good feedback. some students prefer error correction given by the teacher compared to self-correction and peer correction, as they believe that they are not competent enough to correct their errors. however, studies have found that teachers often use peer and self-correction. to avoid the mismatch between students’ preferences and teachers’ practices, researching students’ preferences in different contexts and groups of students is essential, as students might have different learning needs and preferences since teacher feedback is sensitive to students’ needs and instructional context (ferris, 2004). although there has been a gradual move towards a more communicative classroom in malaysia’s education system, the way students are tested in the national exam still focuses on form. without accurate grammar, students cannot get high marks. one of the learning outcomes stated in the curriculum is that “students have to present information to different audiences by composing, revising and editing drafts; and checking the accuracy of spelling, punctuation, and grammar;” and “using appropriate format, conventions, and grammar when presenting the information” (ministry of education, 2003, p.15). to promote these goals, conducting more studies relating to wcf in local secondary school contexts is necessary to gain insights into teachers’ practices and students’ expectations of wcf. the availability of research examining the same objectives are only found in tertiary education settings (rashtchi & abu bakar, 2019). findings from this study can further inform teachers how to best help the students achieve the curriculum’s stated outcomes. the objectives of this study are to: a) investigate the teacher’s wcf practices in marking students’ compositions. b) examine the students’ expectations of wcf given by their teachers. c) compare whether students’ expectations correspond to teachers’ practices of wcf. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 97 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 95-107 wan noor miza wan mohd yunus (written corrective feedback in english compositions) 2.1. written cf written cf is defined as “a written response to a linguistic error that has been made in the writing of a text by an l2 learner,” which can either be direct or indirect (bitchener & storch, 2016). earlier studies on corrective feedback have looked into whether or not error correction in writing is important (ashwell, 2000; ferris & roberts, 2001). then, many researchers believe that the issue was no longer whether corrective should be done, but rather how it should be done to best facilitate students in learning from their errors or mistakes as extensive research has proven that feedback is necessary for students’ learning over the years. therefore, more research in the 80s was carried out, investigating which type of feedback can maximize students’ potential in writing the most. teachers and researchers generally do have a strong belief that wcf is critical in improving their writing. not only that, error correction is also the key that contributes to student success in second language learning (ellis, 2009). correcting students’ errors and providing feedback to the students has become one of the routines and norms in exploring students’ potential in acquiring the language. 2.2. type of feedback feedback may differ according to types. one variety is the difference between focused and unfocused wcf. focused wcf means feedback focusing on only a few linguistic errors while unfocused refer to feedback focusing on a wide range of errors. studies on the impact of different types of feedback also reported varied findings where those with focused feedback showing a higher level of accuracy in writing compared to the others (bitchener & knoch, 2008; shintani, ellis, & suzuki, 2014; pratolo, 2019). research conducted in other contexts such as different age groups and type of linguistic error produce unique findings. gorman and ellis (2019) conducted an experimental study on the effects of different types of instruction, namely instruction with metalinguistic explanation, direct written correction, and no formfocused instruction on young children aged 9 to 12 years old. results suggest that there is no difference in the level of accuracy the children displayed in the written tasks given. diab (2015) conducted an experimental study on arabic native speakers with english as their second and third language. the study focuses mainly on the effect of wcf, particularly on pronoun errors and wrong words, and the study found that students in the experimental group with direct metalinguistic feedback managed to reduce the number of pronoun errors made. for lexical errors, no significant difference was identified among all the groups. from this review of literature, it is clear that more research is needed to study other variables that may influence the effectiveness of wcf. 2.3. students’ preferences on teacher feedback wcf experienced varied reactions. sheen (2007) believed that corrective feedback contributes to language improvement. nonetheless, several researchers have claimed that error correction is ineffective. for instance, it is uncertain on how a teacher can ensure that the students have retained new language elements through wcf since the students are merely recipients rather than active and proactive agents in the feedback process (hyland & hyland, 2006). wcf would not be as successful if the strategies being used by the teacher tend to be continually counterproductive. it is beneficial only if the teachers know the students’ expectations and preferences towards receiving feedback. research on the students’ perspective on feedback only began to develop in the 1990s. to date, there are growing bodies of literature on l2 students’ preferences regarding teacher feedback (amrhein, 2010; hamouda, 2011; haishan & qingshun, 2017; nanni & black, 2017). however, few attempts have been made to link students’ and teachers’ preferences to see whether their preferences match, and limited studies have explored the factors that can influence 98 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 95-107 wan noor miza wan mohd yunus (written corrective feedback in english compositions) teacher’s preferred way of giving feedback in students’ compositions. one study conducted by hamouda (2011) on 200 native arabic speakers focused on students’ and teachers’ preferences on error correction. however, this study examined the difficulties teachers often face in providing feedback and on students revising their papers after receiving teachers’ feedback. nanni and black (2017) investigated thai teachers and students’ preferences on five different categories of feedback, which include content, grammar, organization, vocabulary, and spelling. the research findings revealed that wcf was most useful for organization and content, while students regarded wcf useful for grammar and vocabulary. this study, however, did not study factors that contributed to the participants’ preferences. a research done by amrhein and nassaji (2010) aimed to investigate several research questions which are: 1) what amount of wcf do esl students and teachers believe is most useful, and why? 2) what types of wcf do students and teachers think are most useful, and why? 3)what types of errors do students and teachers think should be corrected, and why? and 4) are there differences between students’ and teachers’ preferences and reasons regarding the usefulness of different amounts of wcf, types of wcf, and types of errors to be corrected? results revealed a gap between what the students expect and what the teacher provides for them. most of the students thought it would be beneficial if the teacher was able to correct all errors that the students had made. however, the teacher would like to provide a medium for the students to self-correct to increase student autonomy in their learning. the article concludes that teachers need to discuss openly with the students on the rationale of teachers’ actions regarding wcf. 2. research method 2.1. research context the study took place at an upper secondary school located in the southern region of malaysia. the school consists of only 16 and 17-year-old students who learn english as a compulsory subject that will be tested in the malaysian national examination certificate. as part of the writing syllabus, students have to learn to write different forms of writing such as descriptive, narrative, and argumentative composition creatively and relevantly using accurate spelling, punctuation, and grammar. 2.2. research participants the participants of this study were three teachers and 64 students (27 males and 37 females) from three different classes, namely 5h, 5p, and 5q, with a class size ranging from 24 to 26 students. all of the students were 16-year-old second-language speakers of english and speak malay as their first language. the three female teachers taught three different classes (class 5h, 5p, and 5q). all of them ranged in age and teaching experience, but are qualified teachers as they possessed a bachelor’s degree majoring in teaching english as a second language (tesl) and have had a minimum of 5 years of experience teaching english. 2.3. instrument of the study since this is a survey research, two sets of questionnaires were used in this research: one for students and one for teachers. the questionnaires were adapted from two pieces of research conducted by lee (2008) and amrhein and nassaji (2010), which examined the same research content. the students’ questionnaire consists of three sections: section a (personal background), section b (students’ preferences), and section c (teacher’s practices). teacher’s questionnaire consists of section a (teacher’s background) and section b (teacher’s practices and preferences). section b is divided into four sub-sections: frequency of feedback, types of feedback, follow-up action after feedback, and types of errors. these instruments were designed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. close-ended questions such as yes-no questions, ranking scales, multiple-choice and likert-scale items were used to collect quantitative data. open-ended questions were used to collect qualitative data to ensure the respondents (students and teachers) have the opportunity to elaborate on their responses. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 99 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 95-107 wan noor miza wan mohd yunus (written corrective feedback in english compositions) 2.4. data analysis to answer research question (1), the teacher’s responses to the teacher’s questionnaire were analysed, and to answer research question (2), students’ responses to the students questionnaire were analysed. finally, data from both questionnaires were combined and analysed to answer research question (3). quantitative data were analyzed using spss 19.0, whereas the qualitative data from the open-ended questions were categorized according to themes. coding was used to analyze the comparison between students’ preferences and teacher practices. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. findings 1) research question 1: what are the teachers’ practices in marking students’ compositions? teachers’ practices and preferences on wcf are divided into four sections: frequency on providing wcf to students, types of feedback given, follow-up action after wcf, and types of errors. all the teachers frequently gave wcf to their students to help them in writing compositions. teacher p and teacher q provided wcf frequently, while teacher h provided wcf less frequently. the type of feedback the teachers provided differed from one another. teacher h and teacher q corrected students’ errors through direct unfocused corrective feedback, which was by underlining, correcting, and also explaining the errors made by the students. teacher p gave her feedback without explaining the errors made by students in their compositions. follow-up actions are referred to as actions taken by the teachers after wcf has taken place. these actions are carried out by the teacher to ensure the students do not repeat the same error after the teacher has given wcf. after returning students’ composition, all the teachers often gave teacher-group feedback by explaining errors made by the students in front of the class. they also frequently asked the students to work with a partner and correct their errors. besides, teacher h and teacher q reported that they prefer explaining the errors by meeting the students in person. teacher p always asked her students to rewrite their essays. after returning students’ compositions, all the teachers indicated that they expect their students to meet them individually to discuss the errors made. furthermore, teacher h wants her students to correct some errors made in the compositions. at the same time, she expects her students to rewrite one paragraph of the essay by making necessary corrections of all kinds of errors made, which may include grammar, organisation, vocabulary, and punctuation. teacher p also wants her students to do some corrections. exchanging compositions with a partner is one of the actions expected from teacher p. lastly, teacher q expects her students to work in groups. she wants her students to work with a partner to exchange and improve the compositions in terms of errors made. all of the teachers do not expect students to read aloud the comments given. they also mentioned that asking students to work in groups to improve their composition is not an option. furthermore, teacher h and teacher p do not expect the students to rewrite the whole composition. on the other hand, teacher q wants her students to correct all the errors rather than only some of the errors. for types of error, grammatical and spelling errors were the most corrected by the teachers compared to others. according to the teachers in this study, correct usage of grammar and accurate spelling is regarded as the essence of writing compositions, especially for secondary school students. therefore, the teachers paid extra attention to errors relating to spelling and grammar. however, the teacher often overlooked one aspect when giving wcf, which is vocabulary/ word choice. in terms of wrong usage of punctuation marks and organization, mixed responses were given by the teachers. two teachers always corrected students’ organizational errors, while one teacher did not correct her students’ organizational errors. teacher p and teacher q always corrected punctuation errors, while teacher h did not correct her students’ punctuation errors. 2) research question 2: what are the students’ expectations of wcf given by their teachers? the second research question sought to explore students’ perspectives and expectations in receiving wcf from their teachers. 100 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 95-107 wan noor miza wan mohd yunus (written corrective feedback in english compositions) fig. 1. expectation of the type of wcf figure 1 displays students’ expectations of the type of feedback given by the teachers. it is shown that students did not favour implicit error correction (i.e., simply underlining the errors). more than 80% of students from all three classes preferred their teachers to underline, correct, and explain the errors. various comments were given by the respondents: some of the 5h students’ comments are “because i could not understand most of the errors” and “my faults are sometimes underlined and scribbled, but i cannot understand unless the corrections are stated.” other than that, students were asked to choose the characteristics of feedback that can assist their learning. more than three-quarter of the students from all three classes stated that they wanted to be given mark/ grade, feedback on their errors, and written comments every time after their teacher returned their compositions. the percentage of students who chose “mark/grade + feedback on my errors + written comments” are highly significant (5h: 88.2%, 5p: 84%, and 5q: 63.6%), and this suggests that the students want the feedback to be as detailed as possible. none of the students wanted only grades/ marks, only responses to their errors, or only written comments. in the student questionnaire, students were asked to choose activities they wanted their teacher to ask them to do “the most” and “the least”. findings are summarized in table 1 and 2. of the choices given, most students from all three classes wanted their teachers to ask them to correct all errors and ask them to meet the teacher individually more often. all students from 5q particularly wanted their teacher to do more one-to-one sessions with them to obtain explanations on the errors. table 1. activities that should be done more often 5h (%) 5p(%) 5q(%) correct all errors 80 92 89 rewrite the whole composition 70 80 65 meet him/ her individually 84 95 100 work in groups to improve the composition 60 52 75 table 2. activities that should be done least activities 5h (%) 5p (%) 5q (%) read aloud his/her comments in class 75 89 92 consult dictionaries/ grammar books on my own 95 80 78 exchange my composition with a partner and correct each other’s errors 80 75 83 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 101 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 95-107 wan noor miza wan mohd yunus (written corrective feedback in english compositions) table 2 shows activities students less likely favour after teachers return compositions in class. students from all three classes disliked their teacher asking them to consult dictionaries or grammar books independently. a possible reason for not wanting the autonomy could be their incompetency to understand grammar rules without any explanation from the teacher. other than that, students also disliked their teacher asking them to exchange their compositions with a partner and correct each other’s errors and teacher reading aloud her comments in class. fig. 2. students’ attitude towards wcf from figure 2, it is evident that all 5q students and a large percentage of 5p students believed that wcf given by their teacher is beneficial to their learning. they generally could understand feedback given by their teacher. there were many reasons mentioned by the students as to why they thought that their teacher’s wcf is beneficial. among the reasons given were wcf could help them “notice [their] mistakes and know whether [they are] good or there are still things to improve”, “it can enhance [his] motivation to learn,” and “know [their] weaknesses.” reasons why they could understand their teachers’ feedback were because “[her teacher] wrote her opinions in simple sentences so [she] can understand it” and “everything is clearly written, and comments are specific.” more than half of the students from 5h, however, had problems with wcf given by their teacher. a possible reason would be because 88.2% of 5h students reported that they often had difficulties in revising their compositions after receiving wcf from their teacher. the table below lists some of the reasons why most 5h students thought that wcf is unbeneficial. table 3. students’ difficulties after receiving teacher’s wcf a. inability to understand symbols used “ because she always underline here and there, lots of patches she said but there is no corrective feedback to correct the mistakes i’ve done” “i want her to state clearly what signs or symbols she uses and what need to be added to my essays” “because i cant understand what were my mistakes on writing those essays. usually she only use those symbols like ∧ and _____ and i cant find out what did she mean” b. illegible handwriting “sometimes i don’t know what’s wrong with my essay and i sometimes i can’t understand her writing” c. unclear explanation “teacher always make the correction unclear and difficult for me to understand” d. implicit correction “because teacher does not give the correct answer” 102 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 95-107 wan noor miza wan mohd yunus (written corrective feedback in english compositions) according to table 3, five common problems relating to wcf are found. the most common problem was the students’ inability to understand the symbols used. when marking students’ exam papers, teachers are given guidelines set by the ministry of education. teachers are required to use symbols while marking students’ essays such as “ ” to show good/correct sentence, “ ” to show words used correctly, “∧” for omissions of word, “_________” for structural error, “r” for repetition, and many others. however, some classes might not be familiar with the symbols and signs used, which could probably be why many students of 5h had difficulty in revising their compositions after receiving wcf. other problems were illegible handwriting, unclear explanation, and implicit correction. 3) research question 3: are there any differences between students’ expectations on the types and amount of feedback given and teachers’ current practices? if yes, what are the differences? students’ preferences and teacher practices were compared according to their responses from the questionnaires given. three themes emerged which are 1) the necessity of wcf 2) amount of wcf and 3) type of wcf. all three teachers believe that wcf is necessary for their students’ learning. students of 5q, similarly believe that wcf is beneficial. however, less than half of students from 5h thought that wcf given by their teacher is beneficial. several reasons as to why they responded differently were due to their inability to interpret codes and symbols used, no written comments and explicit correction made, and the amount of feedback given was very limited. figure 3 demonstrates that the students and teachers had similar opinions except for class 5h. 76% of the students from 5h believed that they could self-correct their errors after teacher’s wcf. their teacher, on the other hand, believed that the students were not able to self-correct their errors. this discrepancy illustrates that what the teacher believed the students could do was incongruent with what the students thought they could do. furthermore, teachers from 5p and 5q thought that their students could correct their errors. similarly, their students agreed and strongly agreed that they could correct their errors (5p: 68%, 5q: 77.3%). although these students believed that they could correct their errors, quite a large number of students from class 5p (40%) reported that they had difficulty in revising their compositions after receiving teacher feedback due to reasons such as “ my composition has too many red marks”, “sometimes, i cannot figure out my mistakes”, and “teacher does not give the correct answer”. a. ss (n=64) ts (n=3) fig. 3. students’ ability to correct errors students were also asked to comment on whether their teachers’ wcf could improve their writing skills. all three teachers agreed that their wcf helped their students to improve their writing skills. 94% of students from 5p and 96% of students from 5q agreed and strongly agreed. however, issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 103 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 95-107 wan noor miza wan mohd yunus (written corrective feedback in english compositions) there was another mismatch between teacher 5h’s practices and her students’ opinions. more students (58.9%) from 5h thought that their teacher’s wcf did not help them improve their writing skills. teacher 5h, in contrast, thought that her feedback could help her students in writing. table 4. teacher vs. students’ responses class how teachers correct students’ errors students’ expectations (i prefer my english teacher to..) percentage 5h underline, correct, and explain errors underline, correct, and explain my errors underline and correct my errors underline my errors 82.4 11.8 5.9 5p underline and correct errors underline, correct, and explain my errors underline and correct my errors underline my errors 88 12 0 5q underline, correct, and explain errors underline, correct, and explain my errors underline and correct my errors underline my errors 90.1 9.1 0 the responses coded in yellow in table 4 demonstrate that teacher’s practices and students’ expectations on the amount of any type of feedback match. from the table, it is clear that 82.4 % of students from class 5h and 90.1 % from 5q responded that they preferred their teachers to underline, correct, and explain their errors. this expectation matches what their teachers have been practising in giving wcf in class. interestingly, most students from 5p (88%) preferred their teacher to underline, correct, and explain their errors but their teacher did not often explain their errors. this indicates a mismatch between what the teacher practised and what the students needed. table 5. teacher vs. students’ responses class teacher’s type of feedback practices students’ expectations percentage 5h mark/ grade, feedback on errors, and general written comments • only grades/ marks • only responses to my errors • only written comment • mark/ grade and feedback on my errors • mark/ grade and general written comments • mark/grade, feedback on my errors, and general written comments 0 0 0 5.9 5.9 88.2 5p only written comment • only grades/ marks • only responses to my errors • only written comment • mark/ grade and feedback on my errors • mark/ grade and general written comments • mark/grade, feedback on my errors, and general written comments 0 0 0 0 12 84 5q only responses to my students’ errors • only grades/ marks • only responses to my errors • only written comment • mark/ grade and feedback on my errors • mark/ grade and general written comments • mark/grade, feedback on my errors, and general written comments 9.1 0 0 4.5 22.7 63.6 as shown in table 5, only teacher 5h’s practices match her students’ expectations while teacher 5p and 5q’s practices in giving wcf do not match the students’ expectations. for instance, 84 % of students from 5p wanted their teachers to provide mark/grade, written comments, and feedback on 104 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 95-107 wan noor miza wan mohd yunus (written corrective feedback in english compositions) their errors, but their teacher only provided written comments without the grade and feedback on errors. similarly, many students from 5q (63.6%) preferred their teacher to give mark/grade, written comments, and feedback on their errors while 22.7% preferred their teacher to give mark/grade and written comments. the teacher’s practice, however, did not align with the students’ expectations, as she only gave responses to her students’ errors without any grade or feedback. again, this illustrates a considerably significant mismatch between teacher and students’ preferences. 2.5. discussion the current study found that students from all three classes mainly agreed that wcf from their teachers contributed most to their improvement in writing skills (76%) and is beneficial to their learning (84%). this high percentage suggests that wcf is necessary despite the challenges faced by the students and the inconsistencies between teacher’s practices and students’ expectations. although some students argued that they often could not understand their teacher’s feedback and could not correct them, teachers’ use of symbols and markers helped them notice that there were errors in their compositions. as emphasised by ellis et al. (2008), bringing the student’s attention to errors will help their language development as errors allow them to notice the correct form, and later internalize the rule. however, this does not mean that teachers can mark students’ compositions on the surface level without giving attention to specific linguistic features. students still should be given continuous guidance on areas they can improve in writing. findings indicate that most students and teachers agreed that wcf is beneficial (96 %: 5p, 100%: 5q), except for students of class 5h (47.1%). here, it should be pointed out that some students may benefit more than others due to a variety of reasons such as motivation, learning styles, and metalinguistic background knowledge (ferris, 2010). from the students’ written responses, the reasons why they did not benefit from their teacher’s wcf could be because of their low interest towards the subject where 58.9 % 5h students 5h have “very low”, “low” and “somewhat low” interest towards english language and limited proficiency in the language. this finding can somehow highlight that interest in the subject may also influence how much students can benefit from teacher’s feedback, as highlighted by ferris (2010). it is demonstrated that 5p and 5q students’ preferences did not align with their teachers’ as they needed more feedback than what their teachers were capable of giving and they wanted their teacher to correct all errors made. the teacher, however, would like to provide a medium for the students to self-correct as it is one way to increase student autonomy in their learning. this finding is similar to findings obtained by other researchers where language learners wanted more correction than they were receiving from their teachers (rashtchi & abu bakar, 2019; black & nanni, 2016 and amrhein & nassaji, 2010). it is interesting to note that most students in this present study highly valued explicit feedback over implicit feedback as they believed that they could not correct their own errors due to limited grammar knowledge. therefore, students did not only want their teachers to underline errors, but also correct and explain the errors. this type of feedback is identified as metalinguistic information, which entails teachers giving explanations, rules, and correct grammar usage. they may also include using codes like pt for past tense in which the intention is to kelp l2 learners to understand the errors made (bitchener & storch, 2016). most students from 5h viewed wcf as beneficial, but they believed that teachers could not just use symbols and underline errors as they did not know how to correct their errors. the inability to self-correct makes it difficult for students to acquire language and improve language skills. as opposed to students from 5q, they agreed that wcf is beneficial because “[her teacher] wrote her opinions in simple sentences so [she] can understand it” and “everything is clearly written, and comments are specific.” from this finding, we can say that there are certain best practices or quality that can make the feedback beneficial to the students (it can result in acquisition). as ferris (1999) suggests, clear and consistent correction can promote language acquisition. in this study, most students believe that feedback should be specific, detailed, and precise to improve students’ learning. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 105 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 95-107 wan noor miza wan mohd yunus (written corrective feedback in english compositions) although self-correction has been found to promote acquisition (lyster, 2004; ferris, 2006), most of the students in this study were not willing to self-correct. this finding is consistent with what lee (2005) has found in which students preferred direct feedback as opposed to indirect or implicit feedback because they mostly did not understand grammar rules. ellis (2009) states that, it is impossible to allow learners to self-correct their errors if they do not have the necessary linguistic knowledge to do so. ferris (1999), in contrast, indicates that the effectiveness of implicit or indirect feedback yields different results when employed with varying contexts and participants. for instance, one of the findings from her study suggests that students with higher levels of proficiency should be given more opportunities to correct their errors while students with lower proficiency should be given a lot of guidance and support on how to correct their errors (ferris & roberts, 2001). several researchers pointed out that direct feedback paired with rule reminders or explanations, either written or oral, is necessary to improve students’ writing skills (bitchener & knoch, 2001; sheen, 2007). however, these researches were done in experimental settings, and to expect teachers to write explicit feedback with explanations every time after assigning a composition task per the students’ preference may seem unrealistic. on the other hand, there are other aspects for teachers to pay attention to other than correcting specific linguistic features such as organization, content, and ideas. these demands explain why teachers may sometimes result in just giving written comments at the end of the students’ compositions rather than correcting every single error done by the students (ferris, 2010). as mentioned by teacher p, for example, she could only give written comments to her students’ compositions due to time constraints since there were many other activities to be done in class. hyland & hyland (2006) also support this finding. they believe that students should be active and proactive agents in the feedback process by learning to correct their errors after receiving teacher feedback. 4. conclusion this study found that there were gaps between students’ expectations and teachers’ practices. while it is crucial for teachers to know and understand what exactly students prefer when dealing with wcf, the truth is fulfilling individual differences, needs, and attitudes is indeed demanding and challenging. based on the findings, there are suggestions for teachers and students to help them utilize wcf to benefit both parties. what can be suggested for teachers would be to: a. ensure that the usage of symbols and markers used to indicate wcf are clearly understood by students. b. note down and group all errors that are found and made by the students and discuss it as a whole in class by the end of the week. in this way, information-sharing can be cultivated. c. implement cooperative/collaborative writing activity to monitor large groups of students. d. cultivate independent learning among the students to instil learner autonomy e. explain every rationale of teachers’ action so that it does not create confusion among the students. this study can be consolidated with further research to obtain a clearer picture of wcf. in this study, wcf was viewed in a very specific context, which was through secondary school students’ compositions. findings were also self-reported. for future studies, researchers could possibly pay more attention to broader contextual factors and collect data from various variables such as classroom observations and interviews to obtain more in-depth findings. references al shahrani, a. a. 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(2014). effects of written feedback and revision on learners’ accuracy in using two english grammatical structures. language learning, 64, 103-131. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/lang.12029 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2007.12.001 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444819000247 https://www.researchgate.net/deref/http%3a%2f%2fdx.doi.org%2f10.1017%2fs0272263104263021?_sg%5b0%5d=7i_wi6giee6fqdy2dfcuhhsojwwrdumivqvimo_6hhpjtq--72oyvqpnuw10vccaibfu11wu8b7kbx0m4pzxkjwnog.nerctzklgzvfdhzfohwsfoj6yhvusunpt7eiul2wtjrehjbbcsqlswmysk78uluth-ay8vf1tlmzwzyvbcsqlq https://www.researchgate.net/deref/http%3a%2f%2fdx.doi.org%2f10.18823%2fasiatefl.2017.14.3.11.540 http://csus-dspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10211.9/302/%20thesis_pdf.pdf?sequence=1 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7342 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f2158244014538271 judul dalam bahasa indonesia, ditulis dengan huruf tnr-14 bold, maksimal 14 kata, rata kiri english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 2, 2018, pp. 76-96 e-issn: 2621-6485 developing culture-based english instructional materials for grade vii of junior high school students 1wiwiek afifah, 2darmiyati zuchdi graduate school of yogyakarta state university 1wiwiekafifah.2018@student.uny.ac.id abstract the research aims at developing culture-based english instructional materials (henceforth, cbeim) for grade vii of junior high school students and reveal its final product representation in terms of its effectiveness. the research design was a research and development. the procedure of product development consisted of conducting needs analysis, designing course grids, developing the first draft, implementing the final draft, and evaluating the final product. the product implementation consisted of the 1st tryout involving 4 students from yogyakarta state junior high school (henceforth, y-sjhs) 10, the 2nd tryout involving 34 students from y-sjhs 7, and there were 68 students involved in the 3rd tryout. they were from y-sjhs 9 and y-sjhs 10. the data were collected by using evaluation sheets, an english achievement test, questionnaire to measure students’ level of internalization and actualization toward culture values, and questionnaires for teachers’ responses. the data were analyzed by t-test using paired and independent sample with the gain score. the research finding reveals: 1) based on the content expert validation, cbeim was very good by the aspect of content, language, learning, culture, presentation, and graphical design, whereas based on the graphical design expert, cbeim was good. 2) having been implemented, the final product representation was proven to be effective. the students in the experiment classes got a higher improvement than those in the control classes. the statistical calculation of independent samples test with gain score of the english test from the two groups shows the t values of 2.931 with the p = 0.004 < 0.05, while the t-test for equality of means of culture values, t value reached 2.524 and its significance of 2-tailed reached p = 0.037 < 0.05, alpha value (α=0.05). since the gain score is smaller than 0.05, cbeim demonstrates that it can show a significant difference between the experiment and control classess in encouraging students to internalize and actualize the culture values. keywords: culture, internalization, actualization, instructional materials how to cite: afifah, w. and zuchdi, d. (2018). developing culture-based english instructional materials for grade vii of junior high school students. english language teaching educational journal, 1(2), 76-96. 77  e-issn: 2621-6485 introduction the problem of school gang fights, bullying, and drug-abuse frequently appeared in the mass media. those matters of fact are the evidence of low level of indonesian morality. add to this, there are several factors supporting the complicated conditions such as scarcity of values implementation. in fact, the flawed culture which is going to be sinking can be well made by bringing an education amongst them. it is because the education means the process of a culture establishment (zuchdi, 2009). responding to the worrying problems, being a part of education components, it is a must for us to think about developing appropriate instructional materials equipped with positive culture values dedicated to the students. this idea is supported by some scholars who admitted that instructional materials bring an important role in teaching and learning process. tan-florendo (2012) states that teachers can use instructional materials when planning and carrying out instruction in such a way that they are undoubtedly important as teaching resource materials. regard to this, murphey (1992) as cited by lorenzutti, (2014) says that since there are some elements in culture such as social values, human relationship, spiritually, patriotism and dissent and these can be used to train and to grow students’ feeling of empathy, honesty, politeness, wisdom, discipline, caring, loyalty, indeed, it can be practiced as a mediation to build a character. in line with murphey’s idea, peacock (1998) as cited by saifer, et al. (2011) reported that when the school acknowledged and taught cultural heritages, it had a significant success in educating the students. kanoksilapatham (2014) also reported that developing young learners in grade 4 by using local culture awareness and global english as an integrated instruction could reach a higher gain score. in line with the finding of positive responses toward the culture-based tasks, doganay, ashirimbetova, & davis (2013) also proved that students increased their english communicative competences and cultural sensibility. based on the previous studies, culture had proven to be one of the leading ways to teach english as a foreign language. dealing with teaching materials, tomlinson (2008) and dudley-evans & jo (1998) highlight that materials should be framed into an interesting, motivating, stimulating on never ending communication and question-answer, even including activities which can encourage learners to optimize the environment outside their classrooms. tomlinson (2012) also states that materials refer to “anything that can be used to facilitate learning of a language. add to the idea, nation & macalister (2010) suggest applying three principles in developing language textbook: 1) it serves substantial quantities of interesting comprehensible inputs. 2) language textbook should provide activities aimed to increase fluency, and 3) language textbook, especially for english as foreign language textbook should spend focusing on using the target language. furthermore, atkinson (2012) highlights that “if culture is considerably more dynamic and negotiated than previously believed, then language is close behind”. ho (2009) also points out that “language and culture have inextricable and dependent relationship”. moreover kramsch (1998) in ho (2009) emphasizes that since language shows kind of expressions and able to eltej issn: 2621-6485  afifah, zuchdi 78 symbolize cultural reality, it makes language and culture are bounded together. grave (2001) also stated that language is used in a context and learners use it by considering the purpose, style, register, and topic. there are many studies dealing with culture and language teaching. it is in line with the statement conveyed by her that “the role of culture in language learning is receiving increasing attention”, thus damen (1986) as cited by grave (2001) names culture as the fifth dimension of language teaching. whereas kramsch (1993) explains that culture will be created and represented through the dialogue between students and students and between students and teachers. syatrian, et al. (2013) also gave a recommendation that students would easily comprehend the materials when the instructional materials or course books were developed based on the local contents and students’ needs. however, they suggested that those materials should be enriched with international contents. thereby, students could improve their language skills and teachers were assisted in choosing kind of teaching materials to support their teaching and learning process. however, the government textbook entitled bahasa inggris when english rings a bell (2013) as the compulsory student’s textbook used in junior high school did not fully match to the students’ needs. based on the interview on 15 of july 2014 with some yogyakarta english teachers, the students have varying needs. their current needs are vocabulary enrichment, reading text, grammar, speaking and listening materials, wide range of games, and even moral values to support their mental development process while learning english. the students particularly who were in the early years of jhs were still in a low level of independence, having variety of english language skill provision, low grammar mastery, and low literacy. it was indeed that the government textbook has contained some picture illustrations and gave positive effects for the young learners. the pictures appeared in most of the pages of the textbook could stimulate them to produce the target language. yet, the language inputs were served in isolated contexts. take for example, the songs that were served in the pages of 2, 23, 41, 66, 83, 104, 135 were not meaningful and effective to support students’ understanding and actualizing toward the culture values. otherwise, they were modified with cultural values activities such as comparing the two cultures: indonesian and english cultures. it must be much more meaningful for students learning english as a foreign language learning. furthermore, some researches done by mursyida (2015), hariyantina, arifuddin, & djuhaeni (2016) also revealed that the textbook was lack of productive skill materials such as no listening materials. even the textbook contained materials that were irrelevant to the curriculum of 2013 syllabus. to point out, developing culture-based english instructional materials for grade vii of jhs needs to be developed. it is expected to support the process of english teaching and learning as well as encouraging and motivating students to internalize and actualize positive culture values. having learnt english with culture-based instructional materials, students are expected to improve their english skills as well as their level of morality. 79  e-issn: 2621-6485 based on the former ideas, the problems are formulated into: 1) how are the culture-based english instructional materials for grade vii of junior high school students developed and 2) how is the final product of the culture-based english instructional materials for grade vii of junior high school students represented in terms of its effectiveness. research method the research design applied was research and development (r&d) which aimed to develop a product of culture-based english instructional materials modifying of a model developed by dick, carey, & carey (2005). the model is adapted into five steps: analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate. operationally the implementation was conducted as tryout design and expected to find out the effectiveness of the product. the tryout was designed by conducting pretest-posttest class group control. the tryout design appeared in table 1. table 1. tryout design class pretest treatment posttest a t1 x a t2 b t1 x b t2 subjects of the need’s analysis and product implementation were students from y-sjhs of 7, 9, and 10. the underlying consideration was those schools almost had the same characteristics. their visions were almost similar. they supported their students to be well behaved, having environment awareness, smart, well cultured, having achievement based on a good faith, love the state, and having a higher feeling of nationality. thus, based on these reasons, the three schools deserved to have the same goals in educating their students and they were agreeable to the purpose of the research. the english teachers who taught in the seventh grade had also been certified by the government as well as upgraded to their professionality. the chosen experiment and control classes for the last product evaluation were from y-sjhs of 9 and 10. the two groups of classes were chosen based on the english teachers’ information. furthermore, the students of the classes had the same characteristic such as some were active, but some were not. as an addition, students in those classes also had low-level appreciation to the culture values such as, coming late joining the class, having a low attention to the learning process. therefore, it can be concluded that the class dynamics, the low-level of internalization and actualization toward culture values in the two classes were almost the same. they could be used as the consideration in the experiment phase in order to judge the textbook’ quality in term of its effectiveness. data collection techniques and instruments used in the research were instrument to evaluate the product, needs analysis instrument, english test items, and culture values questionnaire. the data were analyzed using a likert scale type and t-test with gain score. the entirely instruments were deserved to be valid since they had been validated based on content and construct validity. eltej issn: 2621-6485  afifah, zuchdi 80 research result and development in developing cbeim, the procedure was started by analyzing the students’ needs, designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating. the analyzing meant the effort to know the factual condition of the schools. the way to conduct the 1st step was by observing the teaching and learning process in some classes, discussing with some teachers, and distributing the questionnaires of the need analysis in the last session of the meeting. having got the data of the need’s analysis, the product was started to be designed. the summary of need analyses result is presented in table 2 and the culture that was chosen to be integrated in the textbook was culture proposed by lorenzutti (2015). he proposed that culture values referred to how people learnt to have social awareness, human relationship, spiritual, patriotism, and to grow the feeling of empathy, honesty, politeness, wisdom, discipline, caring, and loyalty. yet, realizing a wide range of cultures proposed by lorenzutti, then the culture values integrated in the culture-based english textbook were taken from the highest percentage chosen by the students. table 2. the result of need analysis no most preferred topics integrated in culture number of student s percent ages 1 politeness, responsibility, discipline in a family and society. 67 70.53% 2 knowing some historical things from indonesia and english such as temples, traditional farming tools, traditional weapons, traditional dances, games for children, and any other local creativities serving a local wisdom. 67 70.53% 3 visiting a friend who is sick, helping each other, working together. 41 43.16% 4 indonesian traditional foods, religious ceremony, tools in daily activities, traditional house, and some other things related to human creativities. 52 54.74% 5 knowing some unique or characteristic names from indonesia and from western people. 28 29.47% 7. being discipline in family, school, classroom, and in the larger environment. 52 54.74% 8. knowing the local, national, and international heroes. 67 70.53% 9. realizing the important of being honest in any situations. 52 54.74% 81  e-issn: 2621-6485 designing as the 2nd step of the procedure was the effort to prepare the blueprint as the product guideline. it was a course grid design consisting of some aspects. the function of the course grid design automatically was used for guiding the researcher in developing the product in order to be appropriate and match to the students’ needs. the 3rd step was developing the blueprint. the consideration in developing it was to interconnect between the learning approach adapted in the research, culture values, and the result of students’ needs within the contents of instructional material. after finishing the rough draft of developing instructional materials, then the product was validated by the content experts. the criteria to recruit the content experts in the research were those whose background knowledge in curriculum and material development, teaching english as a foreign language, and graphical design. they were prof. sugirin, ph. d., joko priyana, ph.d., and setyo adi purwanto, m.pd. before the product was implemented to the classroom, the teachers also attempted to show their responses to the product. having finished those steps, then the product implementation was held in the three schools. the purpose of product implementation was to find out the empirical data on how the product was used by the students in the class involving many students. the implementation of the research product took six times including pretest and posttest. the implementation was done in 19th of february until 2nd april 2015. the numbers of the students in the experiment class were 68 and 67 in the control class. the experiment class consisted of 30 boys and 38 girls while in the control classes there were 33 boys and 34 girls. the following table shows the quantity of the students in those classes. table 3. school & students involved in tryout school experiment control smp n 9 vii-f (34) vii-c (34 students) smp n 10 vii-b (34) vii-a (33 students) product description the product of the research was named as the culture-based english textbook. it was a supplementary printed textbook that covered 121 pages and had colorful pictures. the textbook was divided into four units and all the units reflected the aspects of local or indonesian culture as well as the target or english cultures. the culture-based english textbook as the supplementary of printed textbook consisted of: (1) preface, (2) table of content, (3) pronunciation guide, (4) unit 1 talking about family, (5) unit 2 talking about historical building and things, (6) unit 3 talking about great people, (7) unit 4 talking about foods and focusing on how to learn the procedure text, 8) bibliography, and 9) listening scripts. every unit had the same parts; a) let’s get ready consisting of some tasks, b) let’s act consisting of some learning inputs and some main tasks, c) let’s have fun facilitating students to play the game, d) let’s do review, a space for doing some exercises, and e) let’s have a reflection, eltej issn: 2621-6485  afifah, zuchdi 82 as the top of the unit in which students were given time to make any reflections after learning english in the class using the culture-based english textbook. the function of the pronunciation guide in cbeim became the evidence that this research product also concerned on the productive skill. all the units were arranged systematically and started by the learning objectives. the development of tasks in the units was based on the learning and scientific approach. family was chosen to be a topic in unit 1 because the researcher intended to integrate indonesian culture values in the reading text through the characters. since, values were the very basic things in culture, it was necessary to present the model of people who had a good personality. historical building and things were the topic set in unit 2. students were expected to learn many positive values from the cultural heritages possessed by the two nations. for unit 3, the researcher presented some great people. students were expected to take and learn moral values from them. specifically, from the reading text and learning activities, students were trained how to be leader, to be confident, optimist, and loyal. reading and other activities provided in every units is presented in figure 1 and 2. figure 1. the example of reading activities 83  e-issn: 2621-6485 figure 2. other activities eltej issn: 2621-6485  afifah, zuchdi 84 the last unit was about foods. the foods were exposed in unit 4 as the last part because the learning materials and learning objectives sequences were in line to the 2013 curriculum syllabus. additionally, they were emphasizing on how to learn the procedure text. however, the last unit was assumed to be the most interesting topic because the linguistic features served in the unit were more difficult than the previous. having learnt some either traditional or international foods, students were expected to learn how to make thing carefully and orderly. furthermore, the cultural values implied in the last unit were helping students to have a good appreciation, nationality, and creativity. one of the activities provided in unit 4 is presented in figure 3. figure 3. one of the activities provided in unit 4 every unit comprised some general parts. they were: 1) let’s get ready which gave the student opportunities to acquire some new words. in that part, there were some activities bundled in sort of tasks such as matching picture, doing crossword puzzle, and so forth, 2) let’s act was the primary activities. it consisted of task varieties. the task might expose the students to work both individually and in a team. the development of activities in the parts was interrelated. the first activity in the let’s act part was started by observing, and then followed by questioning, collecting, analyzing, communicating data. in the end of the activity of the phase, there were let’s learning which more emphasized on how to master the grammar which was driven along with let’s create. in the let’s create, there were three types of activities: 1) guided production task, 2) semi-guided production task, and 3) free production task. 85  e-issn: 2621-6485 starting from the topic of family, historical building and things, the great people, and the food, then the further tasks development would be about things relate to them. a culture corner was set in the middle of the activities with the hope that the students would already get the language inputs. the main purpose of displaying them was aimed at educating the students with the culture’s values. an across culture was for intercultural competence where the students could get the chance to learn other culture as well as compare the local and target cultures. let’s play the game was a part that aimed at refreshing the class condition. the game had developed relating to the topic thus the students were able to link what they had learnt to the fun activity. let’s do review was the part of evaluation, and then the unit was ended by the last part that was reflection which functioned as the media to communicate between teachers and students responding to all the activities had done in the process of implementing the product. an addition, the reflection part of the culture-based english textbook was also aimed at facilitating students in order to have the opportunities sharing their experiences during the learning process. product evaluation to know whether the product of cbeim was appropriate, it was assessed by the content expert and graphical designer. the content aspect consisted of content, language, learning, culture, and presentation aspects. the content aspect was designed to evaluate materials development, curriculum integration, uniformity of material development with knowledge, skills, and values to support the process of making communication by using english, representations of functional language skills, the strengthen of material development in facilitating students to understand social functions, grammatical features, and generic structure of the text types. language aspect assessing simplicity of the language, language level, diction, grammatical features, and language appropriateness. learning aspect assessing appropriateness between developed material and the result of the needs analysis, unit variety development, appropriateness between learning activities and topics, exactness to motivate the students to learn english collaboratively and independently, meaningful of learning activities development, strength of developed material in helping the students to learn the positive values, teachers’ role in that process, and the suitability of presented games with the topic. culture aspect expecting to assess: the cultures integration, relevance of the pictures to the main topic and cultures, pictures and the students’ age, attractiveness, and reflection of indonesian characters, culture corner existence, cross culture, proverb, students’ understanding to cultural diversity. presentation aspects expected to assess: whether the developed material was harmoniously presented among let’s get ready, let’s act, let’s play the game, let’s do reviews, and reflection as well as the learning objectives in every unit, and the language inputs presented both in the form of spoken and written texts, learning activities. graphical design aspects expected to assess materials appearances, attractiveness, the suitability, fonts, typing spaces, punctuation, colors, color eltej issn: 2621-6485  afifah, zuchdi 86 compositions, the color and text coordination, and pictures and color compositions. based on the quantitative data accumulated from the content expert, the product gained the total score of 247 with the average of 4.49. based on the formulated category, the product was determined to be very good. the following chart and table were indicated the summary of quantitative data derived from the product evaluation. chart 1. content expert’s product evaluation table 4. content expert’s product evaluation no aspects score average categories 1 content 48 4.80 strongly agree 2 language 20 4.00 agree 3 learning 48 4.80 strongly agree 4 culture 44 4.40 strongly agree 5 presentation 44 4.40 strongly agree 6 graphic 43 4.30 strongly agree total score 247 4.45 strongly agree students’ english test score students’ english test score were the students’ achievement which meant the entire things achieved by the students. in this context, the students’ achievements were all their improvements during the learning process particularly for their cognitive domain. it comprised the students’ achievement when they were mastering the english skills. there were some activities to obtain the students’ achievement. the first was by functioning the part of let’s do review. the students did the test in the textbook section and then discussed the result with their friends. the second plan was designing the tests. in order to know the students’ achievement, the researcher compared the students’ previous and current english achievement through the pretest and posttest. for the particular purpose of the research, results of the students’ achievement were used to know how much students could successful learned the skill from the culture-based english textbook. the achievement tests were conducted before and after the treatment. the result then was used as a decision 87  e-issn: 2621-6485 on the effectiveness of the product implementation. the following table shows the students’ english test both from experiment and control classes covering their pretest and posttest. table 5. students’ english test score class n min max mean exp.1 68 64 96 80.95 exp.2 68 72 100 88.77 contr.1 67 56 100 78.29 contr.2 67 60 100 82.77 students’ internalization and actualization of culture values after learning the entirely materials provided in four units, students were expected to have a higher internalization and actualization on culture values. there were 25 items with four scales to be used to measure students’ level of internalization and actualization of culture values. the questionnaire consisted of seven factors. they were: 1) deserving the value of achievement, 2) self-confidence, 3) creativity, 4) respectful, 5) discipline, 6) nationalism, and 7) tolerance. the measurement instruments used likert scale with the option of favorable as the positive response and unfavorable as the negative response. the description of the response comprised: 4. indicated constantly, 3. indicated frequently, 2. indicated infrequently, and 1. indicated never. the description of each category encompassed the maximum score which was around 100 until 25 as the minimum score. the students would be judged to have a very good understanding and manner of acting when their score reached 78 until 100, while they got 63 until 77 signed that they had a good understanding and manner of acting, add to this when the score was less than 62 indicated that the students needed an intensive guidance. table 6. cultural values internalization and actualization criteria descriptions student percent a very good 32 47.1% b good 36 52.9% c fair total 68 100% chart 2. internalization and actualization of culture values eltej issn: 2621-6485  afifah, zuchdi 88 table 7. students’ cultural values internalization & actualization between experiment and control classes class n min max mean scr.1-exp. 68 65 96 77 scr. 2-exp. 68 70 99 80 scr. 1-cntrl 67 64 90 77 scr. 2-cntrl 67 69 95 78 result of culture-based english textbook implementation to know the representation of culture-based english textbook effectiveness indicated by the students’ english improvement and culture values internalization and actualization, statistical analysis for independent sample t-test was applied. t-test for independent sample was used to investigate whether there were any significant differences between the two conditions in the two classes. the statistical calculation was used the gain score. table 7 showed the student number and their means while table 8 showed the result of the statistical calculation of independent t-test by the english gain score. the final calculation showed there were any differences between the two groups. table 8. group statistics of gain score of english test classes n mean std. dv. std. error mean exp class 68 7.823 5.77680 .70054 ctrl class 67 4.209 8.34037 1.01894 table 9. independent t-test with gain score gain score of english test levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig . t df sig. (2tailed) mean differe nce std. error differen ce equal variances assumed 2.946 .08 8 2.93 1 13 3 .004 3.6145 7 1.23328 89  e-issn: 2621-6485 table 10. students’ gain score of culture values internalization and actualization based on the data gathered, the result showed that there were significant differences between the two groups. the experiment class got a higher score on the culture values internalization and actualization indicated by significant differences among them because they can internalize and actualization the cultural values. the culture values provided in the textbook helped the students to learn. the outlying critical district that the significant value was smaller than the alpha or the p ≤ α (significance of 5% or 0, 05) was obvious from the table 9. findings and discussion based on the overall descriptions referring to the tryout result, the product was determined to be effective. the assumptions were based on several arguments. the first, the students could show their increase significantly in understanding english materials after learning it using the culture-based english textbook. the finding was in fact in line to research finding done by doganay, ashirimbetova, & davis (2013). they found that with culture integration, students could improve their english communicative and linguistic competences. the second, it showed there were differences between the students who were taught by the culture-based english textbook and those who were not. the third, since the culture-based english textbook was filled with cultural values; teachers could motivate and support the students to consider those values in their life. the fourth, since the evaluation from the content expert on the textbook got a higher appreciation, thus it indicated that the culture-based english textbook was feasible and recommended to be used in the english teaching and learning process for junior high school students in grade vii. in addition, observation also was done to observe the class condition and the students’ preferences. those were aimed at being alert of the social bias from the students. realizing the complexity of the research in gaining the data, the observations were designed as an experimental observation in which they gain score of culture values levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2-tailed) mean difference std. error difference equal variances assumed 2.523 .115 2.524 133 .013 2.28709 .90608 eltej issn: 2621-6485  afifah, zuchdi 90 were done to record the prepared condition in those classes. the point in conducting the observation was how the culture-based english textbook was being implemented in the class and how far the students could increase their cognitive and affective development: english competence, internalizing, and actualizing the culture values. there were three important landmarks recorded during the observation: 1) how the culture-based english textbook could help teachers in teaching english and culture values. 2) how the culture-based english textbook could help students in learning english and understanding the culture values, and 3) whether students were seriously internalized and actualize the culture values in their daily life. the three landmarks were briefly described in the following’s parts. the culture-based english textbook helped the teacher in teaching english and culture values because the instructional materials were developed based on the culture-based concept. this idea was supported by kramsch’s theory (1998) convincing that language showed kind of expressions. the expressions could be used to symbolize cultural reality. therefore, language and culture were bounding together. as a result, integrating culture values in instructional materials were a good choice to do. the teacher utilized some reading texts that consisted of culture values in which they were used to stimulate students to be well behaved. the example of culture values exploration was taken from the unit 3 in which it discussed about the great people. based on the observation, the teacher started teaching by leading the students to pray together and checking the students’ attendance. having made sure the student’s condition, the teacher started announcing the learning goals of that day and then continued presenting some great people through the classroom screen projector. while seeing and observing the pictures on the screen, students also used their culture-based english textbook that had already been distributed by the researcher. the teacher started giving a simple description of the pictures. however, she stimulated students to mention some of good personalities from the picture (such as r.a. kartini and cut nyak dien) and then students mentioned their good personalities. the teacher also guided students in pronouncing the words used to describe the picture personalities. the following pictures showed the small portion of the class activities. students were challenged to mention some personalities based on the pictures. some attempted to mention spontaneously and some attempted to write the words on the white board. when they did not have the words to say, they opened their dictionary and found them. however, some of the personality’s terms were presented in the textbook and it could be found in page 68 of the textbook. students were also allowed to do the vocabulary enrichment from the page. before they read the reading passage about the great people, they had acquired some related words. acquiring new words before reading the passage was helpful and it made them easy to understand the text. based on that observation, it showed that both students and teachers were helped by the culture-based english textbook. since then it was equipped with 91  e-issn: 2621-6485 some pictures, vocabularies, pronunciation guide, thus students could easily use it independently. the teachers also drilled the students in pronouncing the words that related to the great people’ personalities as well as reminded them to memorize the words meaning. students together read aloud the words by considering the pronunciation then students were given time to list several good personalities from the great people they learn. figure 4. listing good personalities from great people the culture-based english textbook could help students in learning english and understanding good values. take for example when they read the reading passage about people who had good personalities, at least they were inspired and motivated to be and to do the same things. while reading, they also found some underlined words in which they were used to attract the students’ attention to learn about grammar implied in the passage and the technical words, synonym, and antonym related to the reading topic. the figure 6 was used to encourage students to have a respect to the older people. eltej issn: 2621-6485  afifah, zuchdi 92 figure 5. reading text in unit 1 based on the observation, during the culture-based textbook implementation, the students seriously internalized the culture values from the reading passage. those landmarks were captured during the teaching and learning process. those were also proven by the students’ reaction in reading the text and the way their responses to the teacher’s command. apparently, there were some students who wrote a part of the textbook content such as the fun time what were served in across culture in page 76. most of them also requested the teacher to play the game in the end of the class session. however, there were few of them who had the same preferences such as having lack of attention to the teacher’ explanation. despite listening to her explanation, they did the vocabulary enrichment and seeing the pictures of the textbook on and on while talking and chatting with their classmate. from the whole observation, it showed that students were able to learn english maximally. they were also motivated to practice english by doing a simple conversation with their classmate. this finding supported kramsch’s theory (1993) that culture could be created and learnt through dialogue among students and between students and teachers. their english competence also got its significant progress. when the teacher gave them time to work in group, 93  e-issn: 2621-6485 they also did respectfully. they did the work together in their team and able to submit the project based on the time allocation and its deadline. by working together in a team, students were helped to understand the lesson easily. they were also able to build their confidence when they worked in a group. in the end of the session, students used their rest of their time by playing games enclosed in the end of the unit. the figure 7 is the example of the game appearance. figure 6. the games appearance discussion of the final product the product had been developed based on the determined standards of the research. cbeim had proven to have a better quality as the supplementary textbook for y-sjhs. the product was able to enhance and to increase the students’ english skill. furthermore, the level of students’ internalization and actualization toward cultural values understanding were also increased. the finding then supported the research finding done by syatrian, et al. (2013) that students got easily of comprehending the english lesson when the instructional materials were served based on the local contents. that was the empirical eltej issn: 2621-6485  afifah, zuchdi 94 evidence showing the product had its own novelty. since there were two landmarks in this research: 1) how to develop the product, and 2) how was the effectiveness of the product. therefore, there were some parts followed them. the process of product development consisted of conducting the need analysis which the result of it was used to design the product. while designing the product, there were some topics and learning activities considered to be a part of the instructional materials. kind of topics which were developed in the product were 1) family, 2) historical building and things, 3) great people, and 4) the foods, while the learning activities covered work individually and collaboratively. the developed of learning activities were based on the skills, such as reading the text, answering the questions, listening and imitating, making a dialogue or writing a text based on the provided picture. one of the most important things to do in that product development, the researcher attempted to integrate the cultural values into the text. there were two ways in integrating the cultural values in that product; explicitly and implicitly. the way to integrate the culture values explicitly was by developing some text that directly exposed the good moral which appeared from the characters of the texts and by giving some additional quotation in the form of proverb or culture corner where the students could read and learn the moral messages from them. then the way to integrated implicitly was by presenting some pictures and some learning activities in the culture-based english textbook. after the product had been finished developed by the researcher, then it was time to bring them to the content expert judgment. that was the time for the researcher to get any suggestion improving the product. by doing that ways, it was expected that the moral and/or positive cultural values integration in the product could support the students to internalize and actualize them in their daily life. the effectiveness of the product included: 1) the finding whether there was any significant increase toward the students’ english test score before and after the culture-based english textbook implementation, 2) emerging a significant difference between the students’ english test score in experiment and controlled classes, 3) as well as were there any increase to the students’ level of internalization and actualization toward cultural values. from the process of product implementation, it revealed that the product of culture-based english textbook could support the teaching and learning process to be more effective. it showed that the students’ english score significantly increased, and they also demonstrated their progress on internalizing and actualizing the cultural values. conclusion the way to develop the product was started by conducting the need analysis then the result was used to consider in designing and developing cbeim. the materials developed in the research product covered the indonesian culture and english culture such the family, historical buildings and things, great people, and foods. those culture values were presented in reading and listening, monologue and dialogues both in written and spoken text. they were integrated explicitly and implicitly such as through texts, images, and 95  e-issn: 2621-6485 students’ activities. after the product had been developed then it was validated by the content expert and graphical design expert. the product had proven to be effective since there was significantly increase of the students’ english test score after learning english using the product. the students’ posttest from the experiment class revealed a higher than in the control class. based on the statistical calculation of independent samples test with gain score from the two groups, the t values were 2,931 with the p values was 0,004. hence it indicated that there was a significance difference between of the two classes since p = 0,004 < 0,05 (with level of significance 95%). it was caused by the mean of the gain score was 7.8235 from the experiment class and 4.2090 from the control class. the product also got its superior for it was able to support the students in internalizing and actualizing the culture values provided in the all units such as encouraging them to deserve achievement, confidence, creative, respect, discipline, tolerance and have a high nationalism. having calculated the gain score of culture values from the two groups, the experiment class mean was 2.7647 while the control class was 0.4776. references atkinson, d. 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(2009). humanisasi pendidikan: menemukan kembali pendidikan yang manusiawi. jakarta: bumi aksara. english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 241-253 241 10.12928/eltej.v3i3.2402 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id edmodo use in esp writing: the perceptions and barriers of sociology students fu’ad sholikhi universitas islam balitar, jl. majapahit no.24, sananwetan, kec. sananwetan, kota blitar, jawa timur 66137, indonesia fuad.sholiki@gmail.com 1. introduction the world of computing is here. technology plays an essential role in business relations, movies, education, and so on. it means that technology in language learning (english learning) is a common this day. technology makes the language easier and simpler (ahmadi, 2018). technology-integrated classroom systems have turn out to be famous for language learning in current years. blended learning, virtual classroom, and system for learning management are the real applications of technology in language learning. those examples are very useful for the lecturer because those things strengthen the learner's engagement and facilitate the instructor’s role in a classroom. the benefit of technology for language learning is interactive language learning. technology provides language learners with a great number of possibilities and it facilitates language learning to the students (ahmadi, 2018). information and communication technology (ict) is commonly used in education for successful learning around the globe (balta & duran, 2015). technology is key to language learning, so technology allows students to interact with their language courses. using technology makes the student of the university more comfortable and less embarrassed to make mistakes. in this particular study, the researcher uses edmodo as blended learning concerning writing at islamic university of balitar (unisba), blitar. it means that classroom teaching and online training are complementary to each other. in this model, the instructor would be able to concentrate on class a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 29 june 2020 revised 05 september 2020 accepted 14 december 2020 the teachers are expected to integrate technology into the classroom because today is the world of a computer. edmodo is one of the educational websites that can facilitate the specific needs of sociology students in writing. this research aimed to investigate the secondsemester sociology students perceive the use of edmodo as a medium in writing descriptive text and how edmodo helps the students in developing their writing skills. qualitative research was used by researchers through documentation, observation, and interviews with twelve sociology students as participants at islamic university of balitar. this study took eight months to complete the analysis which included data reduction, display of the data, and analysis of sociology students’ data. the result showed that edmodo was helpful in esp class (writing class) because edmodo enhanced sociology students’ writing, developed interaction, communication, and it promoted sociology students’ creativity in solving the writing task. the analysis of the result suggested that further researchers research motivation or behavior stages because this research only focused on the perception stage. further researchers also suggested that further researchers revise the research instruments. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords blended learning edmodo students’ barriers students’ perceptions writing task http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:fuad.sholiki@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 242 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 241-253 fu’ad sholikhi (edmodo use in esp writing) weaknesses rather than simply reciting language rules to the students. in academic writing, writing is widely considered as the most challenging skill for students to acquire because students have to follow specific guidance from the teacher and the teacher has limited time to give feedback ( alnaibi, al-jabari, & al-kalbani, 2018). the research shows that there are positive impacts of blended learning in language teaching (nguyen & nguyen, 2019). learning media has a role as a platform that supports the learning process that teachers can access and use. digital media is the media used by educational institutions to aid students with their learning processes (tamrin & basri, 2020). learning media has interactive elements that can enhance students' interest in learning and playing, as well as real-world projecting, which involves interaction (elmunsyah et al., 2019). edmodo is a student learning application, which requires the internet as the requirements to achieve results (handayani et al., 2020). the sociology students at unisba are less enthusiastic to write. the reason why they want to write is only due to classroom-bound activities at unisba. and it seems like they do not pay attention that they have to socialize their knowledge in verbal and non-verbal communication to the society after they have graduated from university. sari & aini (2019, p. 1) states that english is to communicate effectively and it is necessary for social studies. sociology students at unisba are meant to study social relationships. they have to socialize more than another study program because sociology is their dna. it means that sociology students are trained to think critically about human social life, so they must have interaction with the community to apply their knowledge. in terms of interaction, sociology students have to master both verbal and non-verbal language to communicate clearly, and effectively. therefore, the lecturer is looking for possible assistance to make sociology students at unisba fall in love with writing. edmodo is believed by the researcher to be a problem-solving in this study. edmodo is important for education and teaching (arifin & ekayati, 2019, p. 16). also, few studies show that edmodo is effective blended learning in writing for sociology students at unisba. edmodo is one of the supportive learning delivery methods in writing classes (nguyen & nguyen, 2019), and edmodo facilitates students’ engagement (purnawarman et al., 2016). furthermore, the expectations of sociology students are critical in english language learning, especially in writing because it will show their behavior in the classroom. sociology students will interpret language learning experience differently and the teaching process in schools is a meaningful learning factor. simply put, students perform well when they have a good view of the learning environment in class. sociology student impressions are essential because the experience of the students has a major effect on comprehension (aji, 2017; al-kathiri, 2014; al-said, 2015). students have different views because they can organize the received information and the phase of perception is called as perceptual phase (altman et al., 2013). altman et al., (2013) believes that students will look and experience the same process differently and the perceptual phase begins with a stimulus followed by the selection of stimulus and perception and ends with behavioral responses. altman et al., (2013) states that there is the difference between english learning (writing) and what students perceive they need to be successful in english learning as a second language (writing). during the teaching and learning process, a teacher needs to know the feelings of the participants to assess at the end of the learning (handayani et al., 2020). mu’in & amelia (2018) emphasize that it is important to know how education is effective and what kind of teaching methods and techniques the teacher uses to facilitate students’ comprehension. some researchers have conducted several studies that explored the students' perceptions of edmodo. al-kathiri (2014) investigated the effect of edmodo in a public school in riyadh (saudi efl female students). the participants were twenty-one students in the experimental group and twenty-one students in the control group. the focus was on daily english teaching in a public school in riyadh. and the result indicated that there were positive attitudes in the language learning classroom (efl students) and edmodo generated more positive attitudes towards english learning. the study showed that the application was very helpful in terms of mastering new vocabulary (100%), sharing with peers (95%), grammar (85%), spelling (85%), reading (85.7%), and listening (76%). the second researcher is al-said (2015) who researched the undergraduate students' perceptions and barriers towards edmodo by applying. this study adopted the empirical approach with thirtytwo participants involved. descriptive statistical analysis was also used by the researcher in this issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 243 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 241-253 fu’ad sholikhi (edmodo use in esp writing) study to elaborate on three fields of perceptions scale (academic achievement, mobile communication and interaction, and information access) and barriers scale. based on three fields of perceptions scale and barriers scale in this study, it can be concluded that edmodo facilitated undergraduate students in communication (51.9%), most students disagree that edmodo does not generate an effective learning environment (55.6%), undergraduate students have no difficulties in small screen size (67.4%), and they do not feel bored about edmodo as english course application (65%). the third researcher is purnawarman et al., (2016) who researched senior high school students’ perception towards the use of edmodo and used a qualitative research approach with a case study design. seventeen participants (private senior high school students in cimahi) were involved in this study and four instruments were used to collect the data which included observation, document analysis, focus group interviews with semi-structured design, and open-ended questionnaire. the result showed that edmodo has made it easier for students to download the material with the library menu, edmodo encouraged simple contact with its teachers and classmates, edmodo has given them limitless learning time and space. moreover, the difficulties were also identified when edmodo was being applied in this study such as bandwidth, confusion in using edmodo, and incompatibility of smartphone applications. aji (2017) demonstrated the application of blended learning in listening with twenty-eight students involved in this study. data collected through the interview (preand post-class and laboratory activities), observation, and questionnaires (sending questionnaires to the students). the result showed that edmodo was able to make the students more active in listening and the results also indicated that it provided lecturer teaching listening time productively. then, al-naibi, al-jabari, & al-kalbani (2018) stated that edmodo was a solution to paragraph writing. this study utilized class action research with twenty-five efl students (ten male students and fifteen female students) involved. data collected through planning, action, observation, and analyzing with three lesson plans to meet the objective of the study (well-written paragraph), two descriptive writing tasks (my university and my mobile phone), and sending questionnaires to the students to know students’ perceptions and barriers towards using edmodo. the result showed that edmodo could solve the problem of paragraph writing and the students had very positive perceptions towards using edmodo (the students had user-friendly gui and friendly in the communication). and the last, nguyen & nguyen (2019) reports students’ perceptions about edmodo use in writing class with ten tourism students of vietnamese university involved in this study (age ranges from 19 to 20). this study only focused on semi-structured interview data from esp class and data collected through identifying themes, managing, and analyzing the data. the result indicated that edmodo was appropriate, relevant, feasible, and organized in leaning writing. edmodo was able to change students’ attitudes to maximize their writing. reflecting on the previous elaboration, integrating edmodo as a supporting tool is beneficial and can be used by present-day sociology students quite easily. therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out about students’ perceptions and barriers in using online media for english learning for sociology students at balitar islamic university. the researcher believes that students’ perceptions and barriers are related to students’ achievements. to be more precise, this research aimed at the answers to questions below: 1. what is the sociology students’ perception on the use of edmodo in writing the descriptive text? 2. what are the sociology students’ barriers to the use of edmodo in writing the descriptive text? 3. how does edmodo help sociology students in developing their writing skills? 2. research method this study used a descriptive qualitative method to explain sociology students’ perceptions and barriers as well as the activities applied in writing class (descriptive text in esp). qualitative data was in the description and it was a human instrument (sugiyono, 2008). this particular approach was to make a description of a certain procedure in writing class. this study was similar to nguyen & nguyen's (2019) study, their focus was on interview data that investigated how tourism students interpreted the impact of using edmodo in their writing learning process. language barriers mean 244 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 241-253 fu’ad sholikhi (edmodo use in esp writing) problems and solutions in using edmodo in writing class (daelani, 2018). and there were eighteen students in the class, but only twelve students were the participants of this study. the instruments in this study followed the sugiyono’s (2008) perspective about qualitative research and utilized methodology triangulation. the instruments about sociology students’ perceptions and barriers in using edmodo were questionnaires, observation, and interview questions. creating a research concept, creating a research process, and modifying the interview question was done by the researcher during the preparation of research. after all planning for the research was measured, the writer proceeded to obtain the permission letter from the balitar islamic university. the schedule in this research was in line with daelani (2018), which included interviewing the lecturers, sending the questionnaire, and conducting the observation. the researcher utilized apriliani’s (2015) procedure in the interview (closed-end and open-ended) and the observation, and the questionnaires were adopted and modified from al-kathiri's (2014), al-said's (2015), apriliani’s (2015), and nguyen & nguyen's (2019) studies. this study utilized sugiyono’s (2008) perspective in the technique of analyzing sociology students’ data and it was in line with daelani’s (2018) study. therefore, the researcher collected all writing documents (descriptive text), collected all instruments data from esp class (writing), minimized interviews and observations data for indepth research, summarized the data and described edmodo's implementation in writing class, and made the initial conclusion in using edmodo. 3. findings and discussion regarding the discussion in this study, it is important to see what the questions are delivered to the sociology students at unisba. the different reasons and the opinions derived from interview data make this study interesting. this discussion shows sociology students’ feelings during language learning. 3.1. insight into sociology students’ perceptions and barriers at unisba about edmodo twelve sociology students in this study have been reported to have positive impacts on the implementation. the implementation is to practice online writing in english for sociology students. the questions and its categories in this study are adopted and modified from al-kathiri's (2014), alsaid's (2015), apriliani’s (2015) and nguyen & nguyen's (2019) studies about edmodo as blended learning in esp class. the modification is to accommodate sociology students’ needs as the subject of this study. the detailed information is as follows. table 1. sociology students’ perceptions and barriers in using edmodo no. the categories of questions the categories sociology students’ responses 1 academic achievement useful, students’ score increase 2 topics for sociology students motivating, relevant 3 design well-designed, user friendly 4 information access easier to access, less effort to get information 5 motivation feeling confident 6 language learning challenges technical difficulties table 1 indicates the categories of questionaries to answer research problems in this study. and it is obvious that this study (the questionnaires) tends to elaborate descriptive text in esp classroom and another study (the questionnaires) tends to elaborate paragraph writing in efl classroom (al-naibi, al-jabari & al-kalbani, 2018). 3.2. sociology students’ perception of academic achievement this category is about how edmodo facilitated learning the balitar islamic university course and how edmodo generates an effective learning environment. the extracts from the interview data are as follows. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 245 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 241-253 fu’ad sholikhi (edmodo use in esp writing) table 2. students’ answers of academic achievement categories no students’ name (initials) students’ answer towards the questions 1 es i think edmodo is helpful. edmodo helps me to think logically based on lecturer’s instruction. then, my score in writing increase. 2 ay i can have immediate feedback from my writing without having go to the class. 3 ak i think edmodo is helpful because group discussion is my solution. 4 rh i like edmodo. it is handy application and effective. lecturer and edmodo leads me to think critically 5 hkas edmodo facilitates me in writing without go to classroom. i can do my writing task in my bed. however, i do not like to have full online class because i also need to see my friend and lecturer face to face.” 6 sm i am confused about the topic. so, i ask my lecturer about the clarity and ask about what should i do next 7 fy my friends always give me suggestion, especially in my writing 8 wt my lecturer explains about all features in edmodo, especially about writing task and adds on from the interview data above, there are positive feedbacks when sociology students using edmodo in writing class. edmodo is useful in language learning because the features in edmodo helped the sociology students to do more. some previous studies agree that edmodo enhances sociology students’ ability in writing ( al-naibi, al-jabari, & al-kalbani, 2018; wahyuni et al., 2020; yusuf et al., 2018). this application of online writing fits the situation in which it could accommodate the sociology program study in esp. nguyen & nguyen’s (2019) study agree that edmodo is applicable in esp class (tourism class), in a study program other than esp (aji, 2017; al-said, 2015), in senior high school students (purnawarman et al., 2016), and efl students (al-kathiri, 2014; al-naibi, aljabari, & al-kalbani, 2018). furthermore, sociology students’ writing task is discussing social problems in blitar and they have a handy application to write and submit their task instantly because it was accessible in mobile phones and laptops. because of its handy operation, it makes sociology student appreciate more historical events in blitar and eliminate the boredom and lack of interest in writing. positive responses means better learning outcomes (sobur, 2003). student performance before the intervention is poor, but there is high awareness of writing process after the intervention ( al-naibi, al-jabari, & al-kalbani, 2018). and it can be concluded that learning english is important for sociology students’ carrier, and positive responses (in using edmodo) help them to learn english writing. student mental image influences their understanding (altman et al., 2013, p. 90). in edmodo, there is a feature of locking an assignment and a quiz. when the lecturer activates it, the sociology student will learn to organize a time and place for learning. it will also make the student learn logically and critically because there is a time limit in an assignment. edmodo can send quizzes and assignments to an individual student or the entire class (al-kathiri, 2014). the teacher helps his students in using edmodo, edmodo helps students in language learning, and edmodo is a handy application are categorized as the implementation of edmodo in the descriptive text (apriliani, 2015). edmodo help sociology students (student number 2, 3, 4, and 8) in developing their writing skills (descriptive text) variously. edmodo helps students to write well and to form well-structured sentences ( al-naibi, al-jabari, & al-kalbani, 2018). edmodo is a communication tool and conveys all descriptive text information with ease (apriliani, 2015). edmodo is to support students’ independent learning and it provides the organization of explanations in report text (puspa et al., 2018). based on the table above, student number six is identified to have support or guidance from the teacher. in this study, edmodo facilitates the students to communicate with esp lecturer easily by utilizing the comment feature, inbox feature, connection across multiple devices, scheduled posts, and group discussion. moreover, edmodo can make group discussions. it means sociology students can be separated into several small groups. it allows shy students to develop their writing skills 246 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 241-253 fu’ad sholikhi (edmodo use in esp writing) through a forum in edmodo. shy students will feel more comfortable communicating online (alkathiri, 2014). in edmodo, there will be peer correction trough forum and the discussion inside the forum give the student comments and suggestion for better english writing (yusuf et al., 2018). delivering material, delivering exercise, and delivering guidance are the implementation o edmodo in writing class (daelani, 2018). 3.3. sociology students’ perception of topics in esp class (sociology class) this category refers to nguyen & nguyen's (2019) perspective about esp class. it means that it is a relevant online task to sociology students at unisba. all sociology students revealed that they learned the most recent lessons in blitar. the extracts from the interview data are as follows. table 3. students’ answers of topic categories no students’ name (initials) students’ answer towards the questions 1 rmh the topics are related to my previous job. and it is fun to express it and share it with my friends. 2 wt the topics is relevant to my program study at unisba. and it encourages me to learn new vocabulary base on the topic. the application is relevant for sociology students at unisba. it means that they are learning about society 5.0 and revolution industrial 4.0 and edmodo fits the current situation. edmodo teaches them to use technology in english writing in esp class. they feel like as part of technology advances by using audiovisual in language learning. moreover, this application affects their sociology students’ creativity. in terms of creativity, using technology or edmodo in esp class in this study will make the student a unique solution to a problem based on their task. edmodo is a complementary learning (arifin & ekayati, 2019, p. 5). english writing in sociology classrooms is different from general english because the materials have to relevant to the sociology program study (fortanet-gomez & raisanen, 2008). students in sociology have to closely incorporate what they learn with their studies in the esp classroom. nguyen & nguyen’s (2019) study state that there must be relevant online tasks in language learning because edmodo is only a supplementary tool in teaching. moreover, sociology students are trained to understand a topic. it means that they are trained to highlight a topic sentence and supporting detail for a written paragraph in descriptive text. edmodo allows students and teachers to correct a topic (a draft) (al-naibi, al-jabari, & al-kalbani, 2018). 3.4. sociology students’ perception of design edmodo is utilized by the researcher as blended learning in this study and this category refers to a familiar interface. the familiar interface means following 21th-century online learning layout to accommodate teachers’ and students’ experience in language learning. the following are students’ perspectives about its design. table 4. students’ answers of design categories no students’ name (initials) students’ answer towards the questions 1 sm edmodo is like facebook. i am familiar with facebook, so it is easy for me to use it. 2 do i use edmodo in mobile apps more often than in my laptop. you know, the menu is simple and well-organized. i can search something that i want in edmodo. i just type it, then the results consist of all post, people and so on. it is very helpful.” edmodo is an organized application facebook-style interface. twelve students in this study say that they can look for english writing information clearly because this application has a chronological post like facebook. edmodo is one of the applications that has scheduled posts or issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 247 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 241-253 fu’ad sholikhi (edmodo use in esp writing) organized designs (nguyen & nguyen, 2019). they can look for the information based on the writing topics inside. not only the topics but also students’ comments and lecturers’ comments on a certain topic are easy to find by the member of the writing class. edmodo is a user-friendly classroom management system and it is motivating for students (etfita, 2019). second-semester sociology students do not find any difficulties in navigation. edmodo is not all that hard to get started with because the application provides offering learning aids. edmodo has familiar features with many social network applications (wahyuni et al., 2020). 3.5. sociology students’ perception of information access this category refers to a streamlined application. it means that teachers or sociology students can manage writing class (join, archive, copy), can manage scheduled posts, and can easily access the material about writing. concerning information access, ten students of twelve sociology students thought that edmodo is an easy access application. the following extracts below illustrated sociology students’ views. table 5. students’ answers of information access categories no students’ name (initials) students’ answer towards the questions 1 es it is effortless while using edmodo mobile app because i can go to cafeteria and in the same time, i can review my task.” 2 hkas i use edmodo to help my writing. it saves me a lot of time. i can get writing material quickly. it feels like the technology serve me. and i can focus more on drafting.” 3 rn the information in edmodo is easier to access. i prefer reading in edmodo than reading in traditional way because i have to adapt the current technology. i believe technology will help me a lot in learning.” based on the statements above, easier information and easier access mean a lot to sociology students at unisba. easier access helps the students to get and to review the material with ease. so, the students can focus more on the content in writing class. al-said (2015) says that easier access increases the effectiveness of learning. students can access class material and assignments easily (al-kathiri, 2014). sociology students are learning different in the way now than they used to because of the advancement of technology and edmodo provides easy access to achieve the lesson objectives. insani et al., (2018) categorize downloading material with ease, asking a question via edmodo as a student’s experience of using edmodo. and students’ experience leads to a better understanding (altman et al., 2013). edmodo is a great tool for distance learning and e-learning. teachers can deliver quality content over the web at a low cost. edmodo reduces the cost of photocopying and designing a poster for language learning (al-kathiri, 2014). edmodo reducing learning cost ( al-naibi, al-jabari, & alkalbani, 2018). many studies say that edmodo is one of the multi-platform applications (al-kathiri, 2014; al-said, 2015; apriliani, 2015; daelani, 2018; wahyuni et al., 2020). sociology students can access it via a web browser, ios, or android devices. it is not a flawless cross-platform experience but english second language students or english first language students can use tablet app or web access on a tablet. 3.6. sociology students’ perception of motivation edmodo lists motivation as a benefit in language learning. edmodo was a media to transfer knowledge to esp students in this study. based on the interview data, the majority of students tended to choose online learning with edmodo in sociology class (esp). it motivated the students to learn more about writing. 248 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 241-253 fu’ad sholikhi (edmodo use in esp writing) table 6. students’ answers of motivation categories no students name (initials) students’ answer towards the questions 1 mn for me, i am confident when using edmodo in writing. it happens because i can look for an idea on the internet.” 2 wt online class using edmodo makes my writing snappy because discussion and peers feedback help my writing a lot.” 3 sm i do not have hesitation when i express my idea to the lecturer via edmodo. the lecturer just helps me based on my writing and i just focus on my lecturer’s feedback via edmodo.” 4 ay my classmates will know my post, and i am confident using edmodo because it will give me time to think a lot before posting something on it.” 5 mn i am afraid to make mistake in writing. and i am jealous to my friend about his writing performance. in edmodo, i start to involve in group discussion and i start to express my idea more often. they do not know my actual face when i express it.” the data indicate that edmodo is an application that can make the student confident in writing class. the sociology students interviewed assume that they do not feel threatened in english writing while using this application. they are free to voice their opinions in esp class because it is like having a conversation in a chat group with their friends. besides, they will have a weekly update about english writing from the lecturer; it includes the weekly update information and weekly tutorial task. those updates are the topics that they will be discussing it with their friends in a small group. the advantage of this small group in edmodo can make shy students lower their anxieties. these findings are in line with su’adah’s (2015) study about edmodo. she states that sharing and discussion are available features in edmodo. and most likely, the students use those features in language learning. i. f. sari et al., (2018) support su’adah’s (2015) perspective that motivation is essential for the sociology students at unisba. and feeling comfortable is one of the indicators that blended learning is effective media in english language learning. the learning environment affects one's attitude to receiving (sobur, 2003). motivation and satisfaction are students’ views on how to use edmodo in writing (apriliani, 2015). second-semester sociology learners learn better when they are motivated in language learning. this happens because there is an interaction between teacher and students and edmodo facilitate their communication through a small group, scheduled post, and quizzes. for example, a small group can generate peer feedback. through group activities, edmodo supports cooperative learning and shy students feel better at communicating online (al-kathiri, 2014). the social contribution will make students motivated (adawiyah et al., 2013). there are some aspects of sociology students’ motivation which leads to positive perception in blended learning (edmodo). this happens because edmodo is considered as social learning. it means that edmodo has a feature to make a virtual group and discussion panel. titik nur hidayati (2016) states that students’ motivations originate from classmates, teachers, and parents. and students’ groups can generate motivation (adawiyah et al., 2013). adawiyah et al., (2013) states that a group can make students motivated in speaking and thinking skills. and teachers have an important aspect to stimulate intrinsic motivational growth (kaylene & williams, 2011). 3.7. sociology students’ barriers when using edmodo concerning language barriers when using edmodo, twelve students agree that poor internet connection makes communication between the students and lecturer difficult. two students shared her view: issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 249 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 241-253 fu’ad sholikhi (edmodo use in esp writing) table 7. students’ answers of language barriers categories no studentss name (initials) students’ answer toward the questions 1 ak there is a notification about my lecturer post in edmodo. when i open the notification via mobile app, then the application takes for about two minutes to respond to it.” 2 hkas i have poor connection in my home if i use edmodo via mobile app. and it is different story if i use edmodo via web page.” 3 rmh i always ask about my submission. i am afraid that my task is not delivered 4 do sometimes, i forget to preview my task and i just submit it. in the end, i always have a lot of corrections. besides the positive perception, there are language barriers in this study based on the interview data above. most sociology students know that they can use a mobile app and a web page application to access edmodo as blended learning in writing class. most of the students prefer to use a web page application rather than a mobile app because of its better connection (stable internet connection). mostly, they use it to submit a mid-term test and final test of this semester. however, all students also have edmodo in the mobile app even though they have encountered poor internet connection while using it. they believe the mobile app is just another supplementary media from a web page version. they also believe that there is always a fix of recent bugs in mobile apps via recent updates. they use edmodo via a mobile app to discuss something in group discussion, checking inbox, and notification from the lecturer’s post. al-khatiri (2014) states in his study that 47 % students faced poor internet connection and most of his students get frustrated when it happened. lack of internet speed disturbs students’ activities because they cannot connect with classmates or teachers (zain & kasim, 2018). based on the table above, student number three and number four show some problems in using edmodo. 5w+1h are some problems that may find in learning media (ahmadi & uhbiyati, 1991). this study is in line with daelani’s (2018) study that esp lecturer only faces a problem concerning “how”. daelani (2018) states that registration, submission, error system on quiz, low signal, the content of assignments are common problems found in using edmodo. evaluation, checking the content, using the internet connection on the campus are some solutions to overcome common problems found in using edmodo (daelani, 2018). slow internet connections or limited access can contribute to students falling behind academically. however, edmodo is not a perfect application because edmodo is only to support language learning in esp class (writing). edmodo has no intention to replace the face-to-face classroom, it is only a supporting tool in language learning (handayani et al., 2020). edmodo supports students’ learning and it is an effective application for students and teachers in language learning (handayani et al., 2020). pardede (2019) emphasizes that it provides opportunities for teachers to learn and to share ideas anywhere and anytime. based on previous statements, it can be concluded that there are some language barriers in terms of technical difficulties but not with financial difficulties. arifin & ekayati (2019, p. 7) states that elearning (edmodo) develop sociology students’ language learning with high flexibility. sociology students can also communicate with their lecturer at any time. so. the lecturer will more focus on the material. meanwhile, the screenshot of sociology students’ activities is provided by the researcher to know how this application works in esp class. the following are the screenshots. 250 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 241-253 fu’ad sholikhi (edmodo use in esp writing) fig. 1. screenshot of edmodo in web page application in figure 1, it shows the latest activities of the edmodo in sociology class. the opening layout is very similar to facebook, so the sociology students can learn about edmodo fast. the lecturer and the sociology students can communicate with posts. even better, the students can give a like and comment on them. and this layout design will make the students focus more on the contents rather than available pictures inside. web 2.0 has indeed become one of the necessities in students’ lives and social networking is also exploited in various fields such as entertainment and education (zain & kasim, 2018). when the lecturer clicks the “classes” button next to the “home” button in the top-left area, the lecturer can start to use class management. inside, the lecturer can post an announcement, make module folders, and make a virtual group (small group). for example, the lecturer can arrange a variety of different posts in a “small group” menu, it is very useful to maintain the pace of english language learning. on the left screen, sociology lecturer can see their groups (etfita, 2019). edmodo has advanced management for language learning and assessment tools, such as small group, group settings, managing members, create and join groups, achieve or delete from a group (etfita, 2019). fig. 2. screenshot of task submission issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 251 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 241-253 fu’ad sholikhi (edmodo use in esp writing) it is interesting to see figure 2 because the sociology student can upload a file in edmodo easily. they can also attach the file with a document or a photo. this activity makes student’s writing interesting and this “sharing file” feature will remain private, so nobody can see the attachment except the lecturer. and based on figure 2 above, the lecturer can see the previously uploaded file. it means that the lecturer can give feedback about the missing task or unsent task. the lecturer also can utilize the “comment” or “request resubmission” feature next to that column to make quality feedback. feedback is useful to make them realize their mistakes (zain & kasim, 2018). 4. conclusion based on findings and discussion in this study, the researcher has found that most sociology students have positive impacts on using edmodo. it is proven by the result of the data that sociology students at unisba are motivated, interested, and satisfied in using edmodo. therefore, it enhances sociology students’ writing scores and promotes sociology students’ creativity in solving the writing task. furthermore, edmodo is supplementary media to facilitate the needs of secondsemester sociology students and this study shows that how sociology students of unisba perceived the benefits of edmodo. it facilitates the teacher and students in developing communication, easy download access (material), editing and peer feedback, and english learning effectively. besides, sociology students face common problems in using edmodo and the major problem is related to slow internet connections or limited access to the internet connection. this study has provided an insight into students' perceptions, barriers, and implementation of online learning (edmodo). this study suggests additional researcher research motivation or behavior stages because this research only focused on the perception stage. this specific study suggests further researchers revise the research instruments and focus on other text types that are taught in higher education, such as narrative 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(2018). students’ perceptions toward usage of edmodo social learning platform. journal of governance and development, 14(2), 31–44. english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 61-73 61 10.12928/eltej.v4i1.2371 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id investigating writing difficulties in essay writing: tertiary students’ perspectives suhaimah bulqiyah a,1,*, moh. arif mahbub b,2, dyah ayu nugraheni c,3 a, b, c universitas islam jember, , jl. kyai mojo no.101, kaliwates kidul, kaliwates, kec. kaliwates, kabupaten jember, jawa timur 68133, indonesia 1 bulqiyyy@gmail.com*; 2 rifelbarzmahbub@gmail.com; 3 dyh.ayoe@gmail.com * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 24 june 2020 revised 03 august 2020 accepted 26 april 2021 this study is primarily designed for investigating the tertiary students’ perspectives on the writing difficulties of essays. this study was conducted in explanatory research in which quantitative and qualitative data were obtained from the web-based questionnaire and semi-structured interview, then analyzed separately. twenty-one undergraduate students have enrolled in the survey and six of them were invited to the interview section. this research reveals that tertiary students' problems in essay writing course are categorized into: affective problems which raise from students’ and lecturers’ attitude while teaching and learning essay writing course, cognitive problems that are considered as the difficulties in the areas of writing viewpoint, transferring language, and the process of writing, and linguistic problems in the area of lexico-grammar, vocabulary, and the structure of the essay. based on the findings, those aspects of academic writing should be given serious attention by both efl students and teachers to overcome the problems. the findings of this study have implications for efl writing course designer as basic data of material improvement and for researchers particularly in the realms of language and education. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords writing difficulties essay efl tertiary students how to cite: bulqiyah, s. mahbub, m.a. & nugraheni, d.a. (2021). investigating writing difficulties in essay writing: tertiary students’ perspectives. english language teaching educational journal, 4(1), 61-73. 10.12928/eltej.v4i1.2371 1. introduction as one of the productive skills (jabali, 2018; toba et al., 2019), writing is crucially essential for efl (english as a foreign language) learners, particularly for the students at the tertiary level. in an academic setting, enhancing writing skills for the students is the primary objective in education (al khazraji, 2019). for students to develop their writing competence, they are expected to produce a well-structured piece of writing (ceylan, 2019). moreover, mastering how to organize, regulate writing behavior, review the composition, and provide readers awareness (bakry & alsamadani, 2015) have also become the crucial aspect for creating a well-produced piece of writing. despite the importance of writing courses for college students, it has still become the onerous skill for them. this phenomenon has occurred in many different contexts around the world with several aspects of writing difficulties committed by students in tjarhe following areas: (1) structural, (2) grammatical, (3) mechanical, and (4) vocabulary (ariyanti & fitriana, 2017; ginting, 2019; sabarun, 2019; toba et al., 2019). in other studies, writing difficulties are also affected by learning process and file:///c:/users/muhammadwildan/downloads/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.2371 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:bulqiyyy@gmail.com mailto:rifelbarzmahbub@gmail.com mailto:dyh.ayoe@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8960-9717 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i1.2371&domain=pdf 62 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 61-73 bulqiyah, s., et.al (investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) strategy while writing (bakry & alsamadani, 2015). consequently, they could not produce their ideas in well-written paragraphs or essays. okpe & onjewu (2017) pinpointed that acquiring essay writing skills may be the one of great beneficial things to do as it can improve day-to-day communication, obtain good grades, and be a better professional. consequently, the essay writing course becomes a notable subject for students at the tertiary level. in the indonesian context, higher education (he) curriculum is highly required the university students, particularly in the english education department, to produce a well-written essay. as stated in the course objectives of the critical essay writing course (kbi112) in one of a private university in jember, indonesia, they must attend a class for 150 minutes in a week (three credits) to gain theoretical and practical knowledge of english essay writing. however, the data from the lecturer claimed that the majority of the students have encountered serious problems in writing a good english essay (personal information, october 24th, 2019). contemporary researches on essay writing difficulties have been mushrooming in many different settings. however, a study about investigating essay writing difficulties encountered by tertiary students in indonesia, particularly in the english education department, is still very limited. therefore, a critical study of tertiary students' essay writing difficulties must be undertaken. the contribution of the study will be a basis for designing or applying the appropriate teaching strategy in essay writing course for tertiary students. thus, the primary purpose of this study is to analyse essay writing difficulties committed by efl tertiary students with the research question: what are the tertiary students' difficulties faced in writing essays? 1.1. the concept of writing writing is a productive skill which comprehends cognitive processes (jebreil et al., 2015) such as expressing intentions, composing ideas, problem-solving, and critical thinking (fareed et al., 2016; ginting, 2019). writing is also a process of gathering and working the ideas presented in polished and comprehensible product to readers (linse, 2005, p.98). besides, cumming (1998, p.61) has precisely defined writing is not only referred to as a text in the written script but also as the acts of thinking, composing, and encoding language into such text. thus, in composing writing, one is highly required to involve an entirely different set of competencies (brown, 2000, p.335) as it implicates extra efforts in understanding, thinking, planning, and revising. similarly, students’ emotions, such as the interest in writing, anxiety, lack of self-efficacy and confusion, play a pivotal role for the development of individual learning (driscoll & powell, 2016). what is more, the teacher’s instruction can also shaped the students’ emotions and attitudes while writing. as such, those aspects are categorized as the affective problems which have to be another focus in this study. in an academic context, writing has become the most important skill that students must be mastered (fareed et al., 2016; tseng, 2019). not surprisingly, it has become a central topic of language teaching and research on this field (hyland, 2008); for instance, in egypt (a. h. ahmed, 2010), in tunisia (knouzi in abouabdelkader & ahmed, 2016), in morocco (abouabdelkader & bouziane in abouabdelkader & ahmed, 2016), and oman (al zadjali in abouabdelkader & ahmed, 2016). another scholar clarified writing entails a particular sequence of processes (hyland, 2008). for sperling & fredman (2001) as cited from abderraouf (2016, p.xiii) writing is a set of sub-processes involving planning, translating, and reviewing. however, the often process occurred more than those stages. bailey (2015) demonstrated the writing process into several parts: (1) selecting suitable sources, (2) reading texts, (3) note-making, (4) planning and outlining, (5) combining variety sources, (6) organising paragraphs, and (7) rewriting and prof-reading. thus, one can generate a well-organized manuscript following those aforementioned processes. 1.2. writing difficulties as aforementioned, writing also becomes the most difficult skill, particularly in english education, which through complex processes that engages several competencies. also, students at the tertiary level experienced various obstacles in their processes of writing. the obstacles derive from many aspects as the foregone researches such as vocabulary and diction (meslissorgou & frantzi, 2015; nugraheni & basya, 2018; toba et al., 2019; zhan, 2015), grammatical features (ariyanti & fitriana, 2017; hajeid, 2018; hasan & marzuki, 2017; meslissorgou & frantzi, 2015; nugraheni & basya, 2018; toba et al., 2019; zhan, 2015), exploring and generating ideas (asadifard & koosha, 2013; e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 63 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 61-73 bulqiyah, s., et.al (investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) ceylan, 2019; hosseini et al., 2013; nugraheni & basya, 2018), organization (hajeid, 2018; nugraheni & basya, 2018; toba et al., 2019), and teaching process (ceylan, 2019; hajeid, 2018; jebreil et al., 2015). accordingly, the aforementioned studies have shown that the major difficulties found in students’ writing are mostly in the areas of vocabulary and grammar. in other words, those works of literature reported that students' writing problem is concerning their linguistics competence. however, the students' writing strategies have also been considered as the other factor affecting significantly on their writing process and production. furthermore, winarto (2015) has also revealed that efl students' writing strategies influence to their writing performance. various types of writing strategies have been applied by practitioners in various realms: (1) direct strategies including memory, cognitive, and compensation strategies, and (2) indirect strategies including metacognitive, affective, and social strategies (o’malley & chamot, 1990; oxford, 2003; winarto, 2015). those strategies can be implemented successfully depending on each language learning context where they are integrated. 1.3. essay writing as one of academic writing (bailey, 2015; meyers, 2014), the essay has still become the most popular type of assignment (van geyte, 2013). more specifically, an essay is a piece of writing consisting of one particular topic breaking down into several paragraphs (one for each major point) started by the introductory paragraph and ended by concluding paragraph (oshima & hogue, 2006). the primary elements of the essay are (1) introduction paragraph presenting attracting statements to the readers' attention, (2) body paragraphs providing development of sub-topic of the topic in each paragraph, and (3) conclusion paragraph restating the main points and additional quotations. 2. method this study conducted in mixed-mode utilizing explanatory sequential research (creswell, 2014; fraenkel et al., 2012) analyzing both the qualitative and quantitative data in a separate process. the researchers' employed twenty-one students, 6 males (29%) and 15 females (71%) in the range; 19 years old (47.6%, n=10), 20 years old (33.3%, n=7), 21 years old (14.3%, n=3), and 22 years old (4.8%, n=1), who enrolled in critical essay writing course in an undergraduate program of english education department, at one of a private university in jember, indonesia. this design initially examines quantitative data through a distributed web-based questionnaire presented in the form of numerical data displayed on graphics and charts. this questionnaire was mainly adopted and modified from ceylan (2019) in which was created in the form of a five-points likert scale (1= strongly agree (sa), 2= agree (a), 3= neutral (n), 4= disagree (d), 5= strongly disagree (sd)) consisted of two sections; demographic data and students' beliefs in essay writing difficulties. before adiministering the questionnaire, the researchers calculate the validity and reliability test using ibm spss statistics 20. the reliability indices with cronbach alpha’s coefficient was 0.923 which the items are very highly reliable (cohen et al., 2007). further, this questionnaire consists of 2 items of demographic data and 16 questionnaire items examining their writing difficulties in the essay categorized in 8 items indicate to affective problems, 5 items indicate to cognitive problems, and 3 indicate to linguistic problems. afterwards, the researchers listed the names of participants to the microsoft excel sheet, then they were randomly selected the participants through ms. excel using rand function for joining semi-structured interview. the six participants were involved so as to get the sufficient data. the interview guidelines (consisted of 5 items) were composed by consulting to the experts in the focused fields to gain an in-depth understanding of students' difficulties, for instance in their strategies, and process. the interview took approximately 710 minutes long for each student in their native language, bahasa indonesia. the data resulted from the interview were then recorded, transcribed, coded, analyzed, and presented in the form of an indepth description (mahbub, 2018; widodo, 2014). 3. findings and discussion these results are sorted into two parts for dwelling the outcome from an anonymous web-based questionnaire and semi-structured interview. 64 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 61-73 bulqiyah, s., et.al (investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) 3.1. the findings from web-based questionnaire the participants' responses resulted from the questionnaire would be displayed in the form of the frequencies, percentages, mean, and standard deviation. the researchers illustrate the participants' difficulties in essay writing from the data-gathering questionnaire by the following domains: 1) affective problems table 1. result from affective problem in essay writing note: std. dev: standard deviation table 1 explored the result of the analysis of item 1 until 8. these items were designed to collect the data about affective areas in essay writing difficulties. the data percentage from item 1 indicates mostly students have no problem with the interest in essay writing course (47.6% neutral). whilst, 38.1% of participants (n=8) agreed with the statement means they do not interest in the essay writing course, and 14.3% of participants (n=3) disagreed with the statement. item 2 reveals the most participants do not set goals when they start to write (42.9% neutral). meanwhile, 28.6% of the responses agreed with the statement. similarly, 28.5% of participants picked out a disagreement about the statement. for item 3, 4, and 5 show the percentages prove that the majority of participants faced writing challenges encountered with three aspects; self-confident becomes the most response (11 in total), anxiety while writing following in the second place (9 in total), and motivation (8 in total). in contrast, the participants' responses disagreed with the statement only in small percentages. furthermore, the participants mostly confirmed (28.6% agree, 23.8% strongly agree) that they did not practice writing in academic performance as item 6 stated. besides, 28.6% participants (n=6) opposed the statement. item 7 and 8 indicate the participants' responses in the teacher's behaviors for giving instructions and feedbacks in students' essay writing. the vast majority of students disagreed with the statements; where 57.1% (n=12) for writing instruction and 52.4% (n=11) for teachers' feedback. however, the participants agreed with the statements are only in a small portion. in general speaking, the major participants encountered several affective problems in self-confident, anxiety, and less-practicing in writing essay. 2) cognitive problems table 2 figures out the cognitive aspects that contribute to tertiary students writing problems. item 9 shows the vast majority of the students (47.6% agree, 14.3% strongly agree) found difficult writing tasks in their course instead of only 14.3% of participants (n=3) disagreed. for item 10, most students (52.4%, n=11) confirmed the writing problem in the aspect of transferring from their l1 to a foreign language. despite the data, there are 38.1% of students (n=8) do not have the same idea with the item sd (%) d(%) n(%) a(%) sa(%) mean std.dev 1 9.5 (n=2) 4.8 (n=1) 47.6 (n=10) 28.6 (n=6) 9.5 (n=2) 3.29 0.96 2 9.5 (n=2) 19 (n=4) 42.9 (n=9) 23.8 (n=5) 4.8 (n=1) 3.05 1.02 3 4.8 (n=1) 19 (n=4) 23.8 (n=5) 33.3 (n=7) 19 (n=4) 2.57 1.17 4 4.8 (n=1) 23.8 (n=5) 33.3 (n=7) 28.6 (n=6) 9.5 (n=2) 2.86 1.06 5 0 19 (n=4) 38.1 (n=8) 28.6 (n=6) 14.3 (n=3) 2.62 0.97 6 4.8 (n=1) 23.8 (n=5) 19 (n=4) 28.6 (n=6) 23.8 (n=5) 2.57 1.25 7 23.8 (n=5) 33.3 (n=7) 28.6 (n=6) 14.3 (n=3) 0 3.67 1.02 8 23.8 (n=5) 28.6 (n=6) 38.1 (n=8) 9.5 (n=2) 0 3.67 0.97 e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 65 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 61-73 bulqiyah, s., et.al (investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) statement. in item 11, 42.9% of participants (n=9) do not revise and rewrite their essays in many times. in contrast, 39.1% of participants (n=8) preferred to revise and rewrite their essay task many times. table 2. result from cognitive problem in essay writing item sd (%) d(%) n(%) a(%) sa(%) mean std.dev 9 4.8 (n=1) 9.5 (n=2) 23.8 (n=5) 47.6 (n=10) 14.3 (n=3) 2.43 1.03 10 4.8 (n=1) 33.3 (n=7) 9.5 (n=2) 38.1 (n=8) 14.3 (n=3) 2.76 1.22 11 14.3 (n=3) 23.8 (n=5) 19 (n=4) 28.6 (n=6) 14.3 (n=3) 2.95 1.32 12 0 23.8 (n=5) 33.3 (n=7) 23.8 (n=5) 19 (n=4) 2.62 1.07 13 4.8 (n=1) 19 (n=4) 23.8 (n=5) 47.6 (n=10) 4.8 (n=1) 2.71 1.01 note: std. dev: standard deviation from item 12, the percentages indicate mostly participants (23.8% agree, 19% strongly agree) agreed their writing problem derived from organizing thoughts or generating ideas. conversely, only a few participants (23.8%, n=5) did not experience the same condition. item 13 measures the participants’ responses regarded writing processes as their challenge when writing. nearly entire students (47.6% agree, 4.8% strongly agree) do not know about the writing processes such as prewriting, drafting, editing, etc. besides, only 23.8% (n=5) participants disagree with their unknown about the writing processes. briefly in cognitive problems experienced by students while writing essay are mostly in transferring to target language and lack of writing processes. 3) linguistic problems table 3. result from linguistic problem in essay writing item sd (%) d(%) n(%) a(%) sa(%) mean std.dev 14 0 9.5 (n=2) 23.8 (n=5) 42.9 (n=9) 23.8 (n=5) 2.19 0.93 15 0 9.5 (n=2) 38.1 (n=8) 33.3 (n=7) 19 (n=4) 2.38 0.92 16 0 33.3 (n=7) 19 (n=4) 28.6 (n=6) 9.5 (n=2) 3.05 1.2 note: std. dev: standard deviation table 3 above addresses linguistic problems experienced by tertiary students as the following sequences. linguistic competencies (such as grammar, morphology, syntax, and semantics) become the most difficult problem that the majority of participants (42.9% agree, 23.8% strongly agree) faced as item 14 points out. otherwise, only small percentages of response (9.5%, n=2) reveal disagreement about the problem in linguistic areas. shortly speaking, numerous participants experienced writing difficulties regarding linguistic knowledge. furthermore, item 15 indicates that vocabulary knowledge also has a portion of students' essay writing difficulties (33.3% agree, 19% strongly agree). while only 9.5% of participants (n=2) have a different view in vocabulary challenge. for item 16, the vast majority of the students tended to hold positive responses for structuring essays to become their writing problem. 38.1% responses (n=8) indicate participants' attitude in structuring appropriate essay has become one of their problems. nearly similar, 33.3% of participants (n=7) show the opposite response with the statement. to conclude, almost participants got the lexico-grammar difficulties in writing essay. 3.2. the findings from semi-structured interview to collect the broader data for students’ essay difficulties, the researchers carried out the semistructured interview that perhaps as a way to investigate the participants' perspectives avoiding several potential problems in the questionnaire. this personal interview conducted to six participants selected 66 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 61-73 bulqiyah, s., et.al (investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) through simple random sampling. the results of the interview are presented in five major themes as well as the number of questions. 1) theme 1: students’ difficulties in writing essay the majority of participants declared their essay writing problems are in the context of generating ideas, coherence, and vocabularies. on the other hand, only half of them dealt with grammar challenge. “i find difficulties in generating ideas, coherence, and i am difficult to standing on the topic of my essay.” (s1, female) “mostly, i face difficulties to create a coherent paragraph.” (s2, male) “i have problems in grammar, academic vocabularies, and coherence in each sentence when i write an essay.” (s3, female) “in many times, i have difficulties in generating ideas, coherence, grammar, and vocabularies. but, the dictionary helps me if i don't know about the vocabulary.” (s4, female) “sometimes, i experienced vocabulary and grammar problems. moreover, i suffer difficulty in developing my ideas for my written essay.” (s5, male) “generating ideas, grammar, and vocabulary mastery are my problems in writing essays.” (s6, female) 2) theme 2: essay writing processes generally speaking, participants reported that they mostly aware of the crucial roles of writing in appropriate processes. but, they frequently ignored some processes and directly focused on write the essay. “yes, i do the process of writing an essay. i always outline my essay, because it can help me to conduct my writing on one topic.” (s1, female) “rarely, i write based on the process of writing. for helping me write a goodstructured essay, i write an outline.” (s2, male) “i not often write in the appropriate process. i outline in all the times i write my essay.” (s3, female) “i write my essay based on the process which my lecture taught to me. yes, i do. i outline my essay because it can make my paragraphs well-structured and organized.” (s4, female) “i rarely write my essay from the outline. i think it is a complex matter. i just write based on my topic and develop it based on my knowledge.” (s5, male) “yes also. i write my essay based on the process i understood. i outline my essay to unite my ideas on a topic.” (s6, female) 3) theme 3: essay writing strategy the present theme revealed the students’ answers about the strategies their lecturer used in essay writing course. from the process of learning, the lecturer mostly applied meta-cognitive and social strategy in teaching essay writing. “my lecturer usually teaches the introduction of a paragraph, next broader to structures of a paragraph, and more practices.” (s1, female) e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 67 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 61-73 bulqiyah, s., et.al (investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) “i don’t know what strategy my lecturer used in this course. but, i think she always explains the materials, gives practices to students, and the last gives feedback.” (s2, male) “my lecturer starts with giving a topic, making an outline of the essay, analyzing the structure of the essay, and those are again and again.” (s3, female) for the first time, we learn about the topic sentence, then how to develop the topic sentence. after that, we learn to outline to compose a good essay. and last, my lecture gives feedback for our essay projects.” (s4, female) i think nothing special in teaching this course. my lecturer gives exercises to make an essay on different topics, and gives feedback in the end.” (s5, male) “as usual, my lecturer tells about the essay writing and what the goals in learning this course. next, she gives how to produce an essay from arranging paragraphs. also, she gives a topic for our essay, and the finally gives feedbacks.” (s6, female) 4) theme 4: feedback in writing essay this theme discussed the lecturer's feedback in the essay writing course. almost all participants received clear and satisfying feedback from the lecturer. frequently, the lecturer gives oral feedbacks and sometimes in written form. “yes, it's true. my lecturer gives oral feedbacks in my essay, and i satisfied with that.” (s1, female) “sometimes i get the feedback, but sometimes no. i think the lecturer gives the feedback only for several students.” (s2, male) “i always get either oral or written feedback in my essay, just because i often actively ask about my essay task.” (s3, female) “sometimes i get oral feedbacks and it sufficient for revising my essay writing.” (s4, female) “my lecturer tells corrective feedback in my essay. she apprises me about the errors in my essay.” (s5, male) “my lecturer provides clear feedback in mine. it makes me producing a good essay project.” (s6, female) 5) theme 5: importance of essay writing this last theme postulated the importance of essay writing for their on-going or future planning. the entire participants confirmed essay writing is important for both current and next study based on their various reasons. “i think this study is very important because i am a student teacher that writing becomes a crucial skill in teaching.” (s1, female) “this course is important. in the last period of our study, we have to write an article or thesis which essay writing is so needed. moreover, this course can develop the iq” (s2, male) “in my opinion, this is an essential course. from this course, one can do the productive activity by drawing ideas into written products.” (s3, female) 68 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 61-73 bulqiyah, s., et.al (investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) “this is very important because it can develop critical thinking skills. if we have a plan for the next study, we have to practice writing a good essay for applying it.” (s4, female) “i think this is important for english students. while for non-english students, speaking skill is more important for future study.” (s5, male) “for me, these materials are very important, because i think it’s easier to express ideas in written form rather than oral form.” (s6, female) from the result of interview excerpts, the paricipants’ responses indicate their difficulties while writing essay are: (1)affective problems related to the teacher’s behaviors while teaching and students’ interest in writing essay, (2)cognitive problems refer to lack of generating ideas and students’ writing processes, and (3)linguistic problem point to grammar, coherence, also vocabulary mastery. 3.3. discussion from the two steps of analysing data, the findings of this research were shown in the following section. the first part regarded to affective problems in essay writing. the findings from a close-ended questionnaire reveal that difficulties can derive form students' interest, self-confidence, anxiety, and motivation in writing. from the result of item 1, students mostly picked out the neutral responses for the interest in essay writing course. this finding is somewhat different from previous studies (e.g. abas & aziz, 2016; ceylan, 2019), in which one of the writing problems is students have low interest in writing activities. this may due to the other factors that made the students interest in essay writing course. the percentages of item 2 also have the most responses on a neutral point. it reveals the contradict view from ceylan (2019) who showed that most of the participants did not set goals when starting to write. whereas, setting goals can help the students to keep in focus on their writing task. furthermore, item 3 indicates 52.3% of participants' problems encountered with self-confidence while writing. as jabali (2018); latif (2012) reported that students have low self-confidence in writing due to language problems in several areas, for instance in vocabulary mastery or another language competence. for item 4, 38.1% of participants (n=8) agreed that they do not have the motivation to write. whilst, 33.3% responses (n=7) pointed the neutral response. this data show almost similar results conducted by jebreil et al. (2015); okpe & onjewu (2017); toba et al. (2019); and yang (2016) which students lack motivation has become one of the barriers while writing. also, item 5 indicates students’ anxiety while writing showing 42.9% of students' agreement. in the same point, aloairdhi (2019); jabali (2018); jebreil et al. (2015); latif (2012) that anxiety in writing can affect their product of academic writing. item 6 about students' attitudes in academic writing practices indicates most participants (52.4%, n=11) confirmed that they do not practice writing english for academic purposes. the student's excerpt also revealed the same answer that the fewer students practice writing the more difficulties student faced in writing. similarly, abas & aziz (2016); hasan & marzuki (2017) stated that students experienced several difficulties in writing due to their less of practicing writing in english. item 7 provides the students' perceptions about teacher instruction in writing courses which has only 14.3% (n=3) participants agreed the statement and 57.1% (n=12) disagreed. furthermore, from the interview excerpts the teacher applied the appropriate strategy while teaching essay writing course which made the mostly students enjoying the course. this finding opposes with the researches revealed by ceylan (2019); naghdipour (2016) that teacher’s writing instructions become the problem in the process of learning writing. however, tseng (2019) indicate that clear and explicit instruction in writing will give students a better understanding of the process of writing. likewise, item 8 indicates the teacher's attitude in giving feedback to students' english writing. 52.4% (n=11) participants disagreed with the statement, which means they received feedback for their writing project. students’ excerpts also revealed the same evidence which all of them received feedbacks either in oral or written form. moreover, several students got the clear and satisfying feedback in their writing projects. in similar shreds of evidence, numerous studies also report that teacher's feedback for a written task is given in orally or in written form chen et al. (2016); lee et al. (2015). on the contrary, these results have the same point with the researches carried out by asadifard & koosha (2013); ceylan (2019) that lack of receiving feedbacks from teacher become the writing challenge by students. e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 69 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 61-73 bulqiyah, s., et.al (investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) one particular area in students' difficulties in writing an essay is from the cognitive problem. as illustrated in javadi-safa (2018) which students claimed that writing has become an effortful task for language learners, the result from item 9 reports that 61.9% of participants believed about that claim. writing tasks, as the essential study for efl learners, must be mastered despite the whole problems for them. additionally, transferring to the target language in students' writing problems has 52.4% of students' positive responses to the item 10. in responding to item 10, altınmakas & bayyurt (2019); hasan & marzuki (2017) have the same point with the result which transferring l1 to the target language (english) becomes the students' barrier while writing. item 11 determines students' attitudes in revising and rewriting their essay writing which indicates 42.9% of students (n=11) do not revise and rewrite it many times. besides, there are 38.1% (n=8) disagreed with the statement. these responses are in line with the studies by sadek (2018) in which he reported that students faced difficulty when revising their draft. on the contrary, chen et al. (2016) claimed that students revise their writing projects according to the teacher's feedback. despite writing is a text expression from one's idea, developing and organizing ideas while writing has still become an onerous activity for students. the data from item 12, 42.8% of students confirmed their problem in organizing thoughts while writing. to make it further, 4 of 6 participants' excerpts also revealed that they faced difficulty in generating ideas. numerous researches (asadifard & koosha, 2013; ceylan, 2019; miftah, 2015; nugraheni & basya, 2018) also mentioned students' difficulty in writing regarded in organizing ideas. next to item 13 which dealing with the writing processes, the researchers' questionnaire results from 52.4% of students confirmed they do not enough know the writing processes. furher discussion, some of the interviewees also postulated that they did not always do the writing task according to the process of writing, because of the complicated ways in writing. supporting to the results, sadik in abas & aziz (2016) and ceylan (2019) echoed the same statement that students experienced difficulty with the writing process in general, and skip the process in particular. regarding the linguistic aspects of tertiary students' problems in essay writing, the survey results in manifest students' problems are mostly encountered with linguistics knowledge, for instance, grammar, syntax, semantics, and so on. this area (item 14) gets 66.7% of students confirmed for the problems in their essay writing. the 4 of 6 interviewees also revealed the similar points that they had grammar difficulties while writing an english essay. these results corroborate with the statement in numerous previous studies carried out by ariyanti & fitriana (2017); hajeid (2018); hasan & marzuki (2017); meslissorgou & frantzi (2015); nugraheni & basya (2018); toba et al. (2019) which they claimed that grammar is the one of students’ major problem in english writing. moreover, item 15 clarified students' problem in vocabulary mastery has a 52.3% agreement responds. to further examine in students’ perceptions, the interview result presented the majority of the interviewees stated their writing barrier in less of vocabulary mastery, particularly in academic word. these findings align with studies from ceylan (2019); meslissorgou & frantzi (2015); nugraheni & basya (2018); toba et al. (2019); zhan (2015) that the students’ problem in vocabulary has been considered in misused or misinterpreted, wrong spelling, shortage, etc. besides, item 16 showed students have less ability to structuring essays. the data resulted in 38.1% of participants (n=8) confirmed this statement. in this respect, 4 of 6 students expressed their views in the interview that they faced difficulty in structuring sentences to paragraphs and paragraphs to essay with well-coherent idas of the essay content. nonetheless, they sometimes outline an essay to assist them in focusing on one topic. not surprisingly, they claimed that outlining is an effective way to make it better. this impression corresponds to ariyanti & fitriana's (2017) research which indicates students' complicated problems in writing because of coherence and correct structure of english essays. also, ahmed (2010) reveals that composing a coherence writing product is such an extraordinary challenge for students. 4. conclusion affective problems arise from students' and lecturers' attitudes while teaching and learning essay writing course. the data resulted that the majority of the students claimed that they were not intrinsically motivated to engage in writing class due to their interest and lack of confidence of writing.consequently, they lacked in practicing writing skills in an academic context and in writing a good product of an essay. thus, students have to practice more effective in writing as much as possible to bring out a well-composed essay. henceforth, cognitive problems are considered as the difficulties 70 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 61-73 bulqiyah, s., et.al (investigating writing difficulties in essay writing) in the areas of writing viewpoint, transferring language, and process of writing. the findings indicate the students agreed that transferring to the target language and the writing process has influenced students' writing difficulties in composing essays. meanwhile, generating ideas before writing and revising the manuscript also confirmed to become students' challenges. those may be affected by teaching strategies their lecturer applied while teaching the course. due to the findings, applying the proper writing strategies may help students write essays in a better way. furthermore, the important aspect of writing is the linguistic area which has great responses in students' difficulties in essay writing. it involves lexico-grammatical competences. not surprisingly, linguistics knowledge in general and grammar in particular, have become the students' difficulties in writing essays. for another thing, the problem in vocabulary mastery is a crucial aspect of students' essay writing. likewise, students confirmed the difficulty while writing an essay is structuring essays from paragraphs and paragraphs from sentences. for that reason, linguistic knowledge as the primary aspect of academic writing should have serious attention for efl students and teachers. this research was limited to tertiary students in jember, indonesia who enrolled in essay writing course in english education program. moreover, the participants employed in this survey are approximately two-thirds of the total of the students in the 2018 academic year. to make further discussion, further-related researches are extremely needed from different perspectives or contexts and those may reveal other interesting findings. therefore, critical constructive suggestions are needed to advance a better understanding of the writing problems. several findings in this study hopefully become a better implication for further researches or creating a new method in teaching essay writing in the efl context. declaration author contribution : the first author was in charge of conceptualization (lead), data collection (lead), data transcription (lead). the second author was in charge of conceptualization (lead), designing research methodology (lead), reviewing (lead). the third author was in charge of methodology (supporting), data analysis (lead), editing (lead). funding statement : the research is funded under no research project. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references abas, i. h., & aziz, n. h. a. 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(2015). frequent errors in chinese efl learners’ topic-based writings. canadian center of science and education, 8(5), 72–81. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v8n5p72 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 174-187 174 10.12928/eltej.v3i3.3136 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id the effects of different types of written corrective feedbacks on students’ texting mistakes hasan güner berkanta,1,*, nuriye batmaz dererb,2, ozgur kursad dererb,3 a bozok university, medrese mahallesi adnan menderes bulvarı, atatürk yolu 7. km d:118, 66200 azizli/yozgat merkez/yozgat, turkey b anadolu university, anadolu üniversitesi basın ve halkla i̇lişkiler müdürlüğü yunus emre kampüsü, 26470 eskişehir, turkey 1 hgberkant@gmail.com*; 2 nurderer@windowslive.com; 3 ok.derer@outlook.com.tr * corresponding author 1. introduction the concept of feedback has many definitions in the literature. in these definitions, it is emphasized that it should inform the learner about whether he/she has behaved in accordance with the aims of education or whether he/she has acquired the target behaviors (dysthe, 2007; hattie & timperley, 2007; joyce, weil & calhoun, 2000). feedback plays an essential role in students’ achievement and learning (carless, salter, yang & lam, 2011; ellery, 2008; ellis, sheen, murakami & takashima, 2008; higgins, hartley & skelton, 2010; nakata, 2015; nicol & macfarlane-dick, 2006; sendziuk, 2010; shute, 2008). this role depends on several missions of feedback such as informing pupils about their work to come through the learning objectives along with for reinforcing and motivating their learning performance (nelson & schunn, 2009). second language (l2) learning is a creative and developmental process in which student produces oral and written expressions in a foreign language. students' l2 output is based on the rules of a language system they internalize (hendrickson, 1980). l2 learning can also be defined as "developing knowledge about l2 and using it correctly" (bitchener & storch, 2016). if students understand the rules and their usage well, they are expected to produce an l2 output that is grammatically and semantically appropriate. however, if students' hypotheses about language rule are sometimes incorrect, they can probably produce some false statements (hendrickson, 1980). 1.1 . written corrective feedback in the early days of foreign language learning, writing was applied solely to focus on students' grammar and vocabulary, and therefore errors were taken seriously (brown, 2007; ferris, 2010 ferris & hedgcock, 2005). in accordance with boughey (1997), writing has a great importance in a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 23 november 2020 revised 08 december 2020 accepted 21 december 2020 the main purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of different types of written corrective feedback on students' texting mistakes in english lessons. in the study, a mixed model including quantitative and qualitative methods was engaged. two-factor anova was used for mixed measurements to test the significance of the difference between the error numbers of the three types of feedback except direct feedback. the qualitative data of the study were collected by examining the texts and the interviews about the effect of the four feedbacks were made with the students. content analysis and descriptive analysis were performed. at the end of the study, in the quantitative findings obtained, the most effective type of feedback is the underlined feedback. as for the qualitative findings obtained from the students' opinions, the feedback type in which the error is coded and the information is given is the most effective type. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords english lesson writing activities feedback written corrective feedback texting mistakes http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:hgberkant@gmail.com mailto:nurderer@windowslive.com mailto:ok.derer@outlook.com.tr http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 175 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 174-187 hasan güner berkant, et.al (the effects of different types of written corrective feedbacks) second language learning just as other skills and students cannot acquire writing naturally, however, they learn it through formal instruction. it is a communication design that we need in any kind of fields, like self-expression and speech. the writing, which has developed in an actual way; it is like a channel for conveying emotions, thoughts, designs, and wishes to the clients. to reach messages in a correct way, this channel must be flawless, for example the text should be readable and understandable (karatay, 2011). while writing, it is prevalent to make errors for learners. as brown (2000) states that learners inevitably make mistakes while acquiring writing skills and then they benefit from miscellaneous forms of feedback on their errors and this is where feedback becomes the focus. various terms have been used for the same phenomenon, just as written error correction, written error feedback, or written corrective feedback (wcf). wcf can commonly be depicted as “… a dictated response to a lingual mistake in the writing of a passage by an l2 student. it aims to revise misuse or to provide data about where the mistake revealed and / or the cause of the mistake and how it can be corrected" (bitcehener & storch, 2016). teachers and researchers often have a strong belief that wcf is critical for improving their writing. not only that, error correction is also the key contributing to student success in second language learning (ellis, 2009). correcting students' mistakes and providing students with feedback have become two of the routines and norms in discovering students' potential in acquiring language. 1.2. types of feedback wcf is an accepted instructional strategy, considered essential and inalienable by lots of teachers to assist foreign language learners enhance their writing capability (ferris, 2010). a serious number of investigation has studied the capability of corrective feedback in writing, and many researchers have identified positive and important effects of wcf (aseeri, 2019; atmaca, 2016; ferris, 2003, 2004; kang & han, 2015; lee, 2019; rahimi, 2009). ellis (2009) has developed a categorization of teacher choices for correcting students’ lexical mistakes in their written works. her typology includes six essential strategies for implementing wcf, direct corrective feedback, indirect corrective feedback, metalinguistic corrective feedback, focused versus unfocused corrective feedback, electronic feedback, and reformulation. in direct corrective feedback the teacher provides the learners with the correct form of knowledge. ferris (2011) indicates that this may take various forms taking out an unessential word, phrase, or morpheme, inserting a missing word or morpheme, and writing the correct form above or near to the inaccurate form. indirect corrective feedback suggests informing the learner about his/her texting mistakes without correction. that can be by highlighting the mistakes or using indicators to reveal the carelessness of learners or by placing a cross in the margin next to the text line consisting of the mistake. underlined feedback was used by this way in present study. metalinguistic corrective feedback consists of providing students with some form of precise remarks referring to the nature of the errors. the definitive comment may take two patterns. probably the most prevalent is the usage of “error codes”. these include abridged labels for various types of errors. the labels may be written on the part of the error in the passage or in the margin. in present study, coded feedback was used by this way. in focused versus unfocused corrective feedback, teachers may reject to correct all errors of the learners when the corrective feedback is unfocused. rather, they can pick peculiar mistake types for rectification. dealing with correction is presumably more challenging in unfocused corrective feedback, because the student is compulsory to attend to several of errors and this is improbable to be able to display much on each mistake. uncoded feedback was used in this context during the study. in electronic feedback, wide-ranging bulk of written english may be utilized to administer students with compensation in their writing. this support may be reached along computer programs as pupils note, or it may be promoted as a type of feedback. whereas reformulation focuses on providing students with a source that they may utilize to revise their errors but places the liability for the last judgement about whether and how to revise on the learners themselves. lots of researches have been carried out whether wcf is instructive or not. in their study, radecki and swales (1988) studied the attitudes of 59 students attending to four english as a second language (esl) oriented classes and got their ideas on the efficiency of different kinds of comments, the extension of teacher markings, responsibility in error marking and correction, and revision. ferris and roberts (2001) searched 72 university esl students’ various capacities to self-edit their 176 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 174-187 hasan güner berkant, et.al (the effects of different types of written corrective feedbacks) passages across feedback conditions: coded, underlined and no feedback. chandler (2003) examined if error correction progressed accuracy in student writing or not. bitchener, young and cameron (2005) investigated to what degree the sort of corrective feedback on linguistic failures determined accuracy performance in new pieces of writing. sheen (2007) investigated the miscellaneous effects of two kinds of wcf and the degree to which lingual analytic competence mediates the effects of feedbacks on the acquisition of articles. ellis and et al. (2008) searched the diversity in the effect of focused and unfocused corrective feedbacks. in his study ergünay (2008) investigated whether wcf creates any progress on learners’ written accuracy or not. he also studied the various effects of direct and indirect written feedbacks on pupils’ written accuracy and examined the permanent effects of distinctive written corrective feedback. bitchener and knoch (2009) had the purpose to discover if there was a divergent effect on accuracy for three different direct wcf options over a six-month period. sheen, wright and moldawa (2009) investigated whether direct focused feedback, direct unfocused feedback and writing practice alone caused peculiar effects on the proper use of grammatical forms by esl learner. bitchener and knoch (2010) searched the extent to which written corrective feedback may support advanced l2 learners. hartshorn et al. (2010) tried to provide a brief explanation for wcf and to inquiry its effectiveness in one specific esl learning context. van beuningen, de jong and kuiken (2012) investigated the effect of direct and indirect corrective feedback on second language learners’ written accuracy. kang and han (2015) examined whether wcf aid to enhance the grammatical accuracy of second language writing or not. in her study atmaca (2016) aimed to reveal the similarities and differences among students’ and teachers’ awareness about wcf in an efl (english as a foreign language) context. al-hazzani and altalhab (2018) examined the effect of teachers’ wcf on female saudi efl pupils’ written articles and to what degree it affected students’ written grammatical and lingual accuracy. köksal, özdemir, tercan, gün and bilgin (2018) investigated efl teachers’ opinions of wcf and the relationship between their wcf priorities and self-efficacy beliefs. aseeri (2019) aimed to address the extent to which faculty members and students at the department of english language at najran university practiced by using the ways of wcf. kim and bowles (2019) contrasted how second language learners practiced two kinds of written feedback: reformulation and direct correction. lee (2019) searched the amount of feedback types teachers gave to students. şakrak-ekin and balçıkanlı (2019) investigated efl instructors’ beliefs about wcf. different from these related studies mentioned above, in this study the effects of different types of wcfs on the number of students’ texting mistakes in english lessons were investigated by using both qualitative and quantitative data. in this context, the problem of the study can be defined as “what are the effects of different types of wcfs on the number of students’ texting mistakes in english lessons?" 1.3. purpose of the study the main purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of different types of wcfs on the number of students’ texting mistakes in english lessons. in accordance with this main purpose, answers are searched for the following questions: 1. is there a meaningful difference between the underlined and coded feedbacks given to the texts in terms of reducing students' mistakes? 2. is there a meaningful difference between the underlined and uncoded feedback given to the texts in terms of reducing students' mistakes? 3. is there a meaningful difference between the coded and uncoded feedback given to the texts in terms of reducing student mistakes? 4. what are the mistakes that students make in their writing work? 5. what are the opinions of students on the effects of wcf? 2. research method in this section, information about the model, study group, procedure, data collection tool, data collection process and analysis are given. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 177 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 174-187 hasan güner berkant, et.al (the effects of different types of written corrective feedbacks) 2.1. model of the study this study employed mixed model, which is indicated as a research model that contains collecting and analyzing together or sequentially the qualitative and quantitative data in the same research (creswell, plano clark, gutmann & hanson, 2003). one-group pretest-posttest design was utilized in the research. it is one of the quasi-experimental designs, because the pariticipants weren’t assigned randomly and a comparison/control group wasn’t used (privitera & ahlgrim-delzell, 2019). quasi-experimental research designs pursue if there is a causal relationship amidst independent and dependent variables (loewen & plonsky, 2016). in the present study, three types of wcf (underlined, coded, uncoded) were used as independent variable, students’ texting mistakes were determined as independent variable in one-group pretest-posttest design. the qualitative data of the study were collected via the interviews with the pupils about the effect of the four feedbacks at the end of the experimental process. also, document investigation was used to see what kind of errors there were in the texts students wrote. both interview and document investigation are types of qualitative research models and may be used together in the same research to enhance the reliability of data (yıldırım & şimşek, 2018). on the other hand, the quantitative dimension of the study consists of the numbers of written mistakes determined from the students’ texts both before and after the application of three types of feedbacks in one-group design. 2.2. study group the research was realized with 27 students aged 13-14 from eight grades in a secondary school in kahramanmaraş city elbistan district. because the study was carried out in a school in which two of the researchers work, the convenience sampling model was used while determining the study group. convenience sample is a kind of purposeful sampling model by which the study group is determined from a group of people providing a practical contact or reach (yıldırım & şimşek, 2018). 2.3. procedure different topics were determined for each type of feedback from the eighth grade english curriculum [ministry of national education (mne), 2013]. later, students were asked to write texts about these topics. the feedbacks were applied to the students' texts and the number of errors was noted. in the underlined feedback, the whole sentence including the wrong word was drawn. in the coded feedback, only the error type was written on the underscored mistakes by using some codes including initials of error type (i.e. grammar mistake-gm). the uncoded feedback was done by only underlining the incorrect word. finally, the direct feedback was done by writing the correct form at the bottom of the wrong word. because the direct feedback clearly indicated the answer key, except for the texts including direct feedback, the texts in which underlined, coded, and uncoded feedbacks given were rewritten and corrected by the students. later, these texts were distributed to the students and they were asked to write again according to the feedback given. the rewritten texts were collected from the students once again, the errors were checked and the error numbers were noted. 2.4. data collection tool the texts which were given feedbacks and written by the students were used as data collection tool. the students were asked to write four different texts about subjects chosen from the eighth grade english curriculum (mne, 2013). the selected subjects were related with “friendship, teen life, cooking, communication”. 2.5. data collection processes and analysis both the qualitative and quantitative data were collected from the texts students wrote. a part of qualitative data was collected by interviews made with students of the study group about the effects of feedbacks on their learning. the other part of qualitative data was collected by examining the passages drafted by the students before and after the feedback application. in the analysis of qualitative data, content analysis and descriptive analysis methods were used. interview forms were analyzed by content analysis technique. content analysis is the logical arrangement of basically similar data by reaching certain codes and themes and the interpretation of these data in an understandable way (yıldırım & şimşek, 2018). descriptive analysis is a technique in which the data are summarized and interpreted according to previously determined themes, direct quotations are frequently used to reflect the opinions of the interviewed individuals in a striking way, and the 178 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 174-187 hasan güner berkant, et.al (the effects of different types of written corrective feedbacks) results obtained are interpreted within the framework of cause-effect relations (yıldırım & şimşek, 2018). miles and huberman's (1994) reliability formula was used to test the reliability of the interview data collected from students. two researchers independently coded the answers and then their codes were compared by utilizing this formula. the researchers came to agreement in 23 codes while in 2 codes they disagreed among the 23 codes. when these numbers were replaced in the formula, the reliability value was determined as .91. this value indicates the reliability of interview data, because the minimum value of reliability is expected to be at least .80 (miles & huberman, 1994; patton, 2002). the quantitative data were collected from one-group treatment before and after the feedback application by counting the numbers of texting mistakes which were indicated from the students’ texts. two-way anova for mixed measures were used in order to test the significance of the differences between the numbers of texting mistakes before and after the application according to the type of feedback. 3. findings and discussion quantitative and qualitative findings of the research are presented below. 3.1. quantitative findings findings of descriptive statistics of error numbers related to underlined and coded feedbacks are presented in table 1. table 1. descriptive statistics of error numbers related to underlined and coded feedbacks feedback type underlined before feedback after feedback n x s n x s 27 11.40 4.55 27 4.22 2.84 coded 27 5.25 3.89 27 2.74 2.89 as shown in table 1, the average of the error numbers before giving underlined feedback was 11.40, while it was 4.22 after the feedback. for the students given coded feedback, the error numbers averaged 5.25 before the feedback and 2.74 after the feedback. accordingly, it can be stated that error numbers of students who were given both underlined and coded feedbacks decreased. findings of two-factor anova results regarding the error numbers related to underlined and coded feedbacks are presented in table 2. table 2. two-factor anova results regarding underlined and coded feedbacks source of variance sum of squares sd mean square f p between subjects 1660.06 53 group (underlined-coded) 392.92 1 392.92 154.66 .000 error 1267.14 52 24.36 within subjects 878.99 54 measurement (before feedback-after feedback) 635.59 1 635.59 342.82 .000 group*measurement 147.00 1 147.00 79.28 .000* error 96.40 52 1.85 total 2539.05 107 a. *p< .001 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 179 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 174-187 hasan güner berkant, et.al (the effects of different types of written corrective feedbacks) as seen in table 2, the common effects of the repeated measures factors on the error numbers are meaningful when the error numbers of the students who were applied two different feedbacks differ significantly after the experiment, that is, in different transaction groups, f(1, 52)=79.28, p< .05. this finding suggests that underlined and coded feedbacks have different effects on students' error numbers. it is understood that students who were given underlined feedback after the experiment are more effective in reducing the number of mistakes compared to coded feedback. findings of descriptive statistics of error numbers related to underlined and uncoded feedbacks are presented in table 3. table 3. descriptive statistics of error numbers related to underlined and uncoded feedbacks feedback type before feedback after feedback n x s n x s underlined 27 11.40 4.55 27 4.22 2.84 uncoded 27 8.14 4.02 27 4.14 3.35 as shown in table 3, the average of the error numbers before the feedback of the students who were given underlined feedback was 11.40 while it was 4.22 after the feedback. in the students who were given the uncoded feedback, the error numbers averaged 8.14 before the feedback and 4.14 after the feedback. accordingly, it can be stated that there is a decrease in the error numbers of the students who are given both underlined and uncoded feedbacks. findings of two-factor anova results regarding underlined and uncoded feedbacks are presented in table 4. table 4. two-factor anova results regarding underlined and uncoded feedbacks source of variance sum of squares sd mean square f p between subjects 1442.96 53 group (underlined-uncoded) 75 1 75 2.85 .097 error 1367.96 52 26.30 within subjects 1010.99 54 measurement (before feedback-after feedback) 844.48 1 844.48 447.92 .000 group*measurement 68.48 1 68.48 36.32 .000* error 98.03 52 1.88 total 2453.95 107 b. *p< .001 as seen in table 4, the common effects of the repeated measures factors on the error numbers are meaningful when the error numbers of the students who were applied two different feedbacks differ significantly after the experiment, that is to say in the different transaction groups, f (1, 52) = 36.32, p <.001. this finding suggests that underlined and uncoded feedbacks have different effects on students' failure to reduce their numbers. it is understood that students who were underlined after the experiment are more effective in reducing the number of mistakes compared to uncoded feedback. findings of descriptive statistics of error numbers related to coded and uncoded feedbacks are given in table 5. 180 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 174-187 hasan güner berkant, et.al (the effects of different types of written corrective feedbacks) table 5. descriptive statistics of error numbers related to coded and uncoded feedbacks feedback type before feedback after feedback n x s n x s coded 27 5.25 3.89 27 2.74 2.89 uncoded 27 8.14 4.02 27 4.14 3.35 as shown in table 5, the average of the error numbers at the beginning of the coded feedbacked students was 5.25, and it was 2.74 after the feedback. in the students who were given the uncoded feedback, the error numbers averaged 8.14 before the feedback and 4.14 after the feedback. accordingly, it can be stated that the error numbers of the students who were given both coded and uncoded feedbacks decreased. findings of two-way anova results regarding coded and uncoded feedbacks are given in table 6. table 6. two-way anova results regarding coded and uncoded feedbacks source of variance sum of squares sd mean square f p between subjects 1442.96 53 group (underlined-uncoded) 75 1 75 2.85 .097 error 1367.96 52 26.30 within subjects 1010.99 54 measurement (before feedback-after feedback) 844.48 1 844.48 447.92 .000 group*measurement 68.48 1 68.48 36.32 .000* error 98.03 52 1.88 total 2453.95 107 c. *p< .001 as seen in table 6, the common effects of the repeated measures factors on the error numbers are meaningful when the error numbers of the students who were applied two different feedbacks differ significantly after the experiment, that is to say in different transaction groups, f (1, 52) = 36.32, p < .001. this finding suggests that coded and uncoded feedbacks have different effects on reducing the error numbers of students. it is understood that after the experiment the students who were given uncoded feedback due to the decrease in the number of mistakes are more effective in decreasing the number of mistakes compared to coded feedback. 3.2. qualitative findings qualitative findings of the document investigation and interviews are presented below. 3.3. findings of document investigation there were grammatical mistakes such as not choosing the appropriate english verb tense for conveying an idea or not using it in correct form and subject-verb agreement: s1: “i did go shopping with my best friend yesterday.” s17: “she prefer go for a walk to stay at home” there were spelling mistakes such as incorrect homophones (words with the same pronunciation, such as “right”, “rite” and “write”), writing the word in a wrong way. s3: “i had a terrible day with my friend yesterday. we really had fun.” (terrific) issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 181 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 174-187 hasan güner berkant, et.al (the effects of different types of written corrective feedbacks) s12: “there are tree kinds of communication tools that we use mostly in our houses” (three) apostrophe errors took place in students’ writing works. s9: “my mums close friend texts messages to communicate” (mum’s) 3.4. findings of students' opinions about the effects of different types of wcfs on students’ texting mistakes students’ answers to the question whether writing activities improve their english are given in table 7. table 7. contribution of writing activities to students’ english codes f entertaining 11 useful 9 instructive 8 boring 7 time-consuming 5 as seen in table 7, less than half of the students (11/27) thought that writing activities were entertaining. besides, some of the students found writing activities useful (9/27) and instructive (8/27) however, as negative opinions, some of the students found the activities boring (7/27) and time consuming (5/27). some of the students' views about contributions of writing activities are as follows: s2: “why should i like to write in the foreign language? i’m still learning, while i don't like writing in my own mother tongue. as i can talk, i don’t need to write. it is both boring and time-consuming.” s13: “i love writing essays or stories in turkish lessons. because as i can't express myself while talking, i think i can express it very well by writing it. writing is very important to me. i find writing fun, no matter in what language it is.” students’ answers to the question what activities and instruments help to improve their writing skills are given in table 8. table 8. the activities and instruments that help to improve students’ writing skills codes f dictionaries 27 teachers’ feedbacks 23 grammar lessons 22 reading activities 16 listening to songs 15 giving feedbacks to the friends 13 keeping a diary 9 watching movies 7 translation works 6 as seen in table 8, all of the students (27/27) thought that dictionaries were very useful in their writing works and they helped them improve their writing works. most of the students declared that feedbacks from teachers (23/27) and grammar lessons (22/27) helped them improve their writing 182 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 174-187 hasan güner berkant, et.al (the effects of different types of written corrective feedbacks) works. few students put forward that watching movies (7/27) and working on translation (6/27) improved their writing skills. some of the students' answers on this topic are as follows: s4:“i think dictionaries help me a lot while writing. because when i don’t remember a word in english, i look up the dictionary to learn it. as i use a dictionary, i can remember the word more easily when i have to use it later again. so, dictionaries really help me while writing.” s15: “when i write something, it is really important to me to get feedbacks from my teachers. because they tell me what mistakes i make and what word i used in a wrong way. when i learn that i don’t make the same mistakes again.” students’ answers to the effectiveness of wcfs on learning english are given in table 9. table 9. the effectiveness of wcfs codes f effective 23 not effective 4 as seen in table 9, most of the students (23/27) found wcfs effective on learning english 23 of 27 students thought that were effective, however a few students (4/27) declared the ineffectiveness of these feedbacks. some of the students' views about the effectiveness of feedbacks are as follows: s5: “getting wcfs from my teacher was really effective for me. as i am learning a new language, it is very normal for me to make mistakes. but sometimes i do not know whether i make mistakes or i do not understand why i make mistakes. when i get wcfs from my teachers, i get sure about my mistake and i try not to do the same mistakes again.” s19: “it was very effective. we wrote about four subjects and this was the first time i wrote so much in english. i saw that i could write because i did not have self-confidence. after getting wcfs from my teacher helped me get more self-confident. i learnt how to express myself by writing in a better way. students’ answers about the most challenging issues in english writing activities are given in table 10. table 10. the most challenging issues in english writing activities codes f use/expression of words 22 lack of confidence 20 fear of failure 18 as seen in table 10, most of the students (22/27) accepted that they did not know the way how to use or express words in second language. also, many students (20/27) declared that they were lack of confidence during english writing activities and 18 of 27 students pointed out that they were afraid of making mistakes or being unsuccessful. some of the students' opinions about these challenging issues are as follows: s9: “i don’t like writing in my own language so while writing in a foreign language i do not feel myself confident. i get afraid of making mistakes. teachers help me a lot by giving feedback but i hate making mistakes. i feel ashamed.” s20:“i am afraid of being unsuccessful. i love my english teacher so much so i want her to see me as a successful student. when my teacher wants me to write something, i want it to be perfect.” issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 183 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 174-187 hasan güner berkant, et.al (the effects of different types of written corrective feedbacks) students’ answers about their most preferred wcf types are given in table 11. table 11. the most preferred wcf types codes f coded feedback 10 underlined feedback 8 direct feedback 6 uncoded feedback 3 as seen in table 11, students pointed out that among the feedback types they mostly found coded feedback more effective. secondly underlined feedback, third direct feedback, and lastly uncoded feedback were more declared as effective feedbacks respectively. some of the students' views about the sequence of feedback efficiency are as follows: s7: “i think coded feedback was the most effective one. because my teacher just gave me codes and i tried to find the mistake. i liked searching what my mistake was and i think that was the best way for my learning.” s17: “i think the best feedback type was direct one. i want to learn my mistake and i do not want to do it again. when my teacher tells me about my mistake, i do not need to search it by myself. if so, it would be too time consuming. it was concluded from the quantitative findings that the most effective feedback type was “underlined” on decreasing the number of students’ texting mistakes. the second most effective feedback was “uncoded”, and the least effective one was “coded”. as for the results of qualitative findings from the students’ views, “coded” was the most effective feedback, “underlined” was the second most effective one, “direct” was the third most effective one and the least effective one was “uncoded”. because the quantitative findings showed that the most effective feedback type was “underlined” and the qualitative findings declared that the most effective one was “coded”, a contradiction was determined between the students’ perceptions and the statistical results about the effectiveness of feedback types. document investigation showed that students had grammatical, spelling, and apostrophe mistakes during the writing activities. although limited number of students evaluated the writing activities including wcfs boring and ineffective, most of the students declared that these activities were entertaining and useful for improving their writing skills in english. students’ ideas indicated that dictionaries, teacher’s feedbacks, grammar-based lessons, and reading activities were the most useful tools to improve their writing skills. according to students’ views, most of them didn’t have enough self-confidence and had a fear of failure in english writing activities because they didn’t have enough vocabulary knowledge. also, they didn’t know how to use or express the words correctly. the research results revealed that in writing activities, the usage of wcfs was effective. similar to the results of this research, al-hazzani and altalhab’s (2018) study showed that wcf had positive effects on students’ writing achievements and helped develop learners’ skills. it also revealed that grammatical and lexical accuracy could be improved through the regular giving of wcf. their studies offered positive support for the practice of wcf and added to the growing body of evidence investigating and indicating the influence of teachers’ wcf on improving efl learners’ writing achievements and making fewer errors. based on this result, corrective feedbacks used in english writing classroom can be instructive and supportive for students to participate in writing activities so students can be willing to perform the writing activities. similarly, ferris and roberts (2001) found that groups who received feedback significantly surpassed the no-feedback group. ergünay (2008) concluded that the experimental groups who received wcf significantly outperformed the control group in which any wcf wasn’t received in both short and long term. chandler’s (2003) study demonstrated that the accuracy of students’ writings was improved significantly by feedbacks. bitchener and knoch (2010) came upon that all three analysis groups in 184 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 174-187 hasan güner berkant, et.al (the effects of different types of written corrective feedbacks) which three sorts of feedback were used surpassed the control group receiving no feedback due to the post-test scores. kang and han (2015) resulted that wcf could lead to greater grammatical accuracy in second language writing activities. lee (2019) indicated that, the usage of corrective feedbacks aided students’ writing development and ensured more active involvement. hartshorn and et al. (2010) stated that a systematic approach including wcf could have a positive effect on the accuracy of esl writing. van beuningen and et al. (2011) showed that comprehensive corrective feedback was an efficient means of improving learners’ accuracy. they found that pupils whose errors were corrected comprehensively made fewer errors in new pieces of writing than learners who did not get feedbacks. when students receive feedback, they can revise their paragraphs and this situation may allow them to focus on previous mistakes they have made. furthermore, in this study students declared that the most effective feedback types were underlined and coded on decreasing the number of their texting mistakes. similar to this result, chandler (2003) stated not all error correction methods had the same effect in increasing accuracy. as there are different types of students, various learning styles and language characteristics, it can be very common to have differences in the types of feedback. kim and bowles (2019) stated that there might not be a one-size-fits-all answer for wcf but that various mistakes responded to feedback variously. in a similar way aseeri (2019) concluded that correcting students’ errors by coding the exact error in the text without giving them the correct answer was the least used way from students’ viewpoints. at this point, as revealing mistakes through codes will make students struggle with writing activities, it may be a little more challenging for them. contrary to this study’s result, in ergünay’s (2008) research direct corrective feedback was declared as the most useful. also, bitchener et al. (2005) concluded that indirect feedback was more effective than direct feedback in helping learners improve the accuracy of their writing. bitchener and knoch (2010) detected no significant dissimilarity among the three treatment groups on the immediate post-test piece of writing, suggesting that any one of three types of wcf could be used by teachers and still have the same positive effect. various feedback forms promoted distinctive sense of processing by all of l2 learners of english. the results also showed a significant relationship among error type and depth of processing. the effectiveness of different sorts of feedbacks in the mentioned studies may be due to various learning and teaching styles. 4. conclusion this study aimed to investigate the effects of different types of wcf on students' texting mistakes in english lessons. four different texts in the english curriculum were studied and each student's number of errors in these texts was determined and four types of feedback were given to the texts. it was found that in the quantitative findings obtained, the most effective type of feedback is the underlined feedback in which the whole sentence with error is underlined, the second most effective type of feedback is the uncoded type of feedback where only the word error is underlined, and the least effective one is the coded feedback in which error is coded. it was concluded that it is the type of feedback to which the information is given. as for the qualitative findings obtained from the students' opinions, the feedback type in which the error is coded and the information is given is the most effective type of feedback, the second most effective type of feedback is the one in which the whole sentence with error is underlined, the least effective type of feedback is uncoded feedback, which is the type of feedback where only the wrong word is underlined. based on the results of this study, the following suggestions are put forward for researchers: this study was limited to eight grade students’ writing activities including feedbacks in english. further research can be conducted in other grade levels via speaking, listening, and reading activities. in this study coded, uncoded, direct, and underlined feedback types were studied. with the purpose of introducing some profound vision to the literature, researches comprising the use of other types of wcfs such as metalinguistic, focused, unfocused, electronic feedbacks may be carried out. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 185 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 174-187 hasan güner berkant, et.al (the effects of different types of written corrective feedbacks) references al-hazzani, n., & altalhab, s. 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ahmad58naemi@gmail.com; 2 afaravani@yahoo.com*; 3 aaboori@gmail.com * corresponding author 1. introduction that reading comprehension is delineated from multi aspects and that different professionals in the educational system have concurred on the importance of reading comprehension skill (calet, lopez-reyes, & jimenez-fernandez, 2020; garner, 1987; pearson & gallagher, 1983; yu & levesque-bristol, 2020;), seems to lead to the essential point for second language researchers to study the factors that contribute to the enhancement of reading. technically, reading has been defined as the process of rebuilding meaning from written symbols and so it engages many cognitive processes for comprehension to happen (durkin, 1978; perfetti, landi, & oakhil, 2005). moreover, reading is one of the four skills of language, which deals with understanding vocabulary to interpret the whole meaning of a text. due to the significance of understanding and interpreting the semantic and syntactic structures of a language as one way to improve one’s literacy and as one of the main skills in second or foreign language learning, finding the relationships of any variables which may be somehow related to reading comprehension is of great importance. despite many studies that have been conducted in the area of classroom climate (oostdam, koerhuis & fukkink, 2019; ranđelović and dimić, 2020; wang, degol, amemiya, parr, & guo, a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 09 december 2020 revised 18 december 2020 accepted 30 december 2020 a prevalent goal of education in schools is reading comprehension enhancement. therefore, a critical issue in educational psychology is investigating the factors contributing to increase the reading achievement including both classroom climate and self-determination. this study explored the relationships of iranian high school students’ self-determination and classroom climate with their reading achievement. 150 iranian (male and female) students from sama and fazele high schools in mashhad were selected through convenience sampling. the instruments were iowa self-determination, classroom climate questionnaires, and a validated researcher-made test. it was a type of quantitative and correlational research. results revealed a significant and positive relationship between self-determination and reading ability. they also showed that among the six subscales of the self-determination, financial management had a significant relationship with the reading achievement scores of students. however, the emotional independence of peers had a negative correlation with the reading achievement scores of students. the results showed that teachers’ skill in orienting tasks can enhance reading achievement score and make the classroom climate more motivating. this study has potentially helpful implications for english language teachers, english institutes, and students. teachers can enhance student’s selfdetermination by providing a friendly classroom environment and indirectly boost the students’ reading score. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords self-determination (sd) self-determination theory classroom climate reading achievement score motivation http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:ahmad58naemi@gmail.com mailto:afaravani@yahoo.com mailto:aaboori@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 199 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 198-210 shahrbanoo joulide, et.al (conjuring up the correspondence of high-school students’ self-determination and) 2020), reading comprehension, and self-determination individually, there still seems to be a lack of research to explore the relationships among them in a single study. for instance, amin (2020) conducted a study on a positive classroom environment and reading comprehension but it lacked the self-determination variable. several other studies have focused on the relationships between selfdetermination and reading comprehension but lacked the classroom climate variable, including hornstra, bakx, mathijssen, and denissen’s (2020) research that was done from the selfdetermination perspective. still there are challenges among different scholars in the world and in iran about the relationships among these three variables. although a few researches such as sin and siahpoosh’s (2020); ahmadi, namazizadeh, and mokhtari’s (2012); and khalkhali, sharifi, & nikyar’s (2013) study have been conducted, there is still a gap in the studies concerning iranian high school context. most of the high school students in iran have problems in reading comprehension and they, therefore, cannot achieve high scores. this highlights the significance of conducting more studies on the factors that may motivate students to invest more time on reading and gain higher scores. among different models in contemporary behavioral sciences, self-determination theory offers a framework or basis for understanding various factors that promote human motivation (deci & ryan, 2002; gagne & deci, 2005; jang, kim, & reeve, 2016). self-determination theory (sdt) links personality, human motivation, and optimal functioning. it posits that there are two main types of motivation—intrinsic and extrinsic—and that both are powerful forces in shaping who we are and how we behave (deci & ryan, 2002; gagne & deci, 2005). according to deci and ryan (2002), extrinsic motivation is a drive to behave in certain ways based on external sources and it results in external rewards. on the other hand, intrinsic motivation comes from within. there are internal drives that inspire us to behave in certain ways, including our core values, our interests, and our sense of morality (olafsen, niemiec, halvari, deci, & williams, 2017). an individual’s understanding of his degree of self-determination shows his awareness of needs (deci, eghrari, patrick, & leone, 1994). selfdetermination theory (sdt) is a macro theory of human motivation and personality that concerns human innate psychological needs (el miedany et al., 2018). it can be defined that behind every decision that people make there is a kind of self-determination. as mentioned above, sdt is used in different researches in various fields including psychology, sociology, and education. many scholars have investigated sdt in educational issues. the importance of these researches is that when teachers try to find ways to promote student's motivation during relatively uninteresting learning activities, they can successfully do so by promoting the value of the task. research suggests that having high self-determination can foster success in many different domains of life (roth, vansteenkiste, & ryan, 2019). self-determination is a key concept in psychology that refers to an individual’s ability to make choices and manage his/her own life. self-determined people feel that they have control over their choices and lives and believe that what they do will affect on the outcome of their actions. thus, they will be more motivated to take action. however, this concept is not limited to psychology. self-determination works in many different domains of life including education. thus, the possibility of a significant contribution of selfdetermination in education and learning justifies the study of a relevant theory in the literature called “self-determination theory”. sdt originated from the work of psychologists edward deci and richard ryan (1985). self-determination can play an important role in how people function in many different areas of their lives. this theory can help understand the things that might motivate behaviors (jansen et al, 2020). moreover, it has been recognized as one of the most important areas in educational studies (noels, lascano, & saumure, 2019). if students have a certain level of self-determination, they will make appropriate choices and decisions for their educational life (liu et al., 2019). selfdetermination in students leads to organizing and planning for better educational goals. it also increases the problem-solving skills in students and causes positive things to happen in their academic life (landmark & zhang, 2019). in addition, based on sdt, three psychological critical needs should be met to support and facilitate the process of internalization and the development of optimal motivation and to achieve psychological growth. the first need is competence. competence is defined as the power that leads humans to control the outcome and experiencing mastery. competency in a learner can be defined as some attitudes, skills, and knowledge that a learner develops and applies for successful learning (roberts & bezuidenhout, 2017). the second innate need is the concept of relatedness which is explained as an emotion that leads humans to be connected to others. 200 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 198-210 shahrbanoo joulide, et.al (conjuring up the correspondence of high-school students’ self-determination and) research shows that students’ relation with the teacher and other students is linked to academic achievement (guay, denault, & renauld, 2017). the last psychological need that should be met is autonomy. autonomy can be defined as a desire to be causal agents of one’s own life and act in harmony with one’s integrated self. learner autonomy is very useful in the learning process. learners with autonomy are aware of their weak and strong points. furthermore, autonomous learners are responsible for their decisions (fathali & okada, 2018). thus, sdt would be internalized and learners would become autonomously self-determined and motivated when their basic psychological needs are met (deci & ryan, 2002). it seems quite reasonable that intrinsically motivated and autonomous language learners are more actively engaged in their learning. according to sdt theoreticians, deci and ryan (2008), individual personality differences are due to the varying degrees to which each need has been satisfied. self-determination theory is a key theory in educational and learning contexts since it affects student s’ motivation. motivation will lead to many positive results in learning contexts. the important thing is that teachers and students should be aware of their needs. sdt provides a new vision for language research. selfdetermination theory also focuses primarily on internal sources of motivation such as a need to gain knowledge or independence which is known as intrinsic motivation (deci, olafsen, & ryan, 2017). although self-determination is one of the elements that can guarantee successful learning, classroom climate plays a central role in it as it may predict the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (alonso-tapia & nieto, 2019). research has shown that aspects of classroom climate are significantly related to educational motivation. as creemers and reezigt (1999) stated that classroom climate influences students’ motivation directly. classroom climate is defined as the environment including the social, emotional and physical aspects of the classroom. it explains the effects of the teachers on students’ behaviors and interactions (buyse, verschueren, verachtert, & damme, 2009). cohen, pickeral, and mccloskey (2009) define this complex multidimensional construct as the quality and character of school life. evans et al (2009) define classroom climate as a social psychological construct that is formed through interactions among all agents, the teacher and the students, in the classroom and mediates between these factors. although there is enough empirical evidence to prove that school climate is a powerful leading external factor which affects students’ academic achievement (brand et al., 2008; chen & weikart, 2008; collins & parson, 2010), the point is that positive classroom climate does not automatically happen, but it is created. this means some things must be done to deliberately shape the climate of the classrooms and change them into positive learning environments. in other words, the way that a teacher is running the classroom should lead to a positive environment. the first factor in creating a safe supportive positive environment is to develop and reinforce classroom rules and norms. following rules make students self-regulated and students who have the opportunity to practice self-regulation can focus better on learning. the second factor is promoting positive peer relationships and encouraging positive interactions in classroom contexts. this can be done by paying attention to the social dynamics of the classroom. the last factor is nurturing positive relationships with all students. using encouraging words in reaction to students’ positive behaviors, asking them personal questions to know them, and paying attention to changes in students’ physical and emotional behaviors are among a wide variety of techniques that teachers can benefit from to reach this goal. since a multitude of factors contributes to the overall construct of school climate, researchers have come to the conclusion that this construct is multidimensional in nature. based on the literature, there are three different dimensions to classroom climate: academic dimension, management dimension, and emotional dimension. the first dimension, the academic dimension, refers to pedagogical and curricular components and elements of the learning environment. management dimension refers to discipline styles for maintaining order. emotional dimension refers to the affective interactions within the classroom. the emotional climate examines the interchange of feelings between teacher and students occurring regardless of disciplinary style or degree of control exercised in the classroom (evans et al., 2009). classroom climate is described as a system that is based on four variables: physical setting, organizational aspects, teacher characteristics, and pupil characteristics (westling-allodi, 2002). the functions of these variables and the interaction among them constitute the quality of the classroom climate. a positive classroom climate leads to the promotion of students’ self-determination and motivational level (drotar, 2019; morin, marsh, & nagengast, 2014). classrooms which do not have a favorable climate cause lack of motivation. the level of teacher support affects the classroom climate (cheema & kitsantas, 2016). the valuable learning outcomes of positive school/classroom issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 201 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 198-210 shahrbanoo joulide, et.al (conjuring up the correspondence of high-school students’ self-determination and) climate reported in the literature consist of lower dropout rates, higher attendance, increased engagement, deeper learning, improved grades, and improved motivation (huang, 2003; lau & lee, 2008; tapola & niemivirta, 2008). good student-teacher rapport guarantees students’ feelings of safety and support (brand, et al., 2003). moreover, according to fraser (1994), if a positive classroom climate is created, students will learn better and engage more in learning tasks. to sum up, classroom climate refers to the emotional and physical aspects of the classroom (alonso-tapia & nieto, 2019) that can affect students’ outcomes and their effective learning. although there have been various studies on the concept of self-determination, reading ability, and classroom climate, they are still in their early stages. due to the importance of reading comprehension skill, on one hand, and the ambivalent evidence of the effect of sociocultural context and some psychological traits such as motivation, which is a subcategory of self-determination, on students’ learning on the other hand, the present study intended to probe the possible existence of any kind of relationship between self-determination and classroom climate with students’ reading achievement scores. therefore, the following research questions were posed: “is there any significant relationship between iranian high school students’ self-determination and classroom climate with their reading achievement scores?” 2. research method this study intended to examine the relationship of iranian high school students’ selfdetermination and classroom climate with their reading score through a quantitative method. to collect the required data, 150 iranian high school students (60 males and 90 females) with the age range of 15-16 participated in this study. the sampling procedure was convenience sampling. the setting for collecting the required data was the iranian high schools located in mashhad city. two questionnaires were employed including self-determination and classroom climate questionnaires. moreover, reading scores of the achievement test of students were gathered from the teachers. iowa’s self-determination questionnaire was designed by hood and jackson (1986) to assess the selfdetermination progress based on chickering theory (1969). this questionnaire has 90 items and 6 subscales. each subscale has 15 questions and is based on likert’s five-choice range with questions such as “i know how i treat others, how they treat me”. it measures the growth of selfdetermination. the version which was used in this research was the persian version which has been translated and validated by selgi and geramipoor (2020). the reported reliability coefficient for this translated version is 0.99. in this study, the growth of self-determination refers to the scores that respondents give to the 90-item questions of the self-determination questionnaire. the questionnaire has 6 subscales: mutual dependence, emotional independence of parents, time management, financial management, emotional independence of peers, and displacement. the research participants were given 15 minutes to complete the questionnaire. the possible range of scores for the iowa self-determination questionnaire with 90 items is between 90 and 235. the classroom climate questionnaire was introduced by fraser, giddings, and mcrubby (1995). this questionnaire was translated and validated by hossienchari and khayer (2002). in this study, the persian version of the classroom climate questionnaire translated and validated by hossienchari and khayer (2002) was used. cronbach alpha for reliability of the whole persian instrument was reported to be 0/87 (hossienchari & khayer, 2002). this questionnaire has 20 items and 4 subscales that are based on a 3-choice likert scale: seldom, usually, and often. behrhorst, sullivan, and sutherland (2020) considered the classroom climate as a set of environmental characteristics with four dimensions including ecology, culture, environment, and social system. classroom climate has been known as one of the most effective factors in teaching and learning. the possible range of scores for classroom climate questionnaire with 20 items is between 20 and 147. the participants were given 15 minutes to answer the questionnaire. the questionnaire has 4 subscales: unfriendly behavior, cooperation and equality, task orientation and equality, and competition. due to the aims of the present study that was investigating the potential relationship between reading achievement score with self-determination and classroom climate, the researcher designed and validated a reading comprehension test based on the level of students. reading texts were selected from students’ work book (comprehensive english language book-10th grade). it has 20 multiple-choice questions. the content and face validity of the test was checked by three colleagues. moreover, to check the reliability of the test with dichotomous items (0 and 1, or one correct answer), kr-20 was used in a pilot study on another group of 30 high school students. the results 202 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 198-210 shahrbanoo joulide, et.al (conjuring up the correspondence of high-school students’ self-determination and) showed that the teat with the rate of .88 is a reliable test with 30 participants in the pilot phase. besides, the reliability of this test within the main phase of the study was .89. the learners were given 30 minutes to answer the test. this study was conducted during the academic year of 2020 in iranian high schools in mashhad, a city in the northeast of iran. the required data was collected by questionnaires of classroom climate and self-determination. at first, participants were asked to fill out the self-determination questionnaire. then they filled out the classroom climate questionnaire. after the completion of data collection process, the data were entered into spss software and the correlations among these three variables were calculated. (spss-24) software was employed. to find the answer to research questions 1 and 2, descriptive analysis was used. 3. findings and discussion to check the normality of data distribution, the kolmogorov-smirnov test was employed. this test is used to check whether the distribution deviates from a comparable normal distribution. if the p-value is non-significant (p>.05), it can be said that the distribution of a sample is not significantly different from a normal distribution; therefore, it is normal. if the p-value is significant (p<.05) it implies that the distribution is not normal. table 1 presents the results of the kolmogorov-smirnov test. table 1. the results of kolmogorov-smirnov test df p-value self-determination 131 .12 classroom climate 131 .09 reading scores 131 .06 as can be seen in table 1, the obtained sig value for all variables is higher than .05. therefore, it can safely be concluded that the data is normally distributed across all the variables. 3.1. reliability of the questionnaires table 2 shows the information obtained from cronbach alpha analyses for two questionnaires. table 2. results of cronbach alpha indexes after reliability analysis scale number of items cronbach alpha self-determination 90 .88 classroom climate 20 .72 as the table shows, the utilized questionnaires gained acceptable indexes of cronbach alpha as a whole: self-determination= .88, classroom climate=.72. cronbach alpha index for reading comprehension test is also acceptable (reading comprehension test= .89) 3.2. descriptive statistics table 3 presents descriptive statistics for the six sub-constructs of self-determination including the mean, standard deviation, maximum and minimum scores. the possible range of scores for all six sub-constructs of self-determination is between 15 and 75. as can be seen in table 3, financial management has the highest mean score (46.97) and the emotional independence of peers has the lowest mean score (42.30). also, the table shows the number of participants was 150. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 203 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 198-210 shahrbanoo joulide, et.al (conjuring up the correspondence of high-school students’ self-determination and) table 3. descriptive statistics of sub-constructs of self-determination n minimum maximum mean std. deviation financial management 150 21.00 75.00 46.97 16.66 emotional independence of parents 150 19.00 72.00 42.33 15.17 emotional independence of peers 150 21.00 69.00 42.30 12.95 mutual dependence 150 23.00 70.00 46.12 14.67 time management 150 22.00 71.00 44.76 13.43 displacement 150 22.00 75.00 46.68 17.26 self determination 150 138.00 423.00 269.19 82.45 table 4 presents descriptive statistics of sub-constructs of classroom climate. the possible range of scores for sub-constructs of classroom climate with 5 items is between 5 and 15. table 4. descriptive statistics of students’ classroom climate n minimum maximum mean std. deviation unfriendly behaviour 150 5.00 15.00 8.90 2.43 task orientation and equity 150 5.00 15.00 10.15 2.82 cooperation and equality. 150 5.00 15.00 9.68 2.95 competition 150 5.00 15.00 10.10 2.81 as can be seen in table 4, unfriendly behavior has the lowest mean score (8.90) and task orientation and equity have the highest mean score (10.15). table 5 presents descriptive statistics of students’ reading ability. the possible range of scores for this test is between 0 and 20. table 5. descriptive statistics of students’ reading score n minimum maximum mean std. deviation reading score 131 7.00 20.00 14.23 3.04 as can be seen in table 5, the minimum score for reading score is 7 and the maximum score is 20. moreover, the mean score is 14.23 with standard deviation of 3.04. 3.3. main data analyses 1. is there any significant relationship between self-determination and iranian high school students’ reading ability? to assess the first research question, pearson correlation was used. table 6 shows the obtained correlation coefficient related to iranian high school students’ self-determination and their reading ability. table 6. results of pearson correlation between self-determination and iranian high school students’ reading scores reading scores self-determination pearson correlation .40** sig. (2-tailed) .00 n 131 a **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 204 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 198-210 shahrbanoo joulide, et.al (conjuring up the correspondence of high-school students’ self-determination and) the results of pearson correlation indicated that there is a positive significant relationship between overall self-determination and reading ability (r=.40, p<.05). table 7. results of pearson correlation between sub-constructs of self-determination and iranian high school students’ reading achievement scores fm eip eipe md tm dis reading achievement scores pearson correlation .13 .35** .20* .37** .45** .27** sig. (2-tailed) .254 .00 .041 .000 .000 .001 n 131 131 131 131 131 131 a. **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). b. *. correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). the results of pearson correlation indicated that among sub-constructs of self-determination, time management (r=.45, p<.05) has the highest relationship and financial management (r=.13, p<.05) has the lowest relationship with reading score. 2. is there any significant relationship between the classroom climate and iranian high school students’ reading achievement score? to assess the second research question, again pearson correlation was used. table 8 shows the results of pearson correlation between the classroom climate and iranian high school students’ reading ability. table 8. results of correlation between the classroom climate iranian high school students’ reading achievement scores unfriendly behaviour task orientation and equity cooperation and equality. competition reading achievement scores pearson correlation -.10 .46** .29* .33** sig. (2-tailed) .220 .000 .000 .001 n 131 131 131 131 c. **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). the results of pearson correlation indicated that among sub-constructs of classroom climate, task orientation and equity (r=.46, p<.05) has the highest relationship. unfriendly behavior (r=.10, p>.05) has the lowest relationship with reading ability. as stated before, the main purpose of the present study was to explore the relationship between classroom climate and self-determination with the reading ability of iranian students. to investigate the potential relationship, the researcher used quantitative data. regarding the relationship between self-determination and reading ability, findings revealed that there is a significant and positive relationship between self-determination and reading ability. besides, findings showed that among six subscales of the self-determination, financial management has the highest mean score (46.97) and it has significant relationship with the reading ability of iranian students and emotional independence of peers has the lowest mean score (42.30) and it has a negative correlation with the reading ability of iranian students. this finding is in agreement with yang, chiu, sin, and lui’s (2020) study which was conducted to explore the relationship between self-determination and the academic achievement of students. the results showed that school support has a significant indirect effect on school engagement via self-determination as a mediator. the correlations between school support, self-determination, and school engagement are all positive and significant, whereas peer support did not correlate with school engagement. moreover, research conducted by erickson et al. (2015) also unfolds that selfdetermination skills are positively correlated with factors that have been shown to improve academic achievement, one of which can be reading achievement. the obtained significant relationship issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 205 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 198-210 shahrbanoo joulide, et.al (conjuring up the correspondence of high-school students’ self-determination and) between self-determination and reading score in this study can be due to the fact that selfdetermination enhances students’ engagement in reading comprehension. also, the finding of the present study agrees with muir’s (2020) study which was conducted in order to investigate the relationship between self-determination and the flipped classroom. the results showed that sdt was an appropriate lens to analyze participants’ experiences of the approach, with the teacher being a particularly strong influence on students’ motivation for engaging with the approach. muir’s findings also highlight the importance of the role of teachers in creating a learning environment supporting students’ self-determination and reading achievement score. additionally, the observed association between reading ability and self-determination seems to be consistent with gardner's assertion that the intensity of affective factors like self-determination that is directly related to motivation is a contributing factor to l2 achievement including reading score and vice versa (masgoret & gardner, 2003). such contributing environment which lowers the role of inhibiting affective factors can be strengthened by the teachers’ qualities in creating a positive classroom environment. besides, chances are great that the learners with low sense of self-determination lose their identity and investment and therefore deteriorate in the face of failure. bogianno and pittman (1992) advocated that amotivated learners who obviously have lower sense of self-determination tend to use more maladaptive non-effective learning strategies in their courses like reading such as lack of investment and persistence with their tasks which commonly results in decreased performance. consequently, such learners are not sufficiently diligent to amend the reading strategies in accordance with the demands of the tasks. also, the present study extends this line of research by investigating the relationships between classroom climate and reading ability. this research showed that there is a positive correlation between two subscales of classroom climate and reading ability. findings revealed that task orientation and equity (r=.46, p<.05) has the highest correlation with iranian students’ reading ability and unfriendly behavior (r=-.10, p>.05) has the lowest correlation with reading ability. the obtained results can be due to the fact that classroom climates that demotivate learners by applying tasks that are not based on their needs and interests or the situations in which the teacher provides a sense of non-equity cause obstacles for them as they fall into a state of helplessness, especially when they see others doing better in the classroom than they are. as the results showed, equity has a high correlation with reading achievement. this means that supportive and finely classroom environments enhance and so the class becomes more enjoyable for learners. furthermore, learners in such environments tend to report a high desire for selfimprovement and motivation for academic achievement (battistich, schaps, & wilson, 2004; patrick, ryan, & kaplan, 2007). on the other hand, classroom conditions with strict rules and high teacher control seem to be associated with lower learner engagement and negative feelings about not only the classroom but also their success. it appears then that classroom climates that enhance rapport and relationships encourage student motivation and eventually achievement in reading. this finding is in line with lepola, lynch, kiuru, laakkonen, and niemi’ s (2016) study which was conducted to investigate task orientation as a predictor of grade 3 reading comprehension skills. this study was a five-year longitudinal study. a positive relationship was found between task orientation and reading comprehension of preschool through kindergarten to grade 3. students are particularly motivated when their teachers provide a learning environment with challenging and meaningful tasks. therefore, as the results of the present study unfolded, teachers’ ability in adapting and adopting tasks may create a motivating environment leading to the enhance ment of selfdetermination and reading score achievement. furthermore, the findings of oostdam, koerhuis and fukkink (2019) also are in line with the present study. this study was conducted in order to investigate the maladaptive behavior about the basic psychological needs of students in secondary education. the findings showed significant, negative correlations between maladaptive student behavior in the classroom and the extent to which students’ basic psychological needs are met by teachers and fellow students. both teachers and fellow students play a role in students’ maladaptive behavior toward school and withdrawn behavior. when it comes to unfriendly behavior, the perceived support of teachers appears to be particularly relevant, while the role of peers is an important factor in delinquent behavior. their findings confirm the results of the present study since teachers’ skill in considering the students’ basic psychological needs makes the classroom environment more fruitful; therefore, students may benefit more from the instruction and classroom environment and achieve higher scores. 206 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 198-210 shahrbanoo joulide, et.al (conjuring up the correspondence of high-school students’ self-determination and) 4. conclusion the present study was an attempt to provide evidence on the relationships of self-determination and classroom climate with the iranian high school students’ reading achievement score. the present study demonstrated that time management, which is one of the subscales of self-determination, has the highest correlation with the reading comprehension and that task orientation, which is one of the subscales of classroom climate, has the highest positive correlation with reading ability, while unfriendly behavior has a small negative correlation with it. in general, from the findings it can be concluded that self-determination and classroom climate have an undeniable effect on the iranian high school performance level of reading achievement. in other words, to have students with higher reading ability, teachers should help students to increase self-determination. the best strategy for teachers in this regard is to teach students some valuable techniques to improve their time management. another significant factor that can help education authorities to have students with higher reading ability is managing their classroom climate. this pedagogical goal can be best achieved through implementing some strategies to manage classroom climate in a task-oriented way. the findings are potentially helpful for english teachers, english schools or institutes, and students. it provides teachers with some suggestions on how to create more learning opportunities. in addition, recognizing time management as the most correlated subconstruct of students’ selfdetermination with their reading ability would encourage english teachers and instructors to manipulate pedagogical strategies to help students to improve their time-management. besides, realizing that task orientation is the most correlated sub-construct of classroom climate with students’ reading ability, teachers can adapt and adopt tasks that motivate students to invest more time on reading achievement. additionally, if teachers take the results of this study into account, they will teach in a friendly behavior classroom and increase self-determination of their students. finally, the results recommend english schools or institutes to develop and modify their old policies and renew them in order to increase the performance level of their students and teachers. this study can open new visions for other studies based on the limitations of the current study. for example, replication of this study can be done in other contexts. the present study addressed students in high schools. further research can be done to replicate it in universities or institutes. moreover, the present study only focused on the relationships between self-determination and classroom climate with reading achievement. it is recommended that future researchers conduct correlational studies on other variables related to reading ability. finally, further studies are suggested to consider various demographic information such as age, gender, and years of study. references ahmadi, m., namazizadeh, m., & mokhtari, p. 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(2020). a cross-classified path analysis of the self-determination theory model on the situational, individual and classroom levels in college education. contemporary educational psychology, 101857. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.99.1.83 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 213-224 10.12928/eltej.v4i3.2955 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id perks and perils of adult learners in communication english learning at english language centers in vietnam truong minh hoa college of foreign economics and relations, 81 tran binh trong street, ho chi minh city, vietnam tmh.camranh1991@gmail.com a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 20 october 2020 revised 03 december 2020 accepted 30 december 2021 the teaching and learning of communication english for adult learners is unlike that for children. understanding of the differences between adult learners’ and young learners’ traits is considered a must for all english teachers so as to provide appropriate teaching methods and materials for adult learners in communication english learning. thus, this mixed-methods survey was conducted to investigate adult learners’ perks and perils in communication english learning and suggested solutions for their better communicative performance. the sample of this study consisted of 148 adult learners from the five selected language centers in ho chi minh city, vietnam. data were collected from questionnaire copies. the findings revealed that the adult learners had some perks including strong motivation, clear learning goal, good learner autonomy and able technology use for learning, or positive attitudes towards the existing teachers’ quality. besides, some perils among these adult learners were sought, including low self-confidence, short time investment, and limited speaking practice environment. at last, they expected their teachers to make the lessons more interesting and realistic, and hoped their language centers to invite native language teachers. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords perks perils adult learners communication english vietnam how to cite: truong, m. h. (2021). perks and perils of adult learners in communication english learning at english language centers in vietnam. english language teaching educational journal, 4(3), 213-224. 1. introduction being competent in oral communication is a growing desire of all english learners. and speaking is a fundamental skill that learners need to master in order to communicate effectively. indeed, ur (2013) states that of all the four language skills, speaking seems intuitively the most important one as the ability to speak skillfully provides for the speakers with a favorable condition to establish and maintain relationships, to negotiate, and to influence others. in the same fashion, nunan (1991) views that to most people, success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a good conversation in the target language. this increasing demand for good communicative skill in a globalized society activates english speaking learning around the world (enever, 2018), including in vietnam. currently, vietnam has been the member of many international organizations like association of south-east asia nations (asean); world trade organization (wto); or asia pacific economics conference (apec). in these communities, vietnamese people who are not born as english speakers have learned english language in order to be able to communicate with other people. in other words, english is used throughout these communities as lingua franca, “the common language used by people of different language backgrounds to communicate with each other” (kirkpatrick, 2007). as a result, the english language has shifted from being a language that was primarily used to serve native speakers’ intra-national and communal purposes to becoming an international medium in lingua franca communication (kirkpatrick, 2007). in response to this change, vietnamese people need to use english effectively to interact with others who come from different linguistic backgrounds. in order http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:tmh.camranh1991@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8644-4750 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i3.2955&domain=pdf 214 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 213-224 truong, m. h. (perks and perils of adult learners) to do so, the language must be understood by both sides to make the communication successful. thus, it is axiomatic that the utmost important goal of learning english is to be capable of communicating well in english; that is, the goal of language learning “is concerned with developing the ability to use language in communicative situations” (larsen-freeman, 2018). in reality, there have been more and more communication courses in vietnam held to satisfy leaners’ need of improving english speaking ability. however, many vietnamese learners still find it difficult to communicate fluently and confidently. this alarming predicament happens exactly to a large number of adult learners in vietnam. after many years of being exposed to english in secondary and high schools, and even at tertiary level, many of them are still unable to perform a simple and short conversation in english (pham, than, & truong, 2020) due to a set of complicated factors such as highly pressured performance conditions and limited listening ability (heriansyah, 2012; nguyen & tran, 2015), low motivation and selfconfidence, and high anxiety (juhana, 2012; leong & ahmadi, 2017), immature topical and linguistic input (mazouzi, 2013; hosni, 2014), counter-productive elt materials and curricular, and inflexible teacher roles (dao, 2017; yaseen, 2018). especially, adult learners may feel embarrassed about being students against for the feeling of being old and away from schools for many years (singleton & záborská, 2020). notwithstanding the perils of learning communication english mentioned above, there are still perks among vietnamese adult learners, “persons over the normal age of traditional schooling, who freely choose to get involved in a particular form of instruction, to serve a professional, social or personal need and interest” (cozma, 2015), contributing to their success in english learning. first, as they are adults, they are goal-oriented and experienced, and have much greater cognitive and linguistic capabilities than young learners (kuklewicz & king, 2018). in specific, this group of learners are goaloriented and motivated since when they learn, they want to accomplish specific needs or demands such as to support their study, to be promoted in career, to make more friends or to be good language users (merriam, 2017; lavrysh & lytovchenko, 2019; lytovchenko, ogienko, sbruieva & sotska, 2018). that is the reason why “adult learners have better study habits than the younger learners in that they engaged in deeper learning than do the younger learners” (xolmurodova, 2021). second, thanks to the technology advancement (e.g., ict, internet) and the widespread establishment of english centers across viet nam, vietnamese adult learners can seek a convenient english learning environment with their self-paid tuition fee. there are some problems among adults learning english as a second language (madkur, 2018; wu & le, 2014). one noticeable problem, nevertheless, is that most of the adult learners attend to english classes empty-handed. it means that they just simply come to school to learn what they are taught without paying attention to both perks and perils they are possessing and facing. for adult learners, those aspects need considering carefully since they might directly affect the learning outcomes. it is witnessed that numerous adult learners who fail to communicate in english because of not being aware of the perks and perils of their learning process. therefore, the present survey study was conducted to investigate two sides of adult learners when they are learning communication english, then useful solutions for helping these adult learners improve their english communicative competence. to achieve this objective, the current paper aims to address the two following research questions: 1. what are the perks and perils of adult learners in communication english learning? 2. what are the adult learners’ suggested solutions to strengthen the perks and to overcome the perils in communication english learning? 2. method 2.1. research locale and participants the current study was carried out at the five selected language centers in ho chi minh city, vietnam. the most common trait of these five language centers was to provide learners with different communication english courses, which were designed based on the adult learners’ existing proficiency levels. the research participants were 148 adult learners from the selected five language centers, whose background information is presented in table 1. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 215 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 213-224 truong, m. h. (perks and perils of adult learners) table 1. research participants’ profile n = 148 frequency (f) percentage (5) gender male 58 39.2 female 90 60.8 age (years old) 18-22 60 40.5 23-28 52 35.1 29-35 26 17.6 36-45 7 4.7 above 45 3 2.0 occupation finance-banking 20 13.5 tourism, hotel 30 20.3 medicine 4 2.7 education 23 15.5 law 26 17.6 accounting 22 14.9 human resource 19 12.8 construction 4 2.8 english learning experience (years) 1-3 7 4.7 4-7 47 31.8 8-10 68 45.9 above 10 26 17.6 as shown in table 1, of 148 participants, there were 58 males (39.2%) and 90 females (60.8%). their ages ranged variously from 18 to 45 years old, but most of them were from 18-22 (40.5%) and 23-28 (35.1%). regarding their occupations, these adult learners worked in different sectors of career like tourism, hotel (20.3%), law (17.6%), education (15.5%), accounting (14.9%), or finance-banking (13.5%), or human resource (12.8%), and so on. furthermore, most of the respondents had learned english from 4 to 10 years; that is, 4-7 years (31.8%), and 8-10 years (45.9%). 2.2. research design overall, the present study was grounded by a survey design, which is “a procedure in which any researcher administers a survey to a sample […] to describe the attitudes, opinions, behaviors, or characteristics of the sample” (creswell, 2019). this survey was to examine 148 adult learners’ perks and perils in communication english learning and their own suggestions for better learning and teaching quality of communication english. 2.3. research instrument: questionnaire rationale in this study, the researcher deliberately used a questionnaire, a written instrument by which the respondents can select the best option from among existing answers (iwaniec, 2019), to garner data for the present study due to two salient reasons. among many advantages of using questionnaires, some of them include practicality, economy, feasibility, time, efficiency, versatility, ease of construction, and data analysis (curle & derakhshan, 2021; patten, 2016). furthermore, questionnaire is known to be one of the easiest methods to manage, especially with large numbers of subjects. dörnyei & taguchi (2010) highlight that questionnaires are very popular and one of the most common methods of data collection in l2 research because they are easy to construct, extremely versatile, capable of gathering a large amount of information quickly in such a way that is readily processable. besides, questionnaire tends to be more reliable as it encourages greater honesty from respondents and saves the researcher’s and participants’ time and effort. description the questionnaire consisted of nine questions in total. these nine questions covered sub-themes of the adult learners’ perks, perils, and suggested solutions for communication english learning. the questionnaire was highly reliable and valid because the researcher constructed it in a highly-structured way, afterwards had experts to double-check its content, scales, layout of both english and vietnamese versions, and finally conducted a pilot study. below is the questionnaire’s detail. 216 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 213-224 truong, m. h. (perks and perils of adult learners) table 2. description of questionnaire sub-themes questions options main motive 1-what is your main motive of learning communication english? 6 (=1 accepted) self-study time investment 2-do you invest time for self-study every day? if yes, how long for each time of self-study? 6 (=1 accepted) communication english use outside class 3-do you use english for communicative needs? if yes, in which cases? 5 (>=1 accepted) hindrances of communication english use 4-in cases of using english for communicative purposes, what hindrances influence your speaking performance? 5 (>=1 accepted) overall evaluation of communication english class 5-how do you evaluate your communication english class in general? 5 (>=1 accepted) self-evaluation of language curriculum 6-how do you evaluate the content of your communication english curriculum at your language center? 3 pairs 1 pair: 2 (=1 accepted) perceived possible perks 7-what perks do you have when starting to learn communication english? 9 (>=1 accepted) perceived existing perils 8-what perils do you face when learning communication english? 9 (>=1 accepted) suggested solutions 9-what are your suggestions to improve the quality of your communication english courses? 5 (>=1 accepted) 2.4. data collection and analysis on the chosen dates, the questionnaire copies which had been translated into vietnamese beforehand were delivered to 148 adult participants. on the receipt of questionnaires from the respondents, the researcher found that all 148 copies (100%) were valid and accepted. finally, the researcher employed statistical package for the social sciences (spss) version 20.0 to analyze the descriptive statistics of the collected questionnaires in terms of frequency (f, n) and percentage (p, %). frequency (f, n) is a sort of tool which counts the number of times people did the same things, while percentage (p, %) is mostly integrated with frequencies to present a clear picture of a certain phenomenon. 3. finding and discussion 3.1 findings from table 3, the adult learners attended the communication english classes for different purposes. in details, more than one-third of the total sample (39.2%) learnt communication english to help them negotiate effectively with either customers or colleagues. likewise, approximately onethird of the response community (33.8%) explained that meeting the qualification requirement at the workplace or school was the primary motive for their attendance in communication english courses. besides, some learning motives were also found but only at low rates; that is, going to study abroad (12.8%), seeking a new job conveniently (8.1%), relaxing and entertaining (4.7%), travelling (1.4%). table 3. the adult learners’ main motive of communication english learning main motive f (n) p (%) i learn communication english to negotiate in english for work 58 39.2 i learn communication english to seek a new job 12 8.1 i learn communication english to meet the qualification requirement at workplace/ school 50 33.8 i learn communication english to use it for traveling 2 1.4 i learn communication english to entertain (e.g. watch films, listen to music) 7 4.7 i learn communication english to use it for studying abroad 19 12.8 total 148 100.0 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 217 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 213-224 truong, m. h. (perks and perils of adult learners) table 4. the adult learners’ time investment for self-study self-study time investment f (n) p (%) no time for self-study 25 16.9 less than thirty minutes 55 37.2 from thirty minutes to one hour 46 31.1 from more than one hour to two hours 20 13.5 from more than two hours to three hours 2 1.4 more than three hours 0 0.0 total 148 100.0 as observed from table 4, by the highest frequency number, there were 55/148 informants (37.2%) spending less than half an hour for each time of self-studying communication english. by the second highest frequency number, nearly one-third of the total sample (31.1%) invested only from thirty minutes to one hour for each time of self-study. it is indicated that the more the time investment for each time of self-learning communication english increased, the fewer there were adult learners; for example, only 13.5% of the entire sample utilized from more than one hour to two hours for their selfstudy outside the class; more notably, only 1.4% of them used from more than two hours to three hours to practice or review communication english lessons at home; surprisingly, no adult learners of this study invested more than three hours for their self-study outside the class. especially, according to the revelation of 25 surveyed participants (16.9%), they did not have time fund to invest for selfstudy outside the language center. in other words, these learners only acquired communication english right at their language schools. table 5. the adult learners’ use of english for communicative needs outside the class communication english use outside class f (n) p (%) i use english for work 74 50.0 i use english when participating english language clubs 53 35.8 i use english to communicate with my foreign friends 30 20.3 i use english for speaking practice with my friends 116 78.4 i do not have realistic environment for using english outside the class 29 19.6 as presented in table 5, half of the total sample (50.0%) utilized communication english for work. it is referred that these adults used english as a means of negotiating with their colleagues or clients. positively, 35.8% of the response community reported that they used communication english when taking part in the language clubs. in other words, these students had positive learning attitudes for a better communicative ability. interestingly, outside the communication english class, one-fifth of the adult learners (20.3%) immersed this language in communicating with their foreign friends or acquaintances. most strikingly, beyond three-quarters of the participants (78.4%) used the learnt english for speaking practice activities with their friends. it is clear that these adult learners expected to improve their communication english proficiency. yet, there were still some learners (29/148, 19.6%) unable to access to realistic environment for communication english use. table 6. the adult learners’ perceptions of the hindrances on communication english use hindrances of communication english use f (n) p (%) i feel too anxious and scared to speak anything 81 54.7 i am afraid that my inaccurate pronunciation makes listeners not understand 69 46.6 i do not know how to start my speaking 52 35.1 i hesitate to speak as i am afraid that i make incorrect utterances 95 64.2 i do not have sufficient vocabulary for my speaking 121 81.8 as can be seen from table 6, several factors hindering the adult learners’ english speaking performance were ultimately found. to begin with, more than half of the participants (54.7%) felt seriously anxious and scared so that they could hardly make a perfect utterance. likewise, in relation to the learners’ psychological aspects, nearly half of the total sample (46.6%) worried that they pronounced words inaccurately, leading to misunderstandings among interlocutors. moreover, 35.1% 218 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 213-224 truong, m. h. (perks and perils of adult learners) of the total sample often felt embarrassed, did not know how to start their speaking. to another noticeable finding, around two-thirds of the entire response community (64.2%) hesitated to make utterances as they were afraid of the inaccuracy of what they uttered in english. by the highest percentage, according to four-fifths of the participants (81.8%), one of the biggest hindrances on their oral performance derived from their limited vocabulary size. table 7. the adult learners’ overall evaluation on the communication english class overall evaluation of communication english class f (n) p (%) there exist a lot of suitable speaking activities 107 72.3 the teachers are enthusiastic and have understandable teaching methods 112 75.5 there are many opportunities for english speaking practice throughout the class 95 64.2 the class is little joyful, there are not many opportunities for english speaking practice 30 20.3 the teachers have not still possessed interesting and vivid teaching methods 18 12.2 one of key factors that directly affect the learning performance of communication english among the adult learners is overall quality of the language center where they are following. from table 7, the large number of the participants (72.3%) strongly agreed that the communication english class at their language center provided them with several suitable speaking activities. regarding the language teachers, the majority of the informants (75.5%) revealed that their language teachers were much enthusiastic and delivered their speaking lessons understandably. besides, roughly two-thirds of the total sample (64.2%) applauded that they were exposed to many opportunities for english speaking practice during the class. nonetheless, there were a few negative aspects of the communication english class reported by the minority of the respondents; for instance, communication english class was less joyful and exciting and english speaking activities were not enough for them to practice throughout the class (20.3%), as well as some teachers had not still owned interesting and vivid teaching methods (12.2%). table 8. the adult learners’ self-evaluation of the communication english curriculum self-evaluation of language curriculum f (n) p (%) the language curriculum is vivid and interesting 119 80.4 the language curriculum boring 29 19.6 total 148 100.0 the language curriculum is suitable to my communicative needs 108 73.0 the language curriculum is not consonant with my communicative needs 40 27.0 total 148 100.0 the language curriculum is communicative competence-focused 124 83.8 the language curriculum is grammar-focused 24 16.2 total 148 100.0 coupled with the overall evaluation (e.g. the teachers, the learning activities), the assessment of the adult learners to the curriculum content of their communication english was also considered. as table 8 illustrates, while four-fifths of the participants (80.4%) assumed that the content of communication english courses was vivid and interesting, one-fifth (19.6%) reported that the curriculum at their language center was boring. in addition, nearly three-quarters of the respondents (73.0%) approved of the suitability of the curriculum content to adult learners’ communicative needs; by contrast, one-quarter (27.0%) stated that the curriculum content was not in accordance with their communicative needs. positively, most of the communication english curricular at the language centers were communicative competence-based, revealed by 83.8% of the target sample. only 16.2% perceived that grammar-focused curriculum still survived at their language schools. as displayed in table 9, there are several perks that adult learners could possess when learning communication english. first, a greater part of the respondents (84.5%) had high motivation and strong determination before attending the communication english class. to the most striking finding, nearly all the total sample (87.2%) identified a clear learning goal for their attendance to communication english class. besides, the vast availability of communication english centers and courses was positively confirmed by more than two-thirds of the total informants (68.2%). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 219 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 213-224 truong, m. h. (perks and perils of adult learners) table 9. the adult learners’ perceived perks in communication english learning perceived possible perks f (n) p (%) i have high motivation and strong determination 125 84.5 i set up my clear learning objectives 129 87.2 many communication english courses are available 101 68.2 i am capable of deploying the internet for my learning 83 56.1 there exist many opportunities for english speaking practice with foreigners 22 14.9 i have a good foundation of grammar and vocabulary knowledge 69 46.6 i am able to learn autonomously 92 62.2 i know how to apply what i learned into reality 34 23.0 i can establish my own environment for english speaking practice 28 18.9 in addition, many of them unraveled that they had a good self-learning capacity; that is, learner autonomy (62.2%). moreover, the learner autonomy of the adult learners was also reflected by their ability to use the internet for their learning communication english (56.1%). what is more, nearly half of the total participants (46.6%) equipped themselves with a good basis of vocabulary and grammar knowledge. finally, some other perks belonged to the smaller part of the adult learners; for example, being capable of applying what they learnt into practical (23.0%), being able to create the environment of english speaking practice environment by themselves (18.9%). having realistic environment for their english communicative practice with foreigners (14.9%). table 10. the adult learners’ perceived perils in communication english learning perceived existing perils f (n) p (%) i have no much time for my learning 88 59.5 i face difficulty in pronouncing words accurately 62 41.9 i have problems with listening comprehension 104 70.3 i do not possess my clear learning goal 11 7.4 i do not have effective learning methods 82 55.4 i lack my self-confidence in my english capacity 95 64.2 there is a shortage of practice environment 73 49.3 i do not possess sufficient knowledge of vocabulary and grammar 77 52.0 i do not still have a good language teacher 26 17.6 table 10 above illustrates some perils that the adult learners confronted during their learning of communication english. to begin with, 59.5% of the respondents did not have much time for their immersion with communication english. similarly, based on the revelation of approximately half of the whole sample (49.3%), there was a severe lack of realistic environment for them to practice english speaking. in addition, roughly half of the entire sample (55.4%) did not possess effective learning methods and techniques. besides, one of the commonly-faced perils in learning communication english was the adult learners’ lack of self-confidence (64.2%). table 10 also points out a set of different challenges on the adult learners’ speaking performance concerning language input (e.g., vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, listening comprehension); for example, having trouble in accurate pronunciation (41.9%), in listening comprehension (70.3%), deficiency of grammar and vocabulary input (52.0%). furthermore, 17.6% of the total sample did not still seek a good language teacher for themselves; and, 7.4% of this group not still having a clear goal for their learning of communication english. as observed from table 11, by the highest percentage, four-fifths of the participants (81.1%) expected the language teachers to supplement extra-curricular activities for their speaking practice. by the second highest percentage, a big portion of the adult informants (70.9%) looked forward to learning communication english with foreign teachers more. more than two-thirds of the entire sample (65.5%) hoped the language teachers could offer them different amusing learning activities like watching movies, doing role play, jigsaws, game-like activities. moreover, nearly half of the participants (45.3%) expected the language centers to minimize the number of the learners in each class so that the quality of their communication english class could be improved. finally, only a very small part of the total sample (9.5%) attributed the quality of their communication english class to the regular presence of vietnamese teachers. 220 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 213-224 truong, m. h. (perks and perils of adult learners) table 11. the adult learners’ suggested solutions for better communication english learning suggested solutions f (n) p (%) minimize the quantity of learners in each class 67 45.3 expand time of learning communication english with foreign teachers 105 70.9 increase time of learning communication english with vietnamese teachers 14 9.5 supplement extra-curricular activities for speaking practice 120 81.1 offer different amusing learning activities like watching movies, doing role plays 97 65.5 3.2. discussion research question 1: adult learners’ perks and perils in communication english learning first of all, the quantitative results indicated that all the participants came to the communication english class due to their specific purpose. in common, these adults wanted to improve their english in terms of fluency and accuracy to serve communicative purposes at work, to meet the qualification requirement at school or workplace, and to seek a better job. according to cozma (2015), unlike younger learners, the adults always have a reason why they are studying. thus, the majority of the adult learners had strong inner motivation and established a clear learning goal. as the adult learners had well-defined motive for their learning, they participated in communicative activities actively. actually, many adult learners used english for various communicative needs outside the class; for example, they practiced communication english at workplace, at the english language clubs, in chat with foreign friends, in rehearsal with their friends or classmates. obviously, adult learners, are goaloriented and motivated because when they learn, they want to accomplish specific needs such as to support their study, to be promoted in career, to make more friends or to be good language users (brockett & hiemstra, 2018). their willingness to learn communication english does not need to be told or forced to do it. as for their language centers and teachers, it is indicated the questionnaire results that the communication english classes at their language centers provided them with several interesting and appropriate learning activities. in addition, they were exposed to many opportunities for english speaking practice during the class. in addition, their language teachers were enthusiastic and taught their speaking lesson in an understandable manner. these perks were perceived from the big part of the participants’ positive attitudes. attitudes, which refer to students’ feeling about the language teacher or the language class, influence directly their language learning (ahmed, 2015). undoubtedly, the quality of teachers, language centers, and curriculum motivated the adult learners to constantly engage into their class. furthermore, these good aspects could help the learners outperform their speaking ability. coupled with the aforementioned perks, the adult learners also owned some perils in their learning communication english. first of all, the results from the questionnaire copies showed that most of the adult learners only frequently spent around one hour for each time of their studying communication english outside the class due to their workload or study mass. according cozma (2015), adult learners have their multiple responsibilities; the adults generally come to the english classroom with a certain level of fatigue. additionally, the findings of baharudin, murad, and mat (2012) revealed that most of the adult learners found it very hard to manage their time between family, career and study. as a result, they often sacrificed their resting hour or their pleasure time in order to complete their tasks and finance their self-study. wu, wu and le (2014) pointed out in their study that the most common obstacle to adults’ learning is lack of time. similarly, the questionnaire results also documented that the majority of the adult learners felt unconfident when speaking english. in specific, their low selfconfidence derived from their lack of vocabulary size and grammar amount, their incorrect pronunciation. as a result of this, they became hesitant to speak anything. these findings are in the same lines with those of wu, et al. (2014) that adults especially find difficulty in obtaining a nativelike accent, thus they partially lose confidence. furthermore, adults often find it stressful when they are unable to express themselves clearly and correctly in a second language. pertaining to the adult learners’ views of the language teachers and centers, the questionnaire results unraveled that although some language teachers were sufficiently enthusiastic and easy-going along with a comprehensible instructional path, they did not still innovate their teaching methods. according to some participants, those teachers did not impart the lessons vividly and interestingly. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 221 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 213-224 truong, m. h. (perks and perils of adult learners) especially, some participants from the data source stated that the curriculum content appeared to be somehow grammar-based. in fact, the teachers tended to focus on imparting much more language knowledge and presenting some speaking tasks. based upon de bot (2015); tsagari & banerjee (2016); and richards (2015), communicating effectively in a foreign language requires the speakers’ good understanding of linguistic (accurate knowledge of grammar and vocabulary), sociolinguistic (language in different social contexts), and strategic aspects (ability to use language to achieve communicative goals) of the target language. indeed, the language teachers seemed to focus much on building up their adult learners’ linguistic competence. therefore, the language teachers should develop these three constructs of communicative competence concurrently. finally, the results of this study indicated that speaking activities and communicative environment were insufficient for many adult learners to practise. it should be noted that “practice makes perfect”; that is, the more the adult learners practise, the more they become competent english speakers. research question 2: adult learners’ suggested solutions for communication english learning to the first solution group, the questionnaire results displayed that most of the adult learners expected the language teachers to supplement extra-curricular activities for their speaking practice. based on their suggestion, they believed that these activities could make the class more comfortable and practical, which contributed to their learning success. as mentioned earlier, the adult learners were not provided with sufficient speaking activities and tasks; on the contrary, their language teachers sometimes over-emphasized their linguistic competence. based on richards and rodger (2001) and diane-larsen (2019) the integrated components of speaking activities should comprise the aspects of three language models such as structural, functional and interactional use of language. it means that speaking activities used in communication english classrooms need to focus on three equal components of speaking skills, including accuracy, fluency, and appropriateness. especially, these extra speaking activities need to be interesting and motivating so the adult learners’ instrinsic motivation to communication english learning increases. in academia, motivation becomes the driving force for learners to be persistent in tedious learning process (alamer, 2015; alizadeh, 2016). thereby, the language teachers should create communicative and fun activities, and select appropriate topics in teaching so that adult learners are motivated to speak english (heriansyah, 2012). to the second solution group, nearly half of the participants wanted the language centers to cut down the number of learners in each class so that the quality of their communication english class could be better. it is inferred that the size of the class and the arrangement of seats detrimentally affect the speaking performance of the adult learners (bhattacharya, 2017). a conducive and co-operative environment proves to be supportive for learners. it has been observed that adult learners are usually happier and more active in a small class. kabir (2014) indicates large classes as an inhibiting factor for efl learners’ speaking performance in relation to adult learners who have limited time to show their speaking ability. teachers pay more attention to each learner, and consequently, learners get more involved in the speaking activities. concurrently, the more frequent presence of native language teachers in their class was also suggested so that they could be familiarized by the native accents. being immersed with different english language accents and rhythms can facilitate adult learners’ listening comprehension and pronunciation, which eventually leads to a positive change of speaking performance, that is, communicative competence (nguyen, & tran, 2015). 4. conclusion the adult learners had a plenty of perks when learning communication english. first of all, almost all the participants came to the communication english class due to their specific purpose. secondly, the majority of the adults had strong inner motivation and established a clear learning goal. thirdly, many adult learners utilized english for various communicative needs outside the classrooms. fourthly, a large number of the students had positive attitudes towards their language teachers and centers, including: 1) their language center provided them with several appropriate learning activities, 2) their language teachers were enthusiastic and taught their speaking lesson in an understandable manner. in general, motivation, clear goals, and positive attitudes can facilitate these adult learners to acquire communication english with ease. coupled with the aforementioned perks, the adult learners also faced some perils in their learning communication english. first, most of the adult learners lacked time for communication english selfstudy outside the class due to their workload or study mass. secondly, the majority of the adult learners 222 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 213-224 truong, m. h. (perks and perils of adult learners) felt unconfident when speaking english, which could derive from their immature vocabulary and grammar input. thirdly, a few adults had negative attitudes towards their language centers and teachers such as 1) some teachers did not deliver the lessons vividly and interestingly, 2) the curriculum content was grammar-based to some extent. some solutions were ultimately made by the adult learners in this study. for language teachers, most of these adult learners expected their language teachers to furnish appealing extra-curricular activities for their speaking practice. for language centers, many adult learners also longed for these sites to curtail the quantity of learners in each class, to render more modern equipment for them to practice speaking tasks, and to invite native language teachers to their class more frequently. references ahmed, s. 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(2018). factors negatively affecting efl students' speaking skills at jordanian private schools (unpublished master's thesis). jordan: middle east university. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009024518 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86 74 10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3748 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technologyintegrated pbl practices yasemin kırkgöz a,1,*, burcu turhan b,2 a çukurova university, balcalı, çukurova üniversitesi rektörlüğü, 01330 sarıçam/adana, turkey b hatay mustafa kemal university, alahan, hatay cd. tayfur sökmen kampüsü, 31060 alahan-antakya/antakya/hatay, turkey 1 ykirkgoz@gmail.com *; 2 burcu.oyp@gmail.com * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 24 february 2021 revised 31 march 2021 accepted 20 april 2021 problem-based learning (pbl) is increasingly becoming popular in teacher education, just like the prevalence in the use of modular object oriented dynamic learning environment (moodle) which is an instructional socio-constructivist online tool providing collaborative learning. pbl where learning occurs through real-life problem solving practices is also included in the constructivist approach. this study was designed as a mixed methods research in which english as foreign language (efl) teacher trainees were involved in pbl through moodle with the aim of solving problems related to language teaching and learning which they encountered at practicum schools. participants were 93 efl teacher trainees studying at a state university in turkey. the study aimed to reveal the participants’ views of their pbl experiences within the scope of a materials evaluation and adaptation course. data were collected through questionnaires and interviews; and analyzed through descriptive statistics and content analysis consecutively. results demonstrated that the teacher training activities delivered through pbl yielded promising benefits for efl teacher trainees’ professional development despite some minor flaws faced in the process. thus, pbl can be considered as a useful method to deliver such courses offered in any branches of teacher education. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords problem-based learning teacher education teacher trainees how to cite: kırkgöz, y., & turhan, b. (2021). views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technologyintegrated pbl practices. english language teaching educational journal, 4(1), 74-86. 10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3748 1. introduction pbl was originally developed to promote competencies of medical students in clinical problemsolving (barrows, 1983). in a more recent study with medical students, stentoft (2019) showed that pbl improved students’ competencies in medical research. following advances in medical education, other professional fields have adopted pbl such as engineering education (e.g. woods, 2021), business education (e.g. buff, 2011), nursing education (e.g. oja, 2011) and health education (e.g. chagas, faria, mourato, pereira & santos, 2012), and so on. over time, pbl has proved to be an effective instructional approach in teacher education (kırkgöz, 2015; 2017; 2018). edwards and hammer (2006) state that teacher education is a field of training especially suited to educational objectives and techniques required in pbl. in their study, real-life problems for prospective early childhood and primary teachers were utilized, and factors creating a gap between theory and practice as well as possible solutions were investigated. findings revealed that pbl can be implemented as a pedagogical adult teaching tool. in kırkgöz’s (2015) case study with prospective english teachers, the file:///c:/users/muhammadwildan/downloads/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3748 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:ykirkgoz@gmail.com mailto:burcu.oyp@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6505-665x https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6025-0616 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3748&domain=pdf e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 75 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86 kırkgöz & turhan (views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technology-integrated pbl practices) most eye-catching benefit is that pbl closes the gap between theory and practice; and this in turn fosters prospective teachers’ ability to identify real problems, generate solutions and use both theoretical and practical resources to support the solution. avcı, akıncı and bakioğlu (2012) used real-life problem scenarios for developing prospective teachers’ classroom management skills in their research and suggested that pbl was more efficient than other traditional methods. reviewing other work on pbl (e.g. borhan, 2014), it can be concluded that pbl experience within teacher education caters to opportunities for prospective teachers in terms of acquiring knowledge and skills through experiencing real-life problems. in pbl, students work in groups to find solutions to complex problems (ferreira & trudel, 2012). the group members generally share a common goal, feel supported by their peers, value their learning, become more competent, and they are more successful to cope with learning challenges (tan, van der molen & schmidt, 2016). furthermore, studies reveal that pbl has the potential to improve higherorder thinking skills, comprehension and application of knowledge along with learning attitudes and motivation (jerzembek & murphy, 2013). to achieve all these, students’ ability to be self-directed in their learning is a pre-requisite for pbl, and teachers should ensure that students have this ability at an optimal level. if teachers and students are too novice to deal with responsibilities of such a learning environment, they may need to adjust their current learning styles/strategies (english & kitsantas, 2013). there are a great number of studies regarding pbl and students’ learning outcomes. walker et al. (2011) found that classroom teachers from rural school districts, who designed pbl activities in a professional development program, reported gains in terms of their knowledge, experience and confidence. in pecore’s (2013) case study concerning a week-long pbl professional development of two experienced and two novice high school teachers, teachers’ level of beliefs in constructivist principles prior to attending the study impacted their extent of employing these principles to their pbl experiences. in a quantitative study by wijnen et al. (2017), law teachers who had undergone a fiveday professional development program pointed out that students learned more through the traditional teaching method and expressed dissatisfaction with pbl. regardless of its prevalence and benefits, framing effective pbl problems may be time-consuming and requires intensive research (ribeiro, 2011). relatedly, this can create stress on teachers and cause their motivation toward teaching through pbl to decrease. besides, developing students’ self-directed learning skills (hung, 2011) and classroom management (ribeiro, 2011) can be challenging issues in pbl. in order to minimize those disadvantages, combining moodle with face-to-face meetings during pbl practices may be logical since moodle allows learners to use various interactive module activities such as assignments, chat, exam, forum, survey, quiz, wiki and so on. zainuddin, idrus and jamal (2016) proposed that postgraduate malaysian students prefer to use news, forum and assignment tools of moodle, the most. in paschalis’s (2017) study including collaborative project-based learning via moodle at the department of electrical and computer engineering, results indicate such benefits as a better level of collaboration, cognitive performance of greek students and guidance role of teachers. likewise, alario-hoyos et al. (2015) found that spanish students’ grades and motivation in the introduction to computer networks course improved significantly in the collaborative distance learning environment compared to face–to–face instructions. in that sense, pbl and moodle seem to be consistent in terms of enhancing both collaboration and learning gains. for higher education, the meta-synthesis of the meta-analytical research on the effectiveness of pbl put emphasis on the fact that pbl is more effective than lecture-based instruction regarding longterm retention and skills development (strobel & barneveld, 2009). for this reason, pbl-oriented teacher education practices should be added into the curricula of foreign language teacher education programs so that teacher trainees could gain sustainable knowledge and skills in their profession. besides, it is crucial to integrate online learning/teaching environments like moodle into pbl-led teacher education practices so that teacher educators and trainees could benefit from activities of teacher training combining pbl and moodle because professional development is critical for teachers adopting new roles and competencies in online teaching environments (adnan, 2017). in light of these, the motive of this study is the belief that incorporating pbl in a teacher education course could give teacher trainees an idea on how to teach a lesson through pbl and moodle. hence, this study contributes to the relevant literature on the use of pbl in teacher education and the reactions of teacher trainees to the practices conducted through pbl. accordingly, the study revolves around this research 76 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86 kırkgöz & turhan (views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technology-integrated pbl practices) question: what are the views of turkish efl teacher trainees about technology-integrated pbl practices? 2. method 2.1. research design this mixed methods study was conducted in the “materials evaluation and adaptation course” offered in the last year of study in an english language teacher education program in turkey. efl teacher trainees took the course during 14 weeks, when they concurrently participated in real teaching experiences in practicum schools. in the first three weeks, they were provided with theoretical knowledge on evaluation/adaptation of language teaching materials through teacher-led lectures accompanied by some practical experiences in materials evaluation. in the following weeks, an online pbl application through moodle was fulfilled. the use of moodle was assumed to be fruitful because it could make the course more interactive which would provide the trainees with the ability to communicate at any time and place. in practical terms, moodle was the learning management system which both the tutor and the trainees had experience in using. participants worked in groups of four during the process. trainee groups were self-selected providing 23 groups of four and one group of five, each of which worked on two different problems throughout the whole process. two of the sample problems undertaken by the trainees are outlined below: “during our observations, we noticed that the high school students who had elementary proficiency level in english were having difficulties understanding what to do in a variety of activities in the english textbook used in the lesson. they were complaining that they could not understand the instructions. so we decided to take a closer look. instructions were highly complicated for an elementary level class. some of them were also not clear. we want to focus on this problem and offer some solutions.” “from our observation of the students in the secondary school class 6/a, we realized that students were having a hard time using grammar correctly even though they had just learned it. we thought that it was about the lack of exercises. but when we took a closer look, we concluded that there were not any practice stage exercises in the english textbook. the book lacked the practice stage of the learning methodology and went straight into the production stage. thus, the students had trouble making sentences. we would like to focus on solving this problem and with our group members prepare some communicative grammar practicing activities and observe their effect on the students’ using grammar communicatively.” first, participants were informed about the steps that they should take weekly. each group brainstormed about the identified problem related to language teaching materials which they identified through their observation in schools, and prepared a report about the generating issues such as new concepts, ideas and resources on the way to solving the problem at hand. afterwards, group members constructed tentative solutions collaboratively. the solutions were shared and discussed via forums available in moodle so that all trainees could gain insights on each other’s work and give feedback. this was followed by the employment of research to collect and analyse data. after discussing research findings, each group implemented their solutions to real problems in practicum schools. within this period, the tutor, the first author of this study, continued to give ongoing feedback to the participants via moodle. at the end, groups wrote their pbl practices and presented them to their peers. namely, the process was experienced through textual communication via moodle in an asynchronous way. that is, participants and the tutor had the chance to interact at different times when it best suited the schedules of both the tutor and the participants. before the current study, a face-to-face pbl course was offered in the previous year following the steps outlined above (see kırkgöz, 2015 for details). after the successful implementation of pbl in that course, this study was implemented integrating technology so that the course could be more effective. in fact, what makes this study different is that all aforementioned processes were followed through moodle as an online learning tool and a teaching platform used subsequent to a few face-toface meetings at the outset. to summarize, the ultimate aim was to improve the efficacy of the course through pbl rather than learning how to apply pbl in language teaching. for the related literature, e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 77 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86 kırkgöz & turhan (views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technology-integrated pbl practices) the study is assumed to open a new road to understanding how pbl-led teacher education courses increases the opportunities to make real-life-like learning practices. 2.2. participants participants of the study comprised 93 efl teacher trainees (22 males, 71 females) at a state university in turkey. their ages ranged from 21 to 24. all were senior students and completed methodology courses such as teaching english to young learners, approaches in language teaching, teaching language skills and so on. the rationale for involving those students was that they had sufficient knowledge in language teaching methodologies. thus, they would be able to become familiar with pbl more professionally although they did not have any pbl experience beforehand. they just knew the theory and steps of pbl and were expected to put their theoretical knowledge into practice. in fact, all the trainees who were enrolled in the materials evaluation and adaptation course at the time of the study gave consent for the participation in the research. for ethical considerations, participants were announced that they would be involved in a scientific study and informed of the study procedures and what they were expected to perform during the study. 2.3. data collection tools the data were gathered through a written questionnaire composed of 6-point likert-type questions from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (6) and interviews. there were 29 likert-type questions categorized under three sub-sections. section a (14 questions) investigated participants’ opinions about pbl in general. section b (12 questions) aimed to find out benefits of participating in a pblled course. section c (3 questions) covered participants’ responses to the question “why should pbl be a part of other courses?” regarding interviews, there were 10 questions associated with feelings toward pbl (e.g. how do you feel about being a part of such pbl practices?), knowledge/skills gained during this process (e.g. do you believe that you have gained any skills or knowledge as a result of such pbl practices?), difficulties encountered (e.g. are there any challenges you have experienced during the pbl practices? if yes, what are those challenges?), and the use of moodle (e.g. are there any advantages or disadvantages of using moodle during the pbl practices?). questionnaire items and interview questions were formulated in the light of the relevant literature (see kırkgöz, 2017). a small-scale piloting was conducted to check the appropriateness and understandability of the interview questions. to ensure reliability of the quantitative data, questionnaire items were exposed to a reliability test via spss and cronbach’s alpha coefficient was found to be .90, indicating that all items yielded reliable results. 2.4. data analysis techniques as the data collection tools provided quantitative and qualitative data, both statistical and content analysis techniques were employed. for the analysis of quantitative data emerging from likert-type questions ranging from 1(strongly disagree) to 5(strongly agree), descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviations (sd) were utilized. the qualitative data obtained from audio-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed through content analysis performed by the authors of this study. the qualitative data analysis continued with the division of the text into segments of information which were labelled with appropriate codes for the sake of data reduction; and the determined codes were collapsed into themes (creswell, 2012). both researchers analyzed the whole qualitative data individually to unravel relevant themes inductively through repeated examination and comparison of the raw data. afterwards, ambiguous categories were clarified through joint discussion for the sake of inter-rater reliability. each participant was coded as “p1, p2, and p3…” 3. findings and discussion 3.1. results from the close-ended questions the results concerning general opinions about the pbl practices are presented in table 1. 78 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86 kırkgöz & turhan (views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technology-integrated pbl practices) table 1. opinions in relation to pbl in general section a mean sd a4. the pbl project enabled me to develop a deeper understanding of the topic i studied. 4.44 1.80 a12. focusing on real problems made the pbl course more relevant to my interests. 4.39 1.66 a6. the pbl project was helpful. 4.36 1.74 a10. pbl was a very helpful learning experience for my future work in research and teaching profession. 4.31 1.78 a8. with this pbl project, i learned more information about my research topic since it is more real-life related. 4.35 1.76 a11. pbl gave me a real world experience. 4.35 1.69 a5. i liked doing research in a structured manner during the pbl course. 4.32 1.55 a14. i learned from each other via moodle during group works. 4.27 1.62 a3. the pbl course provided peer and group interactions useful to me in completing the tasks. 4.22 1.85 a9. i learned greater understanding and experience with group interactions in moodle. 4.12 1.70 a2. the pbl course required more effort on my part than other courses. 4.07 1.54 a13. i found the pbl course via moodle interesting. 4.03 1.58 a1. the pbl course required more of my time than the other courses. 4.04 1.42 a7. the pbl course was frustrating. 3.25 1.77 as can be inferred from table 1, most of the items had similar mean scores except for item 7 which had the lowest mean score indicating that the majority of the participants were of the opinion that pbl was not frustrating; rather, it was helpful, especially for their profession and future work in research. with regard to other items in section a, they had an average mean score out of 6 because all items except for item 7 had mean scores between 4.03 and 4.44. that is, most of the participants agreed moderately or slightly with the items. in other words, they had positive opinions about pbl in general. for instance, they believed that pbl was beneficial for group interactions as it enabled them to make structured research and develop deeper understanding. this might be because pbl was found to be real-life related. moreover, most of the participants thought that pbl was relevant to their interest and via moodle, it was even more interesting. despite these, a great deal of participants supported the idea that pbl required more time and effort. additionally, benefits of pbl were investigated, and results are shown in table 2. table 2. benefits of pbl section b mean sd b3. i improved critical and analytical thinking skills thanks to pbl. 5.32 0.82 b11. i improved research skills during the pbl course. 5.31 0.87 b12. i learned how to analyze and organize information collected from various sources during the pbl course. 5.37 0.88 b5. pbl helped me think deeper about the topic i studied. 5.27 0.93 b2. i learned how to apply information to solve a real world problem about teaching english. 5.22 0.87 b4. i improved to think independently during the pbl course. 5.20 0.89 b6. i improved self-learning during the pbl course. 5.18 1.05 b7. i learned how to cooperate with friends via moodle. 5.13 1.13 b10. i improved academic skills (project writing, reading, etc.) during the pbl course. 5.13 0.97 b1. i improved identifying realistic problems relevant to my teaching. 5.10 0.86 b8. i improved communication skills in general. 4.94 1.06 b9. i improved how to resolve disagreements in the group and reach consensus. 4.88 1.22 based on table 2, it is clear that the most remarkable items which have the highest mean scores are b2, b3, b5, b11 and b12, demonstrated that participants believed that pbl was beneficial mainly because it provided them the opportunity to apply knowledge, to improve thinking and research skills and to analyse or organize information. concerning the lowest mean scores which belong to the items e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 79 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86 kırkgöz & turhan (views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technology-integrated pbl practices) b8 and b9, benefits such as improvement of communication and teamwork skills might not be as significant as other benefits mentioned above. yet, all of the mean scores can be accepted as considerably high; thereof, a great deal of participants were in consensus on the benefits of pbl in identifying and solving real problems; improving thinking, teamwork and self-learning skills, communication and academic skills and so forth. lastly, table 3 displays participants’ views on whether pbl should be a part of other courses. table 3. responses to the question “why should pbl be a part of other courses?” section c mean sd c1. it definitely helps with getting out of midterm and final exams and follow different ways of learning. 5.04 0.94 c2. with more real-life related pbl experiences, we as students can learn more and relate it to our own life experiences. 5.19 0.92 c3. it helps us to use in-class information we learn outside of class. 5.37 0.89 according to table 3, most of the participants were of the opinion that pbl could be a part of other courses because it required them to follow different ways of learning such as establishing relations to one’s own life or making use of information in real life. that is, pbl could be beneficial in terms of making content more real-life like and concrete. participants also believed that pbl helped them get rid of standard evaluation techniques such as mid-term and final examinations, which possibly create anxiety. table 4 sheds light on the overall results for each section in the questionnaire. table 4. total results of sections in the questionnaire total results mean sd section a (pbl in general) 4.15 1.32 section b (benefits of participating in pbl) 5.17 0.71 section c (should pbl be a part of other courses?) 5.20 0.78 overall 4.70 0.71 table 4 shows that section b and c have approximately the same mean and standard deviation scores, which means participants mostly agreed with items in those sections. to clarify, they generally had the opinion that being a part of a pbl practice enabled them to gain various benefits; for this reason, they thought that pbl should be a part of other courses. as for section a, it has a lower mean score when compared to other sections; however, it still has an average mean score. namely, participants agreed with items in this section, but their agreement level was not as high as with items in other sections. 3.2. interview results responses of 88 participants to 10 interview questions were subjected to inductive content analysis, and four primary themes emerged. these themes were organized under the headings of “feelings toward pbl, knowledge and skills gained through pbl, difficulties faced during pbl and the use of moodle during pbl”. 1) 3.2.1. feelings toward pbl feelings regarding pbl experiences were categorized under two sub-headings as in table 5. table 5 illustrates feelings about oneself and the pbl experience. feeling good about pbl was the most cited point (f:25), as understood from the excerpts below: “i feel good about taking this pbl course because i learnt many things, and also how to overcome real problems that i faced in the classroom and in daily life.” (p59) “i feel pretty good to be a part of the pbl practice since it was highly real-life related and gave chances to use what we learnt in real life environment.” (p30) 80 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86 kırkgöz & turhan (views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technology-integrated pbl practices) table 5. feelings toward pbl feelings about oneself f feelings about the experience f good 25 useful 21 happy 9 helpful 8 joyful 8 difficult 5 independent 3 effective 4 confident 2 interesting 4 lucky 1 necessary 1 following this, participants were also of the opinion that pbl was useful (f:21). one of the participants gives details about this issue in the excerpt below: “i feel that pbl was really useful because i could do academic work on my own. we were asked to prepare an academic work and we could achieve it successfully.” (p33) apart from this, participants felt happy (f:9) and joyful (f:8) about pbl, as implied in the excerpt below: “i feel satisfied and happy because i learnt deep information about my research topic, and taking part in pbl was very enjoyable.” (p25) the pbl experience was found to be helpful (f:8), effective (f:4), interesting (f:4) and necessary (f:1). one of the participants mentions all these in the following excerpt: “we were free in choosing our topic and totally independent. therefore, it was really effective in encouraging us to use our creativity, and it was an interesting experience for me.” (p55) the only negative feeling about pbl was that it could be difficult (f:5) for some participants, as illustrated in the excerpt below: “it is a bit difficult but i learnt many things about my profession.” (p77) among the least referred feelings, there were feelings such as being independent (f:3), confident (f:2) and lucky (f:1). as to the course, the least frequent feeling is that the course was necessary (f:1). all these show that feelings toward pbl were positive for the great majority of participants. “research was very hard for me but a real-life like practice made me feel that i could rely on myself. also, group work improved my responsibility. that is, i was lucky in that sense.” (p12) “we feel more independent and confident. we can do research thoroughly because there is no time limit. also, we learnt more and better.” (p1) 2) knowledge and skills gained through pbl regarding knowledge and skills gained, table 6 represents what is learnt in consequence of the course: table 6. knowledge and skills gained through pbl i learn how to f i learn how to f make research 35 regulate self-learning 5 solve real-life like problems 23 make observations 4 work in groups 22 make evaluations 3 think critically 11 make implementations 2 acquire academic skills 8 learn in different ways 2 organize information 7 acquire different teaching skills 2 communicate effectively 6 be independent 1 analyze the data at hand 5 take responsibility 1 e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 81 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86 kırkgöz & turhan (views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technology-integrated pbl practices) table 6 illustrates that the most frequent knowledge/skills gained thanks to pbl are conducting research (f:35), solving real-life problems (f:23) and working in groups (f:22). the following excerpts point to these issues: “i learnt focusing on real problems and how to solve them. i learnt how to solve disagreements in the group. in addition, this practice enabled me to develop deeper understanding by making research.” (p22) “i improved research skills because i studied a real problem and searched for information about it. the practice also provided group interaction.” (p17) following this, thinking critically (f:11) is another highly cited skill by the participants, as indicated in the excerpt below: “i became more creative with pbl because i learnt how to think critically.” (p 13) regarding the rest of the skills and knowledge, improvement of academic skills (f:8), organizing information (f:7), effective communication (f:6), data analysis (f:5), regulating self-learning (f:5), making observation (f:4), evaluation (f:3) and implementation (f:2), being familiar with new learning (f:2) and teaching ways (f:2) can be mentioned. “i learnt how a good group interaction should be. i also became familiar with research skills. i learnt different ways to organize and analyse information.” (p13) “i experienced a student-centered teaching because we had a chance to enhance different learning and teaching ways. we evaluated what we observed and made implementations.” (p48) even though learning how to study independently and take responsibility were the ones referred to only once, they were worth mentioning because such a pbl practice required participants to share responsibilities and do their own task independently, and these helped participants work individually and collaboratively. the excerpt below indicates this: “we all had a different responsibility in the course, first we studied independently and then we shared what we learnt with each other.” (p51) 3) difficulties faced during pbl along with the fruitful aspects of pbl, some difficulties were revealed as listed in table 7. table 7. difficulties experienced during pbl difficulties f *no difficulty at all 34 working in groups 22 technological problems 17 consuming much time 8 getting feedback 3 data analysis 2 conducting questionnaires 2 making observation 1 making much effort 1 table 7 summarizes difficulties encountered during pbl; however, a great number of the participants agreed on the fact that they did not experience any difficulties (f:34). the following two excerpts are the indicators of this: “i did not face any problem or difficulty.” (p24) “i did not face important difficulties. even if i faced, i would solve them with the help of my friends and teacher.” (p19) 82 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86 kırkgöz & turhan (views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technology-integrated pbl practices) apart from this, the most problematic situation (f:22) was linked to working in groups, as expressed in the following excerpt: “of course, it required more effort so we tried to work harder and because of group works, we faced some difficulties. for example, it was hard to come together with group members.” (p71) another noteworthy difficulty was associated with technological problems (f:17 in total), such as the use of moodle (f:9), internet disconnection (f:5), using blogs (f:1), and computer-related problems (f:2). in relation to this, one of the participants reported: “usually, we experienced some technological problems. for example, my internet connection broke down. trying to solve such problems might be irritating.” (p66) consuming so much time (f:8) was another difficulty. moreover, participants might have difficulty in receiving detailed feedback, most probably because pbl was conducted through moodle: “the practice caused me to spend most of my time. analysing and organizing information were a little bit frustrating and we received limited feedback. using moodle was sometimes difficult.” (p26) data analysis, conducting questionnaires, making observations and making much effort were among the other cited difficulties. furthermore, one participant brought a new dimension to the issue, as expressed in the excerpt below: “we had always been educated in traditional teacher-centered classes. the difficulty was that we engaged in something entirely different from our previous learning experiences.” (p48) 4) the use of moodle during pbl participants’ views upon the use of moodle during the process are reported in table 8. table 8. opinions in relation to the use of moodle positive opinions f negative opinions f useful 42 complicated, difficult, confusing 10 being glad 10 problematic because of internet 2 time saving 7 not enjoyable 1 makes the learning easier 5 not useful 1 practical 3 not sufficient 1 good if it is taught 1 independent work 1 interesting 1 better understanding 1 total 71 15 as understood from table 8, in terms of positive opinions, the participants primarily described the use of moodle in the pbl practice as useful (f:42). using moodle in the pbl practice made participants glad (f:10). following excerpts explain this: “i think using moodle is very useful for both students and teachers. you can do your task in a short time and you can take feedback quickly.” (p88) “it is a useful method because all of us come together at any time; we can fulfil our responsibilities with the help of feedback.” (p45) “i am glad about using moodle. we could see each other’s studies. we have learned a lot from each other’s mistakes.” (p73) apart from these positive opinions, participants also believed that integration of moodle in pbl was time-saving (f:7), made learning easier (f:5) and practical (f:3). among positive opinions cited only once, participants thought that moodle was interesting and provided independent learning opportunities and better understanding. e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 83 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86 kırkgöz & turhan (views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technology-integrated pbl practices) “it was useful; we did not spend much time to show our project to the teacher.” (p12) “it is quite practical as it gave us a chance to reach group members at the same time.” (p30) in terms of negative opinions, a number of participants (f:10) claimed that the use of moodle was initially complicated, difficult or confusing: “first, it was difficult to use it but i learnt how to use it in a short time.” (p15) “at first, it was a bit confusing but as the time passed, i liked it.” (p13) besides the aforementioned, there were a few participants stating that integration of moodle was problematic because of internet problems. they also proposed that moodle was not useful, enjoyable and sufficient: “internet disconnections were creating problems for us.” (p46) “it is not always easy to be online. instead of moodle, we could meet face-to-face to share feedback.” (p36) 3.3. discussion major findings revealed that participants believed that they reached a deeper understanding of the topic they studied by means of pbl. based on the interview results, it is clear that this was because the participants had opportunities to solve authentic problems relevant to their interest. participants also remarked that pbl should be a part of other courses because practical activities based on realistic problems helped them learn in different ways and, and it enabled them to relate their in-class experiences to real-life situations. in that sense, pbl has proved to be an effective instructional approach in education (kırkgöz, 2015; 2017). pbl can be a logical instructional approach in educating teachers to be capable of putting forward diverse perspectives. by experiencing real-life problems during teacher education programs, prospective teachers become able to transfer knowledge and skills to their professional lives (borhan, 2014). it is obvious that pbl was helpful for research skills of efl teacher trainees, especially for analyzing and organizing information. a similar conclusion was drawn by stentoft (2019) who claimed that pbl might foster medical students’ research skills and competencies. in addition, participants considered that they developed critical and analytical thinking skills. as a result, teacher trainees who experience such pbl practices will hopefully be one step ahead of their colleagues in terms of professional and personal development. moreover, participants could learn from each other while working in groups, and how to resolve disagreements within the group. that is, language learning and teaching should be examined in a social basis, and group work appears to be effective in helping participants deal with social matters. however, participants indicated that they developed selflearning skills, which shows that doing academic work individually or being autonomous are among the other benefits of pbl as well as they learnt how to strengthen collaboration among them. participants mostly stated that there was no difficulty in pbl practices although they listed some obstacles about pbl experiences. to exemplify, working in groups, technological problems, consuming much time and receiving limited feedback created challenges in the process. among those reported obstacles, consuming much time was found to be one of the disadvantages that may be experienced while trying to frame effective pbl problems by ribeiro (2011) who also mentioned the necessity of intensive research in order to formulate those problems. based on these, pbl applications cannot be asserted to be without deficiencies and may result in inefficient outcomes if the implementation is not progressed as it should be. for this reason, in pbl applications, group works should be well-designed, technological equipment should be controlled, regular and ongoing feedback should be given, and sufficient time should be set to reach maximum success. moodle was found to be useful by participants and they felt glad about using it. the most cited benefit of moodle was that it was time-saving. on the contrary, there were few participants stating that moodle was complicated and confusing. in parallel with this, so and kim (2009) alleged that teacher trainees benefited from the technology-enhanced pbl course though they had several difficulties in applying knowledge into a technology-integrated pbl lesson. despite some threats such as low student motivation, limited instructional time, lack of establishing collaboration, weak 84 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86 kırkgöz & turhan (views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technology-integrated pbl practices) questioning techniques (pecore, 2013), pbl practices can be more fruitful with technology integration as revealed in the current study. 4. conclusion the objective of the study is to determine prospective teachers’ opinions and evaluations about pbl through moodle in a teacher education course. findings suggest that pbl is useful in a number of aspects such as becoming familiar with steps of research, working in groups, developing autonomy, solving real-life problems and having deeper understanding of theory. at this point, it should be noted that pbl is not a panacea, but motivating and interesting because trainees themselves choose the topic and materials. moreover, the sense of solving a real problem in a real language classroom may be considered as a triggering force for the trainees to be more eager to complete their pbl practices. the typical and traditional way of delivering the materials evaluation and adaptation course would be to ask trainees to select an english textbook and make theoretical analysis on it in terms of the design of its content, sequence of the activities, and the language skills developed and so on. yet, such a procedure can only enhance the theoretical knowledge without any opportunity to engage in practice in authentic environments or to receive peer support. for this reason, the preference of pbl in teacher education courses, as in the present study, may provide the trainees with the opportunity to gain more than theoretical knowledge. namely, they can have the chance to put their theoretical knowledge into practice by solving authentic problems in collaboration with their peers under the guidance of their teacher educator. most importantly, the fact that the trainees identify and solve the problems themselves in pbl may arouse the feeling of self-confidence by realizing that they are able to reflect all knowledge they have learnt in methodology courses upon practices in real classrooms. another dimension of the study is the integration of moodle into pbl, which helped participants gain awareness about new information technologies. for this reason, we recommend that a balance between conventional and technology-integrated instruction should be built. that is, face-to-face instruction and the use of online tools in teacher education courses could be equated in order to maximize one’s advantages and to minimize the other’s disadvantages. as an implication, any branch of knowledge can be adjusted to pbl despite the fact that the problems may differ among disciplines. pbl can be adapted in any teacher education course with ease and this makes it practical for tutors to implement pbl at tertiary level. therefore, pbl should be an indispensable part of teacher education programs. this is also confirmed by this study because participants believed that pbl should be a part of other courses in their department. regarding limitations, the current study is only concerned with senior students’ pbl experiences, and data were elicited solely from questionnaires and interviews. in a further study, freshman, sophomore or junior students could be involved, and different data collection tools could be utilized to triangulate the data. the greatest limitations can be attributed to technological problems. to overcome this, before such implementations, one needs to ensure that every participant possesses quality technological gadgets such as phones, tablets or laptops and internet connection. considering the positive impacts of this study, future research could be geared toward educating teachers on the way to teaching languages by means of pbl. declaration author contribution : the first author is in charge of resources, methodology, data curation, writing, review, editing, investigation, conceptualization, validation, supervision. the second author is in charge of formal analysis, validation, methodology, investigation, writing original draft, writing, review and editing. funding statement : the research is funded under no research project. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 85 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86 kırkgöz & turhan (views of turkish efl teacher trainees toward technology-integrated pbl practices) references adnan, m. 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(2016). moodle as an odl teaching tool: a perspective of students and academics. the electronic journal of e-learning, 14(4), 282-290. https://doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1359 https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.1183 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-019-09917-1 https://doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1046 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2015.11.009 https://doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1255 https://doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1255 https://doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1681 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 148-160 10.12928/eltej.v4i2.3551 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id does class participation predict academic achievement? a mixed-method study uğur akpur yildiz technical university, davutpaşa kampüsü, i̇stanbul, türkiye uakpur@yahoo.com a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 24 january 2021 revised 22 march 2021 accepted 21 april 2021 the present study’s aim is to identify whether class participation is a significant predictor of english language achievement among university students and their views concerning class participation and academic achievement. a sequential mixed method design was applied and a total of 2013 university students (813 female 40.3%; 1200 male, 59.7%) participated in the quantitative portion of the study. course participation grade (cpg) criteria and english proficiency exam (epe) held at the end of the academic year by the institution were used as data collection tools. the qualitative data were analysed through content analysis of a focus group interview with a group of seven participants. the findings suggested that the relationship between academic achievement and cpg was positive and significant. correspondingly, the qualitative data revealed similar results with the quantitative data by showing that the class participation has powerful impact on academic achievement. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords class participation student engagement student involvement academic achievement how to cite: akpur, uğur (2021). does class participation predict academic achievement? a mixed-method study. english language teaching educational journal, 4(2), 148-160 1. introduction establishing effective learning environments in today’s increasingly complicated world to promote learning and academic success is one of the most addressed topics in education (chapman, 2003; çelik et al., 2018; hoyert et al., 2019; kreng, 2013; kuh et al., 2006, hopland, & nyhus, 2016; alzubaidi, aldridge, & khine, 2016; lim & fraser, 2018). although factors affecting learners’ success stretch from the individuals’ readiness, characteristics, backgrounds to educational policies and practices as well as institutional facilities and many others, students’ engagement still stands as a key factor in educational settings (chapman, 2003; fredin et al., 2015). to kuh (2009), as the number of hours that the students spend on a topic increase, they will more likely know and learn better. accordingly, as they practice and participate in activities more, they will more likely get much more feedback from their teachers and the more in-depth they learn, the more masterfully they can cope with complex and ambiguous situations. in addition, engaging in educational activities also helps individuals develop basic skills to lead a more productive and more satisfactory life even after school life. in other words, engagement helps individuals build a fundamental structure in their minds upon which they can build necessary construction for the concept of lifelong learning. regarded as one aspect of student engagement (frisby, 2015), class participation has also attracted much attention (baron & corbin, 2012; ko et al., 2016; skinner et al., 2009, mundelsee & jurkowski, 2021) as one of the essential elements for the successful conduct of a learning activity (sarıtepeci, 2012). generally defined as the verbal interaction among participants in a learning environment (karima, 2016), class participation connotes any remarks or questions voiced by http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:uakpur@yahoo.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 149 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 148-160 akpur, u. (does class participation predict academic achievement?) students (frisby, 2015), students’ active involvement in class activities (ghalley & rai, 2019; lei et al., 2018; skinner et al., 2009; bond, buntins, bedenlier, s. et al., 2020; lai, 2021; sedláček & šeďova, 2020; sadoughi & hejazi, 2021) and endeavours made by students to academic events (ghasemi et al., 2018). as chapman (2003) argues, class participation or student engagement traditionally was often described in terms of “time-based indices” such as doing a given task on time or attending classes timely. on the other hand, lately, the term has been depicted as students’ enthusiasm or eagerness to attend classes and to take part in class activities. nowadays, however, another definition of the term has been emphasized. within this context, participation is identified within three dimensions: affective, cognitive and behavioural (dotterer et al., 2007; stefansson et al., 2018). the affective dimension points out the emotional bond established between students and school, which is called “identification with school” by voelkl (1997, p. 296). this dimension also applies to positive and negative responses towards the stakeholders of school such as students, teachers, administrators, school board members, parents and school itself as well as touching on the students’ commitment to school. cognitive dimension refers to endeavours and efforts made by students to understand comprehensive and sophisticated ideas as well as the students’ use of self-regulatory strategies. the behavioural dimension contains students’ “observable actions or performance”, such as doing homework, attending classes and school grades (archambault et al., 2009; dotterer et al., 2007; stefansson et al., 2018; ozdemir, 2017; wang et al., 2014). class participation depicts students’ emotions, behaviours and judgements about school life and it is an important variable since it affects academic outcomes such as achievement and high level of school commitment (dotterer et al., 2007; engels, spilt, denies, & verschueren, 2021; thararuedee & wette, 2020). reviewing the measurements that examine engagement, ozdemir (2017) suggest that rather than affective and cognitive aspects, behavioural dimension has attracted more attention in terms of investigations. thus, getting high grades, rate of completing homework or given tasks on time, and time spent on school-related events are generally considered as indicators of participation. in other words, since it could be assessed through monitoring students in the course of learning process, attendance, taking part in activities during classes, tutoring peers and preparedness are observable signs of participation (syaveny & johari, 2017). as a result, examining the link between class participation to other variables and its influence on students’ school life have been studied in terms of the mentioned indicators. within this context, several studies have revealed that class participation is positively correlated with academic achievement whereas non-participation causes poor academic outcomes. gürer (2013) found that in social studies lesson, class engagement and academic achievement positively correlated with each other. likewise, marks (2000), in her study, pointed that academically successful students are more engaged in class-related activities than those who were not engaged. sirin and rogers-sirin (2004) in their research on african american students also suggested that school engagement was one of the variables that had the strongest relationship with academic performance. the significance of class participation as an indicator of academic achievement was also emphasized in voelkl’s (1997) study. gunuc’s (2014) study, exploring the predictive level of student engagement on academic achievement, revealed the significant relationship between the variables. similarly, wang and eccles (2011) in their study found that school engagement was positively related to academic achievement. pike, smart and ethington’s (2012) study in which 20,000 students participated revealed that student participation was significantly correlated with academic success. ko et al., (2016), in their study where over 18,000 students participated, as well as konold, cornell, jia and malone’s (2018) study including more than 60,000 participants also cited that class participation had significant impact on learning outcomes. in short, the agreed point is that class participation has profound impacts on the academic achievement in positive way. similarly, in language learning context, class participation is of crucial importance in terms of positive academic outcomes (permatasari, 2016; albertson, 2020). apart from enabling students in a language class to verbalize their thoughts, emotions and opinions, class participation also promotes their critical thinking and discussion abilities (karima, 2016). further, in classes, through participation, students can promote their motivation and productive skills which are fundamental steps in learning a foreign language. furthermore, as permatasari (2016) states, when students get involved in activities with their classmates and teachers, their cognitive skill levels raise, the roots of which can be found in socio-cultural theory. hence, given that participation and taking part in class150 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 148-160 akpur, u. (does class participation predict academic achievement?) related activities are indispensable in acquiring a foreign language, the learners become successful in language development at the rate they participate (hamouda, 2013). several studies have explored the link between students’ participation and academic achievement, and it seems apparent that the positive and significant relationship between them is indisputable. in a study conducted by syaveny and johari (2017), it was found that english learning achievement increased when students’ participation was higher. liu and jackson (2009) investigated reticence in efl classes and their study revealed that the more proficient the students, the higher was their participation level. similarly, fakeye and amao’s (2013) study suggested that the relationship between participation and academic achievement in literature in english was positive and significant. crosthwaite, bailey and meeker’s (2015) findings from their study also supported the aforementioned results by confirming that there was a positive relationship between class participation and language proficiency levels. to summarise, although there is a large number of studies that mark the positive impacts of class participation on academic achievement, the relationship between the mentioned variables has not been much matter of interest in terms of university students’ participation and english language success specific to turkish context. to this end, the present study tries to address this gap in an attempt to find an answer to the following research questions: 1. is class participation a significant predictor of english language achievement among turkish university students? 2. what are the turkish students’ views concerning class participation and academic achievement? 2. method the present study was conducted in sequential mixed methods design in which the collection of qualitative data is followed by the collection of quantitative data (creswell, 2012). according to creswell (2017), with the introduction of multiple data collection methods and forms of analysis, more explicit methods are needed to eliminate the complexity of such research. these methods have also been developed to meet the need for the researcher to make a more understandable design. this is a kind of design in which qualitative phase of data collection and analysis are conducted initially and this step is followed by the stage of quantitative data collection and analysis. in the final phase, the findings from the separated data are integrated and interpreted (berman, 2017). to further analyse the quantitative data, a focus group interview was organized for the part of the qualitative portion of the study. in the present study, it was evaluated that a more precise analysis was required due to the complication in interpreting the quantitative data. in addition, the students’ views regarding class participation were significant in that these views could lead to valuable suggestions in terms of planning and formulating participation framework. thus, it was evaluated that, applying this method best suited the study since it could provide a deeper analysis. in line with the context of sequential mixed method design, in the current study the quantitative part was first conducted and this was followed by the stage of quantitative data collection. 2.1. participants the study group of the research consisted of university students who attend a preparatory school of a state university in i̇stanbul, turkey during 2018-2019 academic year. the study group consisted of 2013 (813 female 40.3%; 1200 male, 59.7%) students, chosen randomly from different levels and classes so that they could represent the study population. the age group of the participants were as follows: 85.4% (n=1720) of the students were between the ages 17-19; 12.1% (n=243) of them were between 20-22, and 2.5% (n=50) of them were over 23 years old. 2.2. data collection tools in order to assess students’ class participation during the academic year, course participation grade (cpg) criteria, the ultimate main of which is to assess students’ efforts in learning was taken into consideration. the english proficiency exam (epe) scores for academic achievement, which is prepared and conducted by the institution, was assessed as another data collection tool for the quantitative part of the study. for the qualitative portion of the study, a focus group interview was conducted with seven voluntary students, four of whom (57%) were males and three were females (43%), that represented the sample. selected from different classes, the participants were told the issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 151 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 148-160 akpur, u. (does class participation predict academic achievement?) aim of the interview and the researcher attempted to form a comfortable atmosphere so that the participants could express their opinions and feelings with ease and in a detailed way. the interview took nearly an hour and the participants were encouraged to mention the influence of class participation on academic achievement and the factors that affect class participation. for the reliability of the questions, two english teachers and an expert in curriculum were consulted for their opinions about the questions to be asked during the interview. 2.3. course participation criteria (cpg) the criteria aimed to formulate the items by means of which the students are assessed by teachers are illustrated in table 1. table 1. course participation criteria 0 the student… in class work does not participate in most of the class activities • is withdrawn, unaware of what is going on in classes • hardly volunteers to answer the questions • does not listen to others 1 – 4 • the student… in class work rarely participates in almost no class activities • is generally withdrawn, only joins when called on • rarely volunteers to answer the questions • rarely listens to the instructor actively 5 – 8 • the student… in class work sometimes participates in some of the class activities actively • is sometimes engaged in classes • sometimes volunteers to answer the questions • sometimes cooperates with classmates • sometimes listens to the instructor actively 9 – 12 • the student… in class work often participates in most of the class activities actively • is often engaged in classes • often volunteers to answer the questions • often cooperates with much objection • often listens to the instructor actively 13 – 16 • the student… in class work generally participates in majority of the class activities • is usually engaged in classes • volunteers to answer the questions • usually cooperates with classmates • generally listens to the instructor actively 17 – 20 • the student… in class work almost always participates in all of the class activities and/or high quality • is almost always engaged in classes • volunteers to answer the questions • listens to the instructor actively overall cpg grade 0 1 – 4 5 – 8 9 – 12 13 – 16 17 – 20 152 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 148-160 akpur, u. (does class participation predict academic achievement?) cpg criteria, prepared by the institution, were arranged in a form of rubric ranging from “0” to “20”. graded in three-week intervals by all teachers of the class five times in a term, cpg’s rubric is scaled in such a way that the ones who do not participate class activities, who are withdrawn and unaware of the goings-on in class, who hardly volunteer to answer the questions raised by the teacher, who use native language excessively and the ones who do not do outside class work are graded “0” point. 1-4 grade scale requires rarely participating in almost no activities, seldom volunteering to answer the question raised, rarely cooperating with classmates, switching to turkish unnecessarily or not showing any effort to use english and rarely completing or doing poor quality outside class work. students get 5-8 grades when they sometimes participate in some of the class activities actively, when they are sometimes engaged in activities, sometimes volunteers to answer the questions, sometimes listen to their classmates or teacher and switch to turkish unnecessarily for the basic words or phrases. these students sometimes complete their assignments and these are average quality. the ones who often participate most of the class activities keenly, are often engaged in classes, often volunteer to answer the questions, often listen to peers or teachers, switch to turkish when a word or complex structure is not known get 9-12 grades. these students often complete their assignments and these are satisfactorily quality. generally participating in majority of activities keenly, often volunteering to answer the questions posed, usually cooperating with peers, and switching to turkish when the word or phrase is not known and usually completing assignments are graded between 13-16 grades. when students almost always participate in all class activities and when they are regularly volunteers to answer the questions raised by their teachers get 17-20 grades. these students keenly cooperate with their peers, listen to their classmates and teachers, switch to turkish when they do not know a specific term or a structure and their assignments are almost always complete and high quality. in the present study, cpg grades were analysed in a whole academic year, which connotes that the average of 10 cpg grades were taken into consideration. 2.4. the english proficiency exam (epe) the english proficiency exam (epe), prepared by the institution, is held at the end of every academic year. it is a two-stage exam and designed in line with the common european framework of reference (cefr). it is aimed to identify whether the students have the proficiency level to follow the courses in their majors. in other words, the purpose of the test is to determine whether the students’ proficiency in english is at a level that will enable them to follow courses offered in their respective fields of study and fulfil their requirements with relative ease. therefore, the english proficiency exam (epe) aims to assess students’ ability to comprehend and respond to written and oral academic passages, to understand and follow lectures on semi-academic themes as well as to test their competency levels in producing written texts of various lengths. the exam consists of “use of english”, “reading”, “listening” and “writing” sections, which measure reading, listening and writing skills for academic purposes along with grammar and vocabulary. the level of the exam is equivalent to the language proficiency and language skills of a b1+ student according to cefr. the academic achievement data of the present study were gathered from epe scores which were held at the end of the academic year in the spring term in 2019. after analysing the items, the difficulty level of the exam was found to be .59, which shows that the exam was at the “moderately difficult” level. in addition, the reading texts of the epe were analysed in accordance with flesch-kincaid reading ease chart and it was found that they were at “difficult” level whereas the listening part was at “fairly easy” level. 2.5. focus group interview the focus group interview was conducted to interpret the data gained from the quantitative part of the study more thoroughly concerning students’ opinions on class participation and academic achievement. focus group interviews are a method that is conducted within the framework of predetermined guidelines. this method can be defined as a qualitative data collection technique that prioritizes the subjectivity of the interviewees and which should pay attention to the discourse of the participants and the social context (çokluk et al., 2011). focus group interviews which aim at unearthing the participants’ views about a particular subject matter include questions formed by the interviewer to help the participants express their opinions (creswell, 2012). the researcher in the present study arranged the interview with seven voluntary students and during the interview the researcher himself explained the aim of the interview comprehensively to make the objectives clear. as for the convenience and the reliability of the interview questions, the literature was reviewed and issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 153 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 148-160 akpur, u. (does class participation predict academic achievement?) three field-experts were requested for their opinions. to improve and to reach a high level of the coding agreement as much as possible, the researcher and an expert compared the independently formed codes and mutually agreed codes were identified. richards and hemphill (2018) reliability formula was applied to provide reliability of analysis and the reliability value was found to be .74. 2.6. data analysis the quantitative data of the study were analysed through spss 21.0 software program. to identify the relationship between class participation and academic achievement, correlational analysis was applied. additionally, simple linear regression analysis was used to explore the predictive power of the independent variable on the dependent variable. for the quantitative part of the study, correlational survey design was applied. in this type of design, the types of relationships between two or more variables are investigated. in other words, it identifies whether the variables are related and in what way they are related (karasar, 2003). additionally, simple linear regression analysis was used to explore the predictive power of the independent variable on the dependent variable. in this kind of research design, it is aimed to determine the relationship level between two variables, one of which is determined as the independent variable and the other as the dependent (büyüköztürk, 2011). as for the qualitative part of the study, content analysis was applied for the associated codes, categories, and themes. the content analysis focuses on what is uttered, written or recorded. with the help of systematic organization for the process of determining coding, categories and themes, content analysis is considered as a research method for the clarification and comment of the content (hsieh & shannon, 2005). within this context, the students’ answers during the interview shed light on identifying the codes, categories and themes. after the transcription of the recorded interview, the transcript was first coded and the associated codes were analysed to determine categories and themes. the same steps were taken by another expert to ensure the reliability. the similarity of the codes, categories and themes were controlled through richards and hemphill (2018) reliability formula and the reliability of the analysis was found to be over 70%. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 findings in the present study, the aim is to identify whether class participation is a significant predictor of english language achievement among university students and to explore students’ views in terms of class participation and academic achievement. to this end, the quantitative data obtained from the participants have been analysed and the range, minimum, maximum, medium along with standard error and standard deviation values have been calculated. the findings are illustrated in table 2. table 2. the range, minimum, maximum, medium, standard error, standard deviation values of the variables n range min. max. x-value se sd academic achievement 2013 83.75 14.00 97.75 61.05 .31 13.73 cpg 2013 75.00 25.00 100.00 91.33 .23 10.00 as can be observed in table 2, and the range, minimum, maximum, medium along with standard error and standard deviation values of academic achievement are 83.75; 14.00; 97.75; 61.05; .31 and 13.73 respectively. the figures of cpg for range, minimum, maximum, medium, standard error, standard deviation values are found to be 75.00; 25.00; 100.00; 91.33; .23 and 10.00. to identify the regression figures, pearson correlation analysis has been applied to determine whether there is a relationship between the variables. the figures of the findings are illustrated in table 3. 154 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 148-160 akpur, u. (does class participation predict academic achievement?) table 3. the values of the correlation analysis between the variables academic achievement cpg academic achievement 1 .28** cpg .28** 1 a. ** significant at the level of p<0.01 table 3 demonstrates the correlation values between cpg and academic achievement. it can be observed that the relationship between academic achievement and cpg is positive and significant at the level of p<0.01. in table 4, the findings after the regression analysis between academic achievement and cpg has been illustrated. table 4. the results of regression analysis of prediction degree of students’ class participation on academic achievement b se  t p stable 33.12 3.18 8.13 .00** cpg .43 .04 .25 6.15 .00** b. dependent variable: academic achievement r2=.38 f=84.66 c. ** significant at the level of p<0.01 in order to identify how much of the total variance in academic achievement is explained by the independent variable (cpg), the regression analysis has been applied. as it is illustrated in table 4, 38% (r2=.38) of the variance in academic achievement is explained by cpg grades. the prediction degree has been found to be f=84.66, which is significant at the level of p<0.01. as for the predictive level of the independent variable cpg, it is observed that the power of cpg (t=6.15, p<0.01) to predict academic achievement is meaningful. in other words, it can be concluded that independent variable, cpg is a significant predictor of the dependent variable, academic achievement. 3.2 the qualitative data the students’ views on class participation and academic achievement along with the factors that affect students’ participation in the class-related activities were sought for an answer through the focus group interview. the students’ views on class participation and academic achievement along with the factors that affect students’ participation in the class. after transcription of the recorded interview, the transcript was first coded and the associated codes were analysed to determine categories and themes. the content analysis demonstrated that two themes emerged in terms of the class participation and academic achievement along with the factors that affect students’ participation in the class. as can be seen in table 5, the participants’ views on class participation and academic achievement focused on two themes: internal and external factors. nearly all of the students made it clear that class participation activities would in the end affect their performance and naturally their academic achievement: “it helps the teacher give me a high grade in cpg and i usually remember easily the subjects i talked about” (s4, female, 18); i know i have to participate, because it increases my performance” (s3, female, 18). in another word, common views were gathered around the idea that anything to do with participation both enhanced the participants’ motivation towards the class and, naturally, helped to improve their performance: “when i participate, this makes me feel more confident” (s2, male, 19). further, the from the participants’ views, in the theme of internal factors, two categories, respectively, gain and interest were formed. in the gain category, eagerness to learn and positive impression came to the fore. in the interest category, confidence, curiosity and having knowledge were marked. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 155 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 148-160 akpur, u. (does class participation predict academic achievement?) table 5. class participation and academic achievement as well as the factors affecting students’ participation in the class theme category sample codes quotation internal factors gain eagerness to learn positive impression “when i attempt to answer a question, firstly i always think that this is a good opportunity to show myself. it helps the teacher give me a high grade in cpg and i usually remember easily the subjects i talked about.” (s4, female, 18) interest confidence curiosity having knowledge “when the subject interests me, it is always easier for me to say something, because in these situations, i usually have something to say and participate the class like something about sports. when i participate, this makes me feel more confident.” (s2, male, 19) external factors respect peer pressure lack of confidence criticism “… sometimes, when i try to answer a question that the teacher asks, i am often afraid of making mistakes, because when i say something wrong, my friends behave like children. but i know i have to do it, because it increases my performance.” (s3, female, 18) classroom climate crowd silence “if the class is too crowded and i am not sure about the answer, i never participate or attempt to participate. this makes me tense and i prefer only to listen to the teacher.” (s1, male, 19) teacher positive feedback mind support “when i say something and if the teacher pays attention to my opinions, i feel relaxed and i begin to think about giving answers positively.” (s5, female, 19) as for the theme external factors, respect from the teacher and the peers, classroom climate and the attitude of the teacher were highlighted by the participants. in the respect category the codes, peer pressure, lack of confidence and criticism attracted attention. the codes crowd and silence were found to be related to classroom climate category. the positive feedback from the teacher as well as the peers and support from them were the codes of the teacher category. in other words, during the interview, they also highlighted some other points related to class participation. what they emphasized was that the participation activities were affected by some factors such as interests, gains, and respect from the teacher and peers as well as classroom climate. another point that the students particularly emphasized was that the teacher’s attitudes towards them generally determine their desire for participation. 3.2 discussion what the present study has sought is to identify the relationship between class participation and academic achievement as well as the predictive level of the participation of on academic achievement. in an attempt to describe the kind of relationship, correlation and regression analysis were conducted and the findings of the present study illustrated that the relationship between class participation and academic achievement was positive and significant at the level of p<0.01 and that much of the variance in academic achievement could be explained by the notion of class performance. an important insight that cpg grades explain 38% of academic achievement has been obtained from the study. it is believed that by marking the significant and positive relationship between class participation and academic achievement, the present study will shed light on certain applications, particularly in terms of the importance of interactive classroom atmosphere. the findings of the study support the views of kuh et al. (2006), stating that class participation has positive and profound impacts on achievement in that participation and engagement have been assessed as the central theme since it connects learners’ behaviours and institutions’ objectives and conditions. moreover, the positive effect of class participation, which is expressed as one of the 156 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 148-160 akpur, u. (does class participation predict academic achievement?) primary elements for the learning process (sarıtepeci, 2012; syaveny & johari, 2017) has also been highlighted by permatasari (2016) who suggests that class participation is thought to enhance students’ cognitive abilities and naturally their academic performance. the findings of the current study highlight the mentioned assumptions and are in line with several studies conducted in different settings. although the level of the aforementioned positive correlation varies from one study to another, the link between the variables has been well stated and determined. studies conducted by syaveny and johari (2017), gürer (2013), marks (2000), liu and jackson (2009), and fakeye (2013) have pointed that the more students participate, the higher grades they have in terms of academic achievement. further, mijatovic and jednak (2011) in their study have suggested that the experience of class participation is a strong predictor of academic achievement. in kelsen and liyang’s (2012) study, it has been emphasized that participation in english-taught programs is one of most significant indicators of academic achievement. furthermore, ko et al., (2016), analysing over 18.000 students’ replies, argue that class participation is one of the important variables that has strong influence on learning outcomes. on the other hand, in the study of niia et al. (2015), it has been concluded that parents, teachers and students attribute different meanings to the notion of participation and its relationship to the academic achievement. for the students, in the study, class participation is a means of socializing while the teachers view it as an activity which is closely connected with academic achievement. the qualitative data gained through the present study have also yielded to important findings. first of all, the majority of students have underlined the fact that participating in class activities or learning-related activities affect their performance in the learning process positively. said another way, the dominant views during the interview have been grounded on the idea that anything related to participation promotes motivation which, in the end, have reflections on the academic achievement in a positive way. from the qualitative portion of the study it has also been highlighted that there are some factors affecting class participation such as interests, gains, and respect from the teacher and peers as well as classroom climate. from the content analysis, it is possible to draw the conclusion that these factors are of almost equal importance with effect of participation over performance. it is observed that in some other studies too, the factors that have influence over performance have been stressed. a study conducted by susak (2016) which examines the factors that affect class participation has underlined that logistics, student traits, classroom climate, and the teacher’s effect influence participation activities. similarly, ghalley and rai (2019) have concluded that teachers, peers, the size of the classroom, preparation for the class and proficiency in language are the main factors that influence class participation. in another study conducted by precourt and gainor (2019), the featured factors in class participation have been sorted as class schedule, class duration and semester. in the same study, it is also concluded that the students who take part in class activities more in classroom discussions perform 25% better on exams than the ones who display lower participation activities. further, aziz et al. (2018) in their study have found that self-esteem and motivation as internal factors; teachers, parents, peers and curriculum as the external factors influence participation in classrooms. in the light of empirical findings and theoretical frames, it can be concluded that the factors affecting class participation vary from one context to another, thus requiring special consideration peculiar to a specific context. 4. conclusion as an overall conclusion, it can be concluded that class participation is a significant variable in terms of promoting motivation, self-confidence and thus academic achievement. it is also particularly helpful to identify and set forth the factors that affect achievement. from the current study, it has been found that class participation is an important variable that has a deep influence over the concept of achievement. the present study leads to some educational implications, as well. in the first place, what is to be highlighted regarding teachers’ role in classes is to create convenient atmospheres to promote participation as much as possible where students can feel themselves free and comfortable in joining. in this respect, it gains prominence that the students should be encouraged to engage in class activities by teachers. secondly, teachers and policy makers have to make point of providing positive attitudes to students’ efforts towards participation as it has been emphasized as an important factor that leads to the frequency of participation. it is a known fact that the fear of being ridiculed by their peers, lack of self-confidence and lack of courage could prevent students from participating in the classroom activities. in the present study, the participants of the issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 157 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 148-160 akpur, u. (does class participation predict academic achievement?) focus group mentioned similar points, which could hinder their eagerness to participate. at this point, getting to know the names of students, making them study in pairs, listening and responding them appropriately, giving importance to their ideas, creating a class atmosphere in which they can teach each other and using technological tools that help them express their ideas freely could contribute to create a non-threatening classroom climate in which their ideas and feelings are valued. it is to be made point of a couple of certain limitations of the present study. in the first place, the data that were analysed gained from the university students attending preparatory classes. studying with the students from other nationalities, departments, sections and age groups may yield to different findings. in addition, although it might cause certain difficulties in the process of contentanalysis, the number of the focus-group members could be increased more to get more accurate results. references: albertson, b. p. 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(2014). measuring engagement in fourth to twelfth grade classrooms: the classroom engagement inventory. school psychology quarterly, 29(4), 517 535. https://doi.org/10.1037/spq0000050 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 118 10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2370 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp: does the type of input matter? mojgan rashtchia,1, * , parisa yazdanib, 2 a islamic azad university, north tehran branch, islamic republic of iran, b tefl department, faculty of foreign languages, north tehran branch, islamic azad university, tehran, islamic republic of iran 1 mojgan.rashtchi@gmail.com* ; 2 parisa_yz@yahoo.com * corresponding author 1. introduction second language vocabulary acquisition, as a discrete domain of study, has stimulated numerous investigations and has contributed to sla researchers' understanding of the factors that affect the process of learning. according to cohen and weaver (2005), vocabulary learning has a significant role in the improvement of four language skills and can contribute to gaining communicative competence. a challenging task language learners face is how to retain the vocabulary they have learned. focus on the features of new words, contextual/ decontextualized learning, frequency of encounters, and noticing are factors that determine the degree of success in vocabulary learning (pellicer-sánchez, 2020). for retention of vocabulary, as nation and gu (2007) argue, memory, processing, storing, and using l2 words in productive ways can play decisive roles. pyc and rawson (2009) believe that deep processing of words in the cognitive framework of learners leads to more successful retention. craik and lockhart's (1972) information processing model explains that the level of processing is a determining factor in the storage of data in memory. a r t i c l e i n f o abstract article history received 09 july 2020 revised 29 july 2020 accepted 30 august 2020 nowadays, vocabulary as an influential domain in mastering second/foreign languages has encouraged researchers to put forth conceptualizations that can substantiate the successful learning of words. this study used whatsapp to investigate the different impacts of two input modalities (voice messages vs. written texts) on efl learners' intentional learning and retention of words. to this end, 50 female efl learners in two intact classes (n1=n2=25) were selected from a language institute in khorramabad, iran. the groups were randomly assigned to two treatment conditions. the results of a general english proficiency test verified their homogeneity at the outset. a standardized teacher-made vocabulary test assured the researchers that the words were unfamiliar to the learners. after the twelve-session treatment, which was integrated with conventional english teaching classes, another standardized vocabulary test was administered once immediately after the intervention and the second time after a two-week interval. the friedman repeated measures analysis showed a significant difference between the pretest and posttests. however, the results of the statistical analyses showed no statistically significant differences between the participants' performances on the immediate and delayed posttests. thus, the researchers concluded that the participants had not forgotten the words from the first to the second posttest indicating the efficacy of intentional vocabulary learning. additionally, no significant differences were found between the two groups showing the similar impacts of the input modality. the study has implications for efl teachers and educators whose focus is on tefl. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords input modality learning social networking whatsapp https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2370 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:mojgan.rashtchi@gmail.com mailto:parisa_yz@yahoo.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 119 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 rashtchi and yazdani (intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp...) the theories regarding working memory can also explain vocabulary retention. as a cognitive information storage processing system, working memory can facilitate the retention and utilization of information (baddeley, 1997). however, as proposed by baddeley (1986), working memory has a limited capacity, and the presentation of data via a single channel splits its function, and thus imposes a high cognitive load on it and can have a detrimental role in the process of learning (sweller &chandler, 1994). therefore, a balance in the presentation of learning materials contributes to the efficiency of using the limited working memory capacity and decreases cognitive load (baddeley, 1992). second language learners need to store information and engage in cognitive processing to transfer the target language to long-term memory, which is called the process of language retention (baddeley & hitch, 1974). as a result, employing a combination of input modalities is superior to a single modality input as small amounts of information are stored in two different paths or loops. according to the modality principle (atkinson, 2005; mayer, 2009), employing different instructional formats (paas, van gog, & sweller, 2010) can lead to successful retention. by using different types of input, learners can retain and utilize the information they need to accomplish tasks that require reasoning and comprehension (baddeley, 1986). thus, teachers' responsibility is to help learners successfully store and retrieve words by employing effective pedagogical methods in teaching. one way to do so is through the use of technology and social media in the classroom. by infusion of technology into efl classes, teachers can provide learners with the condition of dual contexts for learning vocabulary and expose them to a large amount of input (blake, 2008). researchers of the present study assumed that the use of whatsapp as an instructional tool could contribute to vocabulary learning. following isisag (2012), the researchers believed that the combination of the media with traditional teaching methods might offer new opportunities to promote the efficacy of foreign language teaching. in the efl setting of khorramabad, iran, where this research was conducted, explicit grammar and intentional vocabulary instructions dominate english classes. that is to say; learners are supposed to memorize the meaning of the words and do different exercises to learn grammar and vocabulary. one reason for such teaching strategies is that in university entrance examinations, students are supposed to be successful in multiple-choice word recognition tests. therefore, they mostly use memorization as the learning strategy. additionally, high school students do not have much opportunity to attend language classes due to the time constraints they experience preparing for the examination. thus, although research findings mostly support incidental vocabulary learning, the researchers' incentive was to find practical ways to enhance the students' learning conditions. one way was to increase the word encounters via whatsapp. they compared the effects of two input modalities: visual (reading) and audio (listening) to explore which type of input, combined with traditional classroom practices, could be more effective in enhancing participants' vocabulary knowledge. the researchers considered the interactive environment provided by the application, frequent exposure to language, and the possibility to use mobile phones anytime and anywhere as the opportunities to invest in them. the findings of this study may potentially provide insights into unlocking how the use of social networks can promote students' vocabulary retention. the article provides a literature review followed by the research questions and method of the study. detailed explanations are given regarding the participants, instruments, and classroom procedures. researchers' interpretations of the results section are given in the results section. the conclusion embraces some suggestions for further research and concluding remarks. social networking applications are types of internet websites in which individuals, groups, and organizations come together based on prevailing conditions and share their information, subjects, and contexts. moreover, the use of social networks as an educational method will cause creativity and interpersonal relationship (swist, collin, mccormack, & third, 2015). the use of social networking in generating online communities is prevalent among l2 practitioners. teachers create social groups to facilitate interaction with students beyond l2 classrooms (rashtchi & porkar, 2020). as defined by bryer and zavatarro (2001), social media are technologies that improve social interaction, make collaboration possible, and enable discussion among learners. social networks, as a modern tool, can assist l2 teachers and learners in accessing information quickly. blogs, wikis, media sharing tools, networking platforms, and virtual worlds are some social media types. their role in language learning has been the focus of some studies. for example, rashtchi and hajihassani (2010) showed the benefits of weblogs in improving efl learners' reading ability. in a qualitative 120 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 rashtchi and yazdani (intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp...) study, selwyn (2009) concluded that facebook could help university students overcome the challenges they encounter in their academic life. slim and hafedh (2019) investigated the impacts of using facebook on learning english for specific purposes. although no significant differences were specified in the experimental and control groups' achievements, the researchers found that employing facebook had resulted in developing a positive attitude among learners. one of the popular social networks is whatsapp, which has been used by some researchers for teaching vocabulary (jafari & chalak, 2016; bensalem, 2018). the researchers of the current study, in line with these researchers, postulated that the use of whatsapp could be an excellent source for drawing the learners' attention and facilitate learning new words. as siyanova-chanturia and webb (2016) put forth, in efl contexts, vocabulary learning is a big challenge for learners since instruction is limited to the classroom environment. the use of whatsapp could be a remedy for learners to have a more frequent encounter with words. the results of previous studies on the decisive role of technology in vocabulary retention (hermagustiana & rusmawaty, 2017; ma & kelly, 2006; rashtchi & aghili, 2014) also stimulated the researchers to examine the efficacy of the social network as a tool for vocabulary learning. a review of the literature indicates that one of the major concerns of researchers in vocabulary teaching is examining the usefulness of incidental or intentional vocabulary teaching (restrepo ramos, 2015). incidental learning is the result of meaning-focused activities in which learners gain the meaning of the words through reading or listening. however, intentional learning requires learners to focus on learning words and employ different activities "to explicitly focus students on learning words" (webb, 2020, p.5). generally speaking, most researchers believe that incidental learning obtained from the focus of attention on language use is a more effective process in vocabulary acquisition (zimmerman, 2014), and the efficacy of intentional learning is limited (webb, 2020). however, some researchers argue for the necessity of an explicit focus on vocabulary (deccarico, 2001). laufer (2005) emphasizes the importance of intentional vocabulary learning and believes that explicit learning of words contributes to their retention. webb (2020) maintains that intentional vocabulary learning serves as a basis for future meaning-based vocabulary acquisition. furthermore, all sla researchers have acknowledged the significant role of input in the process of language learning. however, the type and modality of input and conceptualization of how language learners manage data have been the source of much debate (doughty & long, 2003; ellis, 2008). according to vanpatten (2003), input is the language that a learner "hears or reads" and has "some kind of communicative intent" (p.25). as schwartz (1993) claimed, to improve the knowledge system of a specific language, the learner must be exposed to instances or exemplars of that particular language. without this type of exposure, language development will not occur. thus, input refers to all language samples used to communicate a message (vanpatten & leeser, 2006). additionally, the role of language input in information processing theories is essential since the frequency of the information embedded in the input helps language learners acquire the target language (nassaji & fotos, 2011). one factor which has received much emphasis in the discussion regarding input is attention. schmidt (2001) argues that attended learning is far superior, and for all practical purposes, attention is necessary for different aspects of l2 learning. the researchers of the current study assumed that by increasing the exposure of efl learners via whatsapp opportunities for learning and retention of vocabulary would increase. therefore, they proposed the following research questions for a quasi-experimental study with a non-equivalent control group pretestposttest design: rq1: is there a change in the vocabulary knowledge of the group that receives text messages via whatsapp from pretest to immediate and delayed posttests? rq2: is there a change in the vocabulary knowledge of the group that receives voice messages via whatsapp from pretest to immediate and delayed posttests? rq3: does the type of teacher-provided input (voice vs. written messages) via whatsapp have different impacts on efl learners' vocabulary learning and retention? issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 121 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 rashtchi and yazdani (intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp...) 2. research method 2.1. participants fifty school girls aged between 16 and 17 at the intermediate level of language proficiency (b1, according to the common european framework of reference for languages) took part in this study. the participants, selected based on convenience sampling, were studying in two intact classes in a language institute in khorramabad, iran. the results of a general english proficiency test (gpt) revealed that the participants were homogenous, with scores clustering around the mean (±1 sd above and below the mean). the groups were randomly assigned to the voice message group (vmg) and the text message group (tmg). 2.2. instruments the researchers employed three instruments for data collection; a general english proficiency test, a vocabulary pretest, and a vocabulary posttest administered twice (as immediate and delayed posttests). a general proficiency test (gpt) in two sections adopted from the cambridge preliminary english test 7 (2012) was employed to explore whether the participants were at the same level of language proficiency at the onset of the study. the reading part of the test consisted of 35 reading questions, and the writing part comprised three parts, which examined a range of writing skills. questions 1-5 carried one mark each. item 6 was marked out of five, and items 7 and 8 were marked out of 15, giving a total of 25. the allocated time for the test was one hour. the reliability of the test estimated via cronbach's alpha showed an acceptable index (r= .893). the inter-rater reliability of the writing section computed through pearson's r showed a high consistency between the two raters (r=.843). the second instrument was a 30-item vocabulary achievement test developed by the researchers. the test contained the textbook's new words that the students were going to study during the semester. it could ensure the researchers that the participants were not familiar with the terms before the treatment. two english language teachers with ten years of experience verified its content validity after some revisions (appendix a). the test was piloted, and its agreement (brown, 2005) calculated through cohen's kappa coefficient was .569. the researchers developed another 30-item vocabulary test parallel to the pretest. that is, the words were the same as the pretest but appeared in a new context (appendix b). the purpose of the test was to examine the vocabulary achievement of the participants after the treatment. two experienced teachers reviewed the test and attested to its content validity. then the test was piloted, and its agreement using cohen's kappa formula revealed an acceptable index (ƙ=.57). the items of the immediate posttest were shuffled for the delayed posttest to control the practice effect. the time allocated for each vocabulary test was 30 minutes. the total number of the target words the participants were supposed to learn was sixty. 2.3. piloting tests before the treatment, the two teacher-made tests (pretest and posttest) were piloted among 25 students bearing almost the same characteristics as the main study participants. following brown (2005), for validating the achievement tests, as a criterionreferenced test (crt), the pilot group was selected from those who knew the words. the reason was to examine whether there were any malfunctioning items. if the students who knew the words could not perform successfully on the test, then the researchers could conclude that the test was not appropriate. the skewness ratios of the pretest and posttest scores were -2.55 and -2.69 (obtained from dividing statistic by standard error), respectively. since skewness ratios (-2.55 and -2.69) exceeded the legitimate range of normal distribution (±1.96), the two sets of scores were not normally distributed, indicating that the testtakers knew the words (table 1). table 1. descriptive statistics for piloting the vocabulary pretest & posttest n min. max. mean sd skewness statistic std error pretest 25 4.00 30.00 20.36 6.663 -1.185 .464 posttest 25 4.00 29.00 20.28 6.717 -1.252 .464 122 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 rashtchi and yazdani (intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp...) 2.4. materials the coursebook was english-phil uee test-prep (anari & ghoreyshi, 2016), usually used for learners who are going to attend the university entrance examination in iran. 2.5. procedure the classes took six weeks, each week, two 90-minute sessions, 18 hours in total. gpt was administered to both groups in the first session. after ensuring that all participants had whatsapp on their mobile phones, the teacher, who was one of the researchers, created a whatsapp group for each study group and provided explanations regarding the instructional purposes of the social networking group. in the second session, the researchers administered the vocabulary pretest to ensure that the participants did not know the meaning of the target words before the treatment. 2.6. voice message group (vmg) the teacher started the classes by writing the new words of the lesson on the board and providing explanations, synonyms, and antonyms for each item. then she read the passage while students were engaged in silent reading (the reading while listening process). meanwhile, the teacher referred to the parts of speech of the words and exemplified each in a few sentences. afterward, the students completed a worksheet in three sections to practice the new words explicitly. the first section contained some fill-in-the-blanks exercises and matching word lists with their equivalents. in the next section, learners had to write the meaning of the new words in their l1 (persian) or english. the last part of the worksheets was sentence production with given terms. at the end of the session, the teacher spot-checked the students by asking the meaning of the words. one day after the class, the teacher shared her recorded voice message on the whatsapp group for five new words. she pronounced the new terms for three times expressively to attract the students' attention. she provided definitions, synonyms, and antonyms for each word. the students were encouraged to listen to the files as many times as they needed to memorize the words. they could ask questions or require further explanations from the teacher or other classmates. 2.7. text message group (tmg) the classroom procedure for this group was the same as vmg. however, instead of sharing voice messages, the teacher sent text messages. she wrote the vocabulary items and highlighted them to make them salient. also, she provided definitions, synonyms, and antonyms for the words. similar to the vmg, tmg members were encouraged to memorize the words and their meanings. they could interact with the teacher or peers when they had any queries. 2.8. posttest after the 12-session treatment, the participants took two vocabulary posttests. the first administration was on the 13th session, and the other was after a two-week interval to examine vocabulary retention. 3. findings and discussion table 2 shows the descriptive statistics obtained from the administration of gpt to the groups. the results show that the mean scores of vmg (m=42.3, sd=2.16) and tmg (m=41.5, sd=2.93) were close to each other. the results of the skewness indicated that the distributions of scores in both groups were normal (0.95 for vmg and 0.49 for tmg, both ratios falling between ±1.96, obtained from dividing statistic by standard error), and running parametric tests enjoyed legitimacy. table 2. descriptive statistics of gpt scores by groups n min. max. mean sd skewness statistic statistic statistic statistic statistic statistic std. error tmg 25 36.00 48.00 41.5600 2.93442 .231 .464 vmg 25 37.00 46.00 42.3000 2.16025 -.441 .464 valid n (listwise) 25 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 123 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 rashtchi and yazdani (intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp...) the levene's f =2.378, p >.05) indicated that the assumption of the homogeneity of variances was assumed. the results of the independent samples t-test showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the means of the groups, t (48) = 1.01, p>0.05. thus, the researchers concluded that the participants in the two groups shared the same level of language proficiency and were homogenous. table 3 shows the descriptive statistics obtained from the administration of the pretest and the immediate and delayed posttests. table 3. descriptive statistics vocabulary pretest min. max. mean sd pretest tmg 2.00 14.00 6.24 2.79 vmg 2.00 15.00 7.08 2.52 total 2.00 15.00 6.66 2.66 immediate posttest tmg 11.00 30.00 22.88 4.76 vmg 12.00 30.00 23.04 4.83 total 11.00 30.00 22.96 4.75 delayed posttest tmg 13.00 30.00 22.20 4.12 vmg 15.00 30.00 22.36 4.42 total 13.00 30.00 22.28 4.23 the kolmogorov-smirnov test was conducted to examine the normality of the distribution of the scores in the three vocabulary tests. the p values larger than .05 indicated normality (p>.05); however, since some of the p values were smaller than .05, the researchers had to use nonparametric tests. two non-parametric tests of friedman repeated measures anova were performed to compare the performances of the tmg and vmg from time 1 (pretest) to time 2 (immediate posttest) and time 3 (delayed posttest) to answer the first and second research questions. table 7 shows the results of the test (χ2 (2, 24) = 39.4, p < .001) for tmg. as the results of the p-value indicate, there is a significant difference between the performances of tmg in the pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest. table 4. tmg friedman test, pretest, immediate, & delayed posttests n 25 chi-square 39.402 df 2 asymp. sig. .000 in the next step, wilcoxon tests were run to help the researchers locate where the difference(s) lay. the results of the wilcoxon test indicated that the difference between the posttests and the pretest scores was statistically significant (mean rank of 0.00 versus 25.5, z = 6.16, p <.001). in contrast, the difference between the delayed posttest and the immediate posttest scores (mean rank of 21.35 versus 22.15, z = .73, p > .05) was not significant. this finding indicates that the participants were successful in vocabulary retention and had not forgotten the words from the immediate posttest to the delayed posttest. the effect size obtained from dividing z by the square root of cases (25x3) is 0.7, which using cohen's (1988) criteria, indicates a large effect size indicating that 7 percent of the change in the dependent variable was due to the treatment. friedman repeated-measures anova was performed to examine the effectiveness of the voice messages on the participants' vocabulary learning and retention. as the results of the test (χ2 (2, 24) = 41.583, p < .001) indicate (table 5), there is a statistically significant difference between the performances of vmg in the pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest. 124 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 rashtchi and yazdani (intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp...) table 5. vmg friedman test, pretest, immediate, & delayed posttests n 25 chi-square 41.583 df 2 asymp. sig. .000 two wilcoxon tests were conducted to examine where exactly the differences suggested by friedman test occurred. table 6 shows the ranks of the scores in each test. table 6. ranks statistics of wilcoxon test, vmg n mean rank sum of ranks immediate posttest &pretest negative ranks 0a .000 .000 positive ranks 25b 13.00 325.00 ties 0c total 25 delayed posttest &immediate posttest negative ranks 16d 10.91 174.50 positive ranks 5e 11.30 56.50 ties 4f total 25 as the results of the wilcoxon test showed, the immediate posttest results were significantly different from the pretest (mean rank of 0.00 versus 13.0, z = 4.38, p <.001); and the delayed posttest scores were significantly different from the posttest scores (mean rank of 11.3 versus 10.91, z = 2.73, p < .05). the lack of a statistically significant difference between the immediate and delayed posttests shows that the participants in vmg could remember the words they had learned. the effect size (r= .5.), using cohen's (1988) criteria, indicates a large effect size. quade's rank analysis of covariance was conducted to explore further the difference between the effects of the two treatments. to do so, first, both immediate posttest and delayed posttest scores of the participants were ranked. then, a linear regression of the ranks was performed, and the residuals were saved. table 7 shows the descriptive statistics of the residuals for delayed posttest scores from immediate posttest scores. table 7. residual statistics, delayed posttest scores from immediate posttest scores min. max. mean sd n predicted value 12.2381 28.1910 22.2800 3.98887 50 residual -3.15321 2.52604 .00000 1.41736 50 std. predicted value -2.517 1.482 .000 1.000 50 std. residual -2.202 1.764 .000 .990 50 finally, a mann-whitney u test was run to probe the difference between the ranks of the two groups. as the results indicated, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups (u = .309, p > .05) regarding their ranks in the delayed posttests compared to the immediate posttests. in other words, the results of the test showed that while the two groups were successful in learning the words and remembering them, the type of input did not cause any statistically significant differences between the groups. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 125 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 rashtchi and yazdani (intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp...) fig. 1. line graph of two groups' progress in three tests the affirmative answers to the first and second research questions showed that intentional vocabulary learning strategies via whatsapp were useful for learning and retaining new words. however, the type of input (voice vs. text messaging), as proposed by the third research question, did not cause any statistically significant differences between the groups. the study showed that activities related to intentional vocabulary learning and memorization could help learners have mental access to the delayed posttest words. as barcroft (2015) argues, focus on learning vocabulary and disregarding other language-related activities can be the key to the efficacy of intentional learning. besides, in intentional learning, learners voluntarily use all possible techniques and strategies they have developed during their schooling to overcome the barriers which impede their success. likewise, it can be assumed that the whatsapp messages allowed the learners to employ their preferred strategies for vocabulary learning, as the participants tried to learn individually and at their own pace. as nation (2013) puts forth, a considerable proportion of vocabulary learning relies on using appropriate strategies. regarding the present study, motivation and desire to learn were additional factors that affected the results since the participants were getting ready to take the university entrance examination. another reason for the efficacy of intentional vocabulary learning was that whatsapp increased the frequency of exposure to the new words (pellicer-sánchez, 2020). peters (2014) found that repeated exposure could have a significant impact on vocabulary learning. also, the finding by alali and schmitt (2012) lends some support to the role of repetition in vocabulary learning. the researchers assume that the reiteration of the words in the messages that the students received after explicit class instruction could have a vital role in learning and remembering vocabulary. also, the ubiquitous learning provided by mobile phones could have a decisive role in learning the words. an alternative possibility for the success of the participants could be the integration of two modes of learning. during the treatment, the conventional in-class learning in which learners were engaged mostly in paper and pencil activities followed by out-of-class technology-based learning put a less cognitive load on their working memory (baddeley,1997). that is to say, the combination of exercises that required production (i.e., doing worksheets and answering to teacher's questions), and receptive activities (i.e., listening to or reading messages in whatsapp group) could lead to better results in vocabulary learning. 126 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 rashtchi and yazdani (intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp...) the findings emphasize the role of social networking in vocabulary learning. using such tools is mainly useful in efl settings where learners do not have adequate opportunities to encounter the target language. receiving messages from the teacher via whatsapp could give the learners the advantage of regulating their study time according to their schedule. also, individualized learning inherent in the use of mobile phones for educational purposes frees the participants from the pressure of keeping pace with the class, which itself can impede learning (rashtchi & tollabi mazraehno, 2019; tanner & london, 2009). employing the strategies that were compatible with their personality characteristics and learning styles could be another reason for the participants' success in vocabulary learning. placing the burden of learning on the shoulders of the participants can trigger their sense of responsibility and foster autonomous learning. the amount of mental processing involved in the learning of the words can also be another explanation for the findings. the classroom practices, along with the presentation of words via whatsapp, could bring about a deep mental involvement that is assumed to be effective in increasing the learners' attention to the words (nation, 2013). in the same vein, godfroid, boers, and housen (2013) maintain that giving some attention can lead to long-term memory storage. this conclusion can find support from the noticing hypothesis proposed by alali and schmidt (2012). this study revealed that english teachers could benefit from social networking, such as whatsapp, via mobile phones to teach vocabulary to efl learners since they are easy to use and preferred by many learners. the findings showed that whatsapp could encourage students to learn vocabulary since it has the advantage of extending learning to outside classroom settings. it can also connect students with the teacher and other classmates at any time and in any place. the present study signifies the importance of looking for more attractive ways of providing input for efl learners. 4. conclusion the study showed that whatsapp could help develop efl learners' vocabulary knowledge and have a lasting impact on remembering the words they have learned. besides, the type of input that the learners receive, the attraction adolescents have toward using mobiles and social networking could have an impact on increasing their motivation for learning vocabulary. the tendency of learners to use mobile phones regularly during their daily-life activities, if used for learning purposes, can increase the frequency of exposure required for vocabulary learning. the study results can encourage teachers to consider the use of social networking platforms and applications as a possibility for increasing the learners' encounter with language in efl settings. material developers can draw on the results of this study to make informed decisions on how to adopt technology in teaching vocabulary in different courses. however, the use of social networking for language teaching still needs further investigations, particularly concerning productive language skills. one limitation of the present study was that the participants were limited to girls. therefore, the results should be generalized to both genders cautiously. this study was also limited in considering the participants' preferences and personality factors. further studies may consider learner characteristics as a variable to investigate in the domain of vocabulary learning integrated with social media. additionally, interested researchers may explore the participants' perceptions regarding the use of social media for vocabulary learning. references alali, f. a., & schmitt, n. 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(2014). teaching and learning vocabulary for second language learners. in m. celcemurcia, d. m. brinton, & m. a. snow (eds.), teaching english as a second or foreign language (288302). boston, ma: national geographic learning. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=m.+rafael+salaberry&stick=h4siaaaaaaaaaopge-lrt9c3nerkm7aoqyhq4tlp1tdink43tajuus4ot9jpzs_jsu0uyczp0y8vyiwpsc2ll88vyi62sk3jlmkvwsqq7kunejsylpiaoxccmjoylfpuvlmdlreacxa9jvoaaaa&sa=x&ved=2ahukewjjj9bb8zxqahuchxokhqmvaxaqmxmoataqegqicxad 130 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 rashtchi and yazdani (intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp...) appendix a vocabulary pretest 1. do you think i made a good impression on your parents? "impression" means ……. result effect support habit 2. you should have …… goals, or else you will be disappointed. achievable readable agreeable advisable 3. a group of people having the same religion, job, etc. are a ……. category community government missionary 4. the time between the final exam and telling the result of students is a period of real ….. for most students. comfort suffering enjoyment involvement 5. tom has invited all of us to dinner tonight because of his recent …… at work. promotion result posture conclusion 6. jane has just been ……, which means a company car and an extra five thousand pounds. earned promoted explored proposed 7. the project will be a success if we can only get the …… to put it into action. finance entrance realization procedure 8. the government should act quickly to help people in ……. . poverty struggle extinction region 9. they say that they should spend as much money as needed to improve the country's telephone …. device region procedure network 10. my parents will …… my mail to italy while i am teaching there. forward provide operate recall 11. the managers have ………… a number of circumstances to the agreement. combined restated arranged attached 12. we were glad to see that the ………. of more wood to the fire made it brighter and warmer addition formation pollution location 13. i haven't been to china ………, but i have read a lot of books about its culture and people. entirely personally immediately internationally 14. you should prepare all your …….. carefully before applying for a passport. comments documents occasions statements 15. i asked the children to slow down because i was not able to ……. them any longer. call out to make up with keep up with run away form 16. the traffic was too heavy as it was raining hard, so we reached the ……… two hours late. destination expectation occasion exploration 17. mr. alavi is interested in asian countries, so he went on a long journey of …….into china. prediction destination exploration communication 18. mary was not in a good mood, so she welcomed her guests with a (n)…… smile on her face. brilliant primary artificial effective 19. wet weather is a ……… of life in many countries of the world like scotland. period 2. manner feature sample issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 131 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 rashtchi and yazdani (intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp...) 20. mr. karimi has always been dreaming of traveling to ……. lands, particularly the ones in south america. global complex flexible distant 21. dr. javadi is a ……… of this kind of operation human heart in the world. layer winner gesture pioneer 22. i worry about the ………. effect that violent films may have on children. destructive repetitive irrelevant nervous 23. bill escaped from ……… by going to he cinema every afternoon. function reality certainly capacity 24. trying to ……… the weather is not an easy job, as it requires specialized equipment. estimate mention forecast express 25. we were late getting to the airport, but ….. for us; the plane was delayed. luckily basically certainly entirely 26. i would like to know how helen manages to keep …. before examinations. firm calm similar natural 27. as a student he lived very ……, rarely going out and buying very few clothes. economically scientifically necessarily emotionally 28. the village was a scene of immense peace, far ….. from the tensions of city life. bothered removed stretched survived 29. i would prefer not to travel to a country like canada in winter because it gets ……. cold. previously necessarily extremely anxiously 30. the government has several plans to remove ……… and raise living standards. reality capacity charity poverty appendix b vocabulary immediate and delayed posttests 1. mary was chosen for the job because she was ….. to the others. conscious voluntary fashionable superior 2. our schools should …… more time to scientific subjects. raise devote transfer express 3. i can say with …… that there will be no more discussion today. capacity experience certainty impression 4. a person who goes to another country to teach people about religion is called a …… teacher missionary passenger psychologist 5. these days the business has got into …… difficulties. financial flexible emotional facial 6. we don't exactly know what happened; bill only gave a /an …… of the events. mistake density outline article 7. many adults seem to know little about some of the most …… sciences. emotional elementary voluntary repetitive 8. i try to ………… two hours every night to my school work. estimate devote spend enhance 9. you can buy a / an ……. version of the dictionary and save money in this way. regular national electronic reasonable 10. i don't like seeing animals in a zoo. i prefer to see them in their natural ….. areas. relaxed surrounding contrasting individual 11. our luggage was checked through to our final ….. . situation destination observation connection 12. i think we have just enough gasoline to reach our ……. destination imagination extinction inaction 13. my parents will …… my mails to china while i am working there. stick forward compose mention 14. john doesn't seem to be happy that he is …… to our tokyo branch next month. joining hiring transferring devoting 15. we were waiting …… for my father coming back from mecca. 132 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 rashtchi and yazdani (intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp...) smoothly anxiously personally necessarily 16. will you quickly …… me on what has been happening. update include promise concentrate 17. i think we started our business with each other …… two years ago. exactly recently brightly silently 18. the pilot ……… the plane safely, but there was a crash afterward. landed located reacted floated 19. a: "how many scientists took part in the conference?" b: "……… 50 ones." mostly nearly primarily immediately 20. i think the plane is ……. in a few minutes. turning on making up turning up taking off 21. each school's central …….. should be to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. mission occasion expression permission 22. the window were …… all night because of the wind. relaxing suffering wrestling rattling 23. most high buildings are ….. in the north of our city. . located interested attached entered 24. it is …….. knowledge that swimming is one of the best forms of exercise. serious average common efficient 25. we need to make changes in the …… for collecting taxes. practice involvement mechanism statement 26. the pilot of the airplane had to make a/an …….. landing because of the terrible weather. mystery emergency strategy density 27. every packet of cigarettes should come with a government health warning which is …… to it. attached forced forbidden promised 28. as i know, sally had sold only twelve pictures …… to friends and family. recently formally mostly reasonably 29. vitamins cannot be …… by our bodies; we get them from what we eat or drink. involved manufactured concentrated accepted 30. experts …… that, on average, the world loses a language every two weeks. annoy explore estimate measure english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 34 10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3227 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context: paper-based and product-based instructions piyawan rungwaraphong faculty of commerce and management prince of songkla university, trang campus, 102 khuan pring, mueang trang district, trang 92000, thailand piyawan.r@psu.ac.th a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 15 december 2021 revised 16 april 2021 accepted 20 april 2021 the study reported in this article compared two different inductive instructional methods implemented in a business english writing training, including paper-based instruction (ppi) and product-based instruction (pdi). it assessed the effectiveness and examined practical issues of the implementation of each method. a total of 46 thai students majoring in a business english program at a thai university participated in this study. the students were randomly divided into two groups and put into either the ppi or pdi training module. the researcher collected data from direct observations, focused-group discussions, and students’ writing scores. qualitative data from the focused-group discussions and observation field notes were analyzed thematically using the grounded theory, while cross-examination was utilized for students’ writing scores. the study results indicate that the fundamental dichotomies between both approaches include tangibility, authenticity, and contextuality. students’ difficulties in formulating grammar and writing rules on their own and students’ perception of learning as a burden were found as challenges in both modules. the findings also indicate that both the ppi and pdi modules trigger classroom dynamics and a positive atmosphere; however, pdi resulted in more vigorous dynamics as student movements and interactions were relatively higher. finally, this study’s findings are beneficial for instructors seeking innovative instructional methodology to improve their business english writing teaching. the study has contributed to the field of teaching business english writing. the study’s findings have helpful implications for lecturers of business english writing, who are looking for a teaching approach that enables them to create opportunities for students to learn in authentic, professional environments, contexts, and cultures cast in real-life business situations. this is an open-access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords english writing efl inductive tangible teaching how to cite: rungwaraphong, p. (2021). inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context: paper-based and product-based instructions. english language teaching educational journal, 4(1), 34-48. doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3227 1. introduction in efl contexts, the goal of business english writing courses provided in higher education is dual: firstly, to improve students’ command of business-related english, and secondly, to provide a good grounding and adequate understanding of the principles of business so that students can create business-related content. challenges in teaching business english writing for efl students are student engagement in writing tasks and covering the writing materials or tasks. additionally, particularly in efl contexts, uncovering teaching approaches that assist students in achieving the dual goal of business english writing is essential. however, literature undertaken so far suggests significant file:///e:/download/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3227 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:piyawan.r@psu.ac.th http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0853-0597 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3227&domain=pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 35 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) differences between business english writing in educational contexts and english writing required in real-life business situations (hollis-turne & scholtz, 2010). it is important that business writing courses consist of learning activities and tasks that enable students to transfer knowledge from the classroom to what is required of them in the workplace. this suggests a need for a teaching approach that will create a linkage between the two situations; the approach, at the same time, must not forget to focus on the development of the grammatical and syntactic aspects of the english language. in searching for an instructional approach that ensures both students’ development of english writing competence and the capability to transfer writing skills from the academic environment to the workplace, the researcher framed two instructional methods upon the theory of inductive references. both teaching methods involve the students observing examples of the target language provided by the teacher, identifying patterns or concepts implicit in those examples, formulating rules or principles, and applying or creating a piece of work using those rules or principles in the target language. the differences exist in the process of eliciting data for the writing. the study reported in this article seeks to evaluate and compare the implementation and the challenges of the two instructional approaches implemented in english writing contexts; both are inductive-based and designed by the researcher to serve the dual goal of business english writing teaching. the inductive instruction methods investigated include paper-based instruction and product-based instruction (hereafter called ppi and pdi, respectively). results from this study make contributions to the field of teaching business english writing. the study’s findings have helpful implications for lecturers of business english writing, who are looking for a teaching approach that enables students to write professionally and learn in authentic, professional environments. 1.1. business writing in real business vs. academic contexts business writing courses provided in academic contexts aim to ensure that students become competent in producing business writing genres that they will be required to produce in the workplace. however, literature about business writing indicates a vast difference between business writing courses provided by educational institutions and business writing required by graduates to complete in real business environments. the difference is rooted in the fact that business writing offered at universities is influenced by educational policies and educational requirements such as curriculum and assessment. likewise, hollis-turner and scholtz’s (2010) study of business writing in academic and workplace contexts claims that the disjuncture results from the different requirements that higher education and the real-life working world have. recognizing the above disjuncture, business writing lecturers try to stimulate business writing prevalent in real business contexts. however, they frequently have “to simplify and de-contextualize” (hollis-turner& scholtz, 2010, p.241) documents and learning tasks for learning purposes. the decontextualization of teaching business writing also occurs because of the audience. al-mohammadi and derbel (2015) pointed out that the teacher is the sole audience of students’ works in the classroom. however, the students may not perceive their teacher as the audience of their writing; instead, they generally perceive the teacher as the evaluator. the study’s findings claim that students’ awareness of the audience is important as it affects their writing performance. the study suggests that decontextualized writing activities should be avoided, and the teacher should clearly define the “particular audience” in all writing tasks and assignments. the study by albino (2015) examined the effect of an explicit genre-based approach to teaching writing for learners of english as a foreign language in the workplace. the study results suggest that an explicit genre-based approach is a suitable approach in teaching writing for the workplace for efl learners. whether business writing should be taught with contextualization or de-contextualization, or implicitly or explicitly, is still controversial. no matter which approach is employed in teaching business writing, contextualizing or de-contextualizing, or explicitly or implicitly, the lecturers need to be aware of the demands of the real business world and train the students to meet the demands of the business world (arputhamalar & kannan, 2015). this signifies that learning activities or exercises in class must be designed in ways that bridge the gap between academic and business contexts while enhancing students’ capability to transfer what is taught in the classroom to what is required in the workplace (hollis-turner & scholtz, 2010). 36 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) 1.2 deductive & inductive approaches nunan (1999) described the deductive teaching approach as the instructional method that begins with “rules and principles and then applies the rules to particular examples and instances” (p.305). examples given to students are often de-contextualized, and the students may not be required to make meaning of the structures presented. at the end of the lesson, the students produce their sentences by applying the rules highlighted by the teacher (thornbury, 1999). in this light, deductive teaching underlines top-down reasoning, moving from more general to more specific. in contrast to the deductive approach, the inductive approach works the other way around. it is called a “bottom-up” approach, deriving general rules and principles from specific examples. according to thornbury (1999), the inductive approach begins with the examples given to the students. the students then observe and notice patterns implicit in the examples provided. they formulate the rules or principles, and after that, apply the patterns or rules in the target language. rizzuto (1970) regarded the inductive method as the discovery experience in which the learner is accompanied by the teacher’s guidance and verbal cues. however, the deductive method is regarded as a “didactic expository” (rizzuto, 1970, p. 269) learning mode. learners do not need to make any discovery and are directly exposed to the lessons. the experimental comparison of both deductive and inductive methods concluded that the inductive approach is the superior language teaching method. the deductive method brings about greater learning in the initial stage, and the time it takes to learn is diminutive. in contrast, the inductive method consumes more time as it requires students to discover language structure concepts independently. however, it renders better retention in the long term. in the same light, thornbury (1999) notes that knowledge acquired through inductive instructional methods is more profound than ones through deductive methods. an inductive approach, as compared to a deductive approach, is a more complex and indirect instructional method and functions in the higher level of the learner’s cognitive domain. according to rüütmann and kipper (2011), the sequence of learning – “facts-rules-action” in the deductive approach and “concepts-patternsabstractions” in the inductive approach – results in differences in learning outcomes, particularly problem-solving and critical-thinking. importantly, inductive teaching methods are believed to trigger learners’ autonomy. it shifts learners’ roles, from the learner as the receiver of knowledge to the learner as the actor of the learning process-actively discovering rules (motha, 2013). in language education, induction is associated with a human’s first language acquisition. that is to say, humans learn and acquire their first language implicitly and inductively. as vygotsky (1986) explained, human cognition initiates from social communication and involvement in social activities. in the same light, perfors (2014) maintained that children learn and acquire their first language by induction; they hear specific examples of phonemes, morphology, words, and sentences, from which they formulate the general principles of the language. 1.3. paper-based instruction and product-based instruction (ppi & pdi) the researcher designed and created paper-based instruction (ppi) and product-based instruction (pdi) in response to a call for a teaching approach that will ensure the transfer of skills taught in academic contexts to skills required in real business situations. both instructional approaches embrace rizzuto’s (1970) inductive teaching philosophy, emphasizing learners’ opportunities to discover knowledge. ppi and pdi give equal importance to lecturers’ and students’ skills to communicate dialogically and interrogate their learning process. literature shows that dialogic communication and interrogation in the classroom, either student-student or teacher-student, play an essential role in students’ knowledge acquisition. rungwaraphong (2018) emphasized the importance of teacher’s questioning skills, including choosing, crafting, and using questions with students to achieve learning goals. these skills determine both the quantity and quality of communication during the learning process. dialogue differs from ordinary conversation or discussion in terms of the atmosphere and goal. it emphasizes the process of questioning and responding and welcomes different points of view regarding the disharmony of voices as an opportunity for deeper understanding (rungwaraphong, 2018). figure 1 illustrates tasks and learning activities underpinning each instructional module. each step in this diagram portrays the learning activities required for english writing. as illustrated in figure 1, both inductive modules implemented in english writing cover eight steps, sharing five common procedures, while the differences exist in the other three procedures. just like other inductive approaches, both the ppi and the pdi approaches showing, noticing, discovering, and discussing. both e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 37 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) inductive approaches require the students to notice and analyze examples of writing pieces; discovering writing rules occurs through this analysis. the differences between the two methods line in steps 4, 5, and 8. after the discovery and formulation of rules in steps 2 and 3, the medium for writing, the product to be written about, is introduced. in the ppi method, the students are given product factsheets, which contain detailed information pertaining to the product. in this light, the students perform the given product analysis but do so with the product images, not the authentic products. fig. 1. comparison of procedures and learning activities in ppi & pdi modules 1.4. research objectives the study aimed to investigate the two methods’ dichotomy, examine practical issues of the implementation, including the challenges of each method, and give suggestions for english instructors who wish to adopt either of these two methods in their english writing class. the study specifically sought to answer the following three research questions: 1. what are the similarities and differences in the implementation between these two inductive modules? 2. what are the challenges of each inductive module? 3. which approach is more appropriate for teaching english writing to thai learners? 2. method 2.1 participants and setting the participants of the current study were 46 students from a thai university. all of them were second-year business english majors, aged approximately 19-20 years old. there were 10 (21.7%) 38 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) males and 36 (78.3%) females. all of them have taken two business writing courses prior to taking part in the study: fundamental english writing in year 1 and business english writing i in year 2. the participants were randomly divided into two equal groups and put into two writing training modules: the paper-based module and the product-based module. the researcher organized the training and sought to prepare business students to be effective writers and give high proportions of interactions and decisions required in written communication in business environments. 2.2 data collection three data collection methods were applied in gathering the data to answer the research questions: (1) direct observation, (2) focused group discussion, and (3) students’ writing scores. the collection methods will be discussed further in detail. 1) direct observation direct observation is a data collection method in which the researcher acts as the evaluator, watching the subjects in their usual environment without intruding or intervening. this method aims to assess behavior, events, or situations that are going on in their natural environment (adamson & wachsmuth,2017). as for the current study, the participants were directly observed during their participation in the learning activities in weeks 1-4. in each session, the researcher walked around the training room and observed each group while doing the assigned learning activities. the observations were overt, as the students were informed about the purpose of the observation. data from the observations were collected through non-motion photos and recorded in the researcher’s field notes, containing a list of processes or behaviors observed with space to record open-ended data. 2) focused group discussion focused group discussion was adopted to gain an in-depth understanding of using inductive approaches in teaching english writing. the study carried out two group discussions one discussion per module. each discussion group consisted of four students; each group selected their representative to join the discussion. questions asked in the discussion sought to elicit attitudinal responses and their perspectives on the instructional method they had experienced in the writing training. importantly, they were asked to select the most preferred module and give reasons for the preference. also, the participants were asked to report things they liked and disliked about each learning approach. the focused group discussions were administered in the final week of the research study and took about 20-30 minutes for each group discussion. the discussions were audio-recorded. 3) students’ writing scores the students in both training modules were to achieve the same goal: writing a product description. the researcher assessed their product descriptions using the same scoring criteria, which was adapted from huda and gumilang’s (2019) scoring rubric of writing test and peter’s (2016) blog on product description. the rubric assesses five elements of the strong product description, as illustrated in table 1. 2.3 research procedure each training module covered four weeks; there were two sessions a week, making eight sessions for each module. each session was 45 minutes. activities and tasks in both the ppi and pdi modules were organized around a cooperative learning ground. students were divided into groups of 4-5 members and carried out the given assignments on a group basis. in this light, the writing assignments were done as a group assignment. each module’s implementation follows steps described in paperbased instruction (ppi) and product-based instruction (pdi). the observations were conducted once a week (in weeks 1-4) to collect data, making eight observations in total. in week five, the students completed their product description and submitted it to the researcher. the research was closed with the focused-group discussions in week six. the research procedure and data collection are presented in figure 2. e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 39 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) fig. 2. research procedures note. the diagram shows the research methods used throughout the study. table 1. rubrics for assessing the product description assignment components score level indicator content 4 excellent present sufficient well-chosen information and features that focus on the product’s benefits and enable the reader to identify what the product is within the title easily. 3 good present information and features about the product that partly focus on the product’s benefits and reflect the product 2 fair present some information and features about the product, which make it hard for the reader to identify the product and perceive the benefits of the product 1 poor present no clear information and do not include sufficient features of the product vocabulary 4 excellent use powerful words that sell; vocabulary chosen focuses on benefits and results 3 good use words used that are not much powerful; and contain some errors in vocabulary but not interfere with understanding 2 fair words used are dull and contain some errors sometimes in vocabulary that sometimes interfere with understanding 1 poor contain many errors in vocabulary choices, which severely interfere with understanding grammar 4 excellent good in grammar, no errors in grammar 3 good contain errors in grammar but do not interfere with understanding 2 fair contain errors in grammar that slightly interfere with understanding 1 poor contain errors in grammar that severely interfere with understanding visual appeal 4 excellent include clear and appealing images that provide multiple angels of the product so that the reader is induced to read the description of the product 3 good include images of the product, but not provide multiple angels of the product 2 fair include some images of the product 1 poor do not have any image of the product organization 4 excellent the product’s specs or features are well structured in paragraphs and bullet lists in a way that engages the reader’s emotion 3 good the product’s specs or features are well structured in paragraphs and bullet lists, but not much engages the reader’s emotion. 2 fair the product’s specs or features are slightly scattered throughout the writing 1 poor the product’s specs or features are fairly scattered throughout the writing, which looks confusing for the reader 40 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) 2.4 data analysis data gathered from focused-group discussions were qualitative and were codified and analyzed by thematic analysis. data gathered from direct observations were recorded in the researcher’s observation field notes; non-motion pictures taken in training were cross-examined for comparison and contrast. qualitative data from the focused-group discussions and observation field notes were analyzed thematically using the grounded theory, which seeks to construct or discover a theory from the data (tie, birks & francis, 2019). in the current study, substantive coding procedures were adopted. the line-by-line open coding of data and constant data comparison was carried out to ensure the data supported emerging categories and proceeded until a core category emerged. the basis of the emerging theory was done by selecting core categories and theoretically connect to other relevant categories. once the relevant categories were saturated, the research is theoretically complete. the written product descriptions of each of the students’ groups were given codes at the back of the paper so that the researcher did not know from which module of learning it was written. each writing piece was then assessed using the scoring criteria adapted from huda and gumilang’s (2019) scoring rubric of writing test and peter’s (2016) blog on product description. 2.5 the study’s trustworthiness and credibility the trustworthiness and credibility of the current study were achieved through data triangulation and data saturation. data can be triangulated when they are collected from multiple participants and by multiple methods. it can be called cross-examination and is a technique to double or even triplecheck the findings of a study (nightingale, 2020). it is also a means to add richness and depth of the study (heale & forbes, 2013). in the current study, validity occurs when data from different methods and participants yield the same results (carter et al., 2014). data saturation was the other technique employed in the current study to enhance the trustworthiness and credibility of the findings. this technique is regarded as the “gold standard” (hancock et al., 2016) for analyzing qualitative data, enhancing the credibility of the research findings. in the current study, data saturation was achieved through focused-group discussions, in which questions were structured to facilitate asking different participants. the focused group discussion helped attain the truth through the discussion’s openness and received multiple perspectives about the studied situation. codes identified in the thematic analysis of the focused group discussion were also assessed for code saturation to ensure that the same category of codes would also be identified in the discussions from the other groups of participants (hennink et al., 2017). code saturation occurred when no further coding was identified. in this light, data saturation enabled the researcher to ensure the data adequacy, signifying that no information is missing and thus the findings are trustworthy (faulkner & trotter, 2017). 3. findings and discussion 3.1 dichotomy and similarity photos taken during the observations and the researcher’s views relevant to ppi and pdi modules are tabulated in table 2. table 2 illustrates the classroom dynamics that occur in both modules. it could be noticed from the photos that although ppi and pdi modules were both inductively conducted in a cooperative ground whereby students carried out their tasks as a group, the overall dynamics were different. the different proportions of dynamics were displayed right away in the second step of the learning process: handling/finding the medium and eliciting information. first of all, classroom dynamics occur more when all students are involved in activities and discussions. ppi students were given the product’s factsheets to be written about, which provided detailed information about the product and its production, as shown in photo a. further queries relevant to the product could be asked of the teacher. unlike the ppi students, the pdi students had to leave the classroom environment and elicit information about the product’s production with the product producer. in this light, the activity for eliciting information is performed by the students in the pdi module. it is to be noted that the information elicited by the pdi students was first-hand and authentic as it was either provided by the product producer or elicited through real engagement with the product (as shown in photos h and i, in which the students examined the product). table 2 shows that classroom dynamics also occurred through student-student interactions and student-teacher interactions. e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 41 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) table 2. learning activities carried out by ppi and pdi students inductive learning process ppi (researcher’s notes/images) pdi (researcher’s notes/images) step 1: showing, noticing, discovering & formulating same in both modules: students observed and analyzed examples of product descriptions given by the lecturer. then they discussed, wrote the pattern noticed, and formulated rules and principles of the product description. step 2: handling/finding the medium & eliciting information (1) product factsheet provided by a lecturer photo a *whole class got the same product factsheet of the same one product. (2) more information can be acquired from the lecturer (3) discuss around factsheet photo b photo c (1) real products brought to class by the students photo f photo g (2) business owner / product producer (3) discuss around real products photo h photo i step 3: applying & creating (1) students started writing the product description using information from the factsheet. photo d (1) students started writing the product description while the real products still on the table photo j 42 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) it can be seen from photos in table 2 that, while both ppi and pdi modules trigger the dynamics and positive atmosphere, the pdi session appeared to have more vigorous dynamics as student movements and interactions were relatively higher. while the real products were brought to the pdi session (photos f and g), the factsheet (photo a) that provided information relevant to the products was given to students in the ppi session. the pdi students moved around their products on the table while doing the learning task in step 2 to touch, notice, or even to taste the edible ones and discussed them among their group members, as demonstrated in photos h and i. in contrast, photos b and c in the ppi module showed that the ppi students sat as a group, and their discussion was based on the given factsheet. the ppi students were unable to do what the pdi students did – touch, notice, or taste the real products – which are processes that appeal to human senses. even in the writing process in step 3, when each group in both ppi and pdi started to write using all the information they acquired in step 2, the dichotomy clearly existed in both modules. as exemplified in photos h, i, j, and k, each group’s students still moved around the product in the pdi module. in contrast, as shown in photos b, c, d, and e, students sat in a group and read the lecturer’s factsheet in the ppi module. according to the researcher’s field note: photo e photo k (2) photo taken by the students and information about the production of image were applied in the writing photo l photo m step 4: providing feedback & end the session same in both modules: students from both modules handed it their product description to the lecturer to get feedback. lecturer gave feedback and suggestions for revision. e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 43 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) “the ppi students sat and discussed quietly as the information needed for writing was provided in the factsheet.” the statement shows that the ppi students did not have to or could not walk around to touch, notice, or taste the products. results of the observation point that in the pdi module, the product’s tangibility acts as a focal point on which to generate ideas and stimulate analysis and interrogations. as for student engagement, photos h and i illustrate the students’ willingness to participate in given tasks in the pdi module compared to photos d and e, which are learning activities in the ppi module. in the pdi’s focused group discussion, one student reported that: “once that we agreed on which product we wanted to write about, my friends and i had to visit and interview the producer of the product. i think this is a learning activity that takes time and energy; it not just that we sit and write about a product. but we have to seek information about the product by ourselves.” another pdi student supported: “we put a lot of effort. we traveled to the product’s factory, took pictures, and talked to the factory’s owner. but that is not the end of the process. before we traveled, we had to make lots of appointments, prepare list of questions, and plan everything beforehand. we felt stressed out and anxious, but overall it was fun to travel and talk.” claims from these two students show students’ persistence and effort, which, according to o’donnell et al. (2011), are an indicator of behavioral engagement in learning while the students’ perception of the overall enjoyment of the task, rather than the negative emotions such as stress or anxiety, indicates the emotional engagement. in addition, the learning in the pdi module is not confined to the boundaries of the classroom; instead, it situates students in authentic contexts. this finding underlines lave and wenger’s (1991) situated learning, which posits that knowledge occurs when it takes place in authentic contexts. according to kurt (2017), the learning occurs, and knowledge is developed in the situation that provides learners with situations similar to ones in the real world. in the researcher’s field note, it was written that: “during step 2, ppi students do not look curious about the product they are going to write about. they read the factsheet quietly. discussions with groupmate don’t actually occur.” one ppi student reported in the focused group discussion that: “to be honest, i felt so bored reading the factsheet. all the information we need to write about the product are provided in the factsheet. what should we be curious about?” this claim firstly suggests that the ppi module prevents student involvement in step 2 of the learning process, and secondly, the lack of involvement may lead to students’ absence of curiosity. it may impair the students’ engagement in the learning process in the long term. furthermore, the absence of enjoyment suggests that the students are not emotionally engaged in the learning process (o’donnell et al., 2011). 3.2 pdi & ppi writing scores the researcher assessed students’ product descriptions using the scoring criteria adapted from huda and gumilang’s (2019) scoring rubric of writing test and peter’s (2016) blog on product description. students’ written product description scores are displayed in table 3 . according to table 3, no ppi groups got “good level” in the writing assignment; 2 out of 4 writing pieces were rated “fair” while the other two were rated “poor” (ppi groups b and c rated at 2.8 and 2.0, respectively, and ppi group a and d were rated at 1.25 and 1.4, respectively). the product descriptions written by students in the pdi module, in contrast, were rated as “good” in three groups; pdi groups e, f, and g gave average scores of 3.0, 3.2, and 3.2, respectively. the product description written by the pdi group h gave an average score of 2.6, and no work was rated as “poor.” 44 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) holistically, the ppi module’s overall score was 2.05, rated as a “fair” group level, while the overall score of the pdi module was 3.0, which was regarded as a “good” group level. interestingly, table 3 shows two writing elements rated at the same level in the two inductive modules: grammar and organization of students’ writing pieces from both modules were equally rated “poor” and “fair,” respectively. the visual element in the product description written by students from the pdi module, in contrast, was rated as “good” (average 3.5) while that of the ppi students was regarded as “poor” (average 1.5). content and vocabulary of the writing pieces produced by the pdi students were rated “good” (average 3.75 and 3.5, respectively). in contrast, those of the ppi students were regarded as “fair” (average 2.25 and 2, respectively). table 3. ppi & pdi writing scores group/ scoring criteria content (4) vocabulary (4) grammar (4) visual appeal (4) organization (4) total score (20) average (4) group level ppi a 2 2 2 1 3 10 1.25 poor ppi b 3 3 2 2 4 14 2.8 fair ppi c 2 2 2 1 3 10 2.0 fair ppi d 2 1 1 2 1 7 1.4 poor average module 2.25 2 1.75 1.5 2.75 level fair fair poor poor fair 2.05 fair group/ scoring criteria content (4) vocabulary (4) grammar (4) visual appeal (4) organization (4) total score (20) average (4) group level ppi e 4 3 2 4 2 15 3.0 good ppi f 4 4 22 4 2 16 3.2 good ppi g 4 4 2 4 2 16 3.2 good pdi h 3 3 1 3 3 13 2.6 fair average module 3.75 3.5 1.75 3.5 2.5 level good good poor good fair 3 good 3.3 challenges of inductive teaching in thai contexts data from the focused discussions among eight representative students, together with data collected during the classroom observations, indicate two common challenges in implementing both inductive teaching methods while teaching english writing to thai students. the likelihood that the students will notice and identify some patterns implicit in the examples shown becomes the first challenge found in both inductive modules. all eight students from both ppi and pdi similarly expressed this difficultly. for example, a ppi student reported that: “we were given a variety of product descriptions, but so what is next? i mean what should we do next. what and where to start with?” likewise, a pdi student specified that: “i feel like a good product description should use active voice, rather than passive voice. but i am not sure if this is really correct. moreover, i don’t know whether i should start with writing the introduction or just go straight to the product’s ingredients.” the researcher’s fieldnote supports students’ claim: “when the students were presented with examples of product descriptions, they looked quiet. they did not discuss among their groupmate. maybe they did not know what should be discussed about or where to start.” this finding suggests that having to discover the rules on their own and experiment with how these rules work is too time-consuming for the students to achieve the task, and they are not sure whether or not the rules they have visualized on their own are accurate. the uncertainty about grammar e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 45 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) accuracy is reflected in the students’ writing scores (in table 3), which illustrates that grammar is a weakness for students from both modules. students’ difficulties in detecting and formulating grammar and rules in writing on their own suggest that the direct, explicit teaching of writing may still be a pragmatic and preferable approach for thai students. in language education, explicit teaching is a structured form of instruction in which lessons and learning activities are purposefully designed and distributed to students. even though explicit teaching is controversial due to its emphasis on memorization, drilling, and rule-governed learning activities, several studies indicate that explicit teaching can make lessons clearer, compared to implicit teaching (forey & cheung, 2019), as it has emphases on modeling for students, i.e., showing them what and how to do a task. in the efl context, particularly, literature has indicated the practicality and potentiality of employing explicit, instead of implicit, as a method of teaching a language (tang, 2012; yeung et al., 2016). the current study’s finding suggests that the first step of both the ppi and pdi might need adjustment. rather than being shown an example of writing, the students should be provided with worksheets or guidelines purposefully designed to help them quickly discover and formulate the writing rules on their own in a succinct amount of time. this requires more work and preparation on the teacher’s part, who will provide a scaffold for the students. students’ perception of learning as a burden was another challenge in implementing inductive ppi and pdi. information elicited from the focused discussions with the ppi and pdi students pointed to how the students perceived the burden of learning was shifted from the teacher to them. one of the ppi students reported that: “my groupmates and i don’t understand why we have to discover the writing rules on our own. i think the lecturer can do this for us.” rather than viewing pdi as a way to nurture their critical thinking skills, the students perceive higher burden of learning, as one of them elaborated on the tasks they were required to do: “the list of what we have to do is long. i remember that week my friends and i stayed up midnight almost the whole week. i didn’t know why we had to do this.” another pdi student further supported this: “on task 1 don’t you think it is easier and faster if the lecturer just tells us how to write a product description? on task 3 i was excited that i didn’t have to go to class in that week. we went out to the product’s producer. but at the end of the day, we were very exhausted.” the students’ elaboration in the above examples reflects the lack of understanding when using fundamental objectives of inductive instruction. the researcher’s primary rationale for implementing ppi and pdi is to let learning occur “bottom-up,” following thornbury’s (1999) proposition. however, students did not clearly understand why the learning sequences were changed, and the learning roles were shifted from the learner as the receiver to the learner as the discoverer of knowledge. 3.4. pdi as an effective teaching method the study results indicate that pdi has resulted in students having better writing skills and more classroom dynamics and engagement. the study found that pdi has some characteristics that reinforce the teaching of english writing. these characteristics include tangibility, authenticity, and contextuality. 1) tangibility the key to the pdi approach is that the products are tangible and appeal to the human senses. its tangibility act as a focal point on which to generate ideas and stimulate analysis and interrogations. a commercial product selected and used in the pdi approach is tangible and can be perceived by the sense of touch, sight, or even taste (see photos f and g in table 2). in mathematics and science, abstract concepts are frequently taught and represented by tangible objects. objects’ tangibility is claimed to enable the students to make connections between mathematic concepts, which are usually abstract, with tangible, concrete objects and foster a more profound understanding. according to antle and wise (2013), tangibles serve as tools for thinking and foster connections between abstract 46 english language teaching educational journal e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) concepts through concrete representations. in this light, the pdi approach persists that abstract, complicated concepts can be concretely represented through concrete, touchable, seeable, or edible products. in this regard, the product selected to use in the english writing class should be accessible to the learners, promote hands-on experiences, encourage exploration and reflection, and provide learners with the analyzing tools they require to accomplish the task. 2) authenticity one dichotomy of the two inductive methods examined in the current study lies in the authenticity of the medium used and the elicitation of information. in ppi, the target product’s analysis is conducted with the printed image and the textual information provided by the teacher. therefore, the analysis of the product in the ppi method is paper-based. contrarily, the pdi method analyzes authentic, tangible products, allowing the students to see, touch, smell, squeeze, or, on some occasions, taste the product. the fact that the pdi students will be required to seek their own product, engage with the product, meet with the producer, and observe the product’s production suggests that the pdi module situates students in real contexts. in this light, the pdi module provides students with opportunities to make real connections with what is learned in the classroom and what is required in the workplace (meyers & lester, 2013). the students will be aware of the need to communicate as a professional in an authentic context. this provision of opportunities for making real connections reflects the lecturer’s awareness of real business demands. according to arputhamalar and kannan (2015), the students need to be trained to meet those demands. in addition, pdi embraces lave and wenger’s (1991) situated learning theory, which is a theory on how a person develops professional skills. situated learning focuses on experiential and situational activities and posits that learning occurs through social engagement and takes place beyond classroom boundaries, which could be in kitchens, gardens, sports centers, field trips, depending on the field of knowledge (lave & wenger, 1991). 3) contextuality pdi embeds learning activities or assignments into meaningful and real context rather than being treated as mere learning activities or exercises in classrooms. in this way, pdi contextualizes its content and instruction, responding to hollis-turner and scholtz’s (2010) proposition, which underlines the need to design writing tasks that bridge the gap between writing in academic contexts and writing in real business contexts. it can be expected that pdi will be able to enhance students’ capability to transfer what is taught in the classroom to what is required in the workplace. thus, language activities and exercises are not isolated from real contexts and are contextualized. the significance of the effort that the pdi approach takes the students to learn and explore in the real context is the belief in the school or university classroom that the language input is mainly produced from the teacher or lecturer, who is not a real audience in the business environment (al-mohammadi & derbel, 2015). in addition, allowing students to immerse in the real working contexts reflects the partnership with the community in which the students live, which later on can enhance situated learning (mayers & lester, 2013). writing classes that do not follow pdi principles involve objects that the students have no experience with, leading the students’ language output to be produced regardless of context. as such, the language input and output in classrooms is often de-contextualized. decontextualized language instruction may be effective for young children’s vocabulary acquisition in the early stages. as the ultimate goal of language learning in higher education is to use the target language correctly and appropriately in real contexts, the study results suggest that pdi is adopted because it does not confine business writing to the classroom; rather, this instructional approach provides opportunities for students to produce writing pieces based on information elicited from real contexts. 4. conclusion the study reported in this article sought to compare similarities and differences between two inductive teaching approaches adopted in a business english writing training program in thailand and identify which would be more effective. the study results indicate three features that distinguish pdi from ppi, including tangibility, authenticity, and contextuality and recommend product-based instruction (pdi) over paper-based instruction (ppi) as a more effective means for teaching business english writing in thailand. pdi features can optimize overall enjoyment and engagement in the learning process and provide opportunities for students to learn in authentic professional e-issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 47 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 34-48 rungwaraphong (inductive teaching approaches in business english writing in an efl context) environments, contexts, and culture that is cast in real-life situations. the challenges of implementing both types of inductive instruction were also identified. this included the fact that both instructional modules are unable to strengthening students’ grammar accuracy, which may be because the inductive instruction does not teach the grammar directly. the students’ attitude toward inductive learning also needs to be changed; rather than viewing inductive learning activities as an extra burden, students should perceive this approach of learning as a way to learn and explore on their own which will lead to critical thinking skills. the challenges of inductive instructions addressed in this study suggest that future research needs to be completed to make pdi better in terms of grammar accuracy and explore ways to help change students’ paradigm of inductive learning. declaration author contribution : the author confirms sole responsibility for the following: study conception and design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of results, and manuscript. funding statement : the research is non-funded. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references adamson, r.m., & wachsmuth, s.t. 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(2016). english vocabulary instruction through storybook reading for chinese efl kindergarteners: comparing rich, embedded, and incidental approaches. asian efl journal, 18, 81-104. https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2010.545026 https://educationaltechnology.net/situated-learning-theory/ https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511815355 https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-102295-5.10437-8 https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244013497025 https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483346441.n90 https://smarter-ecommerce.com/blog/en/ecommerce/product-descriptions-elements-and-specifications/ https://smarter-ecommerce.com/blog/en/ecommerce/product-descriptions-elements-and-specifications/ https://doi.org/10.1109/icl.2011.6059556 https://doi.org/10.1177/2050312118822927 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 161-173 10.12928/eltej.v4i3.3733 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id in-service teachers’ challenges to implementing an approach to critical thinking and critical reading in chile leonardo veliz school of education, excelsia college, 69-71 waterloo rd, macquarie park nsw 2113, australia leonardo.veliz@excelsia.edu.au a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 22 february 2021 revised 06 april 2021 accepted 29 december 2021 the present study reports on the challenges of implementing an approach to critical thinking and critical reading in english language teaching (elt) in chile. participants in this research are in-service teachers of english enrolled in a master’s course in teaching english as a foreign language (tefl) in chile. in order to develop and construct a thorough understanding of the participants’ past and present academic literacy experiences, they were invited for one-to-one meetings (semi-structured interviews) where, rather than reminiscing about past literacy experiences, they were encouraged to engage in narratives about their experiences with and challenges of developing a socially critical awareness of literacy at university, and in their current teaching practices. analysis of the participants’ accounts revealed, first and foremost, the pervasive presence of literacy practices that reflect and favor a strong culture of compliance over critical reflection, and, secondly, great concerns about the lack of systematic preparation in english teacher education (ete) programs to develop and implement a more critical stance toward critical thinking and critical reading. the paper concludes by interrogating and challenging current university practices that, based on the participants’ views, seem to replicate a culture that reproduces both social and cultural inequalities. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords critical thinking in chile critical reading efl in chile teacher preparation teaching critical thinking how to cite: veliz, l. (2021). in-service teachers’ challenges to implementing an approach to critical thinking and critical reading in chile. english language teaching educational journal, 4(3), 161-173. 1. introduction there is consensus among different stakeholders in education that critical thinking (ct) is an important asset in today’s world. lin and luk (2015) point out that “critical thinking is believed to be an essential skill for 21st century survival and has therefore been widely promoted in education” (p. 67). its significance in education and, in particular, to students’ learning has been echoed by several researchers (e.g., marzban & barati, 2016; yousefi & mohammadi, 2016; aghaei, koo, noor & rajabi, 2014) who argue that ct is a fundamental contributor to students’ overall academic success. closely connected with the notion of ct is what is understood as ‘critical reading’ (cr). cr can be seen as a thread of critical language awareness (cla), an area which, according to wallace (2003) has been relatively neglected. the aim of cla has been largely viewed as “raising students’ awareness of how the uses of language in all its realizations serve to perpetuate dominant discourses and the ideologies they encode” (wallace, 2003, p. 2). from the perspective of cr theory, engaging critically with texts entails becoming “more powerful users of language” (manarin, carey, rathburn, & ryland, 2015, p. 4), a process which, in practice, involves empowering readers to unpack ‘the intricacies of http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:leonardo.veliz@excelsia.edu.au* http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2489-7484 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i3.3733&domain=pdf 162 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 161-173 veliz, l. (in-service teachers’ challenges) meanings in texts’ (wallace, 2003; shokouhi & latifi, 2019; moghadam, narafshan & tajadini, 2021), and to appropriate the affordances of reading critically for academic success. in english language teaching (elt) classrooms, critical reading can be exercised in multiple ways. banegas and villacañas de castro (2016) argue that it can be developed and promoted through the analysis of different text types, or the identification of values, assumptions, proofs and fallacies in, for instance, news, photographs, advertisements or other modes of meaning making. despite the viability of executing these pedagogical techniques in the development of critical reading, teachers’ positive intentions and attempts to implement a critical approach to reading can be hampered by a range of organizational, educational and socio-political factors (wallace, 2003; toy & ok, 2012). in a world where education has become a commodity and an export (dobinson, 2014), and particularly characterized by a strong managerial culture of compliance, the teaching of reading is often reduced to the production and reproduction of dominant discourses which, more often than not, respond to standards-based practices of teaching and learning to read in a foreign language (brown et al., 2004). in order to respond to some of these issues, and therefore gain insights into the various factors that problematize effective pedagogies to the teaching of critical reading in chile, the present work seeks to uncover in-service efl teachers’ understanding of ct in english language teacher education programs in chile, and of the challenges encountered in their practices that facilitate or interfere with the implementation of an approach to ct and cr. the present study seeks to unveil the perceptions, views and understanding of in-service efl teachers regarding the role of ct in english teacher education programs in chile as well as the challenges they face in implementing a critical pedagogy approach to the teaching of literacy skills. the research questions which we aim to address are as follows: a. what is in-service teachers’ understanding of the role of ct in english language teacher training programs in chile? b. what are the perceived challenges faced by in-service teachers in implementing and practicing critical pedagogy in their own teaching contexts? 1.1.teaching critical thinking and critical reading despite the lack of consensus over ideas about whether ct should be viewed as a set of dispositions, higher-order thinking skills (davies & barnett, 2015; shahri, 2018), or a non-overt social practice (atkinson, 1997), we embrace the view that rather than looking at different approaches to ct as incongruous with each other, they should be seen holistically as complementary. in practice, and for the purpose of our work, we do not wish to justify the exclusion or inclusion of a particular stance on ct; rather, we acknowledge and support the idea that ct is a skill and can therefore be taught and developed (see wallace & jefferson, 2015), and that it is, what benesch (1993) calls, ‘a learning process for democracy’, notion that relies heavily upon the principles of critical pedagogy. although the conceptual boundaries between ct and cr are not often well defined, these two concepts are seen as closely intertwined in our study whereby reading critically is understood as being embedded in a much broader domain which involves a set of skills, predispositions and attitudes to thinking critically (benesch, 1993). without drawing a distinction between ct and cr, benesch (1993) points out that “critical thinking (or critical reading) is often listed as one or more of a number of hierarchically ordered cognitive skills” (p. 546). a far less cognitive-dominant view of ct is put forth by wallace (2015) who states that “criticality cannot be linked to innate linguistic competence but is socially and educationally learned” (p. 4), notion that tacitly touches on the uniqueness and distinctiveness of ct approaches across cultures. apart from the implied learnable and teachable capacity of ct, this definition touches on the social situatedness dimension of the concept, which is generally associated with the principles of critical pedagogy. along the lines of critical pedagogy, a similar view is expressed by atkinson (1997) who argues that: rather than being a well-explicated and educationally usable concept, critical thinking may more in the nature of social practice; that is, what we commonly refer to as critical thinking may be an organic part of the very culture that holds it up as an admirable achievement –more at the level of common sense than rational, transparent, and –especially –teachable set of behaviors. (p. 72) issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 163 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 161-173 veliz, l. (in-service teachers’ challenges) the emphasis on the nature of ct as a social practice is neatly interwoven with wallace’s (2015, p. 3) definition of cr who views it as one strand within the wider area of critical language awareness. from this perspective, reading critically is understood in relation to understanding the social, political and ideological aspects of a text. indeed, this has been a pressing concern in the fields of language and literacy education which is, in particular, critical literacy (lau, 2013; janks, 2014; rogers, 2014; romero & bobkina, 2021) state,” (p. 528). this becomes central in elt in order to develop and promote post-modern pedagogies (ahmadi & maftoon, 2015) to encourage various forms of criticality (banegas & villacañas de castro, 2016) so that students have sufficient opportunities to engage actively in the construction of text meaning. the development of ‘criticality’, and particularly how university can best fosters ct and cr skills (huber & kuncel, 2016), has given rise to different questions as to whether, for example, an intensive reading course can help in the cultivation of ct skills (tang, 2016), and ultimately over how to mitigate the effects of ‘banking education’, and maximize the potential power of ‘transformative education’. the pedagogical implementation of an approach to reading and thinking critically is considered by some a daunting task (e.g., crookes & lehner, 1998). this is probably due to the lack of systematic instruction of critical reading and ct skills (huber & kuncel, 2016; welch, hieb, & graham, 2015). in cases where there is a pedagogical attempt to approach students’ reading and thought processes from a critical perspective (e.g. smith, rama, & helms, 2018; welch et al., 2015), success is, in our view, often hampered by numerous constraints imposed by the demands of a corporate educational culture driven by strong managerial control (brown et al., 2004), local and global politics of accountability (lewis & young, 2013), and the pervasive pressures of high stakes testing (klenowski & wyatt-smith, 2012). this is supported by orlowski (2011) who argues that “the emphasis on liberal arts and critical thinking has been replaced by the human capital paradigm in which the focus is on filling the requirements of capital” (p. v). this by no means points to the impossibility of engaging students in tasks, activities and learning processes that involve a level of criticality; rather, it raises awareness of some of the challenges that may need to be overcome by teachers in order to implement classroom practice that promotes and fosters ct and cr. 1.2.description of the study and its social context to understand the educational and sociopolitical context that drives the present study, there must be some reference to the various significant effects of the military government (1973-1990) on education as well as the neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies that have shaped the current chilean system of education. the military take-over in 1973 brought about a series of radical social, political, economic and educational changes in the chilean society. based on the premise “absolute control of the nation” (beltrán & preller, 2003, p. 11), chile witnessed military intervention in almost every human activity. in education, for example, several drastic measures were taken to extirpate ‘the marxist cancer’; that is, any views and ideologies that were perceived as posing a threat to the prevailing order. one of these measures was the development of a policy of control with the intent to eradicate all existing teachers’ unions (nuñez, 1984). the suppression of teacher associations was vital for the government as these were seen as instances of political campaign and of voices of dissent. in an attempt to prevent what the government labeled ‘marxist ideologies’ from permeating higher education institutions, a series of episodes of book burning and obliteration of libraries took place throughout the country (beltrán & preller, 2003). this strong action was primarily intended to avert a rise of ‘critical thinkers’ and to prescribe what the military government considered ‘core knowledge’, characterized by a culture of conformity and passive absorption of carefully selected knowledge. this practice, which, to a greater extent, still prevails in the present day in the chilean society, was aimed at discouraging teachers and students to think critically about society and, most importantly, about the sociopolitical issues that had unfolded. during the military government, especially around the 1980s, chile was one of the first countries in latin america to embrace neoliberal models of education. in 2009, the ‘internacional de educación para américa latina’ (international of education for latin america) concluded that chile was an emblematic case in its rapid and early adherence to neoliberal policies under the dictatorship period (inzunza, assaél, & scherping, 2011, p. 268; goodman & cocca, 2014). as a result, chile served as a model for latin america and marked a clear tendency towards the adoption of such policies. apart from the implementation of a series of free-market reforms best described as a neoliberal revolution, 164 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 161-173 veliz, l. (in-service teachers’ challenges) chile’s endorsement of a neoliberal model in education under the dominance of a military government impacted quite significantly the practices and pedagogies of education at all levels. in mora’s (2013, 2014) view, one of the aims of pinochet government was to minimize, and ideally neutralize, all possible educational instances and opportunities that could ignite commitment, social responsibility and bravery in young people to realize that they had the power to critique and challenge the status quo. this is, in our view, one of the main negative forces, and probably causes, of the current elt climate in chile characterized by an increasing neglect of criticality in ete programs, and more specifically in the teaching and learning of academic literacy (reading and writing). this is to a great extent supported by bellei & muñoz (2021) who comment that the unsatisfactory status of our current education system has its roots in the changes introduced by the military government. 2. method 2.1. research design the research questions in the present study are aimed generally at exploring and comprehending in-service teachers’ perceptions and understandings of some of the challenges they face in practicing, exercising and implementing critical pedagogy in their teaching contexts. the research questions in this study is qualitative. this in turn entails that the methods for data collection, data analysis and overall methodological procedures underpinning the study have been informed by an interpretive paradigm characterized by a concern for the individual (creswell & poth, 2016). this suggests that our work is not pursuing to find definitive answers to specific questions or phenomena; rather, it attempts to explore and comprehend them as they occur in specific contexts under certain circumstances. 2.2. participants eight in-service chilean teachers of english as a foreign language (efl) participated in the study. all the participants had been teaching efl in different educational contexts (primary, secondary and higher education) for at least three years. these in-service teachers were all enrolled in a masters of tefl program in chile by the time the research was conducted. the group of participants is comprised of three female teachers and five males, all aged between 28-33. for reasons of confidentiality, their names were kept in anonymity and pseudonyms were used instead. in order to have a more holistic understanding of the participants’ profile, some demographic data were also collected during the interview which, in future research, may be used to explore, for instance, the participants’ past literacy practices in primary and secondary school, the role of ct in school, and any potential relationship between participants’ educational, and socio-economic background and their understanding and use of ct in current teaching practices. table 1 shows a summary of some of the demographic data obtained from participants. table 1. participants’ demographic information participant number type of school years of teaching experience gender age participant 1 (paula) private 3 female 29 participant 2 (sandra) private (catholic) 2.5 female 30 participant 3 (andrea) government 4.5 female 33 participant 4 (fernando) private (catholic) 2 male 28 participant 5 (david) government 1.5 male 31 the recruitment process was by email. an email was sent to firstand second-year students inviting them to participate in the study. the email briefly explained the purpose of the study and provided contact information of one of the researchers to respond to in case they had an interest in taking part in the research. 11 responses were received over a period of three weeks. throughout the process of issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 165 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 161-173 veliz, l. (in-service teachers’ challenges) contacting participants individually to hand over consent forms and arrange a convenient day and time for interview, three withdrew from the study, bringing the number down to eight. due to the depth of data gathered in the interviews, however, five out of the eight participants were randomly selected for the purpose of this study. 2.3. data collection and analysis the method utilized to gather data for the present study consisted of a semi-structured interview with each of the participants. the interview, which went for about 20-30 minutes, was conducted in english as all in-service teachers were proficient users of english. due to the reflective nature of the interviews where participants were encouraged to tell us about their past experiences, what (junejo, sarwar & ahmed, 2017) call ‘the big stories’, that is, their life and academic histories, the interviews are referred to as ‘one-to-one meetings’ in an attempt to downplay the semi-structured nature of the encounters. the meetings with the participants were in fact motivated by three prompt questions which generally framed each of the research questions in the study. as the conversations unfolded, further related questions were asked to explore issues arising during conversation. all individual meetings with participants were audio-taped and transcribed. the prompt questions asked included: (1) what do you understand by critical thinking and critical reading, and what is their significance to english teacher education programs? (2) could you please tell us about your early literacy practices and experiences, including home, school and university? ;(3) could you tell us if you have had any limitations or challenges in implementing a critical thinking and critical reading approach in your teaching contexts? inductive, thematic analysis was used to identify, analyze and report patterns (themes) within the data that were linked to the research questions. with inductive analysis, emerging themes are closely connected to the data itself rather than being theoretically driven. the data analysis procedures involved different rigorous steps. firstly, the transcribed data were read several times to familiarize ourselves with the nature of responses, and from there start developing a sense of what themes could emerge from it. secondly, ideas and key words that systematically cropped up in the responses were color-coded in order to begin looking for possible patterns across the data. next, the color-coded ideas and key words were collated into potential themes. these were then checked and reviewed in relation to their relevance to the research questions around which responses had been provided. finally, once the themes had been identified and checked against how well they informed the research questions, they were labeled. this rigorous process was followed by a member-checking procedure to enhance the validity and transferability of the findings. three themes were identified in the analysis of the data; two themes emerged for research question 1, and one theme for question 2. table 2 shows the emerging themes relating to each research question. table 2. emerging themes from the research questions research questions themes research question 1 critical thinking as an asset to teachers’ professional practice critical thinking and critical reading not imagined, but existent in different forms research question 2 feeling pressured for assessment it is important to note that although all interview data from participants were rich and insightful, the identified themes emerged mainly from responses pertaining to five participants. since qualitative data may become unwieldy at times (barkhuizen, 2016), both in terms of depth and breadth, a sample of five out of eight is used in this work. the responses, however, are representative exemplars of thematic patterns found across all participants. 3. findings and discussion the findings are reported in the order of the research questions outlined above along with the themes pertaining to each of them. in order to address the first research question, the first two emerging 166 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 161-173 veliz, l. (in-service teachers’ challenges) themes are discussed first, while the second research question is addressed later in the discussion of the third theme. rq 1: what is in-service teachers’ understanding of the role of ct in english language teacher training programs in chile? 3.1. critical thinking as an asset to teachers’ professional practice overall, in-service teachers’ responses show a relatively good understanding of the role of ct in education, and in life-long learning. specifically, some participants stressed the value and centrality of ct skills for life. this was evident in sandra’s comments: now that i am a teacher myself, i think that critical thinking is something, like a very important skill that should be developed in all subjects because students will need it in their lives. understood as a ‘very important skill’, sandra considers that ct should permeate all school subjects, a position which seems to imply that, as far as her own experience is concerned, ct as a teachable and learnable set of skills has not pervaded her experiences as a teacher or learner. another in-service teacher, paula, who also holds the opinion that ct is a skill for life, stresses the value of ct in higher education and, in particular, in teacher education programs: well, critical thinking skills are always important for whatever we do in life. i really think there should be like constant reference to these skills, and how to use these skills when we read and write academic works an interesting thing that stands out in paula’s observation is her appreciation of ct as ‘skills’, which partly aligns with sandra’s comment. she also stresses one significant point about the importance of ct in the whole life, and not merely in education. moore (2011) affirms that defining ct has never been simple or unproblematic where, for some, it is seen as a universal, abstract category, while others view it as analytical thinking and critical reasoning. where some clear consensus is found, however, researchers have agreed that “ct is vital to success in tertiary level courses” (floyd, 2011, p. 289). this is further supported by davis (2011) who states that universities have generally made a point of emphasizing the significance of ct as a “a generic skill that is central to most, if not all, subjects” (p. 255). paula, in particular, feels very strongly about the need to systematically use and incorporate ct skills in academic reading and writing in english teacher education programs. within more knowledge, discipline-specific realms, fernando seems to be of the idea that all forms of knowledge should be channeled through a process of thinking critically, which, in the end, all contribute to teachers’ professional practice. not just in teacher training but in all programs and courses critical thinking should be the heart of anything teachers and students do, because this process of thinking deeper will kind of filter any kind of knowledge that is assimilated to decide what is truthful or worth to learn for the future, and this allows teachers to make learning more engaging and interesting. fernando’s view of ct aligns well with barnett’s (2011) reconceptualization of ct which brings thinking skills and social action together into the notion of ‘critical being’. this broader term refers to an integration of three forms of criticality: critical reasoning, critical self-reflection and critical action. fernando’s view of the central place that ct should have in teachers’ and students’ practices is indicative of how ct, in his opinion, enables us to make more informed judgments and decisions about what to teach, how to teach it, and, therefore, how to exercise their profession, thus tapping into ‘critical action’, one of the three domains of criticality. closely connected with the notion of ‘critical action’, other in-service teachers also stressed on the affordances of ct to their pedagogies as “modes of improving teachers’ and students’ abilities to read and write” (andrea). more specifically, andrea adds that: critical thinking is a necessary ingredient in how we teach reading and writing to our second language learners; this means that not having this ingredient in our teachings doesn’t allow us to think properly about the role and status of english in the world, and our students have to know about this, too. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 167 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 161-173 veliz, l. (in-service teachers’ challenges) from this, it can be observed that ct is not only central to the teaching of reading and writing, and therefore to teachers’ overall pedagogies, but also to a critical recognition of the position of english in the world. this “thinking properly”, as andrea calls it, may involve understanding of elt and colonialism (wass, harland & mercer, 2011). a rather similar view is expressed by david who stresses the importance of ct to his own professional development as a way to better understand power inequalities in society. it’s always been important for me to develop as a teacher to know more and more about critical thinking because for me it’s something that really opens our eyes to really see the differences in society. for example, in chile it’s really different if you speak english or not, so you if know the language, you have power, and critical thinking really helps you to see these things. the value ascribed to ct as evident in this teacher’s comment suggests that it seems to be an essential tool to better understand (power) differences in society driven by the affordances of the english language. overall, responses reveal quite clearly in-service teachers’ critical stance on the role of ct in their teacher education programs, and, most importantly, in their own teaching/professional practices. seeing reflection, and therefore ct, as an opportunity through which instances of inequalities, injustices, power differences and oppression may be uncovered, questioned and transformed is something that is of great significance to the respondents. despite their recognition of the importance of ct in ete programs, participants expressed great concerns about the actual absence of systematic approaches or pedagogies that promote critical reflection or ct in ete courses. 3.2. critical thinking, not imagined but existent in different forms the second theme discussed is the existing forms of ct. a rather common view held by teachers concerned the overt recognition of the role of ct in their pedagogies as well as in general domains of life. despite such clear acknowledgment, teachers’ responses also showed that, apart from the need to systematically incorporate ct in all educational practices in te programs, the teaching of ct in relation to reading is by no means a fictitious, imagined practice, but existent in different forms. as the following quotation reveals, andrea, who, as shown in an earlier comment, is fully aware of the significance of ct to the teaching of reading, elaborates on her response by mentioning that more explicit and systematic reference to ct only happened at a master’s level. she stressed that although she does remember learning principles of critical pedagogy in her teacher training course, these pedagogies were never constant, systematic, or sufficient to incorporate them into her own teaching practices. another misleading or confusing point about ct, as andrea seems to have learned, is that ct should be applied to texts that have some religious or political ideas. every text, in a sense, can be looked at critically (hermas, 2018) because in most texts there could be a tone of hidden power that is embedded. criticalness means reading enough surrounding a text in a systematic way to be able to make a relatively sound judgment about what to believe, regardless of politics and religion. this was reflected in andrea’s observation: i actually studied very little about critical thinking, but it did happen in different ways, like trying to find a political or religious ideology in texts, but it didn’t happen every time we worked with texts. it was just sometimes, but in my masters’ course i really needed more knowledge of principles of critical thinking to understand better the underlying meanings in texts. the teacher’s recognition of a need for ‘more knowledge of principles of critical thinking’ at a masters’ course reveals not only the apparently inconsistent pedagogical practices used to deal with ct in reading in undergraduate te courses, but the seemingly distinct pedagogies and practices used in the treatment of reading in postgraduate courses. despite this, andrea does acknowledge the (limited) presence of ct in different forms, including unpacking texts for political or religious ideologies. her opinion is shared by another teacherfernandowho values the different approaches used by different lecturers when teaching reading, as seen from the quote below. i always felt disadvantaged when we had classes with certain lecturers because there were texts really interesting that you could discuss in more detail, but the way they [the lecturers] treat them is just like ok, read the text and answer the questions, and 168 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 161-173 veliz, l. (in-service teachers’ challenges) that’s it. but there were other teachers [lecturers] who were more…like on philosophy and they encourage the students to discuss, give opinions, and show a critical position. fernando’s observation is probably a reflection of how a number of students feel when reading texts are dealt with in simple, traditional, superficial ways that simply reproduce dominant views of thinking and doing without uncovering the hidden ideologies, or messages, that need questioning. however, he recognizes that other lecturers do delve deeper into the reading materials, thus encouraging students’ critical stance towards the readings. the main point about fernando’s comment is that many teachers have the propensity to educate their students in the same way they have been trained. this by no means suggests that teachers have completely abandoned a sense of criticality in their pedagogies; rather, it may reflect teachers’ lack of awareness of how their own past experiences of teaching and learning are replicated in their current pedagogies. other students overtly recognized that the way they were taught is a clear reflection of how their own lecturers were taught. andrea’s observation is as follows: most of the teachers would agree that we didn’t really have critical thinking as a subject, or that we were not really pushed to go deeper into the meanings of texts, but i would say that the professors that don’t really push you to find other meanings in the text is because they probably studied pedagogy in pinochet times when the government wanted everybody to think the same. but even in those days there were many people that resisted the government so i guess critical thinking has always been there but it was useless in education. in the quote above, andrea has a significant point to make. she rightly thinks that ct can be an individual act and understanding. not only our culture and the language we speak can influence our perception of ct towards a text, but as andrea maintains, it could be as well an individual endeavor. an example of this is individual writers in any non-democratic country, which despite their lack of freedom and severe constraints in their society, they become powerful critical readers and writers, although they have been trained in the same education system where there has been little tolerance for ct by the authorities. it is, however, worthy of mentioning that the numbers of these individuals do not exceed beyond a handful of influential writers. they are the ones who have accepted the consequences of their uncompromising blunt language to authorities. two salient elements from the above comments are worth attention. firstly, in andrea’s comment we can observe that she seems to identify some of the critical problems in current pedagogies for critical reading, thus indicating that much of what educators do in the classroom is influenced by the socio-political events and activities that took place during their own teacher preparation. she highlights in particular the possible influence of the social, cultural and intellectual oppression exercised in pinochet’s military regimen on her lecturer’s approach to reading. if this were the case, one could argue that the dominant discourses of power and inequality that dictated education in those days continued to be reproduced in teachers’ current pedagogies, thus creating what rousseau called “a society of slaves, men who had lost their original liberty that was theirs by birthright” (wain, 2011, p. 1). secondly, andrea’s last remark suggests that although ct pedagogies have always been present even in times of political oppression, they did not seem to have had much impact on the formation of pedagogies and practices of resistance to ideological and hegemonic forces. a similar observation is made by the following teacher: i think that critical thinking is actually present but in different ways, because different people see it different. i remember that when i had applied linguistics in university our professor was very dynamic, active, and critical every time we saw a new theory or a specific reading. she used to ask us how is this theory related to education today, how do you see the theory in the classroom in these days, and that was a very good opportunity to not just learn the theory but think in more critical ways about the theory being useful or applicable to today. paula’s view of ct is quite interesting. firstly, the idea that ct is seen differently by different people clearly suggests that paula seems to understand that different cultures, communities and societies view ways of doing and thinking differently. this would lead us to assume a sociocultural basis of ct, which would, in turn, point to the existence of ct across cultures. as maintained by issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 169 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 161-173 veliz, l. (in-service teachers’ challenges) paton (2015), a ct that is practiced in a certain culture cannot simply be transferred to another culture. for instance, the author asserts that western forms of ct are not readily teachable to students of asian background, who usually find western principles of criticality and reasoning difficult to follow. this is not to say that ct does not exist among them, but the way it is perceived is very different from the way it is learned and treated in the west. the above quotes demonstrate that despite teachers’ recognition of the systematic presence of ct pedagogies throughout their teacher training programs, ct is prevalent in a variety of forms, and pedagogically instantiated in different ways by different educators. some of these instances involved a great impetus for a more dynamic, active and critical way of dealing with reading texts in an attempt to develop students’ capacity to see the act of reading not as product but as a complex situated social practice. the teachers’ overt recognition that ct does exist in a variety of forms, despite the impact of sociopolitical events on teaching and learning practices, constitutes a platform for discussion, reconsideration and reexamination of how reading texts are dealt with, and how approaches to critical pedagogy may find a more well-delineated route to its implementation. rq 2: what are the perceived challenges faced by in-service teachers in implementing and practicing critical pedagogy in their own teaching contexts? 3.3. feeling pressured for assessment this theme-feeling pressured for assessment-, that is, the perceived challenges faced by in-service teachers in implementing and practicing critical pedagogy in their own teaching contexts indicates teachers’ great concerns about curriculum, organizational and pedagogical limitations that polarize any attempt to exercise some form of critical pedagogy approach to the teaching of reading. it became particularly salient in the data that teachers feel unrelenting pressure from managers, principal administrators and, above all, the entire education system to engage in constant, unnecessary testing practices. one teachersandracommented that: it’s really tiring having to prepare, check, correct and give students so many tests in one semester that i find it very, very difficult to do tasks or activities where students could develop a higher level of critical thinking. driven by systematic approaches to accountability through testing, most governments in chile have, for over two decades now, supported and encouraged a managerial culture in schools which has embraced large-scale high stakes standardized testing in pursuit of school improvement, and highquality teaching and learning. although sandra does not seem to be talking about high stakes tests, her observation voices very clearly what several researchers (e.g., klenowski & wyatt-smith, 2012) have argued regarding the “increased pressure on schools and teachers to account for teacher and school improvement”. the need to engage in activities to develop students’ ct skills, as reported by sandra, is overshadowed by the constant measures of students’ learning that have to be prepared, administered and marked. the heightened pressures to assess students do not only seem to generate physical, emotional and mental tiredness, but create profound feelings of frustrations in teachers as the frequency and length of assessments have a tremendous impact on students’ learning and development of english language skills. fernando expresses great concerns about his students’ slow progress in language learning: all the tests that students have to do is really bad as they don’t really have quality time to focus on improving their learning. i think they’re all stuck because of the tests. also, the main problem about the tests is that they generally focus on grammar, reading and vocabulary that they don’t really know how to use meaningfully. there are two significant points made by fernando. first, it is the impact of testing on students’ learning. second, it is the content and nature of language tests. regarding the former, effective and successful instructional pedagogies appear to be hampered by time-consuming testing practices which have, perhaps, unintended consequences for students’ learning. the latter is clearly pointing to a lack of congruence between the language content taught to and learned by students and the real communicative needs of learners. as observed by fernando, the lack of meaningfulness in what is learned (e.g., reading and vocabulary) and how it is learned can jeopardize not only teachers’ 170 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 161-173 veliz, l. (in-service teachers’ challenges) purposeful attempts to present the content in more meaningful ways but also the efforts and motivations of those students in pursuit of real instances for learning and communication. fernando’s remarks are reiterated by paula who stresses the incongruities between the real needs of students and the actual teaching practices: well, the students have to be able to communicate effectively in the real world and this is what they need. and, it’s important to develop the critical thinking skills they need to read different kinds of texts and to be able to write using critical ideas, but the system, the number of tests and of students in class, the lack of resources don’t allow for that. paula’s reflection is critical of the separation between what she thinks the students really need and the limitations that seem to prevent the realization of meaningful teaching and learning practices. she is cognizant of the role of ct in helping students deal with a variety of texts in reading. however, the barriers pertaining to the overall educational system which fosters unnecessary testing practices are certainly limiting the capacities of both teachers and students to unravel the meanings, messages and ideologies embedded in the texts that english language learners have to read. this is further clarified in paula’s following observation: …because of all these problems and limitations, we don’t really have the time to teach students how to assess and evaluate the assumptions in texts. students read because it’s a skill they have to develop, but that’s it. this comment is ratifying the relegation of ct skills as a result of the barriers mentioned by paula in her previous comment. apart from the pressures relating to testing and assessment, the lack of time is an essential commodity, which, in this case, is not at the service of developing critical reading skills required in today’s world. on the contrary, it can be argued that whatever amount of time is allocated to reading privileges the content that must be covered, the curriculum objectives that must be achieved, and perhaps the accountability standards to which the teacher has to respond, all of which appear to contribute to dominant reading pedagogical practices stagnating into a set of less meaningful, and highly routinized procedures. the representative samples of teachers’ responses in this section provide interesting insights into the complexities surrounding the teaching of ct skills. the increasingly unnecessary testing practices, as indicated by the teachers, aggravates teachers’ problems in their attempts to incorporate more dialogic approaches to reading through which students can be assisted to assess, evaluate and unpack texts in a manner that they gain a more critical perspective on what they are reading. despite the teachers’ overt recognition of the significance of developing students’ ct skills, the pedagogical challenges, which appear to be firmly rooted in a dominant culture of compliance and managerial approaches to the teaching of reading, seem to be the major hurdles in the process of adopting a critical pedagogy approach to reading in chile. 4. conclusion this study reported on research into the challenges of implementing a critical pedagogy approach to the teaching of reading in elt contexts in chile. the paper sought to uncover and examine inservice elt teachers’ perceptions and understandings of ct as well as the perceived challenges associated with the implementation of a critical pedagogy approach to the teaching of reading. regarding the pedagogical challenges encountered by teachers, our interview data revealed that the managerial culture that dominates the chilean education system, places teachers under considerable pressure to high-stakes testing practices, which are generally aimed at meeting public accountability and maintaining public confidence in the standards, quality and effectiveness of schooling (lewis & young, 2013). this does not only obscure the possibility to approach english language learning, and particularly reading, through critical lenses, but constrain, and potentially deskill, teachers who, despite their profound depth of professional knowledge and desire to treat the teaching of reading differently, grapple with the pressing demands of an educational, organizational structure that favors a culture of reproduction rather than ‘creative production’ (crookes & lehner, 1998). a critical reading of academic texts arises from the ideological perspectives and social and discourse practices that are embedded in the public discourse and the acquisition of knowledge and issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 171 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 161-173 veliz, l. 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(2016). critical thinking and reading comprehension among postgraduate students: the case of gender and language proficiency level. journal of language teaching and research, 7(4), 802-807. https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.0704.23 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2020.100783 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.08.003 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429431050-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2018.02.010 https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v9n3p18 https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2011.634902 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-385-3 https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230514447 https://doi.org/10.19030/tlc.v12i2.9187 https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2010.489237 https://doi.org/10.19030/ajee.v6i2.9506 https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.0704.23 sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal e-issn: 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-14 1 10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3702 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id the suitability of foreign language teaching in childhood according to the clil approach: the foreign language teachers' attitudes tilen smajla elementary school pier paolo vergerio il vecchio, gimnazijski trg 7, 6000 koper, slovenia tilen.smajla@gmail.com a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 17 february 2021 revised 08 april 2021 accepted 20 april 2021 this paper presents the results of a research into the foreign teachers' attitudes towards the first foreign language (fl 1) teaching according to the clil approach. the first foreign language teachers (fl 1 teachers) should have carried out their fl 1 lessons using the clil approach. the results of the twelve interviews: teachers agree upon the importance of the education process of teachers-to-be, for any teacher working at an early level should have completed a ba in class teaching and should have acquired a degree in the methodology of early language teaching. most teachers who used the clil approach in the first year of its introduction (school year 2014–2015), refrained from it in the second year, or only used some elements of the clil approach, for they felt that it was impossible to follow the guidelines of the “hard” clil. consequently, they only used some elements or strategies of the clil approach, which some authors call “soft” clil. although some teachers claimed to have encountered numerous obstacles in teaching according to clil, they nevertheless considered it to be a suitable approach in the fl 1 classroom and they feel that clil has contributed significantly to the learning outcomes. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords attitudes clil approach early age foreign language teacher foreign language teaching how to cite: smajla, t. (2021). the suitability of foreign language teaching in childhood according to the clil approach: the foreign language teachers' attitudes. english language teaching educational journal, 4(1), 1-14. doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3702 1. introduction in the member states of the european union, children start learning foreign languages at a very early age, for it was determined that early language learning has a positive impact on mother tongue proficiency and it increases motivation for learning foreign languages in the subsequent period (čok, 2008; lipavic oštir & jazbec, 2010). in contrast, many parents and teachers expressed considerable concern over the possibility that too early exposure to a variety of languages might slow down children's cognitive development (dagarin fojkar & skubic, 2017, p. 87). the research, however, showed that bilingual children, for example, develop certain types of cognitive flexibility and metalinguistic consciousness earlier and to a greater extent than their monolingual peers (cummins, 2000; king & mackey, 2007). according to foreign language teaching methodology, foreign language lessons should be continuously carried out using the “vertical approach” (early https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3702 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:tilen.smajla@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3702&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6214-067x 2 english language teaching educational journal e-issn: 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-14 smajla (the suitability of foreign language teaching in childhood according to the clil approach) learning of the first foreign language, the second foreign language is introduced later) in parallel with the “horizontal approach”, establishing different connections with children’s mother tongue, other languages and other subjects (music class, art class, learning about the environment, etc.) (lipavic oštir & jazbec, 2010). learning and teaching in the first educational period (ep 1) is specific, which is why these processes must be conducted in accordance with the principles for teaching young pupils. the school curriculum for the first foreign language (fl 1) at an early age (in the second and third grades of primary school) (pevec semec et al., 2013) emphasises the advantage of early fl 1 learning, as this stresses children's characteristics in this period, such as curiosity, the desire to learn, the need to communicate as well as the willingness and capability to imitate new and unfamiliar sounds (pevec semec et al., 2013, p. 6). the thesis briefly outlines how the clil approach was implemented in slovenia on a statewide level for the first time and describes the circumstances of introducing foreign language lessons according to the clil approach. based on what was written in the aforementioned text we would like to highlight the valuable contribution of the efforts of fl teachers in their attempts to boost the learning outcomes of young foreign language learners, which is exactly what our research has concluded. 1.1. the clil approach the introduction mentions the clil approach, which was first recognized in 1995 in the council resolution of 31 march 1995 on improving and diversifying language learning and teaching within the education systems of the european union. the clil approach is known under various names, such as language bath, language showers, integrated lessons, bilingual lessons, total or partial immersion, or – as stated in lipavic oštir et al., 2015 – non-language subject in a foreign language. during its development and implementation it has been compared and/or considered as a synonym to integrated thematic instruction (school model designed by kovalik, see kovalik & olsen, 1993), immersion (lasagabaster & sierra, 2009), content-based instruction (cenoz, 2015), task-based language teaching (ortega, 2015), english for specific purpose (yang, 2016; taillefer, 2013; tzoannopoulou, 2015) or bilingual education (nikula, 2018). clil programmes are an approach to learn english or another foreign language by combining language and content subjects. in some contexts, clil is selective and this selection can be based on cognitive abilities or may also be linked to socio-economic backgrounds (van mensel et al., 2020). the integration of content and language is one of the main characteristics of the clil approach, as the relationship between these two elements is at the core of any implementation (llinares & morton, 2017; nikula et al., 2016). karabassova (2018, p. 2) claimed that there is a "dichotomy of teaching the content subject and teaching the language instead of utilizing an integrated approach towards teaching". this dichotomy exists because most teacher education degrees are oriented either to language or to content, particularly in the case of secondary education. this problem arose because content teachers believed they should give priority to content (daltonpuffer, 2011; karabassova, 2018; lo, 2019). beliefs are essential to understand how each clil teacher conceptualises clil or her/his role as a teacher in the approach. beliefs have been described as "a complex set of variables based on attitudes, experiences and expectations" (skinnari & bovellan, 2016, p. 146). as a language of instruction, the clil approach uses a language that is not the children’s first language or their mother tongue. baïdak et al., (2006, p. 10) claim that the clil approach uses an additional or second language, which helps children learn. according to eurydice (content and language integrated learning (clil) at school in europe, 2006, p. 11), the additional languages can be english, german, french, spanish or russian – altogether, they represent 95 % of all languages learnt by pupils in the eu. georgiou (2012, p. 495–496) notes that “the clil approach is the highest developmental stage of communicative approach to language teaching”. the clil approach allows pupils reasonable communication and at the same time provides them with an excellent opportunity to use a foreign language in an exercise. in this process, pupils can experience continuous learning, which is natural, unforced and thus more effective (georgiou, e-issn: 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 3 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-14 smajla (the suitability of foreign language teaching in childhood according to the clil approach) 2012, p. 495–496). it offers a highly scaffolded environment and the support to students in developing the skills needed for memorizing, describing, asking questions, cooperative group work, pair work, debating and so on for the assignments to be successful (coyle et al., 2010). clil students have been shown to obtain greater oral communication, speaking fluency and social interaction skills in the foreign language, than students who only attend standard foreign language education (de diezmaz, 2016; dalton-puffer, 2011; mayo & ibarrola, 2014; perez canado, 2017; arribas, 2016). although clil is sometimes used as the term to exclusively refer to specific european bilingual education programmes using english as the language of instruction, clil shares the same essential characteristics as other content-based instruction (cbi) programmes such as immersion programmes (cenoz, 2015; cenoz et al., 2013; cenoz & ruiz de zarobe, 2015). the clil approach creates a learning environment in which pupils acquire language skills through their immediate use and not in language lessons, where languages skills were acquired and developed for a future use. 1.2. background of the research considering the fact that the paper deals with teachers’ attitudes, and to a certain extent belief, citing the monumental work of krosnick and perth (1995) is inevitable. it is assumed that there is a certain level of interchangeability of the terms attitude and belief and the following part will be dedicated to the teachers’ beliefs. as artner would put it (2016, p. 50) “the term ‘belief’ is easily understandable and readily used in day-to-day conversation. as a subject of research teachers’ beliefs have developed from the 1940’s onwards with an increased interest over the last 20 years.” the author continues by stating that “some researchers see beliefs as something stable, unable to be changed, whereas others view them as dynamic.” both understandings are based on research findings and have influenced research and practice in equal measure (2016, p. 53). across the globe, the clil approach has proven to be timely and has been supported on all levels by all stakeholders, as cross reported (2013). particularly, in the state of victoria, the authors claimed that “teachers reported even higher levels of support from content teachers by the end of the trial” (cross, 2013, p. 69) on the one hand, while “principals expressed possible concern about how the approach had been perceived by the broader school community on the other hand.” (cross, 2013, p. 69). the discrepancy was reported by teachers related specifically to nonlanguage/content teachers with whom language teachers collaborated in developing the clil programme. cross also concluded that “clil has the potential to impact other curriculum areas. with immersion programs, the likelihood that it will impact other areas is very high, since at least 50% of the curriculum is being delivered in the target language (baker, 2006, as cited in cross, 2013, p. 70; see also gorjian & hamidavi, 2017). the authors pointed to an important consideration, that should a language teacher “attempt clil in an unsupportive school, and then have the program fail, will only reinforce existing negative perceptions/uncertainty about its potential. clil’s success therefore ultimately depends on the quality of individual or small groups of teachers, working within supportive school environments.” (baker, 2006, as cited in cross, 2013, p. 70-72; see also gorjian & hamidavi, 2017). studies have also revealed a great impact of clil on foreign language performance, content knowledge and also the impact on mother tongue, classroom interaction (pastrana, llinares & pascual, 2018), the influence of affective factors (lasagabaster & doiz, 2015; otwinowska & foryś, 2017), household structure (mensel, hilligsmann, mettewie & galand, 2020), time and intensity (surmont, et al., 2016; merino & lasagabaster, 2017), age (roquet, 2015), motivation (fontecha & canga alonso, 2014), gender (canga alonso, 2016; fontecha & canga alonso, 2014), strategies (zarobe, 2017; straková, 2020). it is important to bring down language barriers and boost interest in english as a school subject (rumlich, 2014). researches in japan, for example, mentioned “good points of clil” (yamano, 2013; ito, 2018a) through practices and investigations. ito (2018b, p. 60) specifically highlighted the following: “students are less anxious about making mistakes in english as they are focused 4 english language teaching educational journal e-issn: 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-14 smajla (the suitability of foreign language teaching in childhood according to the clil approach) on lesson content; many students feel as though lessons are fun because their intellectual curiosity is fulfilled; and, many students feel that clil lessons are easy to understand as teachers tend to use visual aids.”, thus bringing the clil approach’s effectiveness to the sustainable level. 2. method 2.1. research problem, the aim of the research and research questions in the 2014/2015 school year, fl 1 pilot lessons were first carried out in the second grade of a state primary school, while all other state schools saw its initial introduction in the 2016/2017 school year. teachers were asked to carry out fl 1 lessons according to the clil approach, which the school curriculum describes as a didactic recommendation, not as a compulsory approach to teaching (pevec semec et al., 2013). as a language of instruction, the clil approach uses a foreign language; however, according to constitutional provisions (ustava republike slovenije, 1991), lessons in state schools cannot be carried out in a foreign language (except for the areas of autochthonous italian and hungarian national communities, where lessons in state schools are carried out in either italian or hungarian) (ustava republike slovenije, 1991). we assumed that teachers had partly adopted their attitudes towards the introduction of fl 1 teaching according to the clil approach, which is why we wanted to investigate what they thought. we examined the teachers’ attitude towards the introduction of fl 1 teaching according to the clil approach, their attitude towards foreign language learning and teaching according to the clil approach and their attitude towards the suitability of the clil approach in fl 1 lessons. based on the aforementioned premises we aimed to determine whether the introduction of the clil approach changes the fl 1 teachers’ attitude towards fl 1 learning and teaching in childhood. we also wanted to examine whether there are significant differences between fl 1 teachers’ attitudes towards the suitability of the clil approach in fl 1 teaching. lastly, we sought to find out whether there are significant differences in fl 1 teachers’ attitude towards fl 1 learning and teaching in childhood and the clil approach with regard to gender, years of experience and acquired education of fl 1 teachers. see the appendix for the list of questions for the semi-structured interview. 2.2. research paradigm, data acquisition, data processing and presentation of the research sample in the research, the qualitative research paradigm is used. the data were acquired by conducting semi-structured interviews, which allowed us to gain a detailed insight into the interviewees’ attitudes. ten interviews were carried out face-to-face, two by mail. the interviews were conducted in the period from 15. 2. 2016 to 31. 3. 2016. the obtained material was processed and analysed using neither measurement process nor operations between numbers (mesec, 1998). in the process of systematic coding of units obtained from the material, we formed theoretical explanations (zhang & wildemuth, 2009). the research sample was obtained by applying convenience sampling and as a result, 12 semistructured interviews with interviewees from all over slovenia, except for its central region, were carried out. there are no participants from the central region of slovenia, since none of the foreign language teachers whom we reached out to, had chosen to participate in our research. all 12 interviewees were female foreign language teachers at state elementary schools. below is a detailed presentation of the sample. interviewee 1: female fl 1 class teacher with additional training in foreign language teaching methodology at an early age, 19 years of service and 8 years of teaching experience at an early age, born 1972. interviewee 2: female fl 1 class teacher with additional training in foreign language teaching methodology at an early age, 12 years of service, born 1988. interviewee 3: female fl 1 class teacher with additional training in foreign language teaching methodology at an early age, 26 years of service and 2 years of teaching experience at an early age, born 1963. e-issn: 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 5 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-14 smajla (the suitability of foreign language teaching in childhood according to the clil approach) interviewee 4: female fl 1 class teacher with additional training in foreign language teaching methodology at an early age, 7 years of service and 2 years of teaching experience at an early age, born 1989. interviewee 5: female fl 1 class teacher with additional training in foreign language teaching methodology at an early age, 12 years of service, born 1984. interviewee 6: female fl 1 class teacher with additional training in foreign language teaching methodology at an early age, 8 years of service and 4 years of teaching experience at an early age, born 1986. interviewee 7: female fl 1 class teacher with additional training in foreign language teaching methodology at an early age, 10 years of service and 6 years of teaching experience at an early age, born 1983. interviewee 8: female fl 1 class teacher with additional training in foreign language teaching methodology at an early age, 10 years of service and 2 years of teaching experience at an early age, born 1981. interviewee 9: female fl 1 class teacher with additional training in foreign language teaching methodology at an early age, 13 years of service, born 1979. interviewee 10: female fl 1 class teacher with additional training in foreign language teaching methodology at an early age, 7 years of service, born 1983. interviewee 11: female fl 1 class teacher with additional training in foreign language teaching methodology for the second cycle (classes 4 to 6 in the nine-grade slovenian state elementary schools) of elementary schools, 10 years of service, born 1981. interviewee 12: female fl 1 and sociology teacher with additional training in foreign language teaching methodology at an early age, 17 years of service and 12 years of teaching experience at an early level, born 1973. 3. findings and discussion the results of the research are presented in individual categories that are derived from research questions. some categories were combined with regard to the research questions. 3.1. category 1: the fl 1 teachers’ attitude towards fl 1 learning and teaching in childhood has changed due to the introduction of the clil approach most of the interviewees changed their attitudes during the introduction of the fl in the ep 1. we determined that most of the interviewees, who taught according to the clil approach at least for one year, only partly preserved the teaching methods according to this approach, as they observed that they can no longer strictly follow its teaching guidelines; consequently, they only used some of the elements or only the strategy of the clil approach in teaching. interviewee 1, fl 1 teacher with 19 years of service, born 1972, stated: “i think that clil is still a very good approach, although i didn’t often use it in the second year of the trial introduction, mostly due to a strict timetable and due to a different way of teaching.” they preferred to adopt interdisciplinary integration strategies and some of them followed the guidelines set by the national education institute slovenia in the second year of the introduction of the fl 1 in the ep 1, which recommend the use of the softer version of the clil approach. as would the interviewee 5, fl 1 teacher with 12 years of service, born 1984, say: “the first year of the fl 1 trial introduction, 2013/2015, i had lots of support, clil was a recommended approach in the ep 1, but i later found out that i could not test the students’ knowledge by using the traditional textbook approach, so now i mainly use cross-curricular links.” as reasons for abandoning this approach, the interviewees stated different obstacles, from organizational problems (placement in the school schedule, remuneration for work, too large groups, combined lessons, etc.) to the particularity of modern generations of pupils. they also stressed the need to adapt their work to children’s needs and establish a relationship with pupils. when asked about this, interviewee 8, fl 1 teacher with 10 years of service, born 1981, 6 english language teaching educational journal e-issn: 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-14 smajla (the suitability of foreign language teaching in childhood according to the clil approach) said: “what matters is that you have a feeling for teaching children and the persons’ character. a great factor at work is the personal touch.” we can summarize that, due to the aforementioned problems, most of the interviewees do not apply the clil approach in foreign languages lessons in entirety, but only partly. some of them did not adopt this approach because they felt themselves underqualified to carry out lessons using the clil approach, so they provided lessons using other approaches, of which interdisciplinary integration and the communication approach were the most commonly mentioned. 3.2. category 2: there are differences in fl 1 teachers’ attitude towards the suitability of the clil approach in fl 1 teaching three of twelve interviewees evaluated the clil approach as particularly suitable, whereas the others deemed it suitable in foreign language lessons, which are not carried out entirely in accordance with the clil approach due to several obstacles. as would interviewee 11, fl 1 teacher with 10 years of service, born 1981 say: “working according to clil is very demanding, your need to go through a lot of adjusting and cooperation with class teachers, which requires a lot of joint planning, exchange of materials and sources.” this approach was applied by some interviewees from time to time and on occasions where this was reasonable, while others used it all the time. some interviewees mentioned the use of the clil matrix, which was used in the second year of the introduction of the fl 1 in foreign language lessons, while others were aware of the suitability of the clil approach for carrying out foreign language lessons, yet they preferred to use interdisciplinary integration and learning approaches similar to the clil approach in that same period. to sum up, we perceived much insecurity regarding what expectations the experts formulating language policies set up about the fl 1 teachers in the ep 1, what type of the clil approach the fl 1 teachers were supposed to adopt with children at an early age, where they could get qualified for this type of work and whether they would be remunerated for the additional work that they do. some interviewees claimed that they were prepared to provide fl 1 lessons in accordance with the clil approach if they could acquire the appropriate qualification, since they had a positive attitude towards this approach. when directly asked about the suitability of the clil approach in fl 1 teaching, interviewee 2, fl 1 teacher with 12 years of service, born 1988, said: “if i understand clil correctly, strictly speaking, it’s not useful, because i have to teach my kids the names of the objects in their mother tongue first. some elements are ok, for example the communication.” interviewee 3, fl 1 teacher with 26 years of service, born 1963 added: “i think clil is not useful, its elements are, though, but not the whole. so, not the whole, just at times and occasionally, where it’s possible and feasible.” 3.3. category 3: there are differences in the fl 1 teachers’ attitude towards fl 1 learning and teaching in childhood and towards the clil approach with regard to gender, years of experience and the acquired education of fl 1 teachers the interviewees all agreed upon the importance of the acquired education of fl 1 teachers in the ep 1, who should have completed a ba in class teaching and acquired a degree in the methodology of early english/german teaching. according to the interviewees, teachers with such education are suitable for this type of work, as they are the most familiar with teaching approaches and methods used with children at an early age. some interviewees stressed the importance of a relationship established by teachers with younger pupils. interviewee 3, fl 1 teacher with 26 years of service, born 1963 believed that “this depends on the personality, on how teachers can approach children”. the interviewees thought it better for class teachers to carry out lessons with younger pupils, as they are more familiar with the children’s needs and the school curriculum for this period, they find it easier to follow teaching guidelines and they know the teaching didactics appropriate for children at an early age. three interviewees, who recognized years of experience as an important factor, stressed that teachers teaching fl 1 in the ep 1 should have more experience. following up the last statement, interviewee 9, fl 1 teacher with 13 years of service, born 1979 stated that “a teacher with more years of experience has more knowledge on the characteristics of younger pupils and more authority over them”. interviewee 11, fl 1 teacher with 10 years of service, born 1981 believed that “years of experience bring more e-issn: 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 7 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-14 smajla (the suitability of foreign language teaching in childhood according to the clil approach) confidence”. in addition to the importance of years of experience, interviewee 12, fl 1 teacher with 17 years of service, born 1973 stressed that “years of experience are fairly decisive, but they are not the most important factor. if a teacher with many years of experience refrains from trying something new or does not follow new didactic recommendations and techniques, years of experience can only be a burden /.../. younger teachers have an advantage in this field but lack broader knowledge.” to summarize, approximately a half of the interviewees agree with the statement that years of experience in carrying out fl 1 lessons for children in the ep 1 have an important role; nonetheless, they also stress the importance of teachers’ personality, the willingness to introduce changes in how to carry out lessons and the awareness of the particularity of younger pupils. in the research, all the interviewees stated that the clil approach would be more suitable for providing lessons with older pupils from the ep 2 or 3: “the clil approach is more suitable in the ep 2, if not even in the ep 3, for pupils have enough foreign language competencies” (interviewee 4). however, coyle et al., (2010, p. 4) stress this exact aspect of the clil approach: neither a language lesson nor a non-language lesson, but a combination of both. this approach merges what looks like fragments at first glance, such as independent school subjects, into one comprehensive learning experience (coyle et al., 2010). some interviewees in our research often mentioned the problems that arose when they tried to introduce the clil approach in the fl 1 lessons. the most frequent problems were of organizational nature (placement of a foreign language lesson in the school schedule, compliance with the ep 1 school curriculum, lack of time for coordination with class teachers, lack of understanding by the school management and other staff, remuneration for work). some teachers did not quite grasp the aim of the clil approach, they misplaced their attention to language and misregarded their awareness regarding the integration of language and content, which is the aim of clil programmes. as lazarević (2019, p. 8) reported in a study conducted on high school teachers in serbia, "teachers did not consider organizing instruction differently for their clil classes". these problems could be the result of distress experienced by the said interviewees because the expectations towards the fl 1 class conducting in accordance with the principles of the clil approach in the first year of its introduction were very high. only two of 12 interviewees had used the clil approach or approaches similar to the clil approach for a long time directly before its formal introduction in the fl 1 lessons. some have even considered abandoning entirely the use of the clil approach. cammarata (2009) emphasizes that the use of the clil approach partly re-establishes the teachers’ identity as such, for the clil approach makes teachers question their self-beliefs as professionals in a certain field. this can lead to a crisis and the abandonment of the clil approach, as was reported by the interviewees and as is noted by cammarata (2009). the reasons for abandoning the clil approach can also be found in the perceived lack of participation between fl 1 teachers, their co-workers and other parties. another reason for abandoning clil in the difficulty of integrating content and language, which ahs been the core of many of the problems fl teachers had to face and is also reported in many studies (cammarata & tedick, 2012; koopman et al., 2014; oattes et al., 2018). moreover, according to cammarata (2009, 2010), the abandonment of this approach can be a result of the lack of control in the clil lessons planning process, pressure from evaluation and the excessive emphasis that teachers are responsible for the pupils’ progress. this means that most of the participants in the qualitative part of the research had been made aware of the clil approach before the introduction of the fl 1 in the second grade or even during this process. at the same time, this indicates that we talk about the profile of a classical fl 1 teacher whom the clil approach appeared unfamiliar or mostly unfamiliar. on the other hand, the clil approach and approaches similar to the clil approach stress the significance of extraordinary possibilities for professional development of teachers (european commission, 2017), as this approach presents some sort of a challenge that makes them rethink and reshape their own practice methods as well as consider their own professional integrity, which is discussed in the works by cammarata (2009), viebrock (2009) and moate (2011). the interviewees participating in our research reported on similar experience; 8 english language teaching educational journal e-issn: 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-14 smajla (the suitability of foreign language teaching in childhood according to the clil approach) considering they had mostly had no experience in teaching according to the clil approach, they faced a great challenge in the first year of its introduction (2014/2015). they were aware that teachers applying the clil approach must have special knowledge in the field of language competence as well as teaching and methodological skills and thorough knowledge of the nonlanguage subject to be taught (content and language integrated learning (clil) at school in europe, 2006). it has also been revealed that teachers in clil contexts seem to struggle to focus on language and content at the same time and find it challenging to know how to focus on language (cammarata & tedick, 2012; costa, 2012: goris et al., 2019). the interviewees expressed the fear that they are not qualified enough to apply the clil approach and that they do not use this approach due to the lack of its skilful application. this is not surprising as most of the interviewees had more than five years of experience, while the clil approach was not a widely used approach in slovenia in that period, except for some minor projects (for example, at the bojan ilich primary school (jazbec & lovrin, 2015, p. 70), at the manko golar kindergarten in gornja radgona, at the josip vandot kindergarten and primary school in kranjska gora, and elsewhere). moreover, the clil approach and approaches similar to the clil approach were regularly applied in fl 1 lessons by only two of 12 interviewees. the problem behind effective application and use of the clil approach probably lies in the fact that most teachers, who apply the clil approach to fl 1 lessons, are either language teachers (of english or german) or have completed a ba in class teaching and acquired a degree in the methodology of early language teaching. this can be challenging for teachers as they have to obtain adequate skills in either a foreign language or in the field to be taught with the help of a foreign/additional language; teachers must be able to regulate their knowledge of the subject and the language (cammarata & tedick, 2012). in order to make the transition into the full clil lesson smoother, fl teachers might consider to have a content teacher and a language teacher working together in the class (méndez garcía & pavón vázquez, 2012; pavón vázquez & ramos ordóñez, 2018), although that is no common. some of the teachers also reported having problems with form and could focus on language pedagogies that would direct their attention to this issue (gierlinger, 2017; he & lin, 2018; lo, 2019). this indicates that teachers must acquire skills that encourage the formulation of supporting strategies for foreign language teaching (boutin, 1993). inspite of all the setbacks and difficulties most fl teachers still deem clil to be a suitable approach in language teaching in the early age (anderson, mcdougald & cuesta medina, 2015; griva & kasvikis, 2014; pfenninger, 2016). there are also other considerations. nikula (2016) claims that while research has provided a sound evidence base for the effects of clil on language learning, there are doubts regarding the clil approach’s fitness for all types of learners. the author also raises another question, namely the question of equity, is the clil approach suitable for students with learning difficulties and also, the fact that availability of clil programmes tends to concentrate in bigger towns and municipalities has raised concerns about clil compromising equity (nikula & järvinen, 2013). this has been a particularly felt issue among the interviewees, since many came from small communities with little support from neither their school authorities nor from their peers in school or from the national board of education. on the other hand, suhandoko (2019) reported positive attitudes of the english teacher regarding the use of clil approach, which results sustainable. the examination of foreign language lessons in accordance with the clil approach will probably need more attention in the future and as wei and feng (2015, p. 60) would put it” that the benefits of clil programmes for young learners can only be maximized when people’s language practices, beliefs and the authorities’ management are consistent with each other”, which is exactly the reason why the majority of fl teachers included in our research stated that they would continue using the clil approach in their efl class (smajla, 2019). moreover, considering the pragmatic nature of clil it will be crucial for fl teachers to continue developing their skills, the "so called soft skills", which are as much pivotal for them as for their students (moraleja novillo, 2018, p. 18). it is also, as pérez cañado (2021, p. 31) put it "an uncontested fact that we are living in times of profound change in english language teaching", hence all the fl teachers should e-issn: 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 9 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-14 smajla (the suitability of foreign language teaching in childhood according to the clil approach) rethink their teaching approaches and find a set of those who cater for the most of their students' needs, since it is them who will eventually prepare them "for authentic international/intercultural communication (vettorel & corrizzatto, 2016, p. 503). it has also been established that teacher educators should, and that goes for the national board of education as well, in order not to be considered illiterate of the twenty-first century", make themselves willing to learn, unlearn and relearn" (siqueira, 2017, p. 400). 4. conclusion the research results have revealed the undisputed usefulness and suitability of the clil approach in fl teaching. it has been established that the fl teachers must also be aware that lesson planning strategies have to be revised. the same goes for educational authorities and teacher educators. the urge to develop a new teacher development paradigm has to be put into place and into practice, one that would include relevant premises, practices, conceptions, strategies and tools that are in their core very diverse form the ones teacher educators have been utilizing so far. fl teachers’ main goal should remain the focus on constant and lifelong participative learning and cooperation with their peers. they should keep up their motivation to bring innovation into the fl teaching and think outside the box. all too often quitting the safety zone is not an option for many a teacher, yet new circumstances in and outside of fl teaching, in the community and their organization may force many fl teachers to tackle the difficult task of unlearning the old ways and relearning some new approaches. declaration author contribution : the author confirms sole responsibility for the following: study conception and design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of results, and manuscript. funding statement : the research has not received any funding whatsoever. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references anderson, c. e., mcdougald, j. s. in cuesta medina, l. 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(2013). clil in a japanese primary school: exploring the potential of clil in a japanese efl context. international clil research journal, 2 (1), 19-30. retrieved from http://www.icrj.eu/21/article2.html zarobe y r (2017) improving reading strategy knowledge in young children: what self-report https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2017.1334396 https://doi.org/10.21832/9781783096145-010 https://doi.org/10.17770/sie2020vol5.4819 https://doi.org/10.26858/eltww.v6i2.10662 https://doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.2016.6.2.7 https://doi.org/10.4000/asp.3290 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.02.045 http://pisrs.si/pis.web/pregledpredpisa?id=usta1 https://doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2019.1571078 https://doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.2016.6.3.6 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266078414000558 14 english language teaching educational journal e-issn: 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-14 smajla (the suitability of foreign language teaching in childhood according to the clil approach) questionnaires can reveal. estudios de lingüística inglesa aplicada (17): 15-45. https://doi.org/10.12795/elia.2017.i17.02 zhang, y., & wildemuth, b.m. (2009) qualitative analysis of content. in: b m wildemuth (ed) applications of social research methods to questions in information and library science (pp. 308¬319.) westport: libraries unlimited. supplementary material list of questions for the semi-structured interview: 1. what is your attitude towards the teaching and learning of a foreign language at an early age? 2. what is your attitude towards the clil approach? 3. what is your attitude towards the teaching and learning of a foreign language and towards the clil approach regarding the gender, years of service, and education level of the foreign language teacher? 4. have your attitudes changed and why? 5. how suitable is the clil approach in foreign language teaching? https://doi.org/10.12795/elia.2017.i17.02 sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 1, 2019, pp. 13-21 e-issn: 2621-6485 a content analysis of the reading activities in “bright 2” an english textbook for junior high school students 1sucipto sucipto, 2septian dwi cahyo 1central china normal university 2universitas ahmad dahlan e-mail: sucipto@pbi.uad.ac.id. abstract this study aimed to analyze the reading activities in “bright 2”, an english textbook for grade viii students of junior high school in indonesia, by using bloom’s revised taxonomy. a content analysis was conducted to achieve the research purpose. the findings show that the textbook has dominant reading activities especially on the cognitive process of “analyze” and “apply” aspects mounting to 27% and 21% respectively out of the total 145 reading activities. meanwhile, the number of the higher and lower cognitive processes in this textbook is categorized balanced on the score of 49% of higher order thinking skills and 51% of the lower ones. there is a slight difference between the number of higher thinking skills and lower thinking skills since most reading activities found are on “analyze” aspect, which belong to the higher thinking skills while the second most frequent reading activities are found on “apply” aspect, which are lower thinking skills. however, “apply” and “analyze” aspects are placed at the 3rd and 4th in the taxonomy, which means that the textbook emphasizes the middle cognitive thinking process of bloom’s revised taxonomy, which is formed by “apply” and “analyze” thinking process. keywords: reading activities, efl textbook, bloom's revised taxonomy, content analysis how to cite: sucipto, s., & cahyo, s. d. (2019). a content analysis of the reading activities in “bright 2” an english textbook for junior high school students. english language teaching educational journal, 2(1), 13-21. introduction the most commonly used teaching material is textbooks. as textbooks are developed to implement the curriculum, they will provide structured learning objectives, learning activities, learning materials, and learning approaches as well so that they will improve students’ thinking structure or cognitive achievement. textbook is very helpful for teachers in conducting the teaching and learning process (wen-cheng, chien-hung, & chung-chieh, 2011). indonesia’s current curriculum, kurikulum 2013 (k13), is intended to make indonesian students be productive, creative, innovative, and effective by empowering and integrating attitudes, skills, and knowledge (departement pendidikan nasional, 2003). the significant differences of k13 and the previous curriculum are: k13 is balancing both hard-skills and soft-skills in the curriculum level. textbooks under this curriculum are developed based on activities for middle school, and integrated thematic based ones for the elementary school level. in addition, they use a scientific learning approach and employ summative and formative assessment (gunawan and daud, 2018). 14 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 the k13 demands the usage of an activities based textbook. the book design is intended to allow students to acquire knowledge as they know what, why, and how to solve the problems along the activities, thus the received information is meaningful for them (departement pendidikan nasional, 2003). as english is a compulsory subject in indonesia, the english textbook should also be developed based on the curriculum. the learning of english as a foreign language in indonesia needs a specific context to be meaningful. it also needs an activity-based book which can help the process of acquiring english inherent with the current curriculum. the activities meant here are the ones which provide hands-on experience to students in their process of acquiring knowledge and information with direct experience. in addition to providing direct experience, the activities are also expected to form a cognitive mindset in the students, i.e. activities which provide guidelines in the cognitive development of the students. due to these considerations, activities are central aspects of a textbooks. activities provided in textbooks are important aspects in developing students' thinking skills (assaly & igbaria, 2014). therefore, textbook plays a vital role in achieving the curriculum goal, with textbook needed to contribute to develop the student’s creative thinking (fatimah, 2018). boraie (2013) argues that teaching in english classes should focus on fostering student thinking as well as language content, outcomes, and learning activities. this argument is implemented in k13 in which the learning activities are student-centered learning. consequently, the textbooks are developed applying activity-based not content-based. bright 2 is one among numerous english textbooks which are based on curriculum 2013 in the market. it is published by erlangga which is one of the trusted educational textbook publishers in indonesia. since it is widely used in english language teaching in junior high schools in indonesia, it is essential to analyze the activities in bright 2 textbook analyzing whether or not the activities can develop students’ higher thinking skills. as the development of curriculum 2013 is based on bloom’s revised taxonomy, so that this study is aimed to analyze the activities in bright 2 textbook using bloom’s revised taxonomy. reading activities in textbooks nordquist (2015) defines reading as the process of extracting meaning from a written or printed text. reading is also a skill of communication. grabe and stoller (2002) define reading as the ability to draw meaning from the printed page and interpret this information appropriately. it is a process of understanding the message which is influenced by one’s knowledge. readers may be told that they have read if they are able to comprehend the passage about. therefore they obtain such knowledge or information from it. activities are very significant in controlling learners' thinking. they are also essential tools for examining students’ understanding of the learning material and assessing what levels of thinking students are using in the learning process (assaly, i., & igbaria, a. k., 2014). eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ sucipto, s., cahyo, s. d. 15 the textbook is commonly used by the teacher in the classroom as supporting media in language teaching. textbooks contain teaching material, activities to enhance students’ knowledge, and evaluation. using a textbook for classroom teaching gives a clear view of the teaching objectives, since it is developed based on standardized curriculum by government. textbooks provide structuralized teaching materials. harmer (2001) stated in order to be a success in learning english students need to be motivated, be exposed to language, given a chance to use the target language as much as possible. english textbooks provide learning objectives, teaching materials, language focus, task, activities and evaluation which give students familiar with the target language. textbook are wrritten to support the teaching and learning process. cunningsworth (1995) stated textbooks or coursebooks are best seen as a resource of achieving objectives that have already been set in terms of learner needs. teachers used materials in many different ways. according to tomlinson (2012), a textbook designed for providing teaching materials of language learning course as much as possible so it will be the base of language teaching and learning process. murray and christison (2011) defined textbooks as all types of published materials to give students more opportunities to learn. consequently, the textbook will be designed based on the current implemented curriculum in a country. richards (2001) stated textbooks as a commercial textbook,workbook, cassettes, cd’s, and teachers’ guide perhaps are the commonest teaching material in language teaching. further, brown (2001) stated that teachers can find learning material clear and most common in a textbook. thus, the textbook will effectively support the teacher and the language learning process since it is available in the market and has a lot of varieties. research on efl/esl textbooks has been a concern for both researchers and teachers. the textbook is not only designed for one-time usage or to maintain the sustainability of it but the material should also be contextual along the time. the analysis of the indonesian textbook comparing k13 and previous curriculum (ktsp/ school based curriculum) shows that there are significant differences and development on the textbooks’ content (hanifa, 2018). textbooks from the previous curriculum can be adapted for the current curriculum by revising the content with contemporary contexts and needs. for example, the ktsp textbooks had much more authentic materials while in k13 have limited authentic materials (hanifa, 2018). the evaluation and development should become a continuous process as well as education. the problem within the textbook is not always covering students’ needs, nor does it meet the instructor’s needs (abdelrahman, 2014; bouzid, 2017; gulzar & multan, 2017). therefore teachers need to revisit the textbook to make it suitable for teaching in the classroom. bloom’s taxonomy and bloom’s revised taxonomy activities in the textbook may direct students to develop creative thinking. it is a part of the higher-order thinking skills as stated in bloom’s cognitive taxonomy, which is widely known in education. it is a general 16 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 taxonomy that describes six levels for examining the fulfillment of the goals of learners' cognitive domains: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. as a result, it has become a tool to deliver learning objectives and also analysis for research (assaly & igbaria, 2014). furthermore, the taxonomy has been revised by anderson, krathwohl, et al., in 2001 (krathwohl, 2002). the earlier taxonomy covered a single dimension of knowledge and became the base for developing learning evaluations, tests, activities, and objectives. however, on the process, the given objectives or evaluation are often assessed at the higher level of the taxonomy only and missed the intended level. the revised version by anderson, krathwohl, et al. changed the object-based taxonomy into process-based. therefore, the terms or names for knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation aspects are renamed into remember, understand, apply, analyze, create and evaluate respectively; from nouns into verbs. the change implicitly stated that cognitive was not a product but a process, therefore the new naming used verb. furthermore, the revised taxonomy is also re-arranged the create taxonomy as the highest process switching it into “evaluate”. the taxonomy also revamped into two dimensions; cognitive process dimension and knowledge dimension. table 1 shows the level of cognitive process dimension level on the bloom’s revised taxonomy. table 1. cognitive process dimension level on bloom’s revised taxonomy (krathwohl, 2002) cognitive process dimension level definition remember retrieve relevant knowledge from longterm memory understand make meaning from instructional messages, including oral, written, and graphic communication long-term memory apply do or employ a process in a certain situation analyze break materials into parts and determine how the parts relate evaluate make judgments based on criteria and standards create set elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; we organize elements into a new pattern or structure throughout the years, there are a lot of researches on the efl textbooks which are based on the revised taxonomy. the analysis on textbook evaluation questions, testing question, reading comprehension questions, and language eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ sucipto, s., cahyo, s. d. 17 activities are analyzed by using the taxonomy to represents the cognitive process within the subjects (abdelrahman, 2014; assaly & igbaria, 2014; ismail & hanim, 2018; putri & komariah, 2018; soleimani & kheiri, 2016; tarman & kuran, 2015; zareian, davoudi, heshmatifar, & rahimi, 2015). there are many textbooks in the market that can be used for the teaching process, and teachers need to choose which textbook is most suitable to be used for the teaching process. however, most teachers are very dependent on the textbook. this research analyzed bright 2; an english course for junior high school students textbook which is one among numerous k13 based english textbooks in the market. it aimed at analyzing to what extent the textbook encourages students to think under higher order thinking skills (hots) and was done by examining and assessing the total number of the reading activities in the intended textbook. as k13 demands the textbook to be based on activities to develop the students’ knowledge, therefore, to determine the cognitive process level of the activities in bright 2 textbook, the analysis of the study was conducted based on bloom's revised taxonomy (brt). research method this research applied content analysis research type investigating the level of the cognitive domains of the reading activities in bright 2 textbook. there were 19 chapters with 145 reading activities in the textbook. these data were listed, reviewed and classified based on bloom’s revised taxonomy. in addition, an english teacher was invited to conduct the data validation. afterward, the classified data were calculated and compared to identify the dominant cognitive process in the activities. findings and discussion to achieve the objective of the research, the researcher collected and analyzed the content of the bright 2 textbook using bloom’s revised cognitive taxonomy. there were 145 reading activities on the textbook collected from 19 units. table 2 describes the frequencies and percentages of each cognitive process. table 2. frequencies and percentages of cognitive process cognitive process quantity percentages remember 23 16 % understand 20 14 % apply 30 21 % analyze 39 27 % evaluate 6 4 % create 27 18 % total 145 100 % 18 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 table 2 shows the analysis of the reading activities in the textbook based on bloom’s revised taxonomy classification. the table shows that the most dominant cognitive process was the “analyze” process by 27% (39 activities0 and followed by the “apply” process reaching the percentage of 21% (30 activities). this “analyze” category included the cognitive processes of “differentiating”, “organizing”, and “attributing”. therefore, objectives classified as “analyze” involve learning activities determining the relevant or essential pieces of a message (differentiating), how the pieces of a word are configured (organizing), and the underlying purpose of the message (attributing) (mayer, 2001). meanwhile, the least cognitive process on reading activities was found at the “evaluate” process. “evaluate” is one of the complex cognitive processes (raths, james, 2002). under “evaluate” category, it was found out that there were only 6 activities or 4 %. in other words, there were only a few activities in the textbook which require students to do evaluation exercises. as explained previously, the classification of bloom’s cognitive process is divided into two groups, i.e. higher and lower cognitive process. the higher cognitive process includes “analyze”, “evaluate” and “create”, while “remember”, “understand” and “apply” are grouped into lower thinking processes (soleimani & kheiri, 2016). using this classification, the data analysis shows that the number of the higher cognitive process level of reading activities in bright 2 is less compared to the lower level thinking process. the higher cognitive process level is 49 % with 72 reading activities while the lower cognitive process level is 51 % with 73 reading activities. the distribution of the activities between higher and lower cognitive processes has almost the same number which represents the balance of both cognitive process levels. however, the most dominant cognitive process in the textbook is “analyze”’ and ‘”apply”’ with 27% and 21% consecutively which represents that the textbook’s intended goal is to develop students’ skills to use english concepts appropriately. this is in accordance with the objective that the textbook is designed for english foreign learners. considering the results above, it suggested that bright 2 should be able to encourage students to have a higher cognitive process because the higher cognitive process will lead the success to achieve the curriculum goal. it’s because bright 2 is designed for the 8 graders of junior high school so the researchers think that the introduction to create reading activities is needed to develop students' cognitive dimension process into the higher process. besides, the students' success can be identified by classifying and improving their level of cognitive development (ismail & hanim, 2018). bloom’s taxonomy has been broadly used as an essential topic for training thinking skills to stimulate higher order thinking in education such as analyzing and evaluating rather than other skills (soo, hasan, jangga, & mat, 2015). conclusion the results show that bright 2; an english course for junior high school students textbook emphasizes the middle-lower cognitive process as the majority eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ sucipto, s., cahyo, s. d. 19 of the activities are on “apply” and “analyze” cognitive process. however, most reading activities appear in “analyze” cognitive process, which belongs to higher cognitive process. the reading activities are at the lower thinking process as it has 51 % with 73 reading activities. the higher thinking process has 49 % with 72 reading activities. there is a slight difference between the number higher thinking process and lower thinking process, since most reading activities are on “analyze” which belongs to higher thinking process while the second most frequent reading activities are “apply”, which belongs to the lower thinking process. meanwhile, “apply” and “analyze” is placed on the 3rd and 4th in the taxonomy. thus, it could be concluded that the textbook emphasizes the middle cognitive thinking process of bloom’s revised taxonomy, which is formed by “apply” and “analyze” thinking process. references abdelrahman, m. s. h. b. 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(2015). an evaluation of questions in two esp coursebooks based on bloom’s new taxonomy of cognitive learning domain. international journal of education and research, 3(8), 313–326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spa.2013.01.004 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 211 10.12928/eltej.v3i3.2460 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id constructive alignment of assessment practices in english language classrooms lynrose jane dumandan genona,1,*, chezka bianca p. torres b,2 a, b mindanao state university-iligan institute of technology, andres bonifacio ave, iligan city, 9200 lanao del norte, philippines 1 lynrosejane.genon@g.msuiit.edu.ph*; 2 chezkabianca.torres@g.msuiit.edu.ph * corresponding author 1. introduction while teaching and learning are fundamental areas in language acquisition, the picture is not complete without assessment, which serve as mediating channels between the lesson and the learner. assessment should be in the limelight because it provides a basis for implicit or explicit judgments. it determines whether or not the goals of teaching are met. it affects decisions about grades, advancement, syllabus, curriculum, and instruction. it evaluates how much of the teaching is taken in by learners and if the students are learning what they are supposed to learn. it has an indispensable influence and role in language classrooms as it affects both teaching and learning. a study on assessment vis-à-vis learning and teaching will allow for a more insightful investigation of significant classroom phenomena (alderson & banerjee,2001). the power of assessment in transforming language learning and teaching may be more potent than expected (jin, 2017). the study examines the strength and usefulness of assessment in second language teaching and learning and infers the views and principles practiced by language teachers in local classrooms through their assessment practices. its main focus is evaluating whether the assessment task targeted the intended skill in the learning objectives through looking at its content validity. the study examined the assessment practices in four elementary english language classrooms to see how these reflect the language teaching and learning. it specifically sought answers to the following questions: a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 04 july 2020 revised 17 august 2020 accepted 14 december 2020 this qualitative study identified the language assessment practices in terms of purpose, type, and timing in four elementary language classes in the philippines. it then evaluated the constructive alignment and content validity of the assessment and described how the constructive alignment reflects the quality of teaching and learning in these language classrooms. findings revealed that the assessment practices are entrenched in the teachers’ pedagogy serving various purposes (like monitoring, facilitation and motivation) other than evaluation. generally, the assessment content and tasks show alignment to targeted learning goals. several assessments, however, do not target the intended skill but rather tapped on the sub-skill, and they reveal alignment issues as well as teaching-learning conditions in the classrooms. findings uncover, albeit a snapshot, of the gaps not only in assessment practices, but also in the articulation of curriculum goals leaving teachers to interpret and operationalize these on their own. these issues affect the students’ achievement since alignment affects achievement and opportunity to learn is at optimum levels when lesson plans are aligned with benchmarks, standards, and assessments, thus increasing academic achievement. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords language assessments language classrooms constructive alignment http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:lynrosejane.genon@g.msuiit.edu.ph* mailto:chezkabianca.torres@g.msuiit.edu.ph http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 212 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) what are the purposes, types, and timing of the language assessment practices investigated? what is the quality of the constructive alignment and the content validity of the language assessment practices investigated? how does the quality of constructive alignment of the assessment practices reflect teaching and learning in these language classrooms? 1.1. language learning in the philippines the english language education in the philippines is frequently faced with low academic performance among filipino students. despite the extensive effort of the department of education in the learning of the english language, pupil performance was generally low in subjects that relied on english (bautista, bernardo, ocampo, 2009). in the program for international student assessment (pisa), the philippines ranks last among 79 countries in reading comprehension, and also ends up in the low 70s in mathematics and science. low functional literacy skills is apparent in the assessment results (pisa 2018 results, 2019). this problem can be attributed to many factors, such as poverty, lack of school facilities, learning resources and qualified teachers who can teach english in diverse contexts, languages, levels, and regions (madrunio, martin, & plata, 2016). bautista, bernardo, ocampo (2009) also suggested that this is due to poor teacher quality, and irrelevant learning materials in the classroom. looking into the said language learning problem and failure in achieving english competence as ideally projected in the curriculum’s aim, it is imperative to investigate the language classroom and examine the major components of language classroom, teaching, learning and assessment, to understand the problem in the grassroots. 1.2. assessment and the teaching-learning process in language classroom, teaching and learning and assessment share a cyclic relationship. assessment is an integral component of teaching and learning. its influence on the teaching and learning process makes it a crucial component of school improvement (banda,2005). assessment for learning guides and facilitates the teacher in monitoring and empowering students in their learning, in a way assessment supplements teaching and learning. assessment can also evaluate and at the same time improve teaching and learning. ideally, knowing how to assess students in order to improve instruction is a core principle of effective teaching (bautista, bernardo, ocampo, 2009). according to the department of education the purposes of school-based assessment are: (1) to improve the teaching and learning process, (2) to identify student’s strengths and weaknesses, (3) to determine the student’s subject area performance and/or achievement, and (4) to report student progress to parents. learning and teaching can be explored by examining assessment. the manner and the choice of assessment on a given set of learning objectives can yield insights to the quality of learning and teaching that is transpiring. by investigating the method, timing, content and format of assessment and evaluating its constructive alignment, the results may shed light to the realities and challenges both teachers and learners face in language classrooms. assessment practices, content, and quality of constructive alignment, are key indicators to assess whether the experiences in the classroom have met the target learning objectives. they help in identifying gaps in the teaching and learning process and understanding language classroom. according to (banda, 2005), teacher’s knowledge and skills, academic qualification, experience, perception and the educational program is an influencing factor in classroom assessment practices together with the class size, teaching and learning resources, student-student interaction and student-teacher interaction. in the context of the philippines, teachers have the responsibility and the ability to shape the language classroom, as exemplified by the department of education cited in mariñas and ditapat (2011) stating that “the curriculum is designed to be interpreted by teachers and implemented with variations. schools are encouraged to innovate and enrich or adapt, as long as they have met the basic requirements of the curriculum” (p. 114). however, in a study conducted by deocampo (2013) on the alignment of pedagogical task and test task, results showed that there are glitches in pre-service language teachers’ administration of the classes. results of the study show that problematic practices in designing assessment such as incoherence between the learning objective and the employed task, mismatch between instruction and test, and testing other skills not specified in the construct. therefore, giving the teachers the responsibility and ability in shaping the language issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 213 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) classrooms entails the necessity to educate and train them about effective and useful instructional methodologies in language pedagogy. 1.3. assessment in language classrooms taking the interconnected relationship of teaching, learning and assessment, alignment is then essential in optimizing the learning conditions for quality learning. according to biggs (as cited in mclaughlin (2001), if there is a match between the assessment tasks, learning activities and objectives, the student will learn what is intended. the use of an aligned design process ensures that there is consistency between objectives, learning activities and assessment. assessment is vital to effective language teaching (brown, 2001). an understanding of this interwoven relationship requires examination of the alignment of test constructs, learning objectives, and of the many other facets and qualities that make a test or assessment useful. this alignment pertains to teaching and testing in the same way and with the same objective brown (cited in deocampo, 2013). this suggests the parallelism of the instruction, desired outcomes, and assessment. according to carol chapelle and geoff brindley (2002), “assessment refers to the act of collecting information and making ‘judgments’ about a language learner’s knowledge of a language and ability to use it” (p. 267), without the learner feeling a sense that he or she is being constantly judged according to his or her degree of knowledge or competence (brown, 2001). assessment can either be conducted through the use of formal measurements, tests, portfolios, journals, and the like, or by an informal method which may be planned or unplanned without a need for explicit or fixed judgments about a student’s competence for the purpose of recording results. assessment complements teaching and learning. assessment both formative and summative facilitates the feedback process of improving learning. through assessment, learners are able to evaluate their responses and make adjustments on what and how they learn. it serves as an avenue in the language classroom from which students can identify gaps in knowledge, important information, and even connect procedural errors or misconceptions. through assessment, they can chart their own development. on the other hand, this process allows teachers to make adjustments on what and how they teach. assessment as opposed to tests cover a much wider domain. tests are formal tools of assessment that consist of specified tasks through which language abilities are elicited. this subset to assessment, as stated by brown (2001), is a “method of measuring a person’s ability or knowledge in a given domain”. it is a prepared instrument which is specifically designed to tap into the learner’s storehouse of skills and knowledge. it occurs at identifiable times when learners are aware that their performance is being measured and evaluated. essential to useful tests is construct and content. these are the two important aspects of test validity. as demonstrated in palmer and bachman’s model, validity pertains to the degree to which the test actually measures what it claims to measure, and it is the extent to which interpretations made on the basis of test scores are appropriate and meaningful. furthermore, according to coombe (2010), a test is said to be valid if it tests what was taught and how it was taught. content validity pertains to how an assessment calls for performance that matches that of the established set of goals or instructional objectives in a particular course or unit. examples of these objectives are the written descriptions of what students are expected to be able to know and be able to do at a specific stage of their education, and these objectives are typically reflected in the curriculum or lesson plan. 1.4. constructive alignment biggs (2003) introduced the constructive alignment system which is an approach to curriculum design that puts prime importance to quality learning. according to biggs (as cited in mcloughlin, 2001), if there is a match between the assessment tasks, learning activities and objectives, the student will learn what is intended. it is also expounded in mcloughlin’s (2001) study entitled ‘inclusivity and alignment: principles of pedagogy, task and assessment design for effective crosscultural online learning’ that the use of an aligned design process ensures that there is consistency between objectives, learning activities, and assessment. basically, constructive alignment has two major aspects according to the biggs (2003)—the constructive aspect and the alignment aspect. the ideas that students construct through meaningful learning activities is the focus of the constructive aspect, and alignment aspect centers on what the 214 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) teacher does. the use of this aligned process ensures that there is consistency between objectives, learning activities, and assessment. and this aligned process has an effect on students' achievement. the relationship of alignment to student achievement was discussed by squires (2012) emphasizing that research on curriculum alignment suggests that alignment significantly improves student achievement. this is true in the case of american schools according to cohen (as cited in squire, 2012). it was found out that the lack of excellence in american schools is not caused by ineffective teaching but mostly by misaligning what teachers teach and what they assess as having been taught. this established connection between assessment and achievement is also reflected in bloom’s model, cited in squire’s study, which showed that when curriculum, instruction, and lesson planning are aligned with curriculum-embedded tests (and there is a teach, test, re-teach, test model in place), students’ test results can improve dramatically. in his study on designing a unit assessment using constructive alignment, (lawrence, 2019) concluded that the correlation between teaching, learning outcomes and assessment helps make the overall learning experience more transparent and meaningful for students. by aligning the assessment with the learning outcomes means that students know how their achievement will be measured. in australian universities, the roles of achieving alignment of university strategic plans with curricula and graduate attributes are increasingly assigned to faculty and discipline educational developers and designers according to oliver (as cited in gesa, olubukola & linda, 2019), highlighting the crucial role of teachers in achieving alignment in design of teaching and learning. research findings on curriculum design and course delivery call for more emphasis and detailed focus on ‘…engaging pedagogies, professional development for instructors, course designers and administrators should give alignment the long over-due attention…so that proper implementation of the constructive alignment can be ensured in practice’ (wang et al..2013, p. 488). 2. research method this study used naturalistic enquiry combined with qualitative methods in data gathering to examine the usefulness of assessment in four selected elementary school classrooms. the researchers focused on studying classroom situations as they unfold naturally; it is non manipulative and non-controlling; and the researchers were open to whatever emerges (there is no predetermined constraints or findings). the aims of this study were well-suited for qualitative-descriptive research methodology. the instruments used yielded qualitative data. 2.1. locale of the study the research took place in iligan city, an urbanized city situated in northern mindanao – region 10. cebuano is the major language in the city and the majority of the population speaks english as their second language. the selection of the locale of the study is purposive. the public elementary school selected for this research is tambo central school, which is formerly known as iligan city east central school (icecs) and is situated in tambo, hinaplanon, iligan city, located in southern philippines. this school is one of the top performing elementary public schools in iligan city, making it fitting to draw inferences from the teaching-learning practices in the classroom. 2.2. research participants the participants in this study were chosen based on a purposive sampling method. grade levels three to six were chosen since the said grade levels use english as a medium of instruction thus making second language learning relevant. the participants are students, who belong to the achievers’ class and their teachers. the students belong to the section for high achievers in grades three to six. the basis for the students’ sectioning is their academic standing. the grade schoolers are between 9-12 years old, mostly coming from an indigent or average earning family. the english teachers of these students, on the other hand, are regular english teachers. these teachers have been in the teaching profession for more than 15 years and have graduated with a degree of bachelor of science in elementary education. one of the bases for assigning the teachers to the achievers’ class is their seniority and the evaluation of the school principal. they are also usually recommended by senior master teachers. these teachers are also considered to be one of the best teachers in their school based on their credentials and qualifications. the observed class for issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 215 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) each grade level is the section for the high achievers. each class consists of an average number of 40 students, wherein two thirds is female and one third is male. the classes are only observed during their english class which is scheduled in the morning. the class covers a one-hour duration per session. 2.3. data gathering procedures data gathering was initially done through conducting a pilot testing of the observation form and interview questionnaire. these instruments were then modified based on the results of the pilot testing and of the feedback of the teachers. the participants of the pilot phase were not allowed to participate in the actual data gathering phase. in answering question number one (1), the language assessment practices were gathered through classroom observation in a span of one week during the third quarter in grades three to six. this also includes their periodical exam on the said quarter. during the actual data gathering, the researchers gathered field notes of all forms of assessment practices per grade level in a span of one week, within the third quarter of the academic year. the observation covered five class sessions per grade level, wherein each session lasted for an hour. furthermore, the data were gathered through conducting a direct observation within the targeted time frame. the researchers were watching rather than taking part of the class. observations were done objectively excluding personal biases and perceptions of the observers. the assessment practices are then presented with their purpose, type, timing, corresponding description, the intended learning objective, and also the test specifications for formal assessment. the researchers also procured copies of the third periodical tests and a set of learning objectives per grade level. periodical tests are summative assessment administered quarterly. it is not a teachermade test, rather it is a division-made test. it is a centralized test tailored from the budgeted skills or the objectives in the teacher’s lesson plan provided by the department of education (deped). all the designed third periodical exams for each grade are used in all elementary public schools in iligan city. to aid in the analysis of assessment practices and the administered tests, the researchers inferred the constructs of these tests. these were later validated by three experts in the field of language teaching and linguistics. the data gathering for question number two (2), on the other hand, takes its foundation from the input about constructive alignment. this part looks into the constructive alignment of the gathered assessment practices presented in the first question. this aligned design process ensures that there is consistency between objectives, learning activities, and assessment. for the purpose of evaluating the alignment of the objectives and the corresponding tasks, the researchers gathered the assessment tasks administered in the classrooms as well as the learning objectives which said tasks are based on. the researchers inferred the constructs or the abilities that tasks measure and conducted interviews with the teachers and focus group discussion with the students. the focus group discussion with the students and interviews of the teachers were done to supplement the data gathered in the observation phase. ten students, five male and five female, per grade level, were chosen randomly for the focus group discussion. the questions asked were about the activities and assessment practices conducted during the lessons covered in the observation and matters about their periodical test—who prepared the test, how reviews were conducted, and their attitude towards the test. teachers were also interviewed about their lessons and about their periodical tests. this study used a one-on-one non-structured interview to fill in the possible missedout assessment practices during the direct observation and to elicit information about their periodical test. this is a confirmatory process as to why such activities and assessment tasks were done in the classroom. the learning objectives were taken from the teacher’s lesson guide that is provided by the department of education (deped). all teachers in public elementary schools have the same lesson guides; however, teachers still have the autonomy in tailoring the provided lesson guide in the actual classroom. the answer to the last question takes into account all the issues that have been discovered in evaluating the constructive alignment of the assessment tasks administered in the four classrooms giving a picture of the numerous gaps in the curriculum, its operationalization in the classroom, and its assessment. this is used as a basis in making inferences about the teaching and learning in these four english language classrooms. 216 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) 3. findings and discussion 3.1. problem 1: what are the language assessment practices in terms of purpose, type and timing? assessment practices in four grade levels in the classroom observation for grades four to six, with a total duration of 20 hours, there are a total of 98 assessment practices gathered, both formal and informal assessment. every classroom has an average of 25 assessment practices in a week. given this number of assessment practices, we can infer that every classroom has a good number of assessment practices which reflects that assessment practices are of much importance in the language classroom. it is also observable that in every session, the majority of the time is allotted to various assessment practices—collaborative work, interactive discussion, and oral recitation. research conducted that the use of tasks in language classrooms that encourage learners to work together and collaborate in the solution of their language-related problems pushes learners to talk about the language they are using and pool their individual resources to solve the linguistic problems they encounter (dobao, 2014). the data also reveals that most of the assessment practices are informal and are part of the teaching activities. moreover, as to the timing and purpose, it is revealed in the data that the assessment practices that are administered before the discussion are used to gauge students’ needs. the assessment practices during the discussion facilitate learning and are part of the teaching activities. these assessment practices monitor students’ progress and encourage engagement, participation, and collaboration. and those which are administered after the discussion are used to evaluate how much is learned from the lesson. third quarter periodical test in four grade levels the periodical tests in the grade levels ranges from 40-50 items which are multiple choice except for the writing part. this test is administered at the end of the third quarter thus covers the learning objectives of the entire quarter which comprises nine weeks and is equivalent to 45 sessions with a duration of 45 hours, since one session is equal to one hour. from the given data it is evident that the items of the test are distributed to four macro skills listening, speaking, reading and writing. this tells us that the test taps the four macro-skills in the language learning, however, the items are not evenly distributed. most of the items are concentrated on speaking and reading. the less assessed skill in the test is writing and listening which comprises an average of five items in the said tests. thus, it can be inferred in the data that the macro-skills are not equally assessed. testing all four macro-skills is crucial in language learning, not only for fairness to the learners but also to their proficiency profiles. taking the interconnectivity of teaching, learning, and assessment into account, what is tested can affect what is taught as well as what is learned. selective testing can cause uneven attention paid to language skills resulting to uneven profiles of proficiency skills of learners (powers, 2010). 3.2. problem 2: how are these assessment practices constructively aligned and the assessment content valid? looking closer at the test for the purpose of the evaluation of the alignment of the objectives and the corresponding tasks, the researchers gathered the learning objectives from which the assessment tasks are based on; the researchers inferred the constructs or the abilities that tasks measure and conducted interviews with the teachers and focus group discussion with the students. the evaluation of alignment takes its foundation from the input about constructive alignment. according to biggs (as cited by mcloughlin, 2001), the student will learn what is intended if there is a match between assessment tasks, learning activities, and objectives. this is called constructive alignment. in addition, kurz, talapatra and roach (2012), also exemplified that the test must comprise items that sample exclusively across the constructs expressed in the intended curriculum which students (presumably) had the opportunity to learn during classroom discussion. drawing upon the content of the assessment tasks, it is observable that there are assessment tasks that are aligned to the targeted objectives. in examples 6.1 to 6.5 shown in appendix d, the learning objective intends students to demonstrate their ability to distinguish advertisements from propaganda. this skill is subsumed under the speaking macro-skill. in the data, five (5) observable assessment practices were identified. all these assessment practices elicited performance for issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 217 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) learners to demonstrate the desired skill to be obtained by the end of the lesson. in terms of content validity, each task is relevant and representative of the construct expressed in the learning objective. there is a match between the task and the content or subject area being assessed. the performance of the students indicates that they have successfully achieved the intended learning outcome, showing that the assessment practices are constructively aligned. however, some assessment tasks are not aligned with the intended learning objectives identified in the study. misaligned assessment tasks include tasks that are inadequate in assessing the four macro-skills of language as shown in the data. it also includes tasks that are insufficient operationalization of the intended learning objectives. there are language classes observed where learning objectives were not reflected in the assessment tasks, misinterpreted and translated to erroneous tasks, there are also misplaced tasks and, in some cases, there are too many tasks targeting the enabling skills failing to target the intended skill. additionally, some tasks target the intended learning objectives, however still considered misaligned for performance-based learning objectives are reduced into knowledge-based assessment tasks, and some tasks are inauthentic. inadequacy in assessing the four macro-skills of language learning there are assessment tasks that the items are inadequately distributed to assess the intended knowledge and ability of students expressed in the learning objective. in the periodical tests, it is evident that the items of the test are distributed to four macro skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing. the data shows that the test taps the four macro-skills in the language learning, however, as to the distribution of the items it is evident that items are not evenly distributed. most of the items are concentrated on speaking and reading. the less assessed skill in the test is writing and listening which comprises an average of five items in the said tests. thus, it can be inferred in the data that the macro-skills are not equally assessed. for example, the grade three periodical test, almost all test items are in a multiple-choice type of test, except for the writing part, which constitutes five points of the exam. the data as shown in appendix d shows that the items of the test are not evenly distributed to the four macro-skills. there are only eight items attributed for listening, 16 for speaking, ten for reading, and six for writing. it is evident in the data that the test does not measure the four macro-skills equally. though enough number of items are attributed to speaking and reading skills, it is still important to point out that an eight-item test is insufficient in measuring listening skill and a six-item task is insufficient to measure writing skill. considering that summative decisions that include passing or failing students and certifying their level of ability will be based on this test, it is important to take these issues into account. testing all four macro-skills is crucial in language learning, not only for fairness to the learners but also to their proficiency profiles. taking the interconnectivity of teaching, learning, and assessment into account, what is tested can affect what is taught as well as what is learned. selective testing can cause uneven attention paid to language skills resulting in uneven profiles of proficiency skills of learners (powers, 2010). lack / insufficient operationalization of the intended learning objectives in the data, these refer to assessment tasks which are insufficient in terms of the extent to which it covers the intended learning objectives. these tasks do not comprise the number of items that sample exclusively across the constructs expressed in the intended curriculum and do not sufficiently gauge the depth and breadth the objective outlined. for example, in assessment 3.9 shown in appendix d, the objective that it targets is both the ability to read and write “oa” digraph but the assessment tasks focus on the recognition and reading ability only. in this part, the objective of reading and writing words, phrases, and sentences with “oa” diphthong is not reflected in the assessment tasks. no assessment task intends to facilitate and assess the skill expressed in this objective. this shows that there are learning objectives that are not reflected in the assessment of tasks. it is also evident from the test that there is a faulty interpretation of constructs made by the testmaker. the examples 5.24 and 5.25 in appendix d, which intends to measure the ability of students to infer the general mood of the selection. the mood as interpreted in the test refers to the literal emotion of the character or the prevailing emotion manifested in the situation which is erroneous since mood as a literary device does not solely pertain to the emotion or feeling. given this faulty interpretation, it affects how the construct is being measured and also limits the learning and 218 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) performance of the students. some tasks are also misplaced for they are just randomly inserted in the discussion which can potentially create confusion for the pupils. for example, assessment task 3.10 in appendix d is the transition of the previous and new lesson but was administered as the third assessment tasks in class. this should have been the first task to be administered since it marks the end of the previous lesson. the two preceding tasks are formative assessments for the new lesson. there are also instances where too many tasks are targeting the enabling skills. this leads to failure to meet the target skill and insufficiency in the operationalization of the intended objective. this is evident in examples 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 in appendix d. although unlocking of difficulty is necessary to prepare and enable the students to comprehend the text that is to be discussed in class, allotting three assessment tasks in achieving this purpose is excessive. unnecessary tasks consume time that would have been allotted to other more important tasks that will target the intended learning objective. performance-based learning objectives and knowledge-based assessment tasks performance-based learning objectives require assessment tasks where students are engaged in certain activities or create products to demonstrate their academic knowledge and abilities, (alsardary, pontiggia, hamid, & blumberg, 2011) for the level of engagement affects subsequent language development (zabihi, 2020). in this case, most of the items insufficiently measure the intended learning objective as it only taps the recognition knowledge of the pupils. for example, the learning objectives that require students to produce sentences and use words in sentences are reduced to recognizing and identifying words. in this case, the tasks fail to cover the extent of the intended learning objectives. this is also evident in the misaligned writing tasks. writing assessment for grade 5 pupils stops at the format level and lacks a rubric for evaluation and scoring. in the learning objective where students are expected to write a telegram, the assessment task asks learners to write the jumbled parts of the letter properly while observing correct punctuation marks and capitalization as shown in example 5.pt. 46-50 in appendix d. as stated in the k-12 curriculum, for grade five (5) level, the students are already able to plan a 2-3 paragraph composition writing and they already can compose clear and coherent sentences using appropriate grammatical structures but the test only assesses their ability to arrange the given parts of a letter following a prescribed format. in examples 3.15, 3.16, and 3.17 in appendix d where the learning objectives focused on the writing and speaking skills of the students, the assessment practices in this part are aligned but it is not able to completely cover the intended learning objectives. in these assessment tasks, reading, writing phrases and sentences with “oa” diphthong is assessed by just underlining diphthongs in the given text. in this particular example, we can infer low-level comprehension tasks are also evident in the data. reading comprehension tasks stop at the inferential level and most of the tasks assessing the students’ reading skills were not as intellectually demanding as it should be. assessment tasks 32, 3.5, and 3.6 are shown in appendix d facilitate comprehension which is an enabling skill of writing because it is necessary for students to fully comprehend the text before they can create a written output based on the text. however, what makes these problematic is that these comprehension tasks stop at the inferential level which is just level 2 of the dimension of reading comprehension based on gray, gates smith, and barret’s model. the students are yet to go through levels 3 and 4 which are critical and integrative before they can reproduce the text information in a different form, which is level 5 and is the target of the lesson objective. we can infer then that these tasks fail in preparing the pupils to do the task which requires them to write a short note of advice to the country mouse. among the recurring issues observed from all the summative assessment tests being examined, this test shares the common issue of how the construct as expressed in the learning objects are reduced to be measured only in terms of its cognitive aspect. this is well-exemplified examples 6. pt.13-16 in appendix d. this shows how the content of the test items do not sufficiently cover and represent the intended learning objective. inadequacy of the test content mirrors the extent to which the learning objectives are measured. it also mirrors how students’ demonstration of their level of ability is constrained or enabled (lewkowicz, 2000). if such is the case, then we can infer based on the content that there is a weak constructive alignment of the test. the test tasks contained in the tests do not fully match the learning objectives specified. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 219 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) inauthentic assessment tasks it is also important to point out that most of the tasks, though aligned, are devoid of context. bachman and palmer (as cited in phakiti, 2008) stated that for a test to be authentic, given language test tasks should correspond to the features of a “target language use” task. learning becomes meaningful and effective if the students are allowed to link their school activities to real-life experience. therefore, if the tasks are contextualized, most likely there will be better retention (lewkowicz, 2000). so, in this case, where assessment tasks are devoid of context, less retention will be expected from the students. in this study, these are tasks devoid of context to demonstrate and apply the extent to which they were able to acquire the intended skill. in example 5.22 in appendix d, the assessment task is aligned to the learning objective, however, it is devoid of context. the students were tasked to write five sentences based on a picture that is randomly picked by the teachers. in this example, though this task will make the student write it is still not considered meaningful learning for the students cannot make a connection between the classroom and real-world tasks. 3.3. problem 3: how do the quality of constructive alignment in these assessment practices reflect teaching and learning in these language classrooms? taking into account all these issues that have been discovered in the evaluation of constructive alignment of the assessment tasks administered in the four classrooms, we can have a picture, albeit a snapshot, of the numerous gaps in the curriculum, its operationalization in the classroom, and its assessment. thus, we can infer that the constructive alignment of the assessment practices in these classrooms are problematic. as stated by mcloughlin (2001) and jervis l.m. & jervis l. (2005), the use of an aligned design process ensures that there is consistency between objectives, learning activities, and assessment. however, there are assessment tasks that are not aligned with the intended learning objectives identified in the study. these include tasks that are inadequate in assessing the four macro-skills of language as shown in the data. it also includes tasks that lack or are insufficient operationalization of the intended learning objectives. there are language classes observed where learning objectives were not reflected in the assessment tasks. insufficient operationalization appears in the form of misinterpretation of learning objectives misplaced tasks and, in some cases, there are too many tasks targeting the enabling skills failing to target the intended skill. additionally, some tasks target the intended learning objectives, however still considered misaligned for performance-based learning objectives are reduced into knowledge-based assessment tasks, and some tasks are inauthentic. the issues that are revealed in the assessment practices reflect the state and condition of the teaching and learning in the classrooms. though the four macro-skills are interrelated, each contributes uniquely to an individual’s overall communicative ability, thus must be assess equally. it is important to test for each of these four skills individually because each is a critical aspect of communicative competence. direct evidence of specific skills can provide an indirect evidence of other skills. more comprehensive and integrated assessment of language skills provides several sources of information and yields better decisions individual’s communicative proficiency (powers & powers, 2015). assessment tasks that lack or are insufficient operationalization of the intended learning objectives are crucial in language teaching and learning for what is tested is very likely to affect not only what is taught, but how it is taught. alderson and wall (1993) posited that a test affects the rate and sequence, and the degree and depth of how language is taught and learned. messick (1996) also added that the test influences language teachers and learners to do things they would not otherwise do that consequentially promote or inhibit language learning. the tasks that are devoid of context suggest that the learning experience of the students in the classroom is not as effective and as meaningful when they could connect their activities in the classroom to the real world. in these classrooms, students spend most of their time in knowledgebased assessment tasks. moreover, on the issues of weak alignment between the learning objective and the test items, misaligned writing tasks, and misinterpretation of the lesson guide or learning objectives, we can infer that there is a gap between the curriculum developers and the teachers. these issues would reflect that teachers and curriculum developers have a different understanding and perception of the constructs articulated in the learning objectives. these issues also reflect that 220 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) students become exhausted in doing several tasks in the classroom without even learning what is intended to be learned. as for reading comprehension, the assessment practices reveal that the reading comprehension tasks are at literal and inferential levels. these tasks do not assess students’ critical, integrative, and creative comprehension ability. and also, for the writing ability, as shown in the assessment practices, writing tasks are more focused on the format rather than the content, thus we can see how writing is perceived as conforming to a suggested format not an actual production of sentences and an expression of students’ thoughts. the lack of rubric would make the inferences from the result of the assessment tasks unreliable. in a bigger picture, all these issues affect the students’ achievement since as stated by mohamud and fleck (2010), alignment affects achievement and ample evidence from research on alignment of standards, instruction, and assessments suggests that students perform better on tests that measure content they have had the opportunity to learn. opportunity to learn is at optimum levels when lesson plans are aligned with benchmarks, standards, and assessments, thus increasing academic achievement. thus, the problematic constructive alignment and weak content validity of the assessment practices could be contributory to the language proficiency of the students in the language. 4. conclusion according to schmidt, et. al (as cited in squires, 2012), there is a significant connection between achievement and alignment of the taught and tested curriculum. the findings of the study point out how the quality of constructive alignment of the identified assessment practices can either enable or constrain the learning process and acquisition of the students. at the system level, the first curricular challenge as stated by kurz, talapatra, and roach (2012) is the alignment between the intended and assessed curriculum. in a well aligned system, the teaching instruction and activities would facilitate well to achieve and assess the desired outcomes of the curriculum, as articulated in the set of learning objectives provided by the system. however, a misalignment of the taught and assessed curriculum could limit the learning opportunities of the students. therefore, the goal for improved educational opportunities and outcomes requires us to examine the assessment practices as these reveals much about the teaching and operationalization of the intended curriculum. by examining the quality of constructive alignment and validity of the content in assessment practices, this study provides a snapshot of the quality of teaching and learning in the language classrooms. the study looks into the three components of constructive alignment: the teaching activities, assessment practices in classrooms – particularly the informal assessment, and the learning objectives, in a span of one week. these components by itself already reveal a lot about the practices in the language classroom. aside from that, the study also takes into account the administered periodical tests as it will reveal a broader picture of the teaching and learning. however, this study is only limited to the honor’s class of grades four to six in tambo central school. since the mother tongue based-multilingual education (mtb-mle) has been implemented, english only begins as a medium of instruction in these grade levels and it is only then that the second language learning becomes relevant. based on the findings, policy makers can look into assessment practices in connection to the educational system’s pursuit for an optimized learning condition for quality learning. investment on teacher training addressing the problems of alignment of curriculum, pedagogies, and assessment practices within classrooms and across the system is seen as one of the significant policy implications of this research. policy-makers need to be made aware of the significance of assessment for learning and the essential roles of teachers to its implementation. likewise, teachers collectively need to participate in broader debates about system accountability in relation to assessment of learning. moreover, in improving constructive alignment and content, it is also important to look into instructional strategies and evaluate which seems to be working well and which are not. this will make a clearer diagnosis and would determine the focus of professional efforts. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 221 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) references alderson, j. c., 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(2020). the effects of task type on the resolution of grammatical cognitive conflict episodes and grammar learning. the language learning journal, 1–13. https://doi.org.10.1080/09571736.2020.1795913 appendix a observation protocol date: name of the school: time of observation: start: ____ end: ____ grade level: teacher: number of students: boys: girls: classroom number: https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2012.658018 http://faculty.mu.edu.sa/public/uploads/1347487499.950171132987-washback-in-language-testing.pdf http://faculty.mu.edu.sa/public/uploads/1347487499.950171132987-washback-in-language-testing.pdf https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/ami015 http://english.daejin.ac.kr/~rtyson/cv/oraltesting2.html https://doi.org.10.1080/0969594x.2012.757546 https://doi.org.10.1080/09571736.2020.1795913 224 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) a. kind of formative assessment task given and the way it was structured or administered kind of assessment type and purpose administration timing i p g c b d d d w d a d o oral recitation reporting answering textbooks answering worksheet questions quiz role play collaborative activity interactive discussion others: b. other comments (additional information necessary to capture the assessment activities including comments on any feature of the class.) administration timing i – individual bdbefore discussion p – pair dd – during discussion g – small group wd – within discussion c –whole class ad – after discussion o others issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 225 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) appendix b focus group discussion questionnaire focus: test alignment to teaching instruction and learning objectives 1. was the test easy or difficult for you? why? 2. what is the most difficult part of the test? why? did you discuss this in class? 3. what is the easiest? why? did you discuss this in class? 4. how did the teacher discuss the lesson? 5. what lessons were not included in the test that were discussed in class? 6. did you study for the test? 7. did the teacher conduct a review before the test? appendix c interview questionnaire 1. who made the test? how did they make it? 2. how did you prepare the students for the test given that you did not make the test? 3. are the lessons/objectives covered in the test sufficient? 4. do you think that the lessons covered in the test are the most important? objectives of the test should be clarified. a.) what are the objectives covered in the test? b.) what specific objective/s is/are targeted in this part of the test? c.) what are not included? d.) how much is covered by the test? 226 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) appendix d constructs and content of all forms of assessment tasks thematic classification assessment no. learning objectives based on teacher’s lesson guide assessment task inferred constructs constructively aligned tasks to learning objectives 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5 distinguish advertisement from propaganda interactive discussion students were asked to volunteer and reenact an advertisement from the radio or television ability to orally demonstrate examples of advertisements oral recitation students were asked questions regarding the definition and difference between advertisement and propaganda ability to distinguish advertisement from propaganda collaborative activity the class is divided into groups. each group is tasked to make an example of an advertisement and propaganda, either existing or original. they are to present it in class. ability to recognize and identify examples of an advertisement and propaganda quiz students are tasked to identify whether the item provided is an advertisement or a propaganda. ability to identify and distinguish examples of advertisement and propaganda lack/ insufficient operationalization of the intended learning objectives 3.9 read and write words with “oa” digraph as in goat identify several effects based on a given cause read and write words, phrases and sentences with oa diphthong answering textbooks the students are tasked to answer the exercise orally. in the exercise the students are tasked to match the picture with the word it stands for. words: pout, shout, ground, throw, found ability to recognize words and associate images to them. ability to associate written word with the image it signifies lack/ insufficient operationalization of the intended learning objectives 5.24, 5.25 infer the general mood of expression in a selection interactive discussion the teacher asks questions to the students such as: what do you think is a general mood? why do you think we should adjust to the general mood of our environment? collaborative activity the students are tasked to sing “joy to the world” expressing the following moods: happy, sad, angry follow up question: how did you feel singing the song? ability to define general mood ability to communicate ideas orally ability to portray different moods ability to express ideas a within groups lack/ insufficient operationalization of the intended learning objectives 3.10 read and write words with “oa” digraph as in goat role play the students are tasked to perform their role play about “what the city mouse should do” issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 227 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) identify several effects based on a given cause read and write words, phrases and sentences with oa diphthong in class. this task was given as an assignment to them. *no rubrics *excellent clap is given after student’s performance lack/ insufficient operationalization of the intended learning objectives 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 understand that contentment and the ability to adapt are important write a note on what to be done by the country mouse spelling quiz the students are tasked to spell 10 words. the teacher reads the words aloud and use it in a sentence. words: province, city, mouse, dinner, curious, food delicious, terrible, scratching, corner interactive discussion the teacher shows a picture to the class (picture of a mouse) and the teacher asks the students, randomly, to tell something about the picture. collaborative activity the teacher calls 10 students to hold the two sets of strips of paper, the first set are the words and the second set are the meaning of the words. the students are tasked to arrange to arrange the strips of words with their corresponding meanings. the words are selected text for the lesson. ability to spell vocabulary words ability to make associations between the oral word and the written ability to describe a picture ability to communicate ideas orally ability to recognize words and associate meanings to them performance-based learning objectives are reduced into knowledge-based assessment tasks. 5.pt. 46-50 write a telegram. writing students are tasked to write the jumbled parts of the letter properly while observing correct punctuation marks and capitalization. ability to arrange the given parts of a letter following a prescribed format ability to observe capitalization and proper usage of punctuation marks in writing a letter. performance-based learning objectives are reduced into knowledge-based assessment tasks 3.2, 3.5, 3.6 understand that contentment and the ability to adapt are important write a note on what to be done by the country mouse interactive discussion the teacher shows a picture to the class (picture of a mouse) and the teacher asks the students, randomly, to tell something about the picture. interactive discussion the teacher asks motivational questions to students related to the story to be discussed such as: have you been in the province?, what are the experiences you have in there? ability to describe a picture ability to communicate ideas orally ability to answer “wh” questions ability to recall personal experiences ability to 228 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 211-228 lynrose jane dumandan genon & chezka bianca p. torres (constructive alignment of assessment practices) what are the experiences of the city mouse in the province and the country mouse in the city? oral recitation the teacher asks comprehension questions to the students (literal and inferential) communicate ideas orally ability to recall what the text says ability to read between the lines or to infer information from the text performance-based learning objectives are reduced into knowledge-based assessment tasks. 6.pt.13-16 use verbs in the active and passive voice multiple choice. students choose from the given options the passive version of an active voice and vice versa. students are tasked to identify if the sentence is in a passive or active voice speaking skills; ability to identify and recognize sentences in the active and passive voice performance-based learning objectives are reduced into knowledge-based assessment tasks 3.15, 3.16, 3.17 identify and write complex sentences read and write words, phrases and sentences with “oa” diphthong oral reading and boardwork the student are tasked to underline the “oa” diphthong in the sentences on the board and they read it after. boardwork random students are tasked to underline the “oa” diphthongs in the sentences written on the board ability to identify words with “oa” diphthong ability to pronounce words with “oa” diphthong ability to identify words with “oa” diphthongs in sentences inauthentic assessment tasks 5.22 write a sentence using descriptive words writing sentences the students are tasked to write five sentences based on the picture given by the teacher. ability to write sentences about a picture english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 3, 2019, pp. 62-69 e-issn: 2621-6485 sutrisno the patterns of paragraph writing in the international journals adi sutrisno universitas gajah mada e-mail: adisutrisno@ugm.ac.id abstract the patterns of paragraph writing as commonly used in the international journal are deemed necessary to be studied by scholars of non-english background wishing to write an article for publication in the international journals. scholars of non-english speaking background, according to a number of research reports on rhetoric contrastive, have a somewhat different approach in their paragraph composition. this difference might create difficulties for the scholars to swing their type of paragraph writing to the one which does not belong to them. therefore, it is imperative that the scholars of non-english speaking background study the writing convention as commonly used in the international journal. this study sought to identify the patterns of paragraph writing that is commonly used in international journals. for the purpose of this study, a total of 250 paragraphs of the 25 international journal articles were selected for analysis whether the pattern of paragraph is more oriented to deductive or inductive one. analyses were performed by two raters assisted by a native speaker of english. the results showed that more than 86% paragragh patterns were written using deductive pattern, while the rest, about 11% used inductive pattern, and the remaining 2% used a sandwich pattern. keywords: types of paragraph writing, deductive type, inductive type, international journal how to cite: sutrisno, a. (2019). the patterns of paragraph writing in the international journals. english language teaching educational journal, 2(2), 62-69. introduction the pattern of paragraph writing can take the form of either inductive or deductive reasoning depending on the character of the topic introduced by the writer. inductive pattern is typically used when the author proposes a topic imbued with controversial content while the deductive pattern is more widely used in academic and business contexts. as writing a journal article is in the realm of academic arena, the pattern of writing used in this kind of journal is strongly believed to be leading to a deductive one. this tendency creates problems to writers having non engish speaking background as they are more familiar with the inductive pattern. question arised in relation to this tendency. is this because of cultural orientation (clanchy and ballard, 1996) or is it mainly because of their failure in presenting such pattern of writing? in response to the question, mathews (2016) asserted that students having non englishspeaking background tend to use inductive pattern, not because they are influenced by their culture. it simply reflects a mental process of thinking using their logic or the way most people tend to think. “for the most part, people do not know what they are trying to say—that is, what they are trying to write—until they have worked through a mental process of inductive reasoning” (mathews, 2016. p.3). when as students they are not trained enough to use deductive pattern they will easily fall into the inductive one because they often begin ……..in a position of uncertainty and indecision and moves, often clumsily, towards the formation of an opinion, a perspective, a thesis. along the way their thinking branches out into paths that may lead nowhere or may circle back, after long diversion, to the starting point. (p.3) what are inductive and deductive writing patterns, anyway? is it true that the inductive writing pattern is less commonly used in the writing of journal articles in english? why are the mailto:adisutrisno@ugm.ac.id eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ 63 sutrisno patterns of paragraph writing in international journal important to be studied by journal writers of non-english background? here is presented an inductive and deductive writing pattern and the urgency of understanding the types of paragraph writing in journal articles in english. inductive pattern is the pattern of paragraph writing which goes from specific to general idea (http://ocw.usu.edu/english/introduction-to-writing-academic-prose/inductive-and-deductivereasoning.html). it is a method of reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying some evidence for the truth of the conclusion. hence, it is more of a conclusion-oriented pattern. in this kind of writing, the topic sentence is placed at the end of the paragraph. it is no wonder then if this sort of paragraph is known as the conclusion-oriented paragraph. on the other hand, deductive writing pattern begins with the placement of a topic sentence at the beginning of the paragraph. such a pattern is more "straight to the point" and is considered more suitable for writing with an academic tone (inductive and deductive reasoning) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/deductive_reasoning). there is, as a matter of fact, another kind of paragraph which does not belong to either inductive or deductive type. it is often called sandwhich paragraph (successful college composition, 2016). this “sandwich” metaphor explains how the topic sentence clipped in the middle of a paragraph. normally, it is in the form of a quotation which is written or put after a general statement leading to the quotation, continued with concluding sentence (well, 2013). hence, judging from its character, the writing pattern most suitable for the needs of journal writing in english is deductive pattern. the foremost reason is that journal article is an academic work which requires clarity on every part of the information written by the author. if an academic work is expressed in inductive or sandwhich pattern, there may surface problems in the focus of information given due to the nature in which this type of writing, if not handled carefully, will obscure the clarity of information (bailey, 2017). however, without sufficient evidence, it can not be said that for journal articles writing deductive pattern is more appropriate than an inductive or sandwich pattern; or on the contrary inductive pattern is more appropriate than deductive pattern. it is in this context of situation that the research on the types of paragraph writing in international journal articles becomes important (http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/introductions/). the research results reported a long time ago by kaplan (1966) in the united states and clanchy and ballard (1996) in australia showed that the writing pattern commonly used in academic articles performed by students of english background is the deductive pattern. this pattern is straight to the point with these characteristics: writing begins with a topic sentence and comes with detailed information that corresponds to the topic discussed. according to kaplan “an expository discourse in english began with a topic sentence, which was followed by subdivisions supported by examples and illustrations that central idea was developed to prove or argue the subject in question, relating the central idea to all the other ideas in the whole essay” (kaplan 1966, p.5). it is clear that the natures of deductive writing are straight to the point and started with a topic sentence followed by supporting details that are relevant to the topics raised in an article. this style of writing is common in the types of paragraph writing in the academic world in english speaking countries. thus, the knowledge of how the main ideas are presented in paragraphs in english, especially in international journals, is very important for aspiring journal writers of non-english background. such knowledge will help them plan, organize, and present ideas correctly so that these ideas can be easily understood by the global community (see barras, 1986; boardman & frydenberg, 2001; abdollahzadeh, farsani, & beikmohammadi, 2017). http://ocw.usu.edu/english/introduction-to-writing-academic-prose/inductive-and-deductive-reasoning.html http://ocw.usu.edu/english/introduction-to-writing-academic-prose/inductive-and-deductive-reasoning.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/method_of_reasoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/premise http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/introductions/ 64 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 this study specifically tries to answer the following questions: (1) is it true that deductive pattern is more commonly used as the type of writing in journal articles in english than inductive pattern ?; (2) do the types of paragraph writing used in writing international journal articles use only one writing pattern alone ?; and (3) if the pattern of paragraph writing used in writing international journal articles is not only one, how is the combination of these two models conducted in the international journal article writing? research method this study sought to assess the paragraph writing pattern in international journals in english. for the purpose of this research, purposive sampling method was used to obtain the necessary data, which were the international journal articles written by native english speakers in the uk / usa / australia. the corpus of this study consisted of 250 paragraphs contained in 25 research articles in the field of social sciences from an accredited international journal originating from the uk / usa / australia. the 25 articles were selected by using the following criteria. first, the articles were selected based on the ease of online access through the internet. second, the article selected must be internationally accredited journal articles or journals listed in web of science arts and humanities citation index or web of science social sciences citation index. based on both of these criteria, 25 articles were selected for examination. after 25 journal articles were chosen, the next step was to take a sample in the forms of paragraphs from each article. due to the different number of paragraphs in each of these articles, only 10 paragraphs were taken from each article for computation purpose. overall, the number of paragraphs that were used in this study was 10 x 25 or 250 paragraphs. after all the data were collected, as many as 250 paragraphs were analyzed one by one to see the tendency of its writing pattern, whether it was following inductive or deductive pattern. the criteria used to determine whether a paragraph is deductive or inductive is seen from the pattern of paragraph writing. according to oshima and hogue (2006) if in a paragraph there is a topic sentence at the beginning and is developed with details supporting the idea then this paragraph can be said to have deductive style; otherwise if the topic sentence in a paragraph is placed at the end of the paragraph, the paragraph is said to be inductive. if illustrated in the form of a figure, the deductive paragraphs' image resembles a triangle, with the 'topic sentence' as its peak; while that of inductive paragraph resembles the inverted triangle where the position of the 'topic sentence' is on its base. figure 1 below shows how deductive reasoning is developed. topic + controlling ide supporting detail supporting detail supporting detail concluding sentence figure 1. paragraph writing using deductive reasoning. figure 1 shows the structure of a paragraph which reflects deductive reasoning. it starts with a topic sentence which consist of topic + controlling idea. the topic sentence is strictly followed by eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ 65 sutrisno supporting details. it describes the process of reasoning from one or more statements (premises) to reach a logically certain conclusion. “deductive reasoning goes in the same direction as that of the conditionals, and links premises with conclusions” (http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ deductive _reasoning). supporting detail supporting detail supporting detail supporting detail topic + controlling idea figure 2. paragraph writing using inductive reasoning. figure 2 shows the structure of a paragraph which reflects inductive reasoning. in this type of reasoning the topic sentence is put at the end of the paragraph (http://awesomeessay.us/content/structuring-school-essay-topic-sentences-and-paragraphs). it is a method of reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying some evidence for the truth of the conclusion. the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument may be probable, based upon the evidence given. many dictionaries define inductive reasoning as the derivation of general principles from specific observations, though there are many inductive arguments that do not have that form. to determine whether the paragraphs (n = 250) were in the form of deductive or inductive, two raters, namely rater 1 and rater 2, were intensively involved. rater 1 and rater 2 were research assistants who had taken the academic writing course with a > 95 score for all the assignments collected. both raters were first given a brief training to distinguish deductive and inductive styles, and the two raters were given an analysis design with established procedures. the data analysis procedures used by the raters included: (1) set up a table to record whether a paragraph was written in deductive or inductive style, (2) read carefully paragraph by paragraph of the chosen articles while at the same time determining the topic sentence of each paragraph. (2) highlighted the topic sentence that had been found. (3) marked ‘a’ in the prepared tables if a paragraph was written using deductive pattern; (4) marked ‘b’ if a paragraph was written using inductive pattern; and (5) marked ‘c’ if a paragraph was written using pattern of neither a nor b. (6) calculated the percentage of each paragraph writing pattern. the analysis results of rater 1 and rater 2 were evaluated by the main researcher, accompanied by a native english speaker who is also an academic writing lecturer. in the case of disagreement between the rater 1 and rater 2 in determining whether the writing style of the paragraph was deductive or inductive, a review of these paragraphs was made together by the two raters; and in case further assessment was required, the third rater who was the main researcher accompanied by a native english speaker was responsible for the decision. if all raters agreed to a certain writing pattern, then that decision was used in this study. in the case of a split decision and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/reasoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/argument_(logic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/premise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/consequent http://en.wikipedia.org/ http://awesomeessay.us/content/structuring-school-essay-topic-sentences-and-para https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/method_of_reasoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/premise 66 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 there was no meeting point between rater 1, rater 2, rater 3, and native speaker then the sample data were replaced by a new sample. findings and discussion by following the procedures set out in previous part, the corpus data were analyzed to identify the paragraph writing pattern which is commonly used in the journal articles in english. the following table summarizes the results of this analysis. table 1. paragraph writing pattern distribution frequency paragraph writing pattern number percentage deductive 217 86.8 % inductive 28 11.2 % sandwich 5 2.0 % 250 100 % table 1 above shows that the paragraph writing pattern most commonly found in the writing of international journal articles is deductive pattern. out of 250 paragraphs examined, 217 or 86.8% are written using deductive pattern; 28 or 11.2% are written using inductive pattern; and the remaining 5 paragraphs or 2.0 % are written using sandwich pattern. the table confirms that the deductive paragraph writing pattern is more commonly used as the type of journal article writing in english than inductive pattern. the dominance of deductive pattern in the writing of journal articles in english can be attributed to the tendency of native english speakers who use this pattern in academic writings. this illustration can be seen in the research reports by hinds (2001; in wang, 2012), kaplan (1966), and clanchy and ballard (1996) which reported that the paragraph writing pattern in the writings with academic nuances made by the native english speakers tend to use deductive pattern rather than inductive pattern. this trend contrasts with the type of paragraph writing in english done by nonnative english speakers from japan, china, korea, thailand, indonesia, bangladesh, and other countries which use inductive pattern more (hinds, 2001; in wang, 2012). the results also indicate the presence of other pattern of paragraphs writing, which are inductive and sandwich pattern. however, the number of paragraphs with inductive and sandwich writing pattern are far fewer in number than those with the deductive pattern. out of 250 paragraphs examined, 28 paragraphs or 11.2% are written by using inductive pattern, and only 5 paragraphs or 2% are written with sandwitch pattern. the lack of paragraphs written in inductive and sandwich style does not mean that writing in this pattern is bad and should not be used. when inductive and sandwich pattern is used by an author along with deductive pattern, the final result can become more detailed and easy to follow. this is because the dynamics of the writing can feel more alive and not rigid with the sole usage of deductive pattern only (inductive vs deductive reasoning, 200 name of author, not title of the writing). nevertheless, writing in inductive and sandwich pattern, if not handled properly, may lead to other complexities for the author because it can trap the writer with a roundabout writing with no clear ends (clanchy and ballard, 1996). paragraph writing style using inductive and sandwich pattern require accuracy on the writer so that the ideas' coherence can be well maintained (http://www.wheaton.edu/academics/services/writing-center/writing-resources/paragraph-unitycoherence-and-development). of course, this pattern needs check and recheck more than the deductive pattern because in this pattern exists a 'delay' in the disclosure of the topic sentence http://www.wheaton.edu/academics/services/writing-center/writing-resources/paragraph-unity-coherence-and-development http://www.wheaton.edu/academics/services/writing-center/writing-resources/paragraph-unity-coherence-and-development eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ 67 sutrisno (http://www2_warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/writingstyle). perhaps this is the reason why inductive and sandwich writing pattern in the writing of journal articles in english is only used to supplement the deductive pattern which is more to the point and easy to control (clanchy and ballard, 1996; hinds, 2001, in wang 2012). table 2. distribution of the paragraph writing pattern of 25 journal articles deductive pattern article a1 a2 a3 inductive pattern sandwich pattern total 1 80% 10% 10% 100% 2 80% 20% 100% 3 100% 100% 4 90% 10% 100% 5 90% 10% 100% 6 80% 10% 10% 100% 7 100% 100% 8 100% 100% 9 80% 10% 10% 100% 10 60% 20% 20% 100% 11 70% 30% 100% 12 60% 10% 30% 100% 13 100% 100% 14 90% 10% 100% 15 70% 10% 20% 100% 16 80% 20% 100% 17 80% 20% 100% 18 100% 100% 19 80% 20% 100% 20 80% 10% 10% 100% 21 90% 10% 100% 22 100% 100% 23 90% 10% 100% 24 60% 10% 20% 10% 100% 25 90% 10% 100% table 2 shows the distribution of the paragraph writing pattern in 25 international journal articles which covers the deductive, inductive, and sandwich pattern. under the column 'deductive pattern' are code a1, a2, and a3. code a1 is for deductive paragraphs which topic sentence is in the first sentence; then, code a2 is for deductive paragraphs which topic sentence is in the second sentence; and a3 is for deductive paragraphs which topic sentence is in the third sentence the data shows that the deductive pattern is more commonly found than other patterns. in each article examined, the average use of deductive pattern reaches 86.8%; while the use of inductive and sandwich pattern is respectively 11. 2% and 2%. the data in table 2 at the same time implies that the types of paragraph writing used in international journal articles writing are not purely deductive pattern or mono pattern, but there are other patterns that are also used or multiple patterns. 68 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 table 2 also shows that the deductive pattern used does not always put the topic sentence in the first sentence of paragraph (a1); there is also a topic sentence that is brought in the second sentence (a2); even in the third sentence (a3). this variation of paragraphs writing pattern in international journal articles shows the pattern dynamics used by the author of journal articles. nevertheless, the data indicates the presence of certain trends which are visible in the paragraphs writing pattern in international journals. the trends in which (1) deductive pattern is chosen more often than other patterns; (2) the topic sentence is placed at the very beginning of the paragraph, which is in the first sentence. the use of other patterns such as inductive and sandwich pattern and the topic sentence placement in the second or third sentence is only carried out by the authors when necessary and not as a pattern that is intensively used in the writing of journal articles. notwithstanding the criticisms for deductive paragraph writing, that it is rigid, predictable, with monotonous structure containing the main sentence-explanatory-conclusions this pattern remains as the primary pattern selected in journal article writing. the choosing of deductive pattern as the main pattern is perhaps due to its character which makes it easy for the creation of a coherent and controllable writing, making it easy for the readers to follow the text. conclusion from the previous explanation it can be concluded that the deductive writing pattern is most commonly used in the writing of journal articles in english. other types of paragraphs writing, which are inductive and sandwich, are also found in the 250 paragraphs examined but the amount is too small compared to the deductive pattern. furthermore, in the international journal article writing multi-paragraph writing pattern is used, not mono pattern. additionally, the results of this study indicate that the main pattern used in journal articles is deductive pattern with the topic sentence placement at the beginning of the paragraph. deductive pattern with the topic sentence placement in the second and third sentences are also found in this study but the amount is too small compared to the deductive pattern with the placement of topic sentences in the first sentence of the paragraph. it can be concluded that the pattern of international journal articles paragraphs writing is deductive with the first sentence as the topic sentence of the paragraph. references abdollahzadeh, e., farsani, m. a., & beikmohammadi, m. (2017). argumentative writing behavior of graduate efl learners. argumentation, 31(4), 641-661. bailey, s. (2017). academic writing a handbook for international students. 5th edition, london: routledge barras, r., 1986. scientists must write: a guide to better writing for scientists, engineers and students. new york: chapman and hall. boardman and frydenberg (2001): writing to communicate: paragraphs and essays, second follow the guideline to revise the references edition, longman clanchy, j. & ballard b., (1996). write in english, not indonesian: study abroad (a manual for asian) students, sidney: longman deductive reasoning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/deductive_reasoning wikipedia inductive reasoning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inductive_reasoning wikipedia eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ 69 sutrisno “inductive and deductive reasoning.” utah state university. http://ocw.usu.edu/english/introduction-to-writing-academic-prose/inductive-and-deductivereasoning.html. accessed 17 june 2015 “introduction.” the university of california college of arts and sciences writing center. http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/introductions/. accessed 17 june 2015. kaplan, r.b. (1966). cultural thought in intercultural education. language learning, 16, 1-20. mathews, c. (2016). deductive and inductive structure in (and outside) the esl writing class jas4qol, 2(4) 4:1-5. online: http://as4qol.org/?p=1710#art4 oshima, a. & hogue, a. (2006), writing academic english. harlow: pearson longman “paragraph unity, coherence, and development.” wheaton college writing center. http://www.wheaton.edu/academics/services/writing-center/writing-resources/paragraphunity-coherence-and-development. accessed 17 june 2015. successful college composition (2016) https://www.affordablelearninggeorgia.org/documents/successful_college_composition201 6.pdf “structuring school essay: topic sentences and paragraphs.” awesome essay. http://awesomeessay.us/content/structuring-school-essay-topic-sentences-and-paragraphs. accessed 17 june 2015 “topic sentences.” writing den. http://www2.actden.com/writ_den/ tips/paragrap/topic.htm. accessed 17 june 2015. wang, y. 2012. “differences in l1 and l2 academic writing” dalam theory and practice in language studies. volume 2, nomor 3: 639. academy publisher. well, e. 2013. how to write a sandwich paragraph. handout. qep writing studio use. https://www.ecsu.edu/documents/qep/sandwichparagraph.pdf accessed 4 december 2015 http://ocw.usu.edu/english/introduction-to-writing-academic-prose/inductive-and-deductive-reasoning.html http://ocw.usu.edu/english/introduction-to-writing-academic-prose/inductive-and-deductive-reasoning.html http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/introductions/ http://as4qol.org/?p=1710#art4 http://www.wheaton.edu/academics/services/writing-center/writing-resources/paragraph-unity-coherence-and-development http://www.wheaton.edu/academics/services/writing-center/writing-resources/paragraph-unity-coherence-and-development https://www.affordablelearninggeorgia.org/documents/successful_college_composition2016.pdf https://www.affordablelearninggeorgia.org/documents/successful_college_composition2016.pdf http://awesomeessay.us/content/structuring-school-essay-topic-sentences-and-para https://www.ecsu.edu/documents/qep/sandwichparagraph.pdf sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 1, 2019, pp. 39-49 e-issn: 2621-6485 * this article was presented at the 66th teflin international conference collaborative learning activities through moe in engaging efl learners and diminishing their speaking anxiety* sitti fatimah universitas negeri padang e-mail: sitti.fatimah@fbs.unp.ac.id abstract mantle of the expert (moe) is an approach integrating drama in learning. a number of studies have proven the approach to be effective in enhancing student’s learning experience and vary teacher’s teaching strategy. this article is drawn from the results of a multi-case study that implemented moe in efl teaching in indonesia. the study involving three cohorts of grade 11 indonesian senior and vocational high school students and three english teachers used multiple data collection methods: classroom observation, questionnaire and interview. while questionnaire was distributed to the student participants, the interview was administered to collect the data from teacher participants. the moe implementation involved a series of drama activities integrated with the lesson topics. during the activities the student participants were assigned several tasks to be completed in small groups. this required students to collaborate. the findings show that these collaborative learning activities have shown positive major impacts, two of them are students’ increased engagement and decreased speaking anxiety. keywords: efl learners, collaborative learning, moe, student engagement, speaking anxiety how to cite: fatimah, s. (2019). collaborative learning activities through moe in engaging efl learners and diminishing their speaking anxiety. english language teaching educational journal, 2 (1), 39-49. introduction the lack of student engagement and speaking anxiety are two major problems frequently encountered by indonesian efl (english as a foreign language) learners. many english teachers are frustrated by these phenomena, but some of the teachers try to cope with them (e.g. padmadewi, 1998). these teachers usually try to engage the students by creating fun and engaging activities, such as games, role-play, and storytelling. many teachers believe that these activities are able to improve student’s engagement and participation during the teaching and learning processes (akhyak & indramawan, 2013; 2011; zulkifli & fatimah, 2019). however, there are some other teachers who even make a more engaging and challenging endeavour by integrating drama games and activities (cawthon, dawson, & ihorn, 2011; chan, 2009). according to them, involving these drama games and activities in teaching and learning processes have proven effective to enhance student’s learning experience. related to drama games and activities, there has been a concept of drama education; that is the integration of drama in the curriculum or school subjects. in europe, particularly in the united kingdom the integration of drama in curriculum has been well implemented since the 1950s. one kind of it that is still implemented not only in uk but also in australia, canada and new zealand is mantle of the expert (moe) that was invented by an english drama educator, dorothy heathcote. as it became popular among teachers and educators, a great number of studies and projects have been conducted to investigate its effectiveness and efficiency (see housum-steven, 1998; taylor, 2002 & 2006; rouse and wilde, 2010). mailto:sitti.fatimah@fbs.unp.ac.id 40 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 the research from which this article is drawn was also the implementation of moe, but to the learners of english where it is used as a foreign language (efl). within the concept of moe the efl learning activities were emphasized on cross-curricular approach, inquiry-based learning and collaborative learning. however, the discussion in this article only focuses on how collaborative learning activities that were conducted within classroom and imaginary community through small group discussion (work) and role-plays have positive impacts on student engagement and their speaking anxiety. the collaborative learning is selected because this aspect gave significant impacts on teaching and learning processes. research on the use of moe in efl contexts are very few but those using process drama are massive (e.g., yaman ntelioglou, 2011). to date there is no such research on moe in indonesian context, particularly in efl learning. the concept of mantle of the expert (moe) and its elements in 1970s heathcote introduced the concept of moe as “an experiential learning and the empowerment of child when s/he assume moe; and by 1993 the concept of moe focused on getting children to run a business enterprise” (hesten, 1994, p. 156). it is this latest concept of moe that has been applied in teaching the curriculum in many countries and on which this study of moe implementation is based. literally, ‘mantle of the expert’ is divided into: mantle and expert. “mantle means fulfilling a community call and making use of one’s potentiality; and expert means the opportunity to work at knowledge and master the skills” (heathcote, 2002, p. 2). thus, heathcote (as cited in aitken, 2013) explains that the meaning of mantle is not literally a piece of cloth generally known to cover body but it refers to the quality. what she means by quality is students’ leadership where it contains “behaviour, morality, responsibility, ethics and the spiritual basis of all action” (p. 35). the main goal of moe is to “provide a centre for all knowledge: it is always experienced by the students in terms of the responsible human being” (heathcote & bolton, 1995, p. 32). moe elements can be classified into those that are created in an imaginary community and those that run the imaginary enterprise created in the classroom community. these two groups enable the whole process of moe implementation. the first group consists of enterprise (organization), experts, commission and clients. the elements that carry out the enterprise are student-in-role (and out-of-role), teacher-in-role (and out-ofrole), productive tension, and reflection (see figure 1 below). eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ fatimah 41 classroom community student imaginary community (out of role) teacher (in role) productive tension student (in role) reflection teacher (out of role) figure 1. elements of moe adapted from from hesten (1994) and heathcote (2002) moe and collaborative learning dillenbourg (1999) has attempted to define collaborative learning as “a situation in which two or more people learn or attempt to learn something together...” (p.1). two or more people means that in the learning activities the students may be asked to conduct pair or small group work. a great number of studies related to the use of collaborative learning have been conducted whether to hypothesize or to describe the existing phenomena. most studies have demonstrated the benefits and effectiveness of implementing collaborative learning. for example, noh and yusuf (2018) found that collaborative learning style was proven “as one of the most effective learning style for students at a higher education in aceh”. one of the fundamental principles of moe as the drama-based pedagogy is collaborative work. the element of enterprise in moe strongly suggests that there is collaborative learning approach applied in moe implementation. students are assigned tasks in small groups where they become experts of some kinds. the nature of collaboration in drama education is stated explicitly in the following quote: drama promotes language development. its collaborative nature provides opportunities for pupils to develop key skills of communication, negotiation, compromise and self-assertion (arts council england, 2003, p. 7). a classroom action research conducted by belcastro (2003) confirms the use of collaborative activities during learning with moe. she explains that: enterprise commission clients experts 42 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 mantle of the expert mediates inquiry-based education in the way that it creates a practice-oriented classroom. in a practice-oriented classroom learning is focused on activities and practices that aid students in the exploration of how social worlds are constructed and represented. students and teachers participate as collaborative inquirers, sharing in the decisions of classroom practices, engaging in activities of social worlds, and reflecting on beliefs and values underlying those worlds. (pp. 68-69). moe and foreign language (speaking) anxiety foreign language anxiety is a state of anxiety experienced by students in a foreign language classroom context. according to horwitz et al. (1986), foreign language anxiety is related to students’ “self-perception, beliefs, feelings and behaviours...” (p. 128) that they experience during the process of foreign language learning. these mixed perceptions of feelings may result from the teaching method and strategies applied by the teacher, instructor or lecturer. these perceptions and feelings manifest as communication apprehension (pratolo, 2017), fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety. the concept of learning underlying the moe approach is believed to be able to reduce student’s anxiety in foreign language learning, particularly in speaking a foreign language. this is because the nature of moe learning greatly involves collaboration where students work in team in order to complete a task. when working in group is favoured by the students, there is a big opportunity for students to gradually get rid of their anxiety to speak english. research method the study used qualitative approach in accordance with the principles of constructivism although some small calculation was taken as the source of data for qualitative analysis. constructivism is an approach that sees reality as social construction where the role of the researchers is “to understand the multiple social constructions of meaning and knowledge… [that]…will allow them to acquire multiple perspectives” (robson, 2002, p. 27). those multiple perspectives are generated by believing in participants’ perceptions about the phenomenon being investigated (creswell, 2009). as constructivism is “the heir of qualitative tradition” (robson, 2002, p. 26), its major focus is on “things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them” (denzin & lincoln, 2011, p. 3). a multiple-case study was adopted because three schools: udayana, atlanta and dharmawangsa (these names are pseudonyms) were involved to obtain the data. three english teachers (umaira, rossa and diana; also pseudonyms) and their classes (89 students in total) became the participants of the study. these students were sitting at grade 11 and were on their second semester when they were invited as the participants. the data were collected through 1) classroom observations, 2) semi-structured interview with teacher participants and 3) questionnaire distributed to student participants. however, the data presented in this article are only obtained from students’ responses of the questionnaire that consisted of closed and open-ended questions. while the data resulted from closed-ended questions were analysed with percentage, those from the open-ended were analyzed using qualitative content analysis approach. data coding applied the qualitative content analysis procedures suggested by both mayring (2000) and hsieh and shannon (2005): deductive category application (directed content analysis) and inductive category development (conventional or classical content analysis). the process of data coding or of naming the categories in deductive category application is carried out. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ fatimah 43 findings and discussion the data presented in this section are derived from students’ responses to an openended question asking students about their perception of collaborative work during moe activities and teachers’ perceptions of collaborative learning. this open-ended question also allowed the students to provide more than one answer and the teachers (umaira, rosa and diana) to give in-depth explanation. collaborative learning and student engagement according to kao and o’neill (1998), while process drama usually begins with a large group or whole class activity, to sustain process drama, teachers usually assign students to work in small groups or pairs. this was certainly the case across all three cases. throughout the moe implementation, combinations of students completed tasks and conducted role-plays within these same groupings. across the three cases, the majority of students were positive to the question about their perception of collaborative work. most students enjoyed doing activities in groups and outlined various benefits of collaborative work to their learning as mainly voiced by the teacher participants during the semistructured interview which is described below. gradual increase in student engagement although atlanta students’ major reasons for their enjoyment of group work were different from the other two groups of students, in responding to a question about the activity that most encouraged them to speak english, almost half of them chose the activity of group work. their responses are exemplified by three students below: i think the collaboration greatly helped me develop my learning. i think it's so beneficial for me. the activities add my knowledge. collaborative work in moe activities is the best. by implication, atlanta students enjoyed group work because it gave them new learning experiences and new knowledge as discussed above, but they also believed that it gave them the opportunity speak english. atlanta students’ explanations suggest that although they had done role-play activities in previous english language learning, these were different from the role-plays they performed during moe. in their previous role-plays they were required to memorize scripted dialogues and practice them. during the group work activities of moe, they had no script to memorize as the dialogue was spontaneous and their teacher, rossa, took on a role together with them. the responses from rossa about student engagement was similar to the students’ although at the first semi-structured interview she complained that some students were not really engaged with the lesson. however, by her second semi-structured interview (after implementing the first four moe lessons), rossa had quite a different sense of the state of student engagement: they have improvement in participation and motivation after third and fourth meeting. we can see from the class that they are interested in learning english now, for example, in the first and second meeting, half of the students are not interested in the classroom. or i can say that only two or three students that are motivated in learning, only two or three students in one group. but after the third and fourth meeting, there are more students that are interested in learning. it can be five until six students, so it means that there is good improvement from the 44 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 classroom…they are interested in learning through drama (rossa, semistructured interview 2). meanwhile, most of the udayana students who perceived the benefit of collaborative work valued it as a technique that increased their interest in english learning. some others reported that group work increased their participation in learning and improved their understanding of the lessons and their english speaking ability as quoted below: i think the collaboration was very interesting for learning process. it can help students to master all learning materials well. i think it’s very interesting because we can improve our speaking ability and improve our confidence too. i think it’s good because all students can participate in the designing activities well and none of them being idle, at least they did it diligently the students’ views about their increased participation and improved understanding were in line with umaira’s observations about the benefits of small group activities (both in-role and out of role). she preferred to assign students to work collaboratively because she understood that peer support can be just as important and efficient as teacher support to engage students in their learning. she observed that having a small number of students in each group enabled each member to participate in the discussion and to exchange ideas. further, umaira witnessed that working in groups also helped the students who had less understanding of the lesson content “… so because of their friends’ assistance they could understand [the lesson/activities]” (umaira, semi-structured interview 3). from her observations, umaira identified three benefits of students doing activities in small group. first, each student was enabled to participate in discussion to share and exchange ideas. second, the students were enabled to prepare their roles for public performance role-play: “i think most of them have confidence... if i ask them to present or i ask them to perform, most of them can do that (umaira, semi-structured interview 1). third, through discussion with peers, the students had opportunities to deepen their understanding about tasks and lesson content. in the case of dharmawangsa, diana noted significant changes in students’ willingness to speak english after two lessons of learning through moe although she didn’t seem satisfied with the student’s progress. however, dharmawangsa students valued collaborative work in small group discussion because, in their view, it improved their english speaking ability, and increased their english speaking confidence, their understanding of the lessons and their mastery of vocabulary as the following quotes show. it is easier for me (to understand english) and i don’t feel complicated i think it is very good because it makes me understand english more it is exciting and useful to understand english vocabulary more very effective, with these activities in moe approach we can get close to each other the importance of group work has been discussed in the research literature and investigated through several studies, both as a dimension of process drama and as a technique in teaching and learning processes within esl/efl instruction. liu (2002) presents three functions of drama in a language classroom. one of them is the cognitive function that provides opportunities for to work collaboratively and creatively in order to develop their language skills. liu’s collaborative and creative learning outcomes of process eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ fatimah 45 drama were seen in most activities of moe in all cases. the students in this study conducted many small group activities, either to complete writing tasks or to prepare for public performance role-plays. while improvements to students’ english language skills were not assessed as a dimension of this study, creative engagement with tasks was, indeed, an observable outcome of moe implementation. a study conducted by sæbø (2011), investigating the relationship between individual and collective aspects of learning, found that ‘collective learning’ in small groups during process drama contributed significantly to promoting individual student learning. she concluded that “individual and collective aspects of the learning process are reciprocally dependent on each other, but it is the quality of the collective learning process that decides the quality of the individual learning process in drama” (p. 26). this finding suggests that collaborative learning has the potential to improve individual learning. although the current study did not specifically investigate the influence of collaboration on the quality of student learning, high levels of student engagement during group tasks across all three cases indicate the positive contribution of group work to student learning. a number of other studies focusing on the implementation of small group work and collaborative learning showed different results. in their experimental study, van blankenstein, dolmans, van der vleuten, and schmidt (2011) investigated the effects of giving explanations and listening during small group discussion on students’ long term memories. the findings showed that the activities affected positively their recall of related subject-mattered after discussions in small groups. on the other hand, a case study by osman, duffy, chang, and lee (2011) did not offer any particular positive impacts of small group discussion on student learning. the impact of group work on esl (english as a second language) or efl (english as a foreign language) learning has been investigated through a number of studies conducted in the last three decades and these confirm the findings in this study. for example, pica and doughty (1985) found that “group work: 1) provided students with more opportunities to practice using the target language, and 2) to engage in direct interaction” (p. 247). the first effect of group work found in pica and doughty’s study aligned with atlanta students’ perceptions of the benefits of being in-role during group work, as previously discussed. umaira similarly perceived the advantage of group work to encourage udayana students to speak english. in addition to pica and doughty’s findings about the advantages of group work in esl or efl learning, long and porter (1985) identified four more benefits of group work to students’ language acquisition. these are that it: 1) improves the quality of student talk, 2) helps individualize instruction, 3) promotes a positive affective climate, and 4) motivates learners (pp. 208-212). while the first benefit of group work identified by long and porter was not investigated through this study, the second finding can be seen in this study among students’ moe activities through small group work. each group of students in udayana shs and atlanta shs came up with different lpk proposals although the task set was similar for all. this was because they responded differently to the task. it allowed the options for “small groups of students [to] work on different sets of materials suited to their needs… group work, then, is a first step toward individualization of instruction” (long & porter, 1985, pp. 210-211). long and porter’s third point that group work positively affects the learning climate is evident in this study, particularly in case two where atlanta students were encouraged to speak english in small group role-plays without inhibition. the effect on motivation was evident across the cases. richards (2006) suggested that in group work the students “produce a greater amount of language than they would use in teacher-fronted activities [classroom activities or discussion]” (p. 20). meanwhile, long and porter conclude that “group work motivates 46 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 learners” (p. 212). their argument is in accordance with richards’ (2006) who also believes that through group work activities students’ motivation tends to increase. in line with the above benefits of group work, harmer (2007) also identifies some advantages of grouping students within english language teaching and learning. according to him, group work significantly increases speaking opportunities for students, and creates greater possibility for students to voice different opinions. thus, various contributions of ideas are enabled, and cooperation and negotiation skills are enhanced. findings from these studies are apparently in line with student learning experiences in this study. as discussed previously, group work increased dharmawangsa students’ willingness to speak english and provided a number of benefits to udayana students. a study by sutiah (2011) about implementing clt during group work with indonesian primary students likewise reported positive effects of group work on students’ speaking confidence. she highlighted that the students became more confident to give oral presentations within group presentations, and in contrast, became anxious in individual presentations due to concerns about their lack of proper pronunciation. this finding suggests that group activity can increase students’ speaking confidence and, at the same time, reduce their language anxiety. to conclude, collaborative learning undertaken within the frame of a real or an imaginary context was experienced by the students across the cases and was a significant factor in their positive engagement with the english language learning process. their heightened engagement created the possibility for students improved learning experiences that may lead to improvements in their language learning outcomes. collaborative learning as a mediator to reduce speaking anxiety despite heightened student engagement while in-role during the enactment of moe, the findings did indicate that some students felt anxious about taking on a role. the number of students who felt anxious in being in-role was especially significant, with 56% of atlanta students choosing ‘nervous’ (in the instrument of questionnaire) as one of the descriptors of their feelings about taking on a role. this nervousness may be understood as a form of ‘communication apprehension,’ which horwitz, horwitz, and cope (1986) explain is a “a type of shyness characterized by the fear of or anxiety of communicating with people” (p. 127) during foreign language instruction. horwitz et al. (1986) suggest that to reduce students’ anxiety the teacher should “make the learning context less stressful” (p. 131). one way of achieving this during moe implementation is by engaging students in small-group role-plays, including the teacher-inrole, as opposed to public performance role-plays. moe implementation to atlanta students resulted in findings showing that despite their nervousness, all atlanta students enjoyed having their teacher-in-role during small group role plays; 62% of responses indicated willingness to speak english during small group role-plays; and 69% of responses described enjoyment in small group role-plays. taken together, these findings suggest the benefits of using small group role-plays to combat student apprehension. this supports the findings revealed by effiong (2015) stating that peer collaboration and working in small groups reduce feelings of anxiety amongst efl learners’ pronunciation. this finding suggests that group activity can increase students’ speaking confidence and, at the same time, reduce their language anxiety. the kind of anxiety felt by atlanta students is, according to existing studies, commonly experienced by students learning a foreign language, and must be minimized in order to achieve their maximum learning outcomes. the collaborative and small group speaking activities of moe seemed to be a good approach for reducing student anxiety about learning and speaking english and may be seen as a stepping-stone to more public eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ fatimah 47 presentation and performance tasks. collaboration proved to be a powerful learning platform and it reduced students’ english speaking anxiety. conclusion the findings of the study indicate one major outcome of moe implementation, that is collaborative learning activities conducted through both classroom and imaginary context resulted in positive effects. the collaboration between learners that occurred in small groups benefited the students because it: 1) improved english speaking ability and confidence, 2) increased student interest and participation in learning, 3) increased understanding of their lessons, 4) provided students with new knowledge and learning experiences, 5) provided students with more opportunities to practice the target language being learned, and 6) engaged students in interaction. the findings related to student engagement in small group role-play and students’ increased confidence to speak english suggest that spoken interaction in small group had reduced students’ anxiety to speak english. this occurred because the students found that learning environment was less stressful. references akhyak, & indramawan, a. 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(2018). using werewolf game to teach speaking to senior high school students. journal of english language teaching, 8 (1), 61-70. https://monash.figshare.com/articles/exploring_indonesian_learners_beliefs_about_language_learning_strategies_through_reflection/4711927 https://monash.figshare.com/articles/exploring_indonesian_learners_beliefs_about_language_learning_strategies_through_reflection/4711927 https://doi.org/10.4225/03/58b7763874bf3 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 214-224 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.8065 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id enhancing speaking skills amidst and beyond the covid-19 pandemic: innovative strategies from teachers' perspectives for high school efl learners suryanto a,1,*, eko purwanti b,2 , felansonia azhima dewanti c,3 a, b, c universitas muhammadiyah yogyakarta, jl. brawijaya, geblagan, tamantirto, kasihan, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55183 1 suryanto@umy.ac.id*; 2 ekopurwanti@umy.ac.id; 3 felansonia.a.fpb17@mail.umy.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 11 september 2022 revised 12 november 2022 accepted 25 november 2022 the success of english language learners is determined by their capacity for effective english communication. the purposes of this study are firstly to examine what activities university teachers employ to enhance students' speaking skills during and post-covid-19 pandemic and secondly investigate the differences in teaching speaking skills during and post-covid pandemic. the researchers select seven english instructors as participants using a qualitative descriptive research design. all participants were english lecturers at a yogyakarta private university. participants include three female and four male teachers taken using purposive sampling method. using an interview guide, the researchers conducted interviews with the participants to collect data. the findings show ten activities lecturers utilize to instruct speaking skills during and post-pandemic. the activities include giving speaking practices, making group work activities, retelling stories, or experiences, assigning role play and presentations, asking students to record activities, providing communicating exposures, practicing interviews, and producing a vlog. during and post the pandemic, the second set of findings highlights the differences in teaching speaking during and post pandemics, covering the nature of the activities in terms of flexibility, degree of control, and engagement. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords activities for speaking skills activities during covid-19 pandemic activities post-covid-19 pandemic offline learning online learning how to cite: suryanto, purwanti, e., & dewanti, f. a. (2022). enhancing speaking skills amidst and beyond the covid-19 pandemic: innovative strategies from teachers' perspectives for high school efl learners. english language teaching educational journal, 5 (3), 214-224. 1. introduction the successful performance of english language learners is measured by their capacity to communicate effectively in english (kurniawan, 2016; richards, 2015). effective english communication requires sufficient accuracy and fluency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing to convey and comprehend meaning in various contexts (burns & richards, 2018; richards, 2015). to comprehend and respond appropriately, learners require listening that involves comprehending spoken english, including various accents, intonation patterns, and idiomatic expressions (thir, 2023; yu et al., 2021). speaking involves expressing oneself plainly and effectively in english using the proper vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. it also requires the ability to engage in english conversations, discussions, and presentations, as well as to negotiate meaning and clarify misunderstandings (sim & post, 2022). reading requires comprehension of written english, including various writing styles such as academic articles, news reports, and literary texts, to comprehend and derive meaning (eriksson et al., 2023; burns & richards, 2018; richards, 2015). it also requires recognizing and employing various reading strategies to enhance comprehension. writing is using https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.8065 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:suryanto@umy.ac.id mailto:ekopurwanti@umy.ac.id mailto:felansonia.a.fpb17@mail.umy.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4064-0339 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v5i3.8065&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8203-7653 215 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 214-224 suryanto et al. (enhancing speaking skills amidst and beyond the covid-19 pandemic.....) english to express oneself effectively in written form, utilizing appropriate grammar, vocabulary, and organization (paterson & fisher, 2022). it also requires composing diverse texts for various purposes and audiences, such as emails, essays, and reports. among the four main language skills, speaking skills constitute vital language skills for students and teachers to master as such proficiency shows their language expertise (koran, 2015). english students who mastered speaking skills performed better in school discussions and question-andanswer sessions. at such times, english learners can express their ideas clearly to understand the lesson better, thus leading to their success in learning. fluency in spoken english is required for social, travel, business, and educational purposes (duff et al., 2018). moreover, the ability to perform spoken communication is valued most often, and by which they can use them or lose their chance at life (namaziandost, et al., 2018). considering these conditions, teachers should facilitate students maximally to master speaking skills. in the same direction, students should learn hard by understanding the theoretical knowledge and executing its practical matters to acquire englishspeaking skills. however, the learning and its facilitation are subject to the contextual conditions of the teaching-learning process (burns & richards, 2018; richards, 2015) contextual conditions in the english language are essential in language learning and offer new perspectives on negotiating cross-cultural encounters, changing learning affordances, and reconfigurations the nature of second language teaching (burns & richards, 2018). the context of english language learning can be in and beyond the classroom. learning in the classroom requires balancing instruction with language use, as individual learners vary in their preferred learning styles, aptitude, attitudes, and motivations. explicit classroom-based instruction can be used for strategy training, modeling expert language use, comparing pragmatic features of languages, translation activities, and activities involving implicit learning (east et al., 2018). language learning beyond the classroom is a lifelong project, with diversity and versatility being two main characteristics (chik, 2018). diversity is one of the key features of language learning beyond the classroom. learners can encounter various forms of language input, including perusing books, viewing films, listening to music, and conversing with native speakers. this variety of language input can assist students in expanding their vocabulary and gaining a deeper understanding of cultural nuances and idiomatic expressions. versatility is another characteristic to characterize language learning outside the classroom. students can engage in language learning activities and resources that correspond with their interests and learning preferences, such as language exchange programs, online language courses, and language learning applications. this adaptability enables language learners to modify their learning experience to their specific requirements and objectives. a theoretical model defines the scope of learning language in five dimensions. they are location, formality, pedagogy, locus of control, and trajectory (chik, 2018). the location dimension refers to the location where language learning occurs. it can include formal settings such as classrooms and language institutions and informal settings such as immersion experiences in the target language country, language exchanges with english native speakers, and self-study using online resources. the formality signifies the level of formality in language learning. it may vary from highly organized and official classroom environments to informal and relaxed environments such as language cafés or conversation communities. the pedagogy dimension refers to the techniques and strategies implemented for teaching language. it may incorporate traditional approaches like a grammatical translation as well as communicative and task-based methods that prioritize real-world language usage and interaction. meanwhile, the locus of control refers to how much control learners possess over their learning process. it may include teacher-centred approaches in which the teacher determines the content and pacing of learning and learner-centred approaches that enable students to establish their objectives, choose their materials, and manage their learning. the trajectory dimension describes the path or development of language learning over time. it can include short-term objectives like completing a language exam or acquiring specific vocabulary and long-term objectives like attaining fluency or acquiring the language for professional purposes. as reported by the united nations science, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) on thursday (4/3/2020), the pandemic of the coronavirus (covid-19) had an impact on the education sector (unesco, 2020). about 300 million students worldwide were disrupted in their learning practices and challenged in their future educational rights (handoyo, 2020). countries worldwide issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 216 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 214-224 suryanto et al. (enhancing speaking skills amidst and beyond the covid-19 pandemic.....) closed schools in every effort to avoid the spreading virus that had already affected more than 233 million students around the world (unesco, 2020). the government closed schools and universities. all educational activities were transferred into online modes. in yogyakarta, indonesia, the context where this study was performed, all educational learning processes were changed in the mode of an online system. the impacts of covid-19 were also felt in teaching and learning english. students also suffered from the influence of the covid-19 pandemic on the development of language skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. the indonesian government officially revoked the imposition of restricting community activities (ppkm) policy related to the covid-19 pandemic on friday, december 30, 2022, after president joko widodo announced it at a press conference at the state palace in jakarta (ramadhan, 2022). this policy brings about the absence of previous restrictions in every aspect of state lives, including educational fields, to be more specific in the domain of english language teaching and learning. the change in teaching and learning english contextual conditions from the restricted condition due to covid-19 to the restriction's eradication motivated the researchers to administer research with the following questions. 1. what activities did teachers employ to teach speaking skills during and after the covid-19 pandemic? 2. what differences exist in teaching speaking skills during and after the covid-19 pandemic? 2. method this investigation is qualitative and descriptive in nature. choosing an appropriate method to address research concerns is a crucial step in the research procedure. frequently, qualitative descriptive research is used to offer clear explanations of the participants' experiences and perceptions (doyle et al., 2020). qualitative descriptive research develops data that subjectively describe the "who, what, and where" of events or experiences. it corresponds most closely to constructionism and critical theories employing interpretive and naturalistic methodologies. it is also consistent with pragmatism, in which decisions about how research should be conducted are made based on the study's goals or objectives and context (doyle et al., 2020). this research was conducted in the department of english education at a private university in yogyakarta. the first reason is that the university also teaches speaking courses, which require special activities to train students to improve their speaking skills. second, the lecturers' experience teaching speaking skills during and post-covid-19 pandemic, so they are suitable to participate in this study. the participants of this study were seven lecturers consisting of 3 females and four males. the writer used pseudonyms for the data analysis needs. participant 1 is miss intan, participant 2 is miss reyna, participant 3 is mr. zaki, participant 4 is miss ifah, participant 5 is mr. taka, participant 6 is mr. ono, and participant 7 is mr. rian. all these participants were interviewed after being contacted and ready to participate in this study voluntarily. the researchers used the indonesian language to avoid misunderstanding, as all participants were indonesian native speakers. however, the researchers made interviewed piloting to two persons to assess whether the researchers were capable of running the smooth interview processes and asked understandable questions based on the interview guide that had been prepared in advance (saddour, 2020). after piloting the interview guideline, the researchers interviewed the participants one by one based on the time convenient for them using a recorder. the interview results were transcribed verbatim. prior to the data analyses, the interview transcripts were given to the research participants for member checking to confirm trustworthiness related to the originality and credibility of the information given in the interviews (cervini & zingaro, 2021; stahl & king, 2020). by then, the data analyses were administered using thematic analysis (williams & moser, 2019) by making coding. coding is an almost standard qualitative research method; it is a fundamental part of the analytical process and how researchers break down their data to produce something fresh. "coding is the process of processing qualitative text data by extracting them from each other to see what they yield before reassembling the data meaningfully" (creswell, 2015). in other words, coding is where the researchers put together and group the results of interviews that have been conducted. there are also four coding types: open coding, analytical coding, axial coding, and selective coding (corbin & strauss, 2015; williams & moser, 2019). 217 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 214-224 suryanto et al. (enhancing speaking skills amidst and beyond the covid-19 pandemic.....) 3. findings the findings were classified based on the research questions. first, the researcher reported the result of activities used by the teachers to teach students to improve their speaking skills during and after covid-19 pandemic. second, the researcher presented the results of media used by teachers to teach students their speaking skills during post-covid-19 pandemic times. the thematic analyses revealed that the activities implemented by teachers to teach speaking skills during and after covid-19 pandemic could be categorized into two big categories: the same and different activities. the interview results indicated that most activities conducted during and post the covid-19 pandemic are the same. they cover ten themes, including giving speaking practices, making group work activities, retelling stories or experiences, assigning role play and presentations, asking students to record activities, providing speaking exposures, practicing interviews, and producing a vlog. 3.1. the same activities to practice english speaking skills during and after covid-19 pandemic they cover ten themes, including giving speaking practices, making group work activities, retelling stories or experiences, assigning role play and presentations, asking students to record activities, providing speaking exposures, practicing interviews, and producing a vlog. 1) giving practice all participants mentioned that both during and post-covid-19 pandemic provided activities for students to practice speaking skills. based on the interview result of participant 1, miss intan said, "… during covid-19 pandemic, online students should have the opportunity to chat to practice their speaking skills. similarly, i assign the same in the after pandemic" (p1.1). then participant 2, miss reyna, "give much practice and then give an input session first, give an input session like video or audio recording according to the theme or topic and then i give a case" (p2.2). participant 7, rian, stated, '…speaking is a skill, to master skills, students require to practice and practice; this is the same, i did during covid-19 pandemic and afterward. …" all teachers seem in agreement to encourage students to have activities to practice and practice their speaking skills regardless of whether the class was imposed during or after covid-19 pandemic. practicing is one of the key elements to teaching english speaking skills (richards, 2015) 2) making a group activity this study revealed that in speaking class, all teachers made group activities for students to train their english-speaking skills. one of the participants said, "so the moment we did was to make small groups, we have four credits for the course, so the time is more than 3 hours, yes, 3 hours 20 minutes now what we do is the students are grouped into small groups" (p1.2). in group activities, the lecturers commonly divide several students into groups. then the students did a speaking activity in the group. the groups of students exchanged information with one another on different topics. in the discussion, each group is given 20 minutes to do the speaking activity (duff & surtees, 2018). activities such as peer or group work enhance the speaking abilities of the learners, allowing them to convey their opinions in a sympathetic context. teachers of english must consider the requirements and interests of their pupils when selecting topics for these exercises. at this juncture, it is judicious to cite rao s. p. (2018), who asserts, "while selecting the topics, teachers must consider the learners' needs and interests so that students will work more enthusiastically on assigned topics." therefore, teachers must have a more optimistic outlook on learner-centered methods to engage students by emphasizing speaking skills-related activities. when students work in partners or small groups, they develop their independence and strive to communicate more and generate more sentences. working in a group will significantly assist english language learners in boosting their confidence and encouraging them to exercise their speaking skills whenever they have the opportunity. therefore, teachers must provide more opportunities for students to actively partake in pairings or groups to improve their speaking abilities (singh, 2020). 3) retelling activity one of the participants shared their point about teaching using retelling activity. miss intan said, "so the student tells the story later, and the other students have to retell what he told" (p1.14). the rest of the participants mentioned applying retelling stories or experiences as teaching activities during and after covid-19 pandemic. taking examples, participant 2, miss reyna, and participant 3, mr. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 218 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 214-224 suryanto et al. (enhancing speaking skills amidst and beyond the covid-19 pandemic.....) zaki, stated similarly that retelling stories or experiences is implemented frequently in their speaking class. they argued that retelling story or experience had given opportunities to have an input session first before having their speaking retrieval (richards, 2015) retelling has a positive effect on language acquisition because it improves students' ability to reorganize information from previously read texts (ghiabi, 2014; richards, 2015). retelling enables the teacher to determine how well a student comprehends the story as a whole and reorganize the story with their own words. students' speaking skills can be improved by having them relate anecdotes in their own terms. 4) using video learning based on the interview asked by the researchers, participant 1, miss intan, explained, "then they have to watch the video, so after watching it, there will be much learning in the video" (p1.19). then participant 2, mr. zaki, also explained, "if they want to can review a product, they have to watch many product reviews on youtube" (p3.26). both participants used the activity by watching a video to improve their speaking skills. miss ifah, mr. taka, mr. ono, and mr. rian shared the idea of using video learning. they argued that video learning could significantly assist the students in having clear input sessions. they clarify that video learning increases students' interest and willingness to learn. video can maintain interconnection and engagement during study and engagement leads students to practice the material learned (lowenthal et al., 2020). moreover, video can contribute positive effects in learning speaking in terms of increasing motivation to learn, and nurturing skills to think critically and lowering the anxiety in english learning (chien et al., 2020). 5) giving assessment all participants said that they did assessment activities to improve their speaking skills. the first participant, miss intan, explained, "we also made an assessment that was theirs, whose assessment could make them practice their speaking skills. then, participant 2, miss reyna, said, "practice using synchronous meetings for the assignment or the assessment." the two participants not only gave the students practice but also gave them an assessment for their improving speaking skills (burns & richards, 2018). all participants agree to give assessments. some experts say that the selection of the online assessment concept is seen as one of the learning concepts that provide an opportunity for students to perform critical thinking processes (chien et al., 2020). providing student assessments can provide opportunities for students to carry out critical thinking processes so that students can also speak well. 6) assigning role play and presentation one participant, miss intan, said, "to practice the daily conversation, students should perform interviews. i usually ask the students to do presentations followed by a role play". at this point, role play and presentation become activities in the speaking class. the other participants stated that they use presentation and role play in the context of the pandemic and post-pandemic. mr. taka and mr. ono said, "we implemented role play and presentation online during the covid-19 pandemic. at post covid-19 pandemics, we can again make the real performance of role play and presentation in front of the class". the statements of mr. taka and mr. ono signify that even though the class meetings were online, the role-play activities and presentations could still run synchronously online. indeed, many studies prove that role plays are valuable teaching tools (rashid & qaisar, 2017; stevens, 2015). likewise, presentation activities improve students' capacity to interact with others if they learn how to make a successful presentation (king, 2012). in short, the findings show that roleplay and presentation are instrumental activities for speaking class. 7) asking students to produce a recording based on the results of interviews conducted by the researchers, participant 2, miss reyna, said, "they record their voice individually, so audio recording is not just video recording. at this point, students make audio recordings to practice speaking skills. then participant 3, mr. zaki, explained that "students are supposed to make a podcast and publish it, …later, after they got the interview results with the professionals, they published it… they had practiced using english" (p3.15). this excerpt signifies that students are asked to make a podcast which will later be uploaded to one of the social media. using this podcast has an impact on students' skills (indahsari, 2020) that is beneficial both during and after a pandemic. participant 7, rian, stated, “…. i train students in my speaking class by asking them to record their speaking and listen to the recording to check. they can use any kind of media…”. self-recording technique provides solutions to other related problems that teachers face, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1257171 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/effects-of-peer-assessment-within-the-context-of-on-chien-hwang/714c622c02d7868502ef59970d601c7d23f0f9b5 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/effects-of-peer-assessment-within-the-context-of-on-chien-hwang/714c622c02d7868502ef59970d601c7d23f0f9b5 https://jees.umsida.ac.id/index.php/jees/article/view/767/889 219 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 214-224 suryanto et al. (enhancing speaking skills amidst and beyond the covid-19 pandemic.....) such as students not feeling responsible for their learning, not putting forth sufficient effort, not speaking english in class, or speaking in their native language. (encalada & sarmiento, 2019) 8) giving exposure based on the interview results, participant 2, miss reyna, said, "earlier, you gave much practice and gave the students much exposure first, and then the exposure is in the form of examples." then participant 3, mr. zaki, also said, "in my opinion, speaking skills should start with a lot of input or exposure." participant 4, miss ifah, mentioned, “…i give a lot of exposures both online and offline. the exposures can be given both during and after pandemic…” works. in line with miss ifah, participant 5, mr. taka, said, “… whether teaching online or offline, during or post-pandemic, giving exposure for students to practice speaking skills is a must”. the excerpts proved that providing students exposure to practice english skills have been practiced by the lecturers both during and after the covid-19 pandemic, the extent of different degrees of formality, locus of control, and pedagogy (chik, 2018; dayagbil et al., 2021). 9) making a vlog creating activity is also applied by participant 3; he is one, mr. zaki. he said, "well, in this product review, i made the assignment to make a vlog. "so coincidentally, in one of the courses taught by mr. zaki, one of the goals is that students can review a product. in the activity of making a vlog, students review a product. what will be explained in this product review, students review the product, providing information about the advantages and disadvantages. the uniqueness of the product, then they will reset about the product. the person who speaks in the video is referred to as a vlogger. vlog is one of the most recent media innovations that has opened up new communication channels through user-generated content. short segments of video blogs are more effective in the teaching-learning process since the teacher can choose any section of a specific language that the students will study and practice. 3.2. the reasons of having same activities to practice english speaking skills during and after covid-19 pandemic when asked why the participants expressed almost the same activities when they taught english speaking skills during and after covid-19 pandemic, they expressed the following themes: lms (learning management system) available far before the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, grants for online platform establishment, and the offline activities transferable to online activities. 1) lms was established far before the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic all participants said they had engaged in online learning before the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic. all participants stated similarly, "….. our university has established lms since 2018…”. participant 7, mr. rian, even said, "… our university is among the pioneer universities that established lms for online learning in 2017 and 2018….". as covid-19 outbreak was in march 2020, the teachers were prepared to face the abrupt change of the online learning mode due to the availability of lsm. lms has achieved significant usability during covid-19 pandemic (saputra & kusuma, 2022). 2) grants for online platform establishment all participants had obtained grants to construct online class platforms for all subjects. for instance, participant 6, mr. ono, said, "…the university provides grants for us around 10 million indonesian rupiahs for each subject we teach every semester.”. all participants confirmed the availability of the grant granted every semester. mr. taka verifies this fact by saying, … up to the present, we are granted on the eleventh batch, meaning we have been establishing a learning management system online for five and a half years". obtaining grants warrants all lecturers constructing the online platform appropriately because the grant scheme must provide a control mechanism for the success of online learning platform creation (tavares & amaral, 2006). besides, the grant awards proved that the university had improved the capacity of the lecturers for running online classes and signifies that the university has upgraded the required infrastructures for such needs (dayagbil et al., 2021). 3) offline activities are transferable to online activities the interview results show that all the participants agree that offline activities are transferable to online activities. participant 2, miss reyna, argued, “…online platforms provide spaces to transfer offline activities, offline meetings with online synchronous online meetings, a presentation can be https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/perceptions-about-self-recording-videos-to-develop-encalada-sarmiento/6321347b3eb44eae31b5ebc2ba11a7716607d527 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 220 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 214-224 suryanto et al. (enhancing speaking skills amidst and beyond the covid-19 pandemic.....) done online and offline, offline group work with group work in online breakout meeting, etc....….". similarly, other participants possess similar ideas. this finding implies that what is commonly conducted offline activities can be replaced with online undertakings. in this respect, the same activities to practice english speaking skills during and after pandemic have substantial grounds since the spirit to have offline meetings post-pandemic can be equally undertaken in online meetings during pandemics. however, the findings also highlight the slight difference in teaching during from post pandemics. 3.3. the differences in teaching english speaking skills during and after covid-19 pandemic most participants agree they had the same activities during and after pandemic. nevertheless, the thematic analyses of the interview data of this study reveal slight differences in teaching during and after covid-19 pandemic. the differences are in the nature of activities, including flexibility, degree of control, and engagement. 1) flexibility most study participants mentioned being more flexible when teaching during a pandemic. participant 1, miss intan, said, “…. teaching online during covid-19 pandemic offers flexibility for students using a range of activities, methods, and times to learn in ways that suit them best…”. the difference emerges from post-pandemics in which the tendency of teaching is offline with face-toface meetings. participant 4, miss ifah, said, “…offline classroom meetings are rigid in terms of the meeting time, physical classroom arrangements, and others, ….". the findings picture the degree of flexibility of teaching online during covid-19 and the rigidity of offline classes post-pandemics (turan et al., 2022). 2) degree of control the findings of this study show that the degrees of control toward teaching and learning speaking skills are varied. the students control their time and mode of learning more than the teachers during the covid-19 pandemic. participant 3, mr. zaki, said, "during online classes in pandemic times, students can join the speaking class at home freely, decide the time to do exercises and assignments in the time frame in their freedom." differently, participant 4, miss ifah, mentioned, "… postpandemic, i teach students offline, even though i run blended learning. i can control students whether they practice the assigned exercise or not directly……”. these sample data illustrate different control of teachers and students during online learning during the pandemic from the control post-pandemic learning (dayagbil et al., 2021). 3) engagement the interview data denoted that students engage differently in the same activities during and after pandemics in teaching speaking skills. participant 5, mr. taka, stated, ‘i experienced that teaching face to face in a synchronous online meeting and offline class are not the same. the engagement of meeting face to face offline class is better than online one". this statement contradicts the work of kristianto and gandajaya (2023), who argue that engagement during the pandemic using online and post-pandemic using offline mode have no significant difference. the different engagement might happen when common issues with internet connection and compatibility of the gadget and in online learning occur (basar et al., 2021; hanafiah & aziz, 2022). besides the different natures of the activities in teaching english, the study also presents the media used to teach english speaking skills during covid-19 and after covid-19 pandemics. 4. conclusion this study explores the university teachers' perception of students' activities in improving their speaking skills during covid-19. the study employed a qualitative approach and descriptive qualitative as the research designs. the participants were seven university teachers at a private university in yogyakarta. the findings were classified based on the research questions. the interview data showed that ten activities were used by university teachers to teach english during and after pandemic time, covering giving speaking practices, making group work activities, retelling stories, or experiences, assigning role play and presentations, asking students to record activities, providing speaking exposures, practicing interview, and producing a vlog. the interview data also indicated that although the activities are mostly the same during and after pandemic times, differences are still found in the nature of the activities, including flexibility, degree of control, and students' engagement. 221 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 214-224 suryanto et al. (enhancing speaking skills amidst and beyond the covid-19 pandemic.....) acknowledgment this study would not have been possible without the support and assistance of numerous individuals, including our colleagues and english instructors from representative secondary institutions. we would like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation to everyone involved. our sincerest appreciation and thanks are extended to our colleagues at universitas muhammadiyah yogyakarta, who have contributed to research by providing suggestions and ideas regarding data acquisition declarations author contribution : suryanto was in charge of the overall scientific endeavor. he also directed the composition of the manuscript and the collaboration with eko purwanti and felansonia azhima dewanti, who contributed to the data gathering. all authors consented to the final manuscript. funding statement : this research was funded by the research center of universitas muhammadiyah yogyakarta conflict of interest : all of the authors declare that they have no competing interests. ethics declaration : as authors, we acknowledge that this work was based on ethical research conducted in accordance with our university's regulations and that we obtained permission from the relevant institutes before collecting data. we endorse eltej journal's commitment to upholding high standards of personal conduct and practicing integrity in all professional practices and endeavors. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references basar, z. m., mansor, a. n., jamaludin, k. a., & alias, b. s. 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(2021). the effect of educational games on learning outcomes, student motivation, engagement and satisfaction. journal of educational computing research, 59(3), 522-546. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735633120969214 https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/290-million-students-out-school-due-covid-19-unesco-releases-first-global-numbers-and-mobilizes https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/290-million-students-out-school-due-covid-19-unesco-releases-first-global-numbers-and-mobilizes https://doi.org/10.1177/0735633120969214 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 202-213 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.8141 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id examining teachers' motivation in conducting teacher professional development: a self-determination theory perspective eko purwanti a,1,*, salma octavia b,2 a, b universitas muhammadiyah yogyakarta, jl. brawijaya, geblagan, tamantirto, kasihan, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55183 1 ekopurwanti@umy.ac.id*; 2 salma.octavia.fpb17@mail.umy.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 11 september 2022 revised 25 october 2022 accepted 25 november 2022 teacher professional development (tpd) plays a vital role in fostering teacher professionalism by providing teachers with ongoing learning opportunities and support which eventually affect students’ learning. this study aims to find out various activities of english secondary school teachers regarding their teacher professional development and to investigate their motivation in conducting tpd based on selfdetermination theory (sdt) as theoretical framework. a qualitative approach with a descriptive qualitative research design was employed in this study in which three english secondary school teachers were involved as the participants using individual interviews as the data collection technique. based on the interviews, the findings showed that tpd activities done by the participants were 1) attending workshop and seminar, 2) joining english subject teacher forum, and 3) having informal peer discussions. in addition, the next findings regarding the teachers’ motivation in conducting tpd proves that the three aspects of sdt emerged from the participants, comprising 1) self-awareness, 2) in line with profession, and 3) the need to be competent. these findings imply that various activities of tpd driven by internal motivation can be effective for english secondary school teachers. therefore, it is recommended that teachers have internal motivation in order to carry out successful tpd. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords teacher professional development professional development activities teacher motivations self-determination theory how to cite: purwanti, e. & octavia, s. (2022). examining teachers' motivation in conducting teacher professional development: a self-determination theory perspective. english language teaching educational journal, 5 (3), 202-213. 1. introduction teachers play crucial roles in education because they facilitate students' learning, growth, and development. teachers facilitate learning by cultivating inquisitiveness, critical thinking, and a passion for education (mart, 2013). in addition, teachers motivate and mentor students as they advance through their education, equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary for success in the classroom and beyond (arianti, 2019). teachers serve as mentors and role models by instilling values, nurturing character development, and promoting social and emotional well-being (careemdeen, 2023), and through their commitment, knowledge, and passion, teachers shape the minds, lives, and futures of their students. teachers also evaluate students' progress, provide constructive criticism, and provide individualized assistance to meet students' diverse needs (jayasinghe, 2010). finally, teachers influence the conduct of their students (szymkowiak et al., 2021). based on these roles, teachers become one of the factors that determine the success of education. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.8141 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:ekopurwanti@umy.ac.id mailto:salma.octavia.fpb17@mail.umy.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4064-0339 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v5i3.8141&domain=pdf 203 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 202-213 purwanti, e. & octavia, s. (examining teachers' motivation in conducting teacher professional development.....) having significant roles in education, teachers must be professionals by continuously enhancing their skills. maintaining professionalism is essential for teachers because it safeguards the integrity and effectiveness of the educational system (riadi et al., 2022). professionalism enables teachers to cultivate an intellectually and socially stimulating environment conducive to students' growth (richards & farrell, 2005). professional teachers demonstrate a strong work ethic, dependability, and dedication to their duties. they adhere to ethical standards, maintain confidentiality, and treat students, colleagues, and parents with respect. professionalism also necessitates continuous self-improvement and keeping abreast of the latest educational research, methodologies, and practices. professional teachers inspire students, parents, and the community who lead to improving education and fostering excellence. in indonesian context, teacher professionalism is regulated in teacher and lecturer law no. 14/2005, particularly article 10 paragraph 1 (2005), mentioning four competencies of teachers, comprising pedagogical, personal, social, and professional competencies (latiana, 2019). first, teacher pedagogical competence is the ability or skill of teachers who can manage a learning process and learning interactions with students. second, personal competence is related to personal character. third, teacher social competence is related to communication skills, attitudes and interactions in general with students, fellow teachers, education staff, parents of students, as well as the wider community. finally, teacher professional competence is related to the subject knowledge. in order to fulfil these four competencies, teachers need to carry out teacher professional development (tpd) activities. given the significance of tpd and the effects tpd has on teachers, it is then intriguing to seek the experiences of english secondary school teachers regarding their tpd activities. additionally, it is interesting to investigate what motivates these teachers to undertake tpd despite their busy and tight schedules at school, particularly through the self-determination theory lens. 1.1. teacher professional development teacher professional development (tpd) is the process of enhancing the academic quality of teachers in order to increase their competence and effectiveness in carrying out their professional responsibilities both inside and outside the classroom (komba & nkumbi, 2008). in addition, tpd can be interpreted as how teachers use their knowledge, experience, skills, and technology to improve outcomes, both for the teaching and learning process, as well as the professionalism of other educational personnel (zainal & elham, 2007). thus, it can be concluded that what is meant by tpd is any activities of teachers in applying science, knowledge, technology, and skills to enhance both the quality of the teaching and learning process and the professionalism of other educational personnel. according to djatmiko (2016), teacher professional development is based on their individual needs and responsibilities in maintaining and advancing their careers, which can be accomplished only by themselves. in education systems with well-established teacher education programs, tpd is described as a process encompassing all activities that promote professional career development and it is important that the activities in tpd gives the teachers the skills and attitudes they need to deal with the difficulties in the 21st century education (sprott, 2019). the position of teachers as professional seeks to implement the national education system in achieving the goals of national education, which are the development of students' potential to become individuals who are loyal and circumspect, knowledgeable, competent, and creative. the teaching profession in indonesia requires teachers with high levels of competence and performance, who incorporate knowledge and demonstrate commitment or responsibility. teachers are required to be continuously professional because they must possess certain competencies in order to effectively educate their students. in an attempt to give the best service to their students, teachers conduct various activities of professional development. 1.2. activities of tpd teachers can participate in a vast array of professional development activities to enhance their teaching abilities and promote their professional growth (eksi & aydın, 2013). teachers need institutional supports and personal motivation (philipsen et al., 2019) in engaging in professional development activities such as attending seminars and workshops, joining professional associations, engaging in individual online learning, and engaging in informal peer discussions issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 204 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 202-213 purwanti, e. & octavia, s. (examining teachers' motivation in conducting teacher professional development.....) teachers’ activities such as seminars and workshops are potential to provide teachers with opportunities to learn about new teaching methodologies, language acquisition theories, assessment strategies, and the incorporation of technology into language instruction. widodo (2016) said that workshop and seminar are commonly referred and used as teacher training programs. a study conducted by nugroho, triana et al. (2022) revealed that professional development activities such as joining workshop, seminar, and conference done by indonesian esp teachers enabled them to enhance their digital teaching competence. likewise, seminar activities conducted by pre-service teachers at one of the postgraduate diploma in education (pgde) programmes in south korea enabled them to build their inter-disciplinary teaching strategies and critical thinking skills (dos santos, 2019). finally, (lay, 2010) stated attending workshop can help teachers increase their teaching knowledge, familiarize themselves with techniques and approaches, and employ them effectively. additionally, joining professional associations provides teachers with resources, publications, online forums, and conferences designed specifically for them (gnawali, 2018). in indonesian context, teachers in secondary school are obliged to join a professional association called musyawarah guru mata pelajaran (mgmp) or subject teacher forum. stipulated by indonesian government regulation no. 38 (1994), mgmp is a professional forum for a district-level subject teachers which is regarded as an ideal venue for teacher professional development because it enables teachers to participate in various activities such as the training program, scientific writing, and the facilitation of discussions with other teachers of the same subject, and so forth (atmoko & kuswandono, 2021). likewise, rahman (2016) mentioned that one of the training programs launched by the government is english subject teacher forum (mgmp). thus, joining english teacher forum helped english secondar school teachers develop their competence related to teaching implementation (irmawati, et al., 2017). in general, mgmp offers activities, scientific study, and teaching sharing, and teaching experiences that can help teachers improve their pedagogical, professional, personal, and social competences. therefore, mgmp should not only offer training and other activities that can help teachers grow professionally, but it should also be connected to the government so that teachers can be supervised after the completion of professional development activities (atmoko & kuswandono, 2021). another alternative of teacher professional development activity is joining online academic forum which allows teachers to enhance their knowledge and skills at their own pace and convenience (borup & evmenova, 2019). having virtual platform of professional development, teachers are able to connect, collaborate, and engage in discussions related to academic and teaching topics with other teachers, not only from nationwide but also all over the world. this model of teacher professional development gained its popularity recently due to the covid-19 pandemic when almost all of academic activities in the world were banned and restricted. bragg, walsh et al. (2021) mentioned that online professional development (opd) became a powerful vehicle for delivering high-quality, low-cost, and accessible training to teachers. in short, joining online academic forum as the platform of teacher professional development provides a space for teachers to share experiences and exchange resources with their peers in an online environment. finally, informal discussion with colleagues allows teachers to receive valuable feedback and improvement suggestions. in indonesian context, it is very common for teachers to share knowledge, experiences, problems, and even trivial stories about their students during break time or meal time. in fact, involving colleagues as one of the sources in providing meaningful feedback related to the classroom practices is also one of contributes elements to the teachers’ professional development (vo & nguyen, 2010). during their informal chat, teachers often obtain new insights or ideas about teaching and learning process. thus, the fact that teachers meet their colleagues frequently during their work hours bring potential advantages, and the school can have intervention to teacher professionalism. a study conducted by admiraal, schenke et al. (2021) revealed the intervention done by dutch secondary school in which the concept of professional learning opportunities for all staff and collaborative work and learning was introduced, and teachers in the school work and learn together. this program is successful in maintaining a more sustainable teacher professional development. in short, professional development activities done by teachers vary depending on teachers’ interests, time availability, obligations, and opportunities. teachers should identify their specific growth areas and search out activities that address those needs. by engaging in continuous professional development, teachers can remain abreast of current best practices, improve their 205 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 202-213 purwanti, e. & octavia, s. (examining teachers' motivation in conducting teacher professional development.....) teaching abilities, and ultimately provide their students with better learning opportunities (eksi & aydın, 2013). 1.3. teachers’ motivation to conduct teacher professional development. professional development activities enable teachers to have the opportunity to acquire and enhance broad academic and professional competences (komba & nkumbi, 2008). in conducting tpd, teachers are influenced by both internal and external motivation factors (mclean et al., 2019; osman & warner, 2020). motivation is viewed as a collection of interconnected principles and emotions that drive and directly influence behaviour (alam et al., 2020). thus, motivation is what initiates, maintains, and concentrates teachers’ professional development activities. when teachers have a strong intrinsic motivation for professional development, they are driven by a genuine desire to learn, improve their teaching practice, and improve student outcomes. in other words, teachers who chose their profession voluntarily were more intrinsically motivated than those who were coerced into teaching (alam et al., 2020). on the other hand, alam, fahim et al. (2020) added that teachers who were highly extrinsically motivated needed external awards and incentives to accomplish their professional development activities. this is frequently followed by the desire to have a more prestigious work place, higher incentives, and higher position in order to keep them motivated. finally, extrinsic motivation lead teachers to seek opportunities for career advancement, such as assuming leadership positions, pursuing teacher certifications, and acquiring recognition from other teachers. it is crucial to note that the motivation of teachers for professional development can be influenced by a combination of these factors (ryan & deci, 2020), with the relative importance of each factor varying from individual to another. it is also interesting to explore more comprehensively about teachers’ internal and external motivation in conducting their professional development activities from the perspective of self-determination theory (sdt) of richard m. ryan and edward l. deci. 1.4. self-determination theory (sdt) ryan and deci, who proposed self-determination theory (sdt), have consistently discussed a theory that outlines two types of motivational sources, external and internal, along with an explanation of the specific roles of people associated with these motivations, various domains of development, and individual differences (alam et al., 2020). sdt framework has been discussed and has gone through several revisions since 1975 (vallerand, 2000), and it has been broadly used to analyse teachers’ motivation in conducting their professional development. sdt is a theory that emphasizes on the level of motivation individuals have when carrying out activities and the reasons they are motivated to carry out those activities. according to ryan and deci (2000), a person is considered motivated if he or she is ardent and engaged in an activity. two decade later, (ryan & deci, 2020) redefined the sdt and used this theory in educational contexts. sdt assumes that individuals are naturally inclined toward psychological growth and integration, and thus toward learning, mastery, and connection with others. these proactive human tendencies require supportive conditions to be robust. additionally, individual motivation and well-being which are driven by inherent psychological needs include autonomy, competence, and social connection. in other words, people should have these three basic needs in order for motivation and wellness to exist. autonomy refers to one's initiative and sense of proprietorship over their actions. it is supported by experiences of interest and worth and undermined by experiences of being externally controlled, whether by rewards or punishments. competence is characterized by a sense of mastery, a belief in one's ability to succeed and advance. well-structured environments that provide optimal challenges, positive feedback, and opportunities for growth are optimal for satisfying the need for competence. the final aspect of relatedness is a sense of belonging and connection. it is facilitated by the transmission of respect and care (ryan & deci, 2020). next, van den broeck, vansteenkiste et al. (2008) stated that competence helps individuals develop their abilities and adapt to their complex and ever-changing environment. finally, mastery and skills with certain skills and insights are part of competence that help people realize they have what they need to inspire themselves to reach their goals. (niemiec & ryan, 2009). these three fundamental factors determine self-fulfilment and satisfaction of psychological requirements. a person will not experience happiness if one or two of these conditions are not met. thus, it can be inferred that the three fundamental aspects described above are self-satisfaction supporting factors. referring to the aforementioned characteristics of sdt, it can be concluded that these characteristics motivate instructors to implement tpd. sdt enables teachers to be issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 206 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 202-213 purwanti, e. & octavia, s. (examining teachers' motivation in conducting teacher professional development.....) psychologically motivated to develop, which is the objective of tpd, and includes the independence and connection, competence, and autonomy that are anticipated to be met by utilizing sdt as the central concept (basikin, 2020). in addition, teacher professional development activities provide a teaching experience based on sdt-based learning. 2. review of previous studies numerous articles discuss teacher professional development activities and the motivation of teachers to engage in tpd through the lens of deci and ryan's sdt. the first article is a study titled "english teachers' motivation for a professional development program: perspectives of selfdetermination theory" by basikin (2020). this study investigates the motivation of school english teachers in the province of yogyakarta, indonesia, recruited through their district teacher forum (mgmp) meetings to participate in a pd program. it attempts to determine whether externally driven or controlled motivation can become more autonomous. following the framework of the selfdetermination theory, the teacher motivation for a professional development scale (tmpds) was used to assess teachers' motivation. although participants reported high scores on both introjected regulation (m = 5.73; sd = 2.28) and external regulation (m = 6.51; sd = 1.54), they also reported high scores on both intrinsic motivation (m = 7.58; sd = 1.08) and identified regulation (m = 7.91; sd = 1.04). the results show that a person's initial motivation or control could become more internal or autonomous, based on how much they have internalized. the findings suggest that when motivation is external, pd programs should provide autonomy supports to facilitate internalization. the second article entitled "teachers' motivation to participate in training and implement innovations" was written by gorozidis and papaioannou (2014). this study's objective is to investigate teachers' motivations and intentions regarding participation in training and instruction of innovative academic subjects. based on the theory of self-determination, a mixed-method design was used to find out why and how 218 teachers wanted to learn about and teach an innovative academic topic and what they planned to do about it. based on the structural equation modelling, the finding showed that teachers were more likely to participate in appropriate training and use innovation if they were selfmotivated, but not if they were self-controlled. the results suggest that policymakers should support strategies that make teachers more self-motivated so that educational innovations can be used effectively. 3. method the present study aimed to investigate tpd activities conducted by english secondary school teachers in yogyakarta and explore the motivation behind their participation in conducting tpd using deci and ryan's sdt. this study employs a qualitative methodology because it permits the researchers to collect specific information from the participants regarding the tpd activities conducted by english teachers and their motivation in conducting tpd based on sdt. similarly, lester, cho et al. (2020) mentioned that qualitative approach is commonly used to support the researcher in ‘generating a deep and nuanced understanding of a given phenomenon’ (p.95). according to creswell (2012), a qualitative approach is a method for constructing a knowledge statement based on constructive perspectives. therefore, qualitative research is suitable for this study as the participants' responses are based on their beliefs and experiences. in addition, this investigation employed a qualitative descriptive design. according to lambert and lambert (2012), qualitative descriptive research is the process of describing, analysing, and summarizing a hypothesis in relation to specific events experienced by an individual. descriptive qualitative research is therefore appropriate for this study to reveal teachers' motivation for conducting tpd. this research was conducted at two secondary schools in yogyakarta with the participation of three english teachers. in-depth interviews were used to collect the data. according to morris (2015), interviews are a flexible data collection method. he added that the interviewer's response may include their knowledge, preferences, and beliefs. in addition, interviews enable the participant to express their perspective on the situations from their own perspective. this study employs open-ended questions to elicit responses from participants during interviews. according to creswell (2012), an open-ended question permits the participant to freely express their experiences. in addition, the participants' native language, indonesian, was utilized in order to make them more at ease and collect more detailed information. while au (2019) suggested the use of mother tongue in interview can be less comfortable for 207 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 202-213 purwanti, e. & octavia, s. (examining teachers' motivation in conducting teacher professional development.....) interviewees, the researchers believed that the use of mother tongue in data collection methods allowed them to capture more information. after conducting the interview, the researchers transcribed the data without adding or removing any of the words written by the participants. the researcher utilized transcription to facilitate data analysis and summarization. to maintain its credibility, member checking was performed in which all participants affirmed the accuracy of the data. to protect the anonymity of the participants, pseudonyms of bian, anne, and lara were used. 4. findings and discussions this study focusses on twofold: 1) english secondary teachers’ activities in their tpd, and 2) english secondary teachers’ motivation in conducting their tpd based on sdt. upon the completion of collecting the data from the three participants, the findings show that there are several activities that had been carried out by the participants in conducting their tpd, comprising 1) attending workshop / seminars, 2) joining english teacher forum, and 3) having informal peer discussions among colleagues. in addition, the findings related to the second research question revealed that the three aspects of sdt emerged from the participants, comprising 1) self-awareness, 2) in line with profession, and 3) the need to be competent. detail explanations of these findings are presented below: 4.1. english secondary teachers’ activities in their tpd 1) attending workshop / seminar the first activities mentioned by the participants are attending workshop and seminar. based in the interview, all the participants have done activities such as attending workshop. the first participant, bian mentioned that “… as a teacher, we attend workshop from the provincial education department of (p1.2). similarly, other participants, anna and lara shared similar activities regarding their tpd activities, joining workshops and seminars offered by the provincial education department, or dinas pendidikan kota yogyakarta. as one of the government departments in which one of the missions is to improve the quality of education in yogyakarta, dinas pendidikan kota yogyakarta in collaboration with secondary schools frequently conduct training, workshops, and seminars for teachers. the school principals usually select their teachers alternatively so that all teachers can get similar opportunity to attend those academic events. indeed, joining workshop can help teachers increase their knowledge in their teaching careers and become familiar with techniques and approaches and properly use them fruitfully (lay, 2010). in addition, widodo (2016) said that workshop and seminar are commonly referred as teacher training programs. now that teachers experience a vast development of technology, the teaching and learning process should be contextualized into a more sophisticated platform. attending workshop or training aimed at equipping teachers with educational technological skill helped indonesian esp teachers enhance their digital teaching competence (nugroho et al., 2022). 2) joining english teacher forum (mgmp) the second tpd activities done by the participants is joining english teacher forum. based on the interview, all the participants mentioned that their involvement in joining english teacher forum can be regarded as parts of their tpd activities. anna and lara said that “we participate in activities at english subject teacher forum” (p2.3, p3.1). likewise, bian stated that sometimes she was appointed by dinas pendidikan kota yogyakarta to attend an academic event in english subject teacher forum. indeed, english subject teacher forum is a collaborative platform or forum that brings together teachers who teach the same subject in a specific region or district in indonesia. the purpose of mgmp is to promote professional development, knowledge sharing, and collaboration among subject teachers. in particular, the purpose of mgmp is to improve the quality of subject teaching and learning in schools. therefore, the involvement of these participants in mgmp has provided them with a platform for exchanging ideas, sharing experiences, and enhancing their teaching competencies. this is in line with rahman (2016) who mentioned that one of the training programs launched by the government is english subject teacher forum (mgmp). in addition, as mgmp is under the control of dinas pendidikan kota yogyakarta, and as bian said that the participation of mgmp is sometimes determined by this institution, it should be connected to the government so that teachers can be supervised after the completion of their professional development activities in mgmp (atmoko & kuswandono, 2021). thus, besides having sharing teaching competencies, this mgmp serves as a platform for ongoing professional development of english subject teachers. as mentioned by all of the participants, joining english teacher forum helped these issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 208 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 202-213 purwanti, e. & octavia, s. (examining teachers' motivation in conducting teacher professional development.....) english secondary school teachers develop their competence related to teaching implementation (irmawati et al., 2017). 3) having informal peer discussions among colleagues based on the interview, two participants are in agreement and mention that having peer discussion with colleagues at the same school is a self-activity of tpd. anna said that “usually i talk to my colleagues who also teaches english in my school”. she felt comfortable discussing about a topic related to english teaching and learning process, or sometimes she just asked certain questions related english subject materials. in addition to anna, another participant, lara stated “i often have discussions among english teachers [at my school], and i feel comfortable to share my problems in teaching with them…finally, we solve the problems together, and [i feel like] adding my new knowledge” (p3.6). the statement from these two participants showed that having discussions with english colleagues, share, and discuss the problems as well as solve the problem are frequently done, and these activities may add new knowledge. indeed, involving colleagues as one of the sources in providing meaningful feedback related to the classroom practices is also one of contributes elements to the teachers’ professional development (vo & nguyen, 2010). similarly, a study conducted by admiraal, schenke et al. (2021) revealed the intervention implemented by a dutch secondary school in which the concept of professional learning opportunities for all staff and collaborative work and learning was introduced, and teachers in the school collaborate and learn together. this program is effective at sustaining a more sustainable professional development. 4.2. teachers’ motivation in conducting tpd based on self-determination theory regarding the second research question, upon the completion of the interview with the three participants, the result shows that these english secondary teachers conducted their tpd because of mostly their intrinsic motivation such as 1) self-awareness, 2) in line with profession, and 3) the need to be competent. in relation to the self-determination theory, their intrinsic motivation in conducting tpd are mainly caused by aspects such as autonomy, relatedness and competence. the following paragraph explain the findings in a more detail. 1) self-awareness teachers often conduct their professional development because they realize that their profession require them to always update themselves with the latest information and sophisticated skills. in indonesian context, teachers are aware of the four competencies they should perform in the teaching and learning process, and failing to do can result in their being unprofessional. therefore, they have awareness to perform the best. one of the participants, bian stated “if we don’t conduct the tpd, we won’t be able to follow the curriculum developments to bring our student along development of times”. indeed, with the current curriculum change, from competency-based curriculum into freedom to learn curriculum (merdeka belajar), teachers obtain huge rooms to interpret it and implement it into the classroom. teachers have more autonomy in designing their lessons. this situation is not easy as teachers used to be controlled by their supervisors. therefore, teachers nowadays are inevitably required to be more independent in implementing the curriculum. in addition, bian said “so it’s more like i have to take part in training and workshop, so i can keep up with the developments. as much as possible follow the development of the government” this is how she keep in touch with the curriculum change. in addition to bian, another participant, lara mentioned “for me, i do various teacher professional development because i’m aware as a teacher, at least we don't go out of developing of times. especially, iptek, as a teacher we should be aware that is a necessity”. finally, anna stated: “when participating in tpd activities, our goal is for students in the learning process. there are two factors in my opinion when the school or government agencies give instructions, indeed we must follow the activities that they organized but sometimes we want to improve ourselves without having to wait for instruction from schools or government agencies” she added more opinions and said, “for me, it's because of our awareness. because we are aware as teachers, at least we don't go out of developing of times. especially, iptek, as a teacher we should be aware that is a necessity” 209 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 202-213 purwanti, e. & octavia, s. (examining teachers' motivation in conducting teacher professional development.....) from this statement, teachers have a self-awareness connected to their teacher profession to conduct tpd so that they can educate their student professionally. these statements of the participants are indeed in line with ryan and deci (2020) who stated that people have self-awareness to improve themselves, and this is called as autonomy. this situation is not affected by external factors, pressure or an order to act. this aspect focuses on internalization, which refers to one’s willingness to reflect on oneself, making the autonomy aspect ignore external aspects. 2) in line with profession the second motivation is from the relatedness aspect. as stated in the teacher and lecturer law no.14/2005, the main tasks of professional teachers are educating, teaching, guiding, directing, training, assessing, and evaluating students in early childhood education through formal education, basic education, and secondary education. in order to accomplish these tasks, teachers have to conduct tpd activities because these activities are regarded parts of their professionalism. the phenomena in which teachers conduct their tpd activities because of their profession demand are also found in this study. during the interview, bian said “of course [doing tpd activities] because of the demands from my profession… because it [tpd activities] support my professional tasks. she added more information related to her motivation in conducting tpd, “i’m doing my tpd especially in order to fulfil and improve my professional competence. it becomes an obligation for me to maintain my professional educator certificate (sertifikat pendidik)”. similarly, lara added “it’s true that there are demands [from the profession], but we must balance them with that we really need it as a teacher. i think i’m doing tpd because i am both aware of profession as a teacher and the demand of my responsibility. what lara said was interesting because she admitted she conducted her tpd activities because of two internal motivations; 1) the awareness of her status as a teacher which require her to upgrade her capacity continuously, and 2) the awareness of demands to be professional from the school and the government. interestingly, in completing their tpd, these participants also obtain support from various parties such as the school principal, colleagues, and peer teachers. anna mentioned “[i got] support from other friend, and it’s very helpful”. she added “the support from my colleagues can be my encouragement [to conduct tpd]”. likewise, bian stated “we give support each other”. finally, anne added “support from other friend is very helpful”. the excerpts from the participants show that teachers conduct tpd because of the demands of the profession of a teacher to be able to teach their student. in implementing tpd teachers also still need another support from their friends. the statements about relatedness above are in line with a study from ryan and deci (2020) who stated that people are motivated to conduct tpd because of their demand as teacher profession. as teachers, they have beliefs that they have to always improve their capacity. 3) the need to be competent the last motivation of the teachers in conducing tpd is the need to improve their competencies. during the interview session, lara stated “[as a teacher] social competence is needed as well as professional competence. also, pedagogical competences are needed to be always increased”. she added more opinions, and said: “the social competences will relate to communication skills, attitudes, interacting in general to our students, student parents, fellow teacher and general public. also, professional [competence] will relate to teachers’ tasks and completing them properly. moreover, pedagogy is related to students learning process. it’s all important. also, one more is personality [competence], [it is] related to personal character” lara listed the competencies that should be possessed by all teachers. these competencies include social, professional, pedagogical, and personal. it is interesting to find out the fact that she connected the teachers’ competencies into the teacher and lecturer law no 14/2005, and the fact that the desire to possess all of those competencies resulted in her eagerness to conduct tpd. similar opinions about the intention to be a competent teacher are stated by lara when she said: “if we don’t have professional competence, we will find difficulties later in managing classes when following the development of students in the class”. finally, anne concluded the participants’ opinion related to their motivation in conducting tpd by saying “social competence, professional competence, and pedagogical competence are needed to increase [teachers’ quality]”. she further explained “the social competences will relate to communication skills, attitudes, interacting in general to our students, student parents, fellow teacher and general public, while professional competence will relate to issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 210 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 202-213 purwanti, e. & octavia, s. (examining teachers' motivation in conducting teacher professional development.....) teachers’ knowledge of the subject. moreover, pedagogical competence is related to students learning process, and one more competence is personality which is related to personal character. it’s all important.” based on all statements above, teachers want to improve their competencies to have skills in teaching their students. in other words, these teachers want to be competent. this is in line with a study from van den broeck, vansteenkiste et al. (2008) who said that competence helps the individuals develop their skills and adapt to their complex environment and changing environment. mastery and skills to certain skills and insights are part of the competence that brings individuals to understand that they have the provisions to motivate themselves to achieve goals (niemiec & ryan, 2009; ryan & deci, 2020). 5. conclusion and recommendations teacher professional development (tpd) refers to any activities that can enhance teachers’ skills and competencies which result in students’ learning. in condign their tpd, motivation plays a crucial role. this study seeks to identify the professional development activities conducted by english secondary school teachers, and their motivations for engaging in these activities viewed from the lens of sdt. using qualitative approach and descriptive research design, three participants of english secondary school were interviewed to collect the data. in order to maintain the trustworthiness, member checking was administered, and the transcription was regarded correct by the participants. additionally, in order to maintain the participants’ identity, pseudonyms were used. the study showed that 1) attending workshops and seminars, 2) joining the english teacher forum/ mgmp, and 3) engaging in informal peer discussions became the main activities for the teachers to conduct their professional development. furthermore, the participants acknowledged their motivation in conducting tpd was driven by 1) self-awareness, 2) alignment with profession and support, and 3) the need to be competent. these three factors of motivation, indeed, corroborates the sdt proposed by richard m. ryan and edward l. deci. the study imply that teachers enhance their teaching skills by engaging in various tpd activities so that they can instruct their students in a more professional manner. in addition, since the motivation for conducting tpd is frequently generated by teachers' internal motivation, it is recommended that teachers conduct tpd based on a bottom-up approach as opposed to a top-down approach so that their tpd activities can be sustainable and result in lifelong learning. acknowledgment this research would not have been possible without many people’s support and help, including our colleagues and english teachers at representative secondary schools. we would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all of them. our deepest thanks and gratitude go to our colleagues at universitas muhammadiyah yogyakarta, who have supported research by providing suggestions and ideas regarding the data collection. additionally, this endeavor would not have been possible without the generous support from secondary english secondary school teachers who were involved in the research process for their cooperation during data collection. declarations author contribution : eko purwanti was responsible for the entire research project. she also led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the second author, salma octavia, who participated in the data collection. all of the authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : no funding is available for this research. conflict of interest : all of the authors declare that they have no competing interests. ethics declaration : we as authors acknowledge that this work has been written based on ethical research that conforms to the regulations of our university and that we have obtained permission from the relevant institutes when 211 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 202-213 purwanti, e. & octavia, s. 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(2016). professional development programs for teachers of english. jurnal ilmu pendidikan, 11(3). zainal, a. and r. elham (2007). pengembangan profesi. bandung: remaja rosdakarya. https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v7i10.11253 https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511667237 https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.68 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101860 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.11.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101565 https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccp025 english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 1, august 2018, pp. 22-28 e-issn: 2621-6485 an analysis of domain mood and modality of interpersonal meaning in susilo bambang yudhoyono (sby)’s speech 1 mustika amalia, 2 dedy subandowo, 3 eva faliyanti, 4 fenny thresia universitas muhammadiyah metro 1 mustika0542@gmail.com, 2 dedy.subandowo@ummetro.ac.id, 3 evafaliyanti1980@gmail.com, 4 fenny.thresia@yahoo.com abstract this research examines the interpersonal meaning in susilo bambang yudhoyono (sby)’s speech. this is based on the details of speech or writing to define an investigation. the object of this research is the used moods and modality types in interpersonal meaning of sby’s speech under the title “toward harmony among civilizations” by dr.susilo bambang yudhoyono. the aims of this research are (1) to observe the mood and modality types used in sby’s speech, (2) to observe the dominant mood and modality types in sby’s speech, (3) to describe the interpersonal meaning in case of mood and modality types in sby’s speech. the main sources of data in this study are taken from the sby’s speech at the john f. kennedy school of government harvard university summit on september 29 th , 2009, in boston, usa. the data then are classified and collected in tabulation. this paper is based on the discourse analysis and systemic functional linguistics approach by halliday. the writer analyses the speeh by sby mainly from the interpersonal meaning which focuses on the mood and modality types. the results of this research are (1) there are two mood types in interpersonal meaning of sby’s speech namely indicative and imperative type, (2) the dominant mood in sby’s speech is the indicative type which is declarative with the total number of 97 clauses or around 95%, while the dominant used modality is “can”. in addition, the overall dominant modality type exists in median degree modality with the total percentage 40,6%, and (3) the researcher discovers the different mood and modality that might affect the value of the speech to the audience. keywords: discourse analysis, interpersonal meaning, speech of sby, systemic functional linguistic how to cite: amalia, m., subandowo, d., faliyanti, e., thresia, f. (2018). an analysis of domain mood and modality of interpersonal meaning in susilo bambang yudhoyono (sby)’s speech. english language teaching educational journal, 1(1), 22-28. introduction language is a natural part of the process of living (halloran, 2008). language is used for communication and that is called discourse (gee, 2014) and (wetherell, 2001). the researcher conducts a linguistic research on the interpersonal meaning which analyzed mood and modality types in the speech of susilo bambang yudhoyono (sby). the speech was delivered on september 29 th , 2009 at john f. kennedy school of government harvard university with the topic “towards harmony among civilizations”. this research focuses on mood and modality in the interpersonal relationship that can be seen through the interpersonal meaning realized on the mailto:mustika0542@gmail.com mailto:2dedy.subandowo@ummetro.ac.id mailto:3evafaliyanti1980@gmail.com mailto:4fenny.thresia@yahoo.com 23 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 amalia, subandowo, faliyanti, thresia speech. mood types in english depend on the position of the subject like the doer, and the finite which is used in the clause. according to gart & wignellin (halliday m. & matthiessen, 2004) there are two main categories in mood types :indicative and imperative moods (haratyan, 2011) and (matthiessen& halliday, 2009). people use interpersonal meaning in communicating to his/her motion, feeling, etc (sadighi,2008) and (feng& liu,2010). these express the speaker or writer’s judgments on or attitude to the content of the message. the elements of interpersonal meanings are mood and residue. mood element carries the interpersonal functions of the clause and consists of subject and finite (halliday &matthiessen, 2014). the research relating to this topic has been done by wang (2017) that tested on the effect of using mood and modality interactivity under the context of smart phones news reading. this study showed that mood, modality interactivity, or news story length had no direct impact on user engagement. however, there was a combinatory effect of mood, length, and topic on dimensions of user engagement. on the other hand, ko (2018) researhced on systemic functional grammar to korean texts. this study mentioned that there are three metafunctions of sfg: experiential, textual and interpersonal. the study subsequently provides a sample text analysis of email and personal diary writing of two korean esl children, thereby demonstrating the feasibility of applying sfg to korean texts. furthermore, tokunaga (2017) examined the mood and modality on transactional monologues like procedural texts. this study evaluated that interpersonal meanings are made not just in highly interactive dialogic modes of discourse such as conversations, where maintaining and negotiating social relationships is key, but transactional monologues as well. based on the phenomenon above, the research tries to conduct analysis on mood and modality in interpersonal meaning of the sby’s speech. the researcher wonders how mood and modality realize in sby’s speech and how the interpersonal meaning creates the speaker’s action to the listeners. it is important to find out the goal of sby as the speaker conveying his speech. researh method this research is qualitative research which concerned with developing explanations of social phenomena (hancock, ockleford, &windridge, 2009), (sandelowski, 2000) and (cochran, 2002). this study is categorized into documentary research regarding with the data that is taken from the document or written text; speech. based on grix (2001) in (mogalakwe, 2006) states that documents are produced by individuals and groups in the course of their everyday practices and are geared exclusively for their own immediate practical (bowen, 2009) and (voice, 2012). the speech of sby was downloaded from https://ombenk.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/idato-presiden-sby-yang-terpilihsebagaipidatoterbaik-abad-21/.in processing the data, the first step was giving a code and mark to the found mood and modality types in the script of sby’s https://ombenk.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/%20idato-presiden-sby-yang-terpilih-sebagai%20pidato-terbaik-abad-21/ https://ombenk.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/%20idato-presiden-sby-yang-terpilih-sebagai%20pidato-terbaik-abad-21/ https://ombenk.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/%20idato-presiden-sby-yang-terpilih-sebagai%20pidato-terbaik-abad-21/ https://ombenk.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/%20idato-presiden-sby-yang-terpilih-sebagai%20pidato-terbaik-abad-21/ https://ombenk.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/%20idato-presiden-sby-yang-terpilih-sebagai%20pidato-terbaik-abad-21/ https://ombenk.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/%20idato-presiden-sby-yang-terpilih-sebagai%20pidato-terbaik-abad-21/ https://ombenk.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/%20idato-presiden-sby-yang-terpilih-sebagai%20pidato-terbaik-abad-21/ https://ombenk.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/%20idato-presiden-sby-yang-terpilih-sebagai%20pidato-terbaik-abad-21/ 24  e-issn: 2621-6485 speech. the second step was observing the mood and modality types realized in the script of sby’s speech. the further step was observing the dominant mood and modality types in script of sby’s speech. then describing the interpersonal meaning in case of mood and modality types in sby’s speech based on systemic functional linguistics theory in discourse analysis. results the finding of the research showed that there are two kinds of mood types, namely indicative and imperative. indicative type has two types; those are declarative and interrogative. in terms of modality, sby applies 10 modalities which kind of low, middle and high category in his speech. the dominant mood used in the speech is declarative mood and followed by the interrogative and imperative. there are 97 clauses identified as declarative mood or around 95% in sby’s speech, and it is followed by 4 clauses or over 3,9% as interrogative mood, and1 clause or about 0,9% as imperative mood. table 1. the dominant mood type the table is about the dominant modality which showed the middle degree with 41 modal or around 40,6%, and followed low degree with 40 modal or around 39,6%, then the high degree with 20 orover19,8%.the researcher discovers the different mood and modality can affect the value of the speech to the audience. as declarative type is the dominant mood type in sby’s speech, this means that sby gave information to the audience. modality expresses the speaker’s judgment of how likely or unlikely he is toward the thing that he says. the dominant modality in sby’s speech is can which is used to describe the ability of the subject to do or to make something. apart from likely or unlikely “can” could be used as “permission”. yet, overall, the dominant modality type does exist in median degree. this degree is served by modal will, should, would, and shouldn’t. it shows that the speaker is declaring his speech courteously, or in the median politeness. mood types speech function mood element appearance percentage declarative statement subject + finite 97 95% interrogative question finite + subject wh/ finite +subje ct 4 3,9% imperative command finite 1 0,9% total clause 102 100 % 25 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 amalia, subandowo, faliyanti, thresia table 2. the dominant modality type finding and discussion from the result of the analysis, the researcher received the data of mood types. the data consist of 97clauses or all over 95% of declarative clause, 4 clauses or about 3,9% of interrogative clause, and 1 clause or around 0,9% of imperative clause. the dominant mood used in the speech is declarative type, and it is followed by the interrogative and the imperative one. in declarative mood, sby formed the nine steps to build the harmony of civilization. then interrogative mood, sby preferred to use wh-elements in representing his questions and demanding the reasons to make the work globally between indonesia and america. the last imperative mood in sby’s speech is used to demand the information from the indonesia to america. the result of modality is about 101 modals in total. the speaker tends to use modal can, but the modality types consist of 40 modals or around 39.6% of low degree, 41 modals or about 40,6% of medium/middle degree, and 20 modals or around 19,8% of high degree. the writer found the dominant mood type is declarative clause. meanwhile, the speaker tends to use modal can in his speech which included low degree. however, from the percentage of modality, the dominant shows middle degree. the mood is the valuable thing in realizing interpersonal meaning for it is the main point in bearing the speaker’s attitudes and judgments. since mood is built by subject and finite, and the chosen finite is modality, the researcher degree modality appearance percent age low can could may cannot 32 3 3 2 result 40 39,6% middle/ medium will would should should n’t 17 14 7 3 result 41 40,6% high must have to 19 1 result 20 19,8% total (low+middle +high) 40+41+20= 101 100% 26  e-issn: 2621-6485 interprets the clause which consists modal in it. sby tends to use modal "can" that aims to convince and persuade the audience to deal with the idea of the speaker,while the researcher discovers that the dominant modality type is in middle degree. it means that the speaker is conveying the speech in way of median politeness. conclusion the researcher found that there are two mood types in interpersonal meaning of sby’s speech namely indicative and imperative type, indicative type consists of declarative and interrogative. based on the analysis of mood type, the researcher reveived the data 97 clauses of declarative with the percentage around 96%, 4 clauses of interrogative with the total percentage 3,9%, and 1 clause of imperative with 0,9%. the modality in that speech is 10 modals, there are 32 of “can”, 3 of “could”, 3 of “may”, 2 of “cannot”, 17 of “will”,14 of “would”, 7 of “should”, 2 of “shouldn’t”, 19 of “must”, 1 of “have to”. the details of those types are the first low degree (can, could, may, cannot) with the total percentage of 39,60%, then middle degree (will, would, should, shouldn’t) with the 40,60%, and the last is high degree (must, have to) with 19,8%. the dominant mood in sby’s speech is the indicative type that is declarative with 97 clauses or around 95%, while the dominant modality is can. yet, overall, the dominant modality type exists in median degree modality with the percentage 40, %. this research uses sby’s speech as an example to show how interpersonal meaning is realized in a speech, especially in a political speech. from the explanation in the previous chapter, the researcher discovers that the different mood and modality can affect the value of the speech to the audience. as declarative type is the dominant mood type in sby’s speech, this means that sby gave information to audience. modality expresses the speaker’s judgment of how likely or unlikely he is the thing that he says. the dominant modality in sby’s speech is can which is used to describe the ability of the subject to do or to make something. apart from likely or unlikely “can” could be used “permission”. yet, overall, the dominant modality type exists in median degree. this degree is served by modal will, should, would, and shouldn’t. it shows that the speaker is declaring his speech courteously, or in the median politeness. the realized modality type in median degree is 40,6%of all data. references bowen, g. a. (2009). document analysis as a qualitative research method. qualitative research journal. cochran, m. q. (2002). qualitative-researchmethodology.pdf. dipetik april friday,2017, darihttp://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net: http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/-/media/science/research-andteaching/teaching/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/ http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/ http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/ http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/-/media/science/research-and-teaching/teaching/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/-/media/science/research-and-teaching/teaching/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/-/media/science/research-and-teaching/teaching/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/-/media/science/research-and-teaching/teaching/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/-/media/science/research-and-teaching/teaching/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/-/media/science/research-and-teaching/teaching/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/-/media/science/research-and-teaching/teaching/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/-/media/science/research-and-teaching/teaching/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/-/media/science/research-and-teaching/teaching/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/-/media/science/research-and-teaching/teaching/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf http://d1pbog36rugm0t.cloudfront.net/-/media/science/research-and-teaching/teaching/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf 27 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 amalia, subandowo, faliyanti, thresia feng, h.,& liu,y.(2010).analysis of interpersonal meaning in public speeches— a case study of obama’s speech. journal of language teaching and research. gee, j. p. (2014).an introduction to discourse analysis:theory and method. newyork: routledge. halliday, m., & matthiessen. (2004). an introduction to functional grammar 3d.ed. london: arnold. halliday, m., &matthiessen, c. (2014). hallida's introduction to functional grammar. usa: routledge. halloran, k. o. (2008). visual communication. hancock,b.,ockleford, e.,&windridge,k. (2009).an introduction to qualitative research. national institute for health research. haratyan,f.(2011). halliday’s sfl and social meaning. internatioanal conferenceon humanities, historical and social sciences. ko, b. a. (2018). applying systemic functional grammar to korean texts: transitivity, mood/modality, and theme. 언어와 언어학, 79, 45-76. matthiessen, c., & halliday, m. (2009). systemic functional grammar: a first step into thetheory. mogalakwe,m. (2006). the use of documentary research methods in sosial research. african sociological review. pidato presiden sby terpilih sebagai pidato terbaik. dipetik august sunday, 2016, dari https://ombenk.wordpress.comerror! hyperlink reference not valid.2010/06/29/pidato-presiden-sby-yangterpilih-sebagai-pidato-terbaikabad-21/ sadighi, m.b. (2008). chomsky’suniversal grammarand halliday’s systemic functional linguistics:an appraisaland acompromise. journalofpan-pacific association ofapplied linguistics, 12(1),11-28. sandelowski, m. (2000). focuson research methods: what happened to qualitative description? research in nursing & health. tokunaga, a. (2017). comparing patterns of mood and modality in a recipe and a demonstration. https://ombenk.wordpress.com/ https://ombenk.wordpress.com/ https://ombenk.wordpress.com/ 28  e-issn: 2621-6485 wetherell,m., taylor,s., & lates, s. (2001). a discourse as data: a guide of analysis. london: sage publication ltd. wang, r. (2017). reading news on smartphones: how do mood, modality interactivity, and news story length. english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 2, 2018, pp. 65-75 e-issn: 2621-6485 the implementation of 2013 curriculum in english teaching: stories from rural areas 1heri gunawan, 2afrianto daud 1,2faculty of teachers training and education, universitas riau 1heri.gunawan4688@student.unri.ac.id 2afrianto.a@lecturer.unri.ac.id principal contact: 0822 6828 4347 abstract this study aims to document how 2103 curriculum has been implemented by english teachers in a high school located in a rural area in riau province. this research in particular investigates the implementation of scientific approach by english teachers in bunga raya siak regency. the study is specifically aimed at investigating two research questions: (1) how the scientific approach has been implemented in the classroom, and (2) what problems the teachers face during the implementation. three english teachers participated in this small scale qualitatitive study. the data were obtained through semi-structured interviews. the findings revealed that the teachers have implemented the scientific approach relatively well. however, the data show that all teachers experienced some problems in implementing the curriculum. in general, the problems can be classified into: (a) insufficient english teaching hour; (b) the students’ high diversity in terms of ability; (c) discrepancy between curriculum and national examination contents; and (d) lack of facilities. keywords: english teaching, implementation, scientific approach, siak regency how to cite: gunawan, h. and daud, a. (2018). the implementation of 2013 curriculum in english teaching: stories from rural areas. english language teaching educational journal, 1(2), 65-75. introduction the indonesian government has been formulating some significant changes and adjustments on the national education system to improve the quality of education. indonesia has undergone at least ten times curriculum revisions since the day of independence. in 2013, the ministry of education and culture or kemendikbud started to endorse the latest curriculum known as 2013 curriculum. having undergone some revisions, 2013 curriculum is the currently used curriculum ever since. former minister of national education, muhammad nuh stated that the main points of 2013 curriculum development are in refining mindset, strengthening curriculum management, deepening and broadening the materials, reinforcing the learning process, and adjusting the study needs to balance the outcome of the learning process (kemendikbud, 2013). in spite of the similarities with the previous curricula, 2013 curriculum has some relatively new features. among other things, 2013 curriculum differs in terms of the learning approach recommended to use by teachers known as “scientific approach”. mailto:heri.gunawan4688@student.unri.ac.id mailto:afrianto.a@lecturer.unri.ac.id 66  e-issn: 2621-6485 when 2013 curriculum was firstly introduced, there were some “push and pull” situations regarding its implementation in schools. many teachers from multiple schools admitted that they were not ready to adopt the new curriculum (afrianto, 2017). however, as stated in the regulation of ministry of education and culture (permendikbud) no. 81a year 2013 about the implementation of 2013 curriculum, since january 2017, 2013 curriculum is no longer optional. consequently, every teacher of any subject including english is mandated to use 2013 curriculum. one of the learning approaches recommended to use in the 2013 curriculum is “scientific approach”. the fundamental idea of the scientific approach is that teachers are suggested to apply the principles or activities that are commonly used in natural science classes. to be more specific, kemendikbud (2013) explains that the scientific approach is an approach that refers to investigating techniques towards some phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, and correcting and combining the background knowledge. the steps of the 2013 curriculum’s scientific approach are: observing, questioning, associating, experimenting, and networking. according to permendikbud no. 22 year 2016, the learning process using 2013 curriculum should touch the three domains of education; affection, cognition, and psychomotor. the affective domain is developed with a focus on the substantial transformation of the teaching materials so that the students know about “why”. the psychomotoric domain focuses on the substantial transformation of the teaching materials so that the students know about “how”. whereas, the cognitive domain emphasizes the substantial transformation of the teaching materials so that the students know about “what”. the expected outcome is the improvement and balance between the ability to be a good person (soft skills) and the ability to be a capable and competent person to have a good life (hard skills) which cover the three competency aspects. with such learning processes, it can be expected that the learning result will yield learners who are productive, creative, and affective, through an integrated reinforcement on affective, cognitive, and psychometric aspects. as one of the official approaches in the curriculum, every teacher is then expected to be able to implement the scientific approach in the learning process, including english teachers in siak regency. however, since the approach is considered relatively new to some of the teachers, it is possible that some problems or issues in the implementation will occur. some studies have investigated how this 2013 curriculum has been implemented by teachers in the classroom. yet, most of these studies still focused on schools located in urban areas. a study conducted by ratnaningsih (2017), for example, found the teachers of a senior high school in bandung has followed all the five steps in the respective order. moreover, the teachers can demonstrate the learnercentered learning strengthened by collaborative, cooperative, active and meaningful learning. this seconds the idea that the use of scientific approach in learning is able to facilitate the students to achieve the goals of learning. in addition, a research in pekanbaru city conducted by afrianto (2017) found three major problems faced by english teachers when implementing the eltej issn: 2621-6485  gunawan, daud 67 scientific approach in class. the three major problems are: (a) challenges to make the students active in learning; (b) intricate procedures of assessment; and (c) lack of supervision on the curriculum implementation. meanwhile, hariyanto (2015) in his research found that lack of time and students’ active participations were major problems in the implementation. such problems in the scientific approach implementation are likely to compromise the effectiveness of english teaching and learning process in schools. considering all the reasons above, it is necessary to study how english teachers of senior high schools in rural area implement the scientific approach in their classrooms. the school selected as a research site in this study is located in siak regency, riau. it is about 150 kilo meters away from the central city of pekanbaru. this study is aimed at answering two research questions: (1) how the scientific approach has been implemented in the classroom?; and (2) what problems have the teachers encountered during the implementation? the findings of this research are expected to provide empirical data of the real picture of how teachers implement 2013 curriculum in district school and what problems that the teachers face in the practice. therefore, the research findings can be one of the decision making bases to formulate a new policy towards the implementation of 2013 curriculum. research method this research was a qualitative study conducted under interpretive research paradigm. the data processing was dealing with non-numerical data such as sentences, statements, or documents. in other words, the nature object of the research is basically in the forms of qualitative entities such as social phenomena, perceptions, and problems in the process of the scientific approach implementation. the qualitative data were gathered through semistructured interviews, followed by its analysis. all three english teachers at a high school in siak regency who were actively on duty were chosen to be the participants of the research. respecting the confidentiality of the research participants, on the paper, the teachers are addressed with their initials instead of their names. as mentioned above, the data were gathered through in-depth semistructured interviews, which means the interviewee (the participants) were asked a series of questions regarding the scientific approach implementation. in-depth interviews are useful in getting detailed information about a person’s thoughts and behaviors or exploring new issues in depth. they are often used to provide context to other data (such as outcome data), offering a more complete picture of what happened in the program and why (boyce & neale, 2006). to do a semi-structured interview, an interview protocol as the basis of initial question was prepared before. it was used as a guide to make sure that the interview does not deviate from the main focus. the interview took about an hour for each participant and it was recorded with a notification and allowance request to the participant before beginning the interview. the recordings of the interview were transcribed and then the transcripts were analyzed. 68  e-issn: 2621-6485 in general, the data analysis was done by transcribing, editing, classifying, reducing, and presenting the data. firstly the recordings of the interviews were transcribed. the transcriptions were checked and edited on the second or third listening. next, the researcher highlighted some information on the transcripts that is related to the research questions. the highlighted items were then classified based on their group or category. later, not all information or categories were going to be included or reported on the findings. the data were reduced and then presented in the discussion. the above-mentioned process of working with the transcripts was done by referring to the three procedures introduced by flick (2002): open coding (a phase where all themes are found and categorized), axial coding (a stage where the researcher is looking for relationships among themes), and selective coding (a phase where the researcher is choosing the more relevant themes to be further explored in the discussion). findings and discussion the implementation during the interview, one of the question asked was “how do you implement the scientific approach in teaching english in the classroom?” this question was intentionally asked to know the teachers’ basic understanding about how to carry out teaching using the scientific approach. it is believed that the teachers clear understanding and their positive perception on how to implement the approach will significantly determine the success and the effectiveness of the teaching. their understanding will guide them in implementing the approach. when asked about the question, the teachers gave relatively similar answers. they basically described or mentioned some steps in the scientific approach. mr. d, one of the participants, could clearly name all the five steps in the scientific approach. meanwhile, the other participant, mr. e did not get to mention the five steps in the scientific approach. he only mentioned two steps; ‘observing’ and ‘questioning’. he, however, confidently stated that by using the scientific approach in the class, his teaching is more directed. he added that the step-by-step activities in the scientific approach is clear and flexible. “i show a video of, for example, a, uh, speaker, an english native speaker, doing, uh, expressing something. we’ll analyze it together, then we, uh, i explain, and we observe. we observe the video, ask, discuss, and analyze uh, the text. then we try to make the text together, do production, and then performance.” (mr. d) “usually when i teach narrative text, we watch a video, right? after watching the video, uh, i ask the students to give some questions, indirectly.” (mr. e) eltej issn: 2621-6485  gunawan, daud 69 in addition to mr. e’s ‘incomplete’ answer, he stated that the approach was implemented differently during different periods of time. for instance, before 2013 curriculum revisions, teachers were expected to carry out all the steps in the scientific approach in one meeting. however, this was later revised. the steps do not have to be included at one teaching session and the sequence can be altered according to the needs. the teachers’ description of some steps and how they are carried out indicate teachers’ full attempt in implementing the approach. the positive results of teachers implementing the scientific approach steps are also shown in some other schools in indonesia through some studies by sofyan (2016) and ratnaningsih (2017). from their studies, it is reported that the teachers shared similar perception in which the scientific approach is regarded as an approach that integrates students’ attitude, skill, and knowledge by implementing the steps in the teaching and learning process. the problems in the implementation besides implementation, the results of the semi-structured interviews also revealed some problems in the scientific approach reported by all the participants. the dimension of the problems can be said as something complex. however, in general these problems can be classified into four main issues: no. problems of the implementation 1. insufficient teaching hours 2. students’ high diversity 3. discrepant curriculum content 4. lack of facilities in the most recent revision of 2013 curriculum it is stated that the teaching hour for english subject in high schools is reduced from four hours a week to be two hours a week (2 x 45 minutes). this reduction, among some other problems, was the problem that most participants complained about. two of the participants, mr. d and ms. b agreed that the time reduction being a problematic issue in the scientific approach implementation. in his interview, mr. d regretted the reduction of the teaching hour for english subject and stated that the reduced time does not seem to support the students to achieve the standard learning outcomes which he thinks are pretty high. he argued that the time allocation is insufficient for a teacher to carry out all the steps in the approach and therefore cannot meet with the expected goal that the student must achieve. he also added that even with the previous time allocation, it was quite challenging to raise students’ achievement in english, let alone with the current situation where the time allocation has been cut. “the problem of this curriculum is i think in terms of the time reduction, sir. two hours. meanwhile, the challenge is high.” (mr. d) 70  e-issn: 2621-6485 “first, the problem is about the time sir, [speaking of] this 2013 curriculum. only two hours, from four hours. consequently, our chance [as a teacher] to give broader knowledge to the student is, uh, limited.” (ms. b) the issue on the time reduction is even more challenging when it meets with the condition of the students. mr. d and ms. b stated that the time reduction makes them work really hard to adjust their teaching considering the ability of the students in that area. according to mr. d, the level of students’ ability in this school varies, even most of them are categorized in medium to low level. “here [in this school], the ability of the students happens to be very drastic. some are good, some are not. and some are quiet.” (mr. d) “the students’ ability is just like what i said before; some are very smart, some others are extremely low.” (ms. b) the spirit of 2013 curriculum is to promote students-centered learning. this is evidenced by the emphasis in the scientific approach whose steps were designed to arouse students’ activeness in the class. in questioning step, for instance, the students are expected to be giving some questions about the topic given, not being “informed” by the teacher. students’ low participation clearly becomes a problem that can impede the success of the scientific approach implementation since it can lead to students’ passiveness in the class. when asked about what strategy the teacher use to cope with the limited time and students’ diverse ability, both mr. d and ms. b gave relatively similar answers. mr. d said he usually would divide the students into several groups where some of the “top students” were in each group. these top students are the ones who should help their friends in the group to become the teacher’s “second mouth”. this resembles the finding reported by hariyanto (2015) saying that lack of time became one of the major problems in the scientific approach implementation in one school in malang. furthermore, there was a schedule that 2 hours is divided into two, before and after the break time. it made the students did not focus in the material. thus, the teacher mostly made the discussion in the group rather than individually. further, the teacher asked the coordinator of each group to manage their members. eltej issn: 2621-6485  gunawan, daud 71 furthermore, albeit suitable for enjoyable learnings, there seems to be a discrepancy between the contents of 2013 curriculum and the national exam according to mr. e. the curriculum, especially the scientific approach, was designed in order to make the learning activity enjoyable. this is true, referring to the process standards by kemendikbud (2013) saying that the teaching and learning process in school should be established in an interactive, inspiring, and fun way in order for students to be active. however, it does not seem to concur with the national examination content in which it requires the students to think analytically. “in the national exam, even though [the learning] has been done using 2013 curriculum, still, the form [of the questions] is about understanding about the text, right? ... meanwhile in 2013 curriculum, those are no longer encouraged. …with the five steps (5m) done, it oddly seems to only result enjoyment, not preparing [the students] for the national exam.” (mr. e) apparently, this phenomenon occurred not only in siak. a research by ratnaningsih (2017) reported a similar case where the teachers conducted active and meaningful learning but the students still lack of critical thinking (hots). in addition, although having carried out the learning and teaching activity with various media and creative delivery, the student seemed not to have initiative to learn without stimulation and encouragement from the teacher. this inconsistency of curriculum contents and national exam is like leading two things that are supposed to meet to different directions. even though national examination is not the ultimate goal of learning, still, the results of the exam contribute certain percent to the students’ passing. many students and parents still view national exam as the final “battle” that determines the student’s future. therefore, it is no wonder that eventually the national exam will be taken very seriously by the students. moreover, the view of students must excel in national exam will affect the teachers’ teaching in some ways, including the using of some methods and strategies. to some of them, the scientific approach has not yet been optimally able to train students to deal with the standardized national exam. another problem found in the implementation was in terms of the facilities. this includes both school and students’ facilities. the problem regarding the students’ facility was in terms of the learning sources or textbooks. one of the major differences between 2013 curriculum and the previous ones is in terms of the students’ independent learning. that is, the principle of learning has shifted from “students are given information from the teacher” to become “students find out the information by themselves” (permendikbud, 2016). this can be effectively done if the school provides various learning sources to the students. however, according to one of the 72  e-issn: 2621-6485 participants, the school did provide textbooks to the students, but not to all. in addition, the students were not supported with modules and/or references books. this condition affected on the effectiveness of the teaching since learning sources play an important role in the teaching and learning using the scientific approach. in terms of the school facilities, one respondent reported that his school used to operate with no electricity. it was until early 2018 the school finally was facilitated with electricity source. when the research was conducted, the school had just been using the power for six months or so. the creativity of the teacher in teaching using different media was challenged there. the media used to be limited to non-digital ones. the goal to liven up a ‘fun and active’ learning in the class was rather difficult to actualize. “the challenge in the implementation of the five steps (5m) that is very problematic is in [the condition of] village area like here, sir. like what we’d been through, you know, we’ve just got the electricity source since the last couple months ago. it was difficult to realize a teacher who is creative, a more creative teacher, a more innovative teacher, like that.” (mr. e) lack of facilities, in terms of both students’ and school facilities, has been a huge problem in many schools in indonesia, especially schools in small towns or rural areas like siak. mirroring the problem regarding the lack of facilities in siak, a research by amalia (2018) reported that one of the difficulties faced by the teachers in one school in surakarta was in terms of the classroom facilities. the classrooms were not equipped with functioning pieces of technology that can support teaching and learning activities such as lcd (liquid crystal display) or projectors. that clearly neglected one point in permendikbud no. 103 year 2013 that explains the use of technology and information is supposed to support and improve the learning efficiently and effectively. mulyasa (2009 and 2013) states that the main factor to determine the successful curriculum implementation is teachers’ creativity. the teachers are demanded to create students to be productive, creative, and innovative in realizing the aims of learning. one way to realize a creative and innovative learning is with the support of piece of technology in the classroom. if teachers faced problems in implementing the planned program, he/she had to adjust the activities so that learning aims can be achieved. in sman 1 bunga raya case, let alone having lcds or projectors, the power source in this school was absent for years. the teachers had to come up with alternative methods in teaching that usually minimize the opportunity to bring a creative and efficient learning. eltej issn: 2621-6485  gunawan, daud 73 conclusion based on the results of the semi-structured interviews, it can be said that the scientific approach has been relatively well implemented by english teachers at this rural area school. this can be seen from the reports which the participants uttered in the interviews. most respondents could clearly mention the steps in the scientific approach and provide some descriptions about them. this means that the teachers have shown a very positive reception and understanding about the principles of the scientific approach. however, there is an indication that those steps might not have been implemented in a proper and optimal way. the evidence saying that the teachers sometimes do not include some steps in their classroom can be seen from their interviews when they described what the scientific approach is. one respondent, mr. d indeed mentioned all the steps in his elaborative answer. another respondent, mr. e, by comparison only mentioned two steps (observing and questioning) in his answer to the same question. this could mean either the interviewer did not get to go further to explore mr. e’s answer, or it is fair to say that the teacher did not implement all the steps properly. there is an indication that it occurs due to the lack or trainings experienced by the teachers. from the interviews, it was discovered that two teachers got once to none training experiences and the other one had experienced trainings several times. this could back up the factor why the implementation has not been done optimally. furthermore, an occurrence of some problems during the implementation was inevitable. among some other problems, insufficient teaching hours and students’ extreme diversity were the main issues the teachers expressed during the interviews. in addition to the problem, the mismatch between the contents of the 2013 curriculum and of the national exam seems to be another major issue in the implementation. in regard of the time allocation that seems to be one of difficulties that can impede the success of the scientific approach implementation, it is suggested to the government or the policy makers to reconsider the time allocation especially for english subject. moreover, up to this point, the training has not reached all the teachers especially those who are in the small cities or rural areas. due to lack of trainings experienced by teachers in many schools and in order for the teachers to understand on how to implement the scientific approach properly, it is advisable for the government to provide more trainings for all the teachers in near future. at last, according to the recent revision of 2013 curriculum, permendikbud 22/2016, creating is another step in the scientific approach. however, since the teachers in sman 1 bunga raya siak have not been familiar with this step, this research did not get to investigate the creating step. therefore, a further research investigating this matter is recommended to add and study the creating step in the implementation. in addition, the data from the semi-structured interviews might have not been able to vividly report what actually happened in the class due to some limitations of the methodology 74  e-issn: 2621-6485 aspect of the study. therefore, the other researchers are hoped to do better researches by employing the technique which had not been implemented by the researcher in this present study such as observation or field study. references afrianto. (2017). the implementation of scientific approach for teaching english in senior high school: voices from the field. advances in social science, education and humanities research (assehr) 110: 186-191. amalia, s. (2018). a study on the implementation of scientific approach of 2013 curriculum in english teaching process at twelfth grade of smk sakti gemolong in 2017/2018 academic year. thesis. surakarta: the state islamic institute of surakarta. boyce, c. & neale, p. (2006). interviews: a guide for designing and conducting in-depth interviews for evaluation input. pathfinder. flick, u. (2002). an introduction to qualitative research. london: sage publication. hariyanto, i.p.d. (2015) a study on the implementation of scientific approach used by english teacher in teaching english to low level students at smp in malang. s1 thesis. malang: university of muhammadiyah malang. kemendikbud. (2013). materi pelatihan guru implementasi kurikulum 2013 smp/mts. jakarta: kementrian pendidikan dan kebudayaan. kemendikbud. (2013). permendikbud no. 81a/2013 – implementasi kurikulum: pedoman umum pengajaran. jakarta: kementrian pendidikan dan kebudayaan. kemendikbud. (2014). permendikbud no. 103/2014 – pembelajaran pada pendidikan dasar dan menengah. jakarta: kementrian pendidikan dan kebudayaan. kemendikbud. (2016). permendikbud no. 22/2016 – standar proses pendidikan. mulyasa, h. e. (2009). implementasi kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan: kemandirian guru dan kepala sekolah. jakarta: bumi aksara. eltej issn: 2621-6485  gunawan, daud 75 mulyasa, h. e. (2013). pengembangan dan implementasi kurikulum 2013. bandung: pt remaja rosdakarya. mustafa, z. (2009). mengurangi variabel hingga instrumentasi. jakarta: graha imu. polit, d.f. & hungler, b.p. (1995). nursing research principles and methods. 3rd edition. philadelphia: jb lippincott. ratnaningsih, s. (2017). scientific approach of 2013 curriculum: teachers’ implementation in english language teaching. english review: journal of english education, 6(1), 33-40. doi: 10.25134/erjee.v6i1.768 sofyan, a. (2016). the implementation of scientific approach in english teaching based on 2013 curriculum in smk negeri 2 sragen in the academic year of 2015/2016. thesis. surakarta: universitas muhammadiyah surakarta. ______ http://sekolah.data.kemdikbud.go.id. english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 1, august 2018, pp. 13-21 e-issn: 2621-6485 developing english for specific purposes (esp) module for computer science students’ vocabulary mastery 1 fitri palupi kusumawati, 2 syaifudin latif darmawan, 3 siti latifah universitas muhammadiyah metro 1 fitripalupi85@yahoo.com abstract this development research aimed to develop a learning module for students of compter science, to determine the feasibility of the module, and to determine the students’ response towards the module. this study used research and developmet (r&d) type of addie model (analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation). the module was developed based on the results of the research. the results of the feasibility of the module showed the following points: 1) the material expert and the lecturer of the computer science department gave percentage of 69,63% under the range of 66.67% <p ≤ 80% which means that the developed module gets “b” score and in the “good” category, 2) the media expert and the lecturer of computer science department gave percentage of 75,3% under the range of 66.67% <p ≤ 80% which means that the developed module gets “b” score and in the “good” category 3) the students of computer science department, through the questionnaire, also gave positive response with the total score of 2034 and percentage of 69,63% which lies in the range of 60<p≤80%, and in the “b” and “positive”category. to get the information about the students’ response towards the module, it was done through interview. the results of the interview showed that the students showed good response towards the module. in sum, it can be concluded that the module for computer science department students is eligible and can be used as media to teach english. keywords : research and development, english for specific purposes (esp), learning module, computer science. how to cite: kusumawati, f. p., darmawan, s. l., latifah, s. (2018). developing english for specific purposes (esp) module for computer science students vocabulary mastery english language teaching educational journal, 1(1), 13-21. introduction learning vocabulary is fundamental to support the learners to master english, because the ability of students to read and comprehend the subject material is relatively determined by their vocabulary. when the students have good vocabulary, they can understand paragraphs and texts better. basically most learners know how important the words in a language is and they also realize that vocabulary learning strategies can be a very helpful device in their vocabulary learning journey. on the other side, for teachers, teaching vocabulary is very important not only for the students in school level but also in university level, one of them is muhammadiyah university of metro. mailto:fitripalupi85@yahoo.com 14  e-issn: 2621-6485 computer science is one of the majors available in muhammadiyah university of metro which aims at preparing the students to face the global world. the students of this department are expected to know things related to the computer science field especially know how to solve computer problems, how to design computer network and to understand computer components. therefore, on graduating from the department, the students can directly work. one of the ways to prepare the students to be as expected is by giving them english. when the students are qualified, they will be able to apply for a job successfully. in teaching english to computer science department, a lecturer should have appropriate media to make the learning more interesting and thus the students do not feel bored. in addition, the process of learning should be varied too so that the students feel enjoyable and fun during the process. and this is a challenge for the lecturer! one of the ways to make interesting and enjoyable class is by using media as media can be used to motivate the students in the learning process. to use media effectively a lecturer needs creativity because creative media will increase the probability of the students to learn more and better. in sum, a lecturer should create various teaching media to increase interests of the students. however, during the learning, the researcher found some problems in the students of computer science department, especially when learning english for specific purposes (esp). the problems were: students lack the vocabulary, the students’ vocabulary mastery is still low, most of the students have relatively low learning motivation, and the students were difficult to translate the computer science terms into english. furthermore, the students were difficult to learn english (esp) because the book used only contains the exercises and less material explanation. based on the problems identification above, the researcher choose to develop an instructional media that can make students have practice and improve their vocabulary independently. by doing such a study, it’s hoped that it can help students to learn english more easily and successfully. theoretical reviews on terms related to the study according to handayani (2007) vocabulary is knowledge of word and meaning. based on the statement, vocabulary is all the words in a language that are familiar and used by someone to comunicate with each other. according to lewis (in tanto, 2014) there are four categories of vocabulary i.e. listening, speaking, reading, writing vocabulary. so, in english there are four skills that should be mastered, and each skill needs vocabulary mastery. according to hornby (2009) development is the process of producing or creating something new or more advanced. during the process of development, the important things need to pay attention on are innovation and creativity. according to sugiono (2009) research and development is a research method which can be used to produce a certain product, and test the effectiveness of the 15 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 kusumawati, darmawan, latifah product. based on the explanation, it can be concluded that research and development is a research method aims to produce certain products and test the validity and effectiveness of the product in its apllication. media is anything used to send messsage(s) from the sender(s) to the receiver(s), so it can arouse the learners’ thought, feeling, and interest to gear the students’ learn (sadiman et al, 2002). according to ruis et al (2009) media is very useful in learning english. based on the explaination, it can be concluded that learning media is a means or educational tool that can be used as an intermediary in the learning process to enhance the effectiveness of learning process. for a learning process, teaching media of a tool used in order to make communication and interaction between lecturer and students more effective. according to nasution (2003), module is a complete unit that stands alone and consists of a series of learning activities arranged to help students achieve a number of objectives formulated specifically and clearly. according to meyer (in lasmiyati, 2014) module is relatively short self-contained independent unit of instructional designed to achieve a limited set of specific and well-defined educational objectives. based on the explanation above it can be concluded that the module is a tool or means of learning in which it can be in the form of materials, methods, and evaluations made systematically and structured as an effort to achieve the objectives of the expected competence. module is designed specifically and clearly based on the speed of understanding of each student, thus encouraging students to learn according to their ability. component of module in dasna et all. (2006) consists of three parts, namely: introduction, contents, and end. the introductory section consists of cover, introduction, table of contents, guide for readers. the content section consists of the division of subject matter, each of which consists of several components: subtitles, student worksheets, material descriptions, and questions. the final section contains glossary and bibliography. module development has certain components that must be considered by a lecturer because a module has an important role for both teachers and students. with the module that fits the characteristics of students and learning objectives, the level of students' understanding of the lesson will increase. module is one of the principles of applying individual learning. with the module, students are free to implement learning according to the speed and opportunity of each. more importantly, students are no longer passively listening to the lectures from the leacturer, but students are expected to actively respond the learning process by listening, reading, evaluating, witnessing demonstrations, and interacting with fellow students and lecturer. according to hutchinson and walters (in puspitasari, 2013), esp is an approach in the language teaching where content and methods are based on the students' reason to learn. esp is a specific learning. english for computer science is a teaching approach in order to achieve the goals or competence of the students to master english in the field of 16  e-issn: 2621-6485 computers. computer science is one of the majors at muhammadiyah university of metro lampung which aims at preparing the students to face the global world. the students of this department are expected to know things related to the computer science field especially know how to solve computer problems, how to design computer network and to understand computer components. therefore, on graduating from the department, the students can directly work. one of the ways to prepare the students to be as expected is by giving them english. when the students are qualified, they will be able to apply for a job successfully. research method this type of research includes research and development (r&d) method, research methods used to produce the interest of learning students in learning computer science students of vocabulary mastery. this research is intended to produce an english learning media product, in the form of module learning computer science, the model used in this development research is the addie model which is a learning design a model consist of five stages including analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation. the procedure of research used in the researcher and this development use the addie model developed by dick and carry (in mulyatiningsih, 2011), as follows: source: mulyatiningsih (2011) students ‘ assessment of the module measuring the success of module using questionnaires analysis evaluation implementation design development measurement of product performance development of the module. preparation of the concept and structure of the module framework. product brainstorming and doing needs analysis in lessons and identifying the learning content/materils, and objective formulation. validation done by media experts, material experts, and lecurers 17 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 kusumawati, darmawan, latifah the subject of this research are, the lecturer of computer science department of muhammadiyah university of metro (to provide input on the materials used), material experts, media experts, the lecturers majoring in english education and the second semester students of computer science department of muhammadiyah university of metro amounted to 29 students.to get the data, these followings thing were used: 1. questionnaire the questionnaire is a technique of data collection conducted by giving a set of questions or written statement to the respondent to be answered (sugiyono, 2015). the questionnaire is a written question or statements that is used to obtain information or matters related to student responses to learning an english for vocabulary mastery by using module media as a source of independent learning. questionnaires used to collect data in this study includes: a. questionnaire for material expert and a lecturer computer science. b. questionnaires for media experts c. questionnaires for lecturers of computer science department d. questionnaire for students. 2. interview interview is conducted to obtain information about the media used previously. and to know the extent of the students interest in learning english. interview is also used as guidelines for asking the material to be summarized in the module media. the alternative answers using the likert scale provided for the media feasibility questionnaire with 5 alternative answers, which are very good, good, fair, less, poor. the item scoring criteria on the media feasibility questionnaire. criteria scoring very good 5 good 4 fair 3 less 2 poor 1 source; sugiyono (2015) the steps of analyzing module esp the media quality data are: a. change the qualitative value to quantitative by using a likert scale with the following conditions: very good : 5 good :4 fair :3 less :2 poor :1 18  e-issn: 2621-6485 b. then the data collected is analyzed by calculating the average score obtained by the formula:  = 𝑥 𝑛 legend:  = average score σ = total score n = number of item c. the average results of the assessment obtained in the form of quantitative data are converted back into qualitative data on the module eligibility category so that it can be concluded about the module’s eligibility based on the ideal conversion guidelines described in the following table. guide to the convention on scores no formula categories 1 x >𝑥𝑖+ 1,8 𝑆𝐵𝑖 very good 2 𝑥𝑖+0,6 𝑆𝐵𝑖< x ≤ 𝑥𝑖+1,8 𝑆𝐵� � good 3 𝑥𝑖+0,6 𝑆𝐵𝑖< x ≤ 𝑥𝑖+0,6 𝑆𝐵𝑖 fair 4 𝑥𝑖 −1,8 𝑆𝐵𝑖< x ≤ 𝑥𝑖 −0,6 𝑆𝐵𝑖 less 5 x≤ 𝑥𝑖 −1,8 𝑆𝐵𝑖 poor source : sukardjo (2012) legend: 𝑥𝑖 =(ideal rate) 1 2 (ideal max score + ideal min score) �〱𝐵𝑖 =(ideal standard deviation) 1/6 (ideal max score ideal min score) x = actual score based on the above formula, we can get guidance of converting quantitative value 1 to 5 into qualitative category to conclude how media feasibility developed. if the p and 𝑆𝐵𝑖values are substituted on the formulas in the table, then the conversion guidelines will be obtained: 19 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 kusumawati, darmawan, latifah criteria of rating category no the range score of quantitative the range score of quantitative 1 p> 80% very good 2 66,67%< p ≤ 80% good 3 53,33% < p ≤ 66,67% fair 4 40% <p≤ 53,33% less 5 p ≤ 40% poor source: research data on processed development 𝑝 =(persentase) = 1 2 (ideal maximum score + ideal minimum score) = ½ (5 + 1) = 3 𝑆𝐵𝑖 =(ideal standard deviation) = 1/6 (ideal maximum score ideal minimum score) = 1/6 (5 – 1) = 0,67 𝑝 = actual score the student response data the students' response towards the module of english for computer science were taken from 35 students who filled the questionnaire containing 20 questions. the answer from these students were categorized into: 1 = disagree, 2 = less agree, 3 = hesitate, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree. agree and strongly agree answers are considered positive. meanwhile, disagree, less agree, and hesitate answers belong to negative response. the percentage of students' response is calculated using the formula below: %p = 𝐹 𝑁 x100% legend: %p = percentage score f = frequency n = total number of respondents the student's response is said to be positive if the average percentage of student responses is greater than or equal to 60%. the following table shows the frequency distribution of respondents response to the product: 20  e-issn: 2621-6485 category response category score very positive 80 < p ≤ 100 positive 60 < p ≤ 80 negative 40 < p ≤ 60 very negative 20 < p ≤ 40 source: research data on processed development finding and discussion to know the eligibility of the developed modules, it was done through some validation processes by some experts. product approriateness validation for a module was done by a material expert, media expert, and lecturers of computer science department. after that it was done module revision process done with the students of computer science department. the result of this process was the decision whether the module is worth to test in the field or not. after that, the module was implemented among the computer science students of the second semester. field trials were conducted with 29 students. the researcher introduced the module, explained the contents of the module, then explained the benefits of modules for learning of computer science subject. after that, the researcher did practice teaching to the students. the students looked very enthusiastic when learning english using the module. after learning using the module, the students assessed the module through a questionnaire. the researcher provided questionnaires containing 20 questions to 29 students. the questionnaire used likert scale of 1-5. this functions to obtain the data of the students interest towards the module. based on the questionnaire response it showed that the module, which was developed under aspects of motivation, interest, and media visualization, got students' positive response. the total score was 2034 and the percentage was 69,63% which was the range of 60<p≤80%. for the conclusion, the module got "b" score and was in positive category. to know the students' response towards the module, it was done through interview. the interview results showed that the students were interested and more motivated in following the lesson by using the english module. in addition, the students informed that the english module made the learning interesting. in sum, the results of the interviews showed that the students gave good response towards the use of module during the learning process. conclusion based on the results of the research, it can be concluded that the module of esp for students of computer science department of muhammadiyah university of metro is eligible and therefore can be used for english learning media. however, it’s suggested that the next researches can be focused on developing english materials for computer science and networking program which specializing in other skills, such as writing, speaking, and reading. it is 21 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 kusumawati, darmawan, latifah also suggested for other material developers to emphasize the needs of the learners since the essential point in developing materials for students of computer science is laid to the relevant content of their study. references dasna, parlan & rita susilawati.(2006). pengembangan bahan ajar kimia smpuntuk pengajaran materi bahan kimia rumah tangga. jurnal pendidikan danpembelajaran 13 (2): 197-208. endang mulyatiningsih. (2011). riset terapan bidang pendidikan dan teknik. yogyakarta:uny press handayani.(2007).look ahead an english.jakarta:erlangga. hornby, as.(2009) oxford advanced learner’s dictionary, new york: oxxford university press. lasmiyati.(2014).pengembangan modul pembelajaran untuk meingkatkan peemahaman konsep dan minat smp.universitas muhammadiyah surakarta nasution, s.(2003) berbagai pendekatan dalam proses belajar dan mengajar, jakarta:bumi aksara. puspitasari, indah. (2013). english for computer science : sebuah analisis kebutuhan bahasa inggris pada mahasiswa teknik informatika.stmik amikom purwokerto. ruis n.muhyidin.waluyo t.(2009).instructional media.jakarta:ministry of national education. sadiman,arief s. et al.(2002) media pendidikan:pengertian, pengembangan dan pemanfaatannya.jakarta:pt.raja grafindo persada. sugiyono. (2009). metode penelitian pendidikan pendekatan kuantitatif, kualitatif, dan r & d. bandung : alfabeta. ________(2015). metode penelitian kuantitatif kualitatif dan r&d. bandung: alfabet. sukardjo. (2012). evaluasi pembelajaran semester 2. yogyakarta: pps uny tanto, fahri. (2014). developing english learning material for vocabulary mastery based on word gmes technique at first semester of eleventh grade of senior high school. universitas muhammadiyah metro. english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 3, 2018, pp. 134-148 e-issn: 2621-6485 the use of phonetically reduced modals in present-day english: a corpus-based analysis ikmi nur oktavianti universitas ahmad dahlan ikmi.oktavianti@pbi.uad.ac.id abstract this paper examines the usage frequency of phonetically reduced modals (i.e. gonna, wanna, gotta) in present-day english. it is assumed that in distinct sociolinguistic and discourse contexts, the use of reduced modals is dynamic. to collect the data, there are five corpora used in this study, corpus of contemporary american english and global webbased english as the representatives of present-day english, brown and lob corpus as the representative of earlier years of present-day english, and a representative corpus of historical english to provide language data from early modern english to present-day english. the analysis focuses on usage frequency of phonetically reduced modals over period of time, in different regions or countries, different medium of language use, and different text categories. the frequencies were further interpreted based on sociolinguistics and text category perspective to reveal the factors triggering the dynamic of use. the results of this study show the use of reduced modals is dramatically escalating in the last decades. according to regional observation, the use of reduced modals is more frequent in the united states than in other english-speaking countries. in relation to medium of language use, reduced modals are more commonly used in spoken language than in written language. as for text category, the usage frequency of reduced modal in fiction texts is the highest compared to academic texts and news texts. academic texts seem to avoid these linguistic units since this sort of text must obey the use of standard language in which reduced forms are less standard and more colloquial. this phonetic reduction is plausible to occur since language system and language use apply economy principle. the use of phonetically reduced modals, however, varies in different context and is influenced by colloquialization: the more colloquial the context, the more frequent the use of reduced modals. in general, language use is phonetically simplified and sociolinguistically colloquialized. keywords: phonetically reduced modals, corpus, sociolinguistics, discourse, economy how to cite: oktavianti, i. n. (2018). the use of phonetically reduced modals in presentday english: a corpus-based analysis. english language teaching educational journal, 1(3), 134-148. introduction as a linguistic unit, modals are of paramount importance because in everyday life people not only talk about truth, but they also express possibility, necessity, or prediction—something that is nonor contra-factual or known as modality (lyons, 1977; palmer, 2001). it is thus likely to notice the use of modals in everyday life. as of 2017, the use of modals (from 1990—2017) compiled in corpus of contemporary american english (coca) is 12.451 per mailto:ikmi.oktavianti@pbi.uad.ac.id eltej issn: 2621-6485  oktavianti 135 one million words or it is 1,2% of the total size of the corpus. although, compare to other functional elements such as article the or preposition in, the number is still negligible. apart from the statistical fact, english modals are always interesting to examine as they can be studied using various perspectives, such as the grammatical aspects (see quirk, et al., 1985), semantic aspect (chapin, 1973; coates and leech, 1980; perkins, 1982; coates, 1983; collins, 2009; de haan, 2012; among others), pragmatics and discourse (macfarlan, 2013; rubinstein, 2012; facchinetti, 2013; hardjanto, 2016; adepujo, 2016), diachronic analysis (see brinton, 1991; krug, 2000; biber, 2004; millar, 2009; leech, et al., 2009; seggewiß, 2012; lorenz, 2013; collins, 2014), and corpus-based analysis (francis and kučera, 1982; kennedy, 1992; kennedy, 1998; biber, et al., 1999; oktavianti, 2016; among others). investigating modals, however, is not an easy task. holmes (1988) states that studying modals is fairly problematic, even for the native speakers of english, let alone for non-native speakers. one modal enables multi-interpretation, depends on the contexts. in other words, modal meaning is pragmatically challenging to study. as an example, huddleston (1971) describe six (pragmatic) meanings of may, such as may that might express (1) qualified generalization, (2) exhaustive disjunction, (3) uncertainty, (4) guarantee, (5) legitimation, and (6) ability. regarding the dynamic condition of the society using modals and the compelling aspect of modals, hence the study of english modals remains appealing over time, as long as language is used. in regard to form, besides having the full forms, some modals—the periphrastic ones—are shortened, for instance be going to into gonna, have got to into gotta, and want to into wanna. while the full forms remain dominant in language practice, the use of reduced forms is growing in the last decades. it is believed that in the era of world englishes, the use of reduced modals becomes more dynamic and significant. there have been some studies conducted to analyze these linguistic units, such as leech, et al. (2009) and machova (2015) using different corpora as data sources or different perspectives of analysis. this study, however, focuses on the use of phonetically reduced modals (sometimes it is called ‘reduced modals’ in this paper) in present-day english, in five different english-speaking countries, between two mediums of language use, and among three most popular text categories. nevertheless, this paper, will leave the discussion on meaning as it has gained so much attention lately and due to its multi-interpretations, and delimit the analysis to frequency of use and the sociolinguistic and discourse-related discussion. this study is expected to provide preliminary investigation of reduced modal use in present-day english so the results of the study can be used as teaching materials in linguistics classes (e.g., sociolinguistics and discourse analysis) as well as a reference for further profound studies. 136  e-issn: 2621-6485 corpus linguistics and language use this study uses both corpora and sociolinguistics as they work hand in hand to describe language use. both corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics deal with ‘real’ language use, and are not based on researcher’s introspection (baker, 2010: 8). using corpus enables more empirical approach and provides richer data to the sociolinguistic analysis. in addition, using corpus can lead to faster and more accurate analysis of frequency of use in which frequency is the key analysis of corpus linguistics (biber, et al., 1998) and also an important discussion in sociolinguistics. observing language use, it is also necessary to take notes on the medium of language use as well as types of text produced, including the use of reduced modals. as explained by halliday (1990), spoken medium and written medium have their distinct characteristics in the way spoken language rely much on prosodic and paralinguistic aspect in delivering messages. on the contrary, written language differs from spoken language since the process of production is not spontaneous and revision is thus permitted (biber and conrad, 2009). regarding text categories, it is known that each text has its linguistic characteristic. news texts and academic texts basically share something in common: delivering information. the more detail characteristics, however, differ since academic texts also develop arguments and analysis scientifically (biber and conrad, 2009). fiction is distinguished from two previous text categories because it uses language esthetically and manipulatively to build up imaginary world (leech and short, 2007). the different characteristics of each text category might result in different choices of linguistic units, including the use of phonetically reduced modals. research method one of the corpora consulted in this study is a synchronic corpus, coca, to depict the frequency of use of phonetically reduced modals. coca (davies, 2008) comprises english language data from enormous and various sources, consisting of more than 560 million words, ranging from 1990 to 2017 data compilation. along with coca, another corpus, global web-based english (glowbe) is used to assist the analysis of use in different english-speaking countries. glowbe compiles english language data, taken from the internet, from 20 regional dialects of english, and consisting of 1,9 billion words. following leech (1993), to select representative corpus to assist english language analysis, three points need to be taken into account, including size of the corpus, the homogeneity of the sources, and data collection technique. coca as the primary corpus has fulfilled two criteria (i.e. the size and homogeneity—in the subcorpus) and glowbe has fulfilled one criterion (i.e. the size). some other secondary corpora are used to provide evidence, namely brown corpus, lob corpus (both compiling english language data in 1961), and a representative corpus of historical english registers (archer) that eltej issn: 2621-6485  oktavianti 137 comprises english language from early modern english period (1600) to the earlier years of present-day english (1990). the data of this study are frequencies of gonna, wanna, and gotta in coca, glowbe, brown, lob, and archer. the data were collected through corpus query in online sites of coca, glowbe, archer and using a corpus tool, lancsbox (brezina, et al., 2015), for brown and lob. all the reduced modals were searched in the corpora and the search itself was filtered using pos (parts of speech) tag to limit the search, although gonna, wanna, and gotta are not likely to serve as other word classes in different syntactic environment. once the data were collected, they were normalized (mcenery and hardie, 2012; brezina, 2018). the normalized frequencies (nf) were then interpreted using sociolinguistic and discourse perspectives in order to elaborate the factors triggering the dynamic of use in different sociolinguistic and discourse context. findings and discussion the nature of modals and phonetically reduced modals in present-day english modals are semantic (and pragmatic) means to manifest modality expression in propositions (payne, 2011). historically they were derived from lexical categories (lexical verbs, preterite-present verbs), yet they were being grammaticalized into more functional elements and now they differ from lexical verbs. the changes result in distinct morphosyntactic and syntactic properties of modals and lexical verbs (collins, 2009: 112; warner, 2009). the features that distinguish modals from lexical verbs are described as nice (negation, inversion, code, emphasis) (huddleston, 1976; warner, 2009; payne, 2011) or also known as auxiliaryhood (pullum and wilson, 1977), stating that modals can be negated, inversed, used in tag question and emphasized directly, without the assistance of operator do. in addition, morphosyntactically modals are not tense-inflected. their preterite forms do not necessarily indicate past tense. meanwhile, syntactically modals can only be followed by infinitive verbs in clauses or sentences. according to quirk, et al. (1985), modals are classified into central modals, marginal modals, idiom modals, and semi-auxiliaries. some other experts, however, classify modals in a more simplified way by dichotomizing: (1) modals and semi modals (leech, et al., 2009), (2) modals and quasi-modals (collins, 2009), and (3) plain-modal auxiliaries and semi-auxiliaries (payne, 2011). based on the classification, it is noticed that basically there are two major types of modals; they are ‘pure’ modals or central modals or core modals (e.g., must, will, would, can, could, shall, should, may, might) and periphrastic or phrasal forms equivalent to ‘pure’ modals or known as semi-modals or quasi-modals (e.g., be going to, have to, be able to, be supposed to, want to, etc.). in relation to human nature in minimalizing their efforts in doing something (principle of least effort, [zipf, 1949]), including in using language, some periphrastic forms, especially the frequent ones such as be going to or 138  e-issn: 2621-6485 want to are shortened or phonetically reduced. bussmann (1998) claims that phonetic reduction happened to some quasi-modals is the effort to minimalize sound articulation and adjust it according to the phonetic environment. sound change of be going to and want to into (be) gonna and wanna are illustrated below. (be) going to [gəʊɪŋ tu:] gonna [ˈgɒnə] want to [wɒnt tu:] wanna [ˈwɒnə] the illustration shows that the phonetic change alters velar consonant [ŋ] in going to into alveolar consonant [n]. this is plausible since alveolar is closer to the mouth or outer part of our vocal tract so the effort to produce the sound is more minimal. as stated by jakobson (1980) the outer the vocal tract used to produce the sound, the easier to pronounce the sound, as in bilabials sounds that are easier to produce by 6—9 month old babies in babbling stage. as for [t] sound in want to is omitted to simplify the pronunciation to make the production effort minimal. unlike gonna and wanna, gotta doesn’t undergo consonant change, but vowel change, despite the deletion of have in the initial position, as in below. (have) got to [ɡɒt tu:] gotta [ˈgɒtə] the vowel change can be precisely depicted below. [u:]  [ə] [back vowel] [central vowel] [low vowel] [mid vowel] [rounded vowel] [unrounded vowel] the changes from [u:]  [ə] as illustrated above seem to clearly show that there is an effort to minimize the ‘energy’ to produce the sound (from back to central, from low to mid, from rounded to unrounded). by minimizing the effort, language users can produce more utterance; hence deliver more messages or information. phonetically reduced modals in diachronic corpora based on the comparison of a diachronic corpus, archer, and a synchronic corpus, coca, it is found that there are two reduced modals occupying the first and the fourth position of modal usage frequency. modals gonna and wanna undergo the most significant increase along with other quasimodals (be willing to, have got to, be due to), as listed in the following table (using normalized frequency per one million words). eltej issn: 2621-6485  oktavianti 139 table 1. modals with the most significant increase of usage (archer and coca) rank modals archer (nf) coca (nf) percentage change 1 gonna 3 58 +1,833% 2 be willing to 15 41 +1,400% 3 have got to 4 60 +1,400% 4 wanna 0.79 11 +1,292% 5 be due to 1 12 +1,100% table 1 shows the percentage change (see brezina, 2018) of modals over decades in which the usage frequency of gonna is the highest by having 1,833% change from early modern english (represented by archer) to present-day english (represented by coca). similarly, the use of wanna is increasing as much as 1,292%. to get more convincing evidence, this study displays the frequency of use of reduced modals in two corpora covering the earlier years of present-day english, namely lob corpus and brown corpus. table 2. usage frequency of reduced modals in lob and brown reduced modals lob brown gonna 0.02 0.06 wanna 0.03 0.05 gotta 0.02 0.05 table 2 presents normalized frequency of use of gonna, wanna, and gotta per ten thousand words in lob and brown corpus. the table clearly exhibits the low frequency of the reduced modals at the time. meanwhile, archer and coca comparison shows the dramatic escalation of gonna and wanna. therefore, it is assumed that in the last decades use of reduced forms of modals has gained much attention among english speakers. it is therefore compelling to conduct further investigation on the use of reduced forms of modals, focusing on gonna, wanna, and gotta. usage frequency of phonetically reduced modals across countries using glowbe, this study analyses phonetically reduced modals in english language spoken in the united states (us), great britain (gb), australia (au), canada (ca), and new zealand (nz) that belong to inner circle position in world englishes (kachru, 2008). the normalized frequencies of the modals are shown in the following table. 140  e-issn: 2621-6485 table 3. frequency of reduced modals in five english-speaking countries modals us gb au ca nz gonna 54 25 20 22 14 gotta 21 7 7 13 8 wanna 21 9 9 8 6 table 3 presents that among five english-speaking countries, it is obvious that reduced modals used in us that has the highest frequency (e.g., 54 times per one million words for gonna), followed by great britain, canada, australia, and new zealand (with the results show only half of the normalized frequency of the us). compared to other countries displayed in the table, english used in new zealand has the lowest frequency of reduced modals usage. this result basically supports some other similar or relevant findings. collins (2014) claims there have been some tendencies in relation to english language changes. it is proved that, based on collins (2014), american english is more adjustable to changes, while british english is more conservative. meanwhile, according to collins (2014), australian english is more linguistically independent, not too conservative as the colonial parent (british english), but not too loose as american english. the most important point to notice here is the state of english spoken in the us as the leader of changes of english language. the discussion of it hence needs to be elaborated in a different and more comprehensive work. usage frequency of phonetically reduced modals in spoken and written english the next discussion is about the medium of language use. considering that spoken and written language are distinct, it is also intriguing to depict the reduced modal usage in these two media of using language. the table below shows the normalized frequency of gonna, wanna, and gotta in spoken and written english (as compiled from coca). table 4. frequency of reduced modals in spoken and written english modals spoken written gonna 132 37 wanna 25 7 gotta 11 16 table 4 shows the differences observed such as the use of gonna and wanna that are extremely different in these two contexts. in spoken english, gonna is found 132 times per one million words, while in written english it is found only 37 times per one million words. similar to gonna, wanna is also found more frequent in spoken english (25 times per one million words) than eltej issn: 2621-6485  oktavianti 141 in written english (7 times per one million words). it proves that spoken and written english are different, resulting in different choice of linguistic units used by the speakers. hence,g the use of reduced modals in spoken english differs from that in written english. usage frequency of phonetically reduced modals in different text categories the context in which the language is used to determine the linguistic choice, including the choice of using reduced modals. in written language, text categories hold a crucial part in deciding whether or not to use reduced modals. pivoting in fiction, academic, and news texts, below is the description of normalized frequency in these text categories as observed in coca. table 5. frequency of reduced modals in different text categories modals fiction academic news gonna 22 0.55 8 gotta 9 0.24 3 wanna 4 0.16 1 in table 5, it is observed the visible differences of frequency in distinguished text categories. reduced modals, based on the findings, are more commonly found in fiction (e.g., gonna is 22 times per one million words) than in news texts (e.g., gonna is 8 times per one million words), and between news texts and academic texts, it is more commonly used in news text (e.g, gonna in academic texts is 0.55 times per one million words). in other words, fiction has the highest usage frequency of reduced modals compared to academic and news texts. academic texts seem to avoid the use of reduced modals, while we can find the use of reduced modals in news text, even though the number is small, but it is still higher than academic texts. colloquialization also influences the use of modals in a particular text; texts that can be influenced with colloquial style might use reduced modals more frequently as seen in fiction texts. academic texts, however, seem to avoid reduced forms as reduced forms are not the characteristics of standard language. as for news texts, the use of reduced modals are in between fiction and academic texts which shows news texts are primarily the ‘combination’ of fiction and academic as they are not too strict with the use of standard language and attempt to be close to the readers. factors triggering the dynamic of use given the findings discussed previously, it is important to note that the use of reduced modals is quite dynamic across different period of time, regions, mediums, and text categories. in the last centuries (comparing archer and coca), the use of reduced modals is significantly growing, indicating the increasing need of language users to use the reduced forms in daily communication. the number of use of reduced modals synchronically also marks the prominence of reduced forms as they are found in any countries, 142  e-issn: 2621-6485 medium, and text categories, although they are more frequent in english language spoken in the us, in spoken english, and in fiction texts. to get profound analysis on why reduced modals are dynamic, it is necessary to consider the nature of each variable being compared. different frequencies of reduced modals described in the comparison of spoken and written english are connected with the nature of the medium. spoken language is, but not always, identical to colloquial style. reduced forms are the results of speakers’ effort to minimize sound production correspond to principle of least effort (zipf, 1949). in accordance with zipf’s theory, indeed language works according to economy principle stating that grammar should be economical so it can be learnt easier and faster (van gelderen, 2004; van gelderen, 2011). to achieve this, grammar must prioritize the necessary mechanism in their system to be able to work as efficient as possible. in line with van gelderen, poedjosoedarmo (2006) argues that grammar should be brief (e.g., no redundant forms) for the efficiency of message delivery. from zipf to van gelderen and poedjosoedarmo, it is noted that language system—as well as language use—should be concise but powerful. in relation to language use, it is therefore unsurprising to find the use of shortened forms, especially in daily use of language. in daily speaking activity, language users tend to be more practical, efficient, and economical, by using reduced forms, instead of the full forms. in other words, reduced forms are the style of daily use of language, or also linked with colloquial language. as defined in oxford dictionary of english, colloquial is language used in ordinary or familiar conversation. more linguistically, it is defined as a term applied to vocabulary and grammar typical of informal style (brown and miller, 2013). in written medium of language use, frequency of reduced modals is not as frequent as in the spoken one. it is due to the influence of colloquialization in written medium of language use is relatively lower than in spoken language. in addition, written language is not spontaneous and provides longer space so that reduced forms are unnecessary. on the contrary, spoken language must be as efficient as possible, hence reduced modals are preferable to some extent. in fact, some written forms of language nowadays are actually more speech-like. affected by the advancement of technology, there are now messaging platforms that have the characteristics of spoken language, but use written medium, e.g., whatsapp, line, wechat, etc. these messaging applications provide their users with two-way interactions, enable the users to have a conversation to the interlocutors in written form. in this sort of communication, the style is more colloquial, even though it happens in written form. regarding text categories, comparing fiction texts, academic texts, and news texts, it is undoubtedly obvious that fiction is more colloquial. in fiction, there are some dialogues created by the authors to build up the story and to strengthen the traits of the characters. this corresponds to leech and short (2007) who claim that the language in fiction is used manipulatively to eltej issn: 2621-6485  oktavianti 143 construct the imaginary world. in dialogues the authors are allowed to use speech style in which they are colloquial style. this is important to make the narrative more realistic and closer to the reader of the fiction. it is noted that colloquialization holds crucial role in the choice of reduced modals in a particular discourse. in academic texts which standard language rules, the frequency of phonetically reduced modals is extremely low (e.g., gonna occurs 0.55 times per one million words). furthermore, reduced modals belong to semi-modal (or quasi-modal) category in which semi-modals are closely associated with colloquialization (leech, et al., 2009). hence the use of phonetically reduced modals is quite rare in academic context. according to the findings, different frequencies of reduced modals also occur in different region of english. it marks the language used in each region as being a regional dialect. this variety is possible because the society is complex, having different background, delivering different needs using different ways. therefore, we can notice different frequencies of phonetically reduced modals in which they have the highest frequency in the us english language (or american english). following collins (2014), american english is more adjustable to changes, opposite to british english that is more conservative. not only is american english more adjustable, but it also plays its role as leader of changes as known in the term ‘americanization’ which is no longer bizarre. crystal (2003) says that americanization includes the influence of american english to other english varieties (world englishes) since it has the biggest number of english speakers across the globe. it is appealing that although world englishes is developing, but the vigorous influence of american english worldwide is inevitable. from the elaboration, it is then evident that basically language use is dynamic and varied since the society (i.e. the language user) is complex and dynamic as well. in other words, theoretically, language use is phonetically simplified due to efficiency and daily basis usage; and it is sociolinguistically colloquialized as the primary medium of language is speaking. conclusion to sum up, there are several points that have to be taken into account. over the past decades, the use of reduced modals is sharply increasing, as shown by the comparison of archer and coca. related to the use of phonetically reduced modals in different regions, reduced modals more frequently used in the us than in four other english-speaking countries under study. it is because english language spoken in the us is more adaptive to changes, including to phonetic changes of modals. the results of this study also show reduced modals in spoken language are more frequently occur than in written language. alike different regions and different medium of discourse, different frequency can be observed in different text categories. based on the findings, reduced modals used in fiction texts are the highest compared to academic texts and news texts. meanwhile, academic texts rarely use reduced modals because this text category must follow the standard language. reduced forms are known to be more colloquial but less standard. this phonetic 144  e-issn: 2621-6485 reduction follows the rules of economy principle in language structure and language use, in line with principle of least effort proposed by zipf (1949). in general, the use of phonetically reduced modals is affected by colloquialization; as for discourse context, it concerns with which type of text that is more colloquial that allows the use of reduced modals. references adepoju, olalakan tunde. 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(1949). human behaviour and the principle of least effort: an introduction to human ecology. cambridge, ma: addison-wesley press, inc. list of corpora coca : https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/ glowbe : https://www.english-corpora.org/glowbe/ 148  e-issn: 2621-6485 archer : https://cqpweb.lancs.ac.uk lob : http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/cord/corpora/lob/ brown : http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/cord/corpora/brown/index. html corpus tool: lancsbox : http://corpora.lancs.ac.uk/lancsbox/index.php dictionary: oxford dictionary of english, installed in macbook air 2014. sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 2, 2019, pp. 70-78 e-issn: 2621-6485 the correlation between self – esteem and student’s reading comprehension 1elsa rosalina, 2nasrullah 1,2lambung mangkurat university e-mail: 1elsa.rosalina@ulm.ac.id, 2nasrullah01@ulm.ac.id abstract the aim of this study was to know the correlation between self-esteem to student’s reading comprehension. this study employed quantitative approach in the form of correlation design to identify the correlation between self-esteem and students reading comprehension. the population of the present study was english department students of ulm academic year 2018/2019. data collection involved 35 students who took part in the reading course. there are two kinds of the instrument used: test and questionnaire. the data in this study were analyzed by using pearson product-moment. the result of the study reveals that there is a correlation between self-esteem and student’s reading comprehension. the result showed that the r of the first calculation was .0457. it meant that h0 was rejected and self-esteem has a correlation to the reading comprehension with significance tailed 0.006< 0.05 keywords: correlation study, self-esteem, student’s reading comprehension. how to cite: rosalina, e. & nasrullah. (2019). the correlation between self-esteem and student’s reading comprehension. english language teaching educational journal, 2(2), 70-78. introduction graham (1997) stated that in order to be an advanced language learner, students need both cognitive and affective aspects. the cognitive which is the ability to adapt to new demands and approaches involve new learning strategies and patterns of working to adjust the situation. however, she also emphasises the influence of affective factors on how well a foreign language is acquired. according to gardner and macintyre (1992), affective factors are those emotionally relevant characteristics of the individual that influence how she/he will respond to any situation. the affective domain is the emotional side of human behaviour and involves a variety of personal factors and feelings (brown, 2014). affective factors which may have impacts on foreign language learning have been researched since around the late 1980s (takahashi & takahashi, 2013). these factors include motivation, anxiety, attitudes, tolerance of ambiguity, risk-taking tendencies, and so forth. this research deals with the above factors in order to achieve the maximal result in the field of teaching english as a second/foreign language (esl/efl). brown & lee (2015) stated that reading is as much an emotional as a cognitive process so that the affective factors strongly impact all phases of the writing process. juyandegan (2016) stated that the lower standards of reading proficiency could be due to many various factors including cognitive or affective ones. reading is a combination of cognitive and affective processes and to optimise learning, and equal attention should be given to the two sides: cognitive and affective. learning english as a foreign language is one aspect of broad processes of learning. therefore, if there is no balance between those two domains, the english learning process will be negatively affected. andres (2002) argued that language learning is affected by both domains which are the mental and emotional sides of human behaviours. branden (1994) stated that those facets can be motivation, attitudes, anxiety or self-esteem. they can be positive or negative factors. self –esteem is an emotional factor which influences the students when they learn mailto:1elsa.rosalina@ulm.ac.id mailto:2nasrullah01@ulm.ac.id eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ rosalina & nasrulloh 71 about language. brown (2014) stated that self-esteem is probably the most pervasive aspect of any human behaviour. it could be easily be claimed that no successful cognitive or affective activity can be carried out without some degree of self-esteem. in the previous study, andres (2002) argued that in recent years, the importance of affective factors such as anxiety, inhibition, motivation and self-esteem has been of interest in the field of language learning because of their high effects on learning a foreign or a second language. therefore, kaniuka (2010) stated there seems to be little evidence that increasing a student’s level of self-esteem will raise their level of achievement. suharmanto (2006) investigated the patterns of relationships among some selected affective factors affecting students’ efl reading comprehension. the study reveals some finding which verified patterns of path relationship among some selected factors which are covered as the cognitive aspects and efl reading comprehension. in contrast, the present study will see from the other perspective, which is the affective factors and correlates them to students reading comprehension. cahya (2015) investigated selected affective factors and efl proficiency of college students. this study reveals some findings that the only significant path with a direct contribution to efl proficiency is from attitude. the significant path is initiated by motivation and self-esteem significantly contribute to attitude. in contrast, this present research tries to focus on the affective factors and their contribution to the reading aspect. based on this previous study, this study tries to analyse the correlation of self-esteem to students reading comprehension, and it is to detect the effect of affective factor on reading comprehension to student’s reading comprehension. self-esteem refers to the evaluation which individuals make and customarily maintain with regards to themselves; it expresses an attitude of approval or disapproval and indicates the extent to which individuals believe themselves to be capable, significant, successful, and worthy. the aspects of self-esteem include language ability, actual in-class language use, in-class relationships, and attitude toward / behaviour in the foreign language class. in this study, it is indicated by the score in self esteem questionnaire adapted from the foreign language self esteem scale ( flses ) in the study conducted by takahashi and takahashi (2013). reading comprehension means the student’s reading score which is gotten from the result of the toefl reading test of english department students for one hour. the model of the test is multiple choice includes 50 questions. correlation means the value obtained from the calculation of pearson productmoment analysis were analysed using spss 20 program. factors affecting language learning lightbown and spada (2006) referred to the performance on certain kinds of tests. they narrate that some years ago, it was thought that the higher learner’s iq, the more likely that this learner will succeed in language learning. however, lightbown and spada (2006) disagree on that saying that tests like iq are mostly related to metalinguistic knowledge and cannot predict success in second language acquisition. the next significant factor in sla is the so-called affective domain. the affective domain is the emotional side of human behaviour and involves a variety of personal factors and feelings (brown, 2014) it is comprised of socio-cultural, egocentric and motivational factors. therefore, it will discuss each other such as socio-cultural factors can distinguish the attitude towards second language culture, which usually results in a culture shock. another critical factor in sla, according to yorio (1976) is input. in this research, it means how a learner acquires a second language: as a free learner or as an instructed one. concerning the free learner type, the essential factors are the place of learning and the type 72 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 of language contact. some learners acquire the second language in a foreign setting, second language environment or bilingual environment, in a family setting or with peers. all these factors play a decisive role in second language acquisition since many learners and teachers believe that the best way to learn a foreign language is by living in an environment where this language is daily spoken. affective factors affective refers to the emotions, feelings, and attitudes that individuals bring to the learning experience and the role these play in motivation (dornyei, 2001; hurd, 2008). as hurd (2008) pointed out, findings in neuroscience indicate that both affective and cognition are fundamental and interdependent aspects of human brain functioning. the role of affective factors in learning has been outlined by schunk, pintrich and meece (2008). brown (2004) stated there is no doubt at all about the importance of examining personality factors in building a theory of second language acquisition. understanding how human beings feel, respond, believe, and value is an exceedingly important aspect of a theory of second language acquisition. among affective factors, this research takes self-esteem, inhibition, and anxiety factors it is because based on students problem which explains in chapter one and krashen (2003) who stated that fourth point of affective factor which refer to the children’s emotional states. this study deals with the inhibition that the children might encounter, such as the following situations: the students feel anxious, they have low selfesteem, and they do not consider themselves to be potential members of the group who speak the language. self-esteem brown (2014) stated that self-esteem is probably the most pervasive aspect of any human behaviour. it could easily be claimed that no successful cognitive or affective activity can be carried out without some degree of self-esteem, self-confidence, knowledge of yourself, and belief in your own capabilities for that activity. based on the theory above it means that in the learning process self-esteem is one important affective factor in improving students knowledge in language learning. self-esteem is one of the psychological factors which influence the students to learn about language. anders (2002) claimed that language learning is affected by both domains which are the mental and emotional sides of human behaviour. farley (1970) stated that the role of personality had been much less a concern of researchers. self-esteem is another factor in sla. learners with low self-esteem are less likely to participate in a class or practise the language (brown, 2014) . some of these students do not like to speak aloud in front of the class. they may also think to be less critical and that their contributions are not valuable. reading comprehension reading comprehension is a process of understanding the information in the text by using a reader’s background information (facharyani, masrupi & rahmawati, 2018). according to klingner, vaughn, and boardman (2007), reading is the process of constructing meaning that achieved through effective instruction taking into account the aspects of previous reader's knowledge, the information provided by the text, and the context of the reading situation eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ rosalina & nasrulloh 73 it is also supported by mcentire (2003) who argued that reading as a constructive process of prior knowledge and experience that affects the reader's understanding of the text. it can be concluded from the theory above to gain a correct understanding of information in the text; the reader needs both experience and the prior of knowledge. brown (2014) stated that reading is as much an emotional as a cognitive process so that the affective factors strongly impact all phases of the writing process. juyandegan (2016) stated that the lower standards of reading proficiency could be due to many various factors including cognitive or affective ones. reading is a combination of cognitive, affective, and more psychomotor processes, and to optimize learning, equal attention should be given to the three sides: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. based on the theory above it can conclude that reading comprehension is the cognitive process with impact by affective factors and more psychomotor processes. cognitive when students try to understand the text, main idea, etc. affective is the student emotional factors, such as selfesteem, inhibition, and anxiety when they try to comprehension the text, and psychomotor domain as well when considering the eye movements in any reading and mouth movements in reading aloud activity. kaniuka (2010) stated there seems to be little evidence that increasing a student’s level of self-esteem will raise their level of achievement. however, in his study of elementary students, those showing academic success possessed more positive attitudes towards reading and higher levels of reading-related self-esteem. andres (2002) argued that in recent years, the importance of affective factors such as anxiety, inhibition, motivation and self-esteem has been of interest in the field of language learning because of their high effects on learning a foreign or a second language. brown (2014) also stated that reading is an emotional factor with strong impact by affective factors. suharmanto (2006) investigated the patterns of relationships among some selected affective factors affecting students’ efl reading comprehension. the study reveals some finding which verified patterns of path relationship among some selected factors which are covered as the cognitive aspects and efl reading comprehension. furthermore, this presents research to prove the theory and to know the correlation between self – esteem and student’s reading comprehension. research method this research used a correlation research design with the pearson product moment analysis. the design was implemented because this research was to find the correlation between self-esteem to student’s reading comprehension. this research tried to identify, analyse, and describe the correlation of self-esteem, to reading comprehension. the purpose of this research to verified about the correlation of self-esteem to student’s reading comprehension with quantitative research design especially in correlation design using pearson product-moment analysis. this research was taken the data from lambung mangkurat university on 15 october 2019. at the beginning of the data collection, the first step is administration. the students were gathered in the room and are asked to work on the test as they are doing a reading test. they were given one hour to work on the test. all questions are multiple-choice and students answer questions by filling in an answer sheet. all of the 35 students participated in this research before estimating the degree of students self-esteem. english reading test administrated to the students and then the selfesteem questionnaire (flses). it includes (flses) questionnaire 14 items. the first step for collecting the data, the students were gathered in one classroom. after the student gather in the classroom, then distributed the reading test item and gave one hour to the students to answer the test. 74 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 the questionnaire was carried out later after the students take a short break. before distributing the three questionnaires to the students, they are given brief information about the purpose of the questionnaires, their scope, and their significance for english teaching and learning. then the questionnaire is distributed to the participants. they are asked to fill identity question before start answering the questionnaires. they were given 35 minutes to answer all set of questionnaires by the students. table 1. the administration of the instrument in data collection no time activity 1 14.35 14.40 introduction 2 14.40 15.40 reading test 3 15.40 15.55 break 4 15.55 16.05 distributing questionnaires 5 16.05 16.40 filling questionnaires data analysis the data analysed using pearson product-moment to find the correlation of selfesteem to the student’s reading comprehension. the data computation used spss 20.0 version. the steps of analysing the data are stated as follows: first is checking students’ response, this step for identifying students answer in affective questionnaire and reading test. second is coding the students’ identity and recap each data using microsoft excel. this step to make simple and easy when the data input in spss 20 program. the third is scoring students’ response in reading test and questionnaire. the score is as follows: self-esteem questionnaire is scored 1 for answer strongly disagree, 2 for disagree, 3 for neither agree nor disagree, 4 for agree and 5 for strongly agree. questionnaire minimum score is 0 and the maximum score is 64, for self-esteem. reading comprehension test was scored 1 for the right answer and 0 for the wrong answer. this scoring using the standard scoring which applied in toefl test and converted them to standardise of toefl reading score. the fourth step is describing the data. the fifth step is the fulfilment of statistical assumptions. correlation pearson product moment was used as a test in this research. the sixth step is establishing the statistical hypothesis. there are two kinds of hypotheses. h0 state that there is no significant correlation between self-esteem and reading comprehension. h1 states that there is no significant correlation between self-esteem and reading comprehension. the seventh step is establishing the criteria of rejecting the null hypothesis (h0). the criteria are as follows: null hypothesis is rejected if the probability or significance level is lower than 0.05. after knowing the result, hypothesis testing was conducted. from spss correlation table, the significance is noticed. if the significance level shows greater than 0.050 (p>0.05), it means that the data cannot reject the null hypothesis, so the null hypothesis is accepted. if the significance value shows lower than 0.05 (p<0.05), it means that data can reject the null hypothesis, so the alternative hypothesis is accepted. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ rosalina & nasrulloh 75 findings and discussion this point serves the result of a descriptive statistic of each variable. there were two variables in this research, and there were two statistical findings which were served in the spss standard tables. the results were as follows: descriptive statistic of self-esteem the second variable was self-esteem personality. the table of descriptive statistic for this variable was shown in the following statistical table: table 2. descriptive statistics n minimum maximum mean std. deviation selfesteem 35 34 60 47.23 4.759 valid n (listwise) 35 the table contained of number of learners, minimum score and maximum scores, mean statistically and standard deviation. the total number of learners were 35 learners. the minimum score was 34 and the maximum score was 60. the mean was 47.23. the standard deviation of it was 4.759. descriptive statistic of reading comprehension test the second variable was reading comprehension. the table of descriptive statistic for this variable was shown in the following statistical table: table 3. descriptive statistics n minimum maximum mean std. deviation readingtest 35 20 43 32.54 6.766 valid n (listwise) 35 the table contained the number of learners, minimum score and maximum scores, mean statistically and standard deviation. the total number of learners were 35 learners. the minimum score was 20, and the maximum score was 43. the mean was 32.54. the standard deviation of it was 6.766. 76 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 table 4. the hypothesis testing correlations self-esteem readingtest selfesteem pearson correlation 1 .457** sig. (2-tailed) 0.006 n 35 35 readingtest pearson correlation .457** 1 sig. (2-tailed) 0.006 n 35 35 ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). if the significance level shows greater than 0.050 (p>0.05), it means that the data cannot reject the null hypothesis, so the null hypothesis is accepted. if the significance value shows lower than 0.05 (p<0.05), it means that data can reject the null hypothesis, so the alternative hypothesis is accepted. the result showed that the r of first calculation was .0457 with significance tailed 0.006 < 0.05. affective factors which may impact on foreign language learning have been researched since around the late 1980s (takahashi & takahashi, 2013). sikhwari (2008) conducted research to investigate the relationship between affective factors and the academic of the students at the university of venda. in the study, the affective factors selected are self-concept, motivation, and attitude. the general aim of the study is to determine the role of self-concept, motivation, and attitude in student’s academic achievement and ultimately come up with some recommendation for enhancing these factors. the theoretical investigation indicates that there is a relationship between students’ self-concept, motivation, attitude, and academic achievement. similarly, the empirical investigation has revealed that there is a significant correlation between self-concept, motivation, and academic achievement of students. the study conducted by sikhwari (2008) who had brought the idea of the importance of affective variables toward language learning output. however, there is also a need to investigate the interrelatedness of affective factors which has not been studied in the study. therefore, in this current research, the selected aspects of affective factors which are selfesteem will be taken into account. this research investigated the correlation between selfesteem and student’s reading comprehension. based on the result, the significant tailed of the research is 0.006 or > 0.05, and it means that data can reject the null hypothesis, so the alternative hypothesis is accepted. conclusion the conclusion of the present study was presented in accordance with the data which had been analysed in the previous chapter. based on the data analysis taken from the reading test and questionnaire, it can be concluded that there is a correlation between selfesteem and students reading comprehension. the result showed that the r of first calculation was .0457 with significance tailed 0.006 < 0.05. it was lower than .05.the hypothesis stated that there is a significant correlation between self-esteem and student’s reading comprehension was accepted. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ rosalina & nasrulloh 77 references andres, h. p. (2002). a comparison of face-to-face and virtual software development teams. team performance management: an international journal, 8(1/2), 39-48. branden, n. (1994). the six pillars of self-esteem. new york: bantam books brown, d. (2014). principles of language learning and teaching. new york: pearson education brown, d. (2004). language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: pearson education. brown, d. & lee. h. (2015). teaching by principles an interactive approach to language pedagogy. san francisco state university: pearson education cahya, p. (2015). modelling relationships among selected affective factors and efl proficiency of collegue students.(unpublished thesis). malang: graduate program universitas negeri malang. facharyani, n., masrupi, m., & rahmawati, e. (2018). the influence of using jigsaw as a method on students’ reading comprehension at the seventh grade of smpn 7 kota serang. journal of english language studies, 3(1), 80-90. farley,f.h., & anthony l. t. (1970). individual differences in reading comprehension. journal of reading behavior 291970-71.vol. 3, no. 1,winter. gardner, r. c., & macintyre, p. d. (1992). a student's contributions to second language learning. part i: cognitive variables. language teaching, 25(4), 211-220. graham, s. (1997). effective language learning: positive strategies for advanced level language learning. bristol : wbc book manufactures hurd, i. (2008). after anarchy: legitimacy and power in the united nations security council. princeton: princeton university press. juyandegan, m. (2016). the relationship between self-esteem and reading comprehension of efl iranian pre-university learners. international journal of asian social science, 6 (5), 303-313. kaniuka, t. (2010). reading achievement, attitude toward reading, and reading self-esteem of historically low achieving students. journal of instructional psychology. 37. 184188. klingner, j. k, sharon v., & alison, b. (2007). teaching reading comprehension to students with learning difficulties. new york: the guilford press. 78 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 krashen, s. (2003) explorations in language acquisition and use: the taipei lectures. portsmouth, nh: heinemann lightbown, p., & spada, n. (1999). how languages are learned (2nd ed.). oxford: oxford university press. mcentire, j. (2003). read ahead 2: reading and life skills development. harlow: longman pearson education. schunk, d. h., & pintrich, p. r. meece.(2008). motivation in education: theory, research, and applications. new jersey: pearson. sikhwari, t. (2008). the relationship between affective factors and the academic achievement of students at the university of venda. south african journal of higher education. 21. 10.4314/sajhe.v21i3.25721. suharmanto. (2006). patterns of relationship among some selected factors affecting the students efl reading. (unpublished dissertation). malang: graduate program universitas negeri malang takahashi, a., & takahashi, h. (2013). learners' self-esteem and its relationships with motivation for learning english, self-perceived and actual english proficiency. 新 潟大学言語文化研究, 18, 1-12 http://hdl.handle.net/10191/23942 yorio, c. (1976). discussion of "explaining sequence and variation in second language acquisition.". language learning, 4(1), 59-63. http://hdl.handle.net/10191/23942 english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 2, 2018, pp. 49-64 e-issn: 2621-6485 traces of linguistic imperialism enacted through discursive strategies in elt textbooks in indonesia ahmad budairi monash university, australia ahmad.budairi@monash.edu abstract although in many educational contexts textbooks serve as the backbone of teaching, providing practical guides for teachers as well as useful references for learning progress, they could also serve as a site of struggle for many competing discourses. elt textbooks bear particular relevance here, as they place english at the center of prominence while serving as a medium for knowledge transmission. this paper reports on part of the findings of a case study examining the exercise of dominant discourses in two elt textbooks for high school in indonesia. the analysis revealed that there are imbalanced power relations—enacted through such discursive strategies as foregrounding,, backgrounding and framing in two areas: topics and visuals. these strategies were understood as part of the author’s attempt to preserve the hegemonic status of english and its associated dominant ideology in ways that reflect traces of linguistic imperialism. with regard to the pedagogical value of the textbooks, this paper offers some suggestions on how the textbooks could be more engaging and culturally sensitive towards learners’ socio cultural context. the discussion concludes with an appeal for more balanced representation between the discourse of the third world and that of britain in elt textbooks in indonesia. keywords: critical discourse analysis, power relations, discursive strategies, power in discourse how to cite: budairi, a. (2018). traces of linguistic imperialism enacted through discursive strategies in elt textbooks in indonesia. english language teaching educational journal, 1(2), 49-64. introduction this article reports on part of the findings from a case study of two elt textbooks for high school level in indonesia: real english 2 for grade xi and real english 3 for grade xii. first published in 2008 by pt. penerbit erlangga publishing company, jakarta, indonesia, these textbooks were designated as supplementary under the so-called 2006 kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan / ktsp (school level curriculum). the case study was conducted in 2012, during which the textbooks under investigation were being used in four prominent high schools in the special district of yogyakarta. in 2013, the government introduced the k13 curriculum in place of the national school level curriculum (ktsp). however, due to a great deal of controversy surrounding the k13 curriculum, its status was declared as a pilot project, to be implemented in a limited number of schools by the newly appointed minister of education in mailto:ahmad.budairi@monash.edu 50  e-issn: 2621-6485 2014. schools were then advised to return to the 2006 school level curriculum. following a cabinet reshuffle and the review of the pilot project, the k13 curriculum began its full implementation nationwide in the 2016/2017 academic year. whether the textbooks are still used after these curriculum changes remains a subject of enquiry, particularly because since the introduction of the school level curriculum in 2006, schools have been allowed greater autonomy to select their preferred textbooks in addition to those prescribed by the government. the pedagogical value of textbooks has been widely acknowledged by many scholars. textbooks allow teachers to focus on the real work of teaching without having their energy dissipated by preparation of teaching materials (edge & wharton, 1998). they can function as a map, showing the teaching progress (mcgrath, 2002; ur, 1996) and providing direction and ideas in how lessons can be delivered (tomlinson, 2008). the other advantage of textbooks, as sheldon (1988) outlines, is their credibility, making them more reliable than teachergenerated or in-house materials. well-developed textbooks are designed by experts in the area, thereby assuring their pedagogical value, whereas classroom teachers in general undergo different training and in many cases their skills and knowledge are not suited to textbook production. allwright acknowledges this: … we need teaching materials as carriers of decisions best made by someone other than the classroom teacher, not because the classroom teacher is deficient, as a classroom teacher, but because the expertise required of materials writers is importantly different from that required of classroom teachers – the people who have the interpersonal skills to make classrooms good places to learn it (1981: 6) while textbooks have become indispensable as a medium for transmitting knowledge in many educational contexts, they are not merely printed letters and visual images, nor just a teaching–learning resource. it is equally important to acknowledge that textbooks are socially motivated and constructed. since they are produced within a certain social, political and cultural context, knowledge and culture presented in textbooks are not neutral but represent the interests of an individual, group or institution. luke (1988) suggests that in any given era in the history of education, the selection of knowledge, competence and practices for transmission in school curricula is an ideological process, serving the interests of particular classes and forms of social control. in a more specific reference, apple (1992) considers textbooks an ideological message system for the transmission of the dominant values and beliefs of a society. within such frameworks, textbooks may be understood as not only reflecting the purpose and goals that a particular curriculum pursues, but also embodying a particular construction of the social world; particular ways of selecting and organizing the vast universe of possible knowledge (apple, 1992). as such, textbooks might also reflect the working of power relations and ideological assertions among different interest groups and individuals that are inextricably related. eltej issn: 2621-6485  budairi 51 along the same vein, it is interesting to consider the fact that being in a globally peripheral position, indonesia is constantly under the influence of the ideological and cultural hegemony of advanced countries. of special importance here is the notion of discourse imperialism which pennycook (1994) refers to as the expansion of certain discourses dictated by the west, mainly by the white man but, most importantly, discourses conveyed by and through the english language which guarantee the supremacy of some countries over others. he further concedes that such a discourse is the source of regular inequalities in all fields: economics, politics, education, culture and communication. english expands hand in hand with it, it is the language of “international capitalism” (p. 43). phillipson (1992) warns against the implicit ideology of anglocentricity and english linguistic imperialism behind elt promotion. he suggests that “linguistic imperialism refers to a particular theory for analyzing the relations between dominant and dominated cultures, specifically the way english language learning has been promoted” (p. 15) and “the tenets of elt have ideological and structural consequences. they serve to strengthen the hold of the center over the periphery” (p. 192). william (1989) proposes the notion of “selective tradition” in which the dominance of a specific class is maintained through the selection of certain meanings and practices to be passed off as a “tradition.” it is in this light that elt textbooks may lend themselves to the analysis of power relations. hence, it is worth investigating how the hegemonic discourses of the west and english as an international language might be constituted, produced, naturalized and circulated through the use of linguistic and other semantic features in texts such as textbooks. viewed from its ontological standpoint, the study of language basically involves an analysis of language as speech. it looks into different elements of speech such as sounds (phonetics and phonology), parts of words (morphology), patterned of words and phrases, sentences (syntax) and finally meaning (semantics) as the ultimate function of language. although this kind of analysis may offer in-depth knowledge of language features, it tends to disengage language from its social context in which language is used as a means of communication. it fails to take into account such crucial questions as how language users seek to interpret meanings, become participants in a conversation and how language can be manipulated to accomplish certain goals in a communicative event. referring to the lack of comprehensibility in the analysis of language from its linguistic features, de beaugrande (1996) wrote : after three decades of research on syntax, no such system of underlying patterns and rules has yet been produced for any natural language. all we have is a pile of fragments such a system might contain, but no idea how they fit together and how we can supply the rest. the problem is simple and i am convinced, unsolvable: the arrangement of words in phrases and sentences is decided only partly by syntax and partly by speakers’ knowledge of the world and their society’ (p.35) 52  e-issn: 2621-6485 it is then impossible to analyze any given language, both spoken and written, without taking into account the various social contexts which contribute to the shaping and emergence of extensive linguistics variation of language use. this has created the need to look at the analysis of language by incorporating the language realities as used in various communicative events in society. a similar concern was echoed by fairclough (1995b) upon his review of the contributions to the study of language made by many existing approaches such as linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. he pointed to the lack of consideration of language as socially determined and as being in dialectical relation with society in such approaches. he proposed to look at the concept of language as discourse, that is, language as social practice. the term discourse can be understood in two ways. discourse, used as an abstract noun, refers to the “language use conceived as social practice” (fairclough, 1993, p.138). it is not only concerned with language in use, but also the pervasive and invisible sets of values, beliefs and ideas in that social circumstances. when discourse is used as a countable noun, it refers to a “way of signifying experience from a particular perspective” (fairclough, 1993, p.138). thus, a discursive event is an “instance of language use, analysed as text, discursive practice, social practice” (fairclough, 1993, p.138). discursive event, thus, refers to text, discursive practice (production and interpretation of the text), and social practice (including situational, institutional and societal practice). while taking the aforementioned concept of discourse analysis as the starting point, this research seeks to employ a further version of discourse analysis: critical discourse analysis (cda). as the word ‘critical’ suggests, in principle, cda is concerned with studying and analyzing written and spoken texts to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality and bias (van dijk, 2001). a rather similar definition is provided by fairclough (1995a) who considers the aim of cda as “to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes; to investigate how such practices, events, and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles over power, and to explore how the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society itself is a factor securing power and hegemony.” (p.132) theoretical frameworks of cda have been proposed by different scholars, each with their respective emphasis on different aspects, attribution and levels of analysis of discourse. however, they all are essentially concerned with the same question of how language and society are dialectically related and how such relation is reflected through the use of language as social practice. as van dijk (2001) points out, “cda is not a specific direction of research” and therefore “it does not have a unitary theoretical frame.”(p.353). however, he further asserts that “given the common perspective and the general aims of cda, we may also find overall conceptual and theoretical frameworks that are closely related.”(p.353) fairclough and wodak (1997: 271-80) suggest that in general, cda deals with the linguistic characteristics of social and cultural process. it eltej issn: 2621-6485  budairi 53 adopts a critical approach to social problem in its endeavor to make explicit power relationships which are frequently hidden. it conceives power relations as discursive and as such, it seeks to explain how social relations of power are exercised and negotiated in and through discourse. cda considers discourse as constituting society and culture. this suggests that every instance of language use makes its own contribution to reproducing and transforming society and culture, including relations of power. cda considers discourse as ideological and hence, an analysis of ideological discourse must extend beyond texts to also consider the discursive practice of how the texts are interpreted and received and what social effects they have. discourse operates within historical terms in a sense that texts acquire their meanings by being situated in specific social, cultural and ideological contexts, time and space. (wodak, 1995). lastly, discourse is what links or mediates texts with society. texts acquire their meanings by the dialectical relationship between texts and the social subjects. while in fairclough’s view, the mediating function is assumed by discourse practices –text production and consumption(fairclough,1995b), van dijk (1995) considers it is the sociocognition –social cognition and personal cognition – that mediates between society and discourse. research method this study initially involved a corpus of six english textbooks for high school level in indonesia: english alive for grades x and xi, english zone for grades x and xii, real english 2 for grade xi and real english 3 for grade xii. to approach the textbooks for this case study analysis, my initial strategy was to play the role of a typical reader who was trying to comprehend the texts in an uncritical manner. i then revisited the texts, this time critically, by raising questions about them, doing a brief comparative analysis of the six textbooks, and imagining how the texts could have been constructed differently. the focus of the analysis narrowed down to two elt textbooks, namely real english 2 and real english 3, because their construction is strikingly different from the others. the analysis of the textbooks was done under the framework of critical discourse analysis (cda). cda is concerned with studying and analyzing written and spoken texts to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality and bias (van dijk, 2001). similarly, fairclough (1995) outlines the aims of cda as “to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes; to investigate how such practices, events, and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles over power, and to explore how the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society itself is a factor securing power and hegemony” (p. 132). in terms of cda as a method, dijk (2001) acknowledges that cda does not have a unitary theoretical framework or methodology because it is best viewed as a shared perspective encompassing a range of approaches instead of one school. this case study therefore set out with a range of possibilities for applying the different classifications and categorizations of cda. first, the six english 54  e-issn: 2621-6485 textbooks to be researched may or may not have had the data necessary for a rigid framework of analysis to be applied. in other words, to use a predetermined framework of analysis as a point of departure would have meant to force a set of assumptions on the texts in terms of how and what to analyze. given the unpredictability of the nature and formal properties of the textbooks being selected, it was essential to explore the textbooks to their fullest extent in search of any traces of salient features pertaining to ideological discourses and power relations, while working out the most appropriate method and technique of analysis. consequently, this entailed a recursive process of data analysis in which new categories emerged upon further readings, and subsequently required some reshaping and modification to establish the most plausible conceptualization, categorization, and classification. the recursive process thus worked alongside the inductive analysis under the framework of the case study approach. the early stage of the analysis entailed thematic classification and categorization of the texts. different themes and topics were identified, classified and assigned to different thematic categories. a similar process was applied to the visual images in the textbooks. this process resulted in a set of data of texts and visual images in numbers and percentages. the data were then analyzed in terms of the macro structure of the textbooks; how the data contributed to the coherence of the texts as a whole. next, the analysis proceeded with an examination of the texts at the micro level to look for instances of local semantics in the forms of propositions, syntactical structures, and lexicalization—instances of the use of language which contribute to the construction of the discourse of english as an international language. the next stage was to employ huckin’s (1997) analytic tools for close textual analysis at different degrees of granularity. they are foregrounding, backgrounding, and framing, foregrounding is the prominence given to parts of a text, either by their physical placement or size or by the emphasis given them through word choice or syntactic structure. the opposite of foregrounding is backgrounding, which is the de-emphasizing of parts of a text. the ultimate form of backgrounding is omission, or leaving relevant information out of a text. framing is the slant the author gives to a text. it is the way the content of the discourse is represented, including the speaker’s perspective and others’ points of view. this includes the use of visual aids such as photographs, font of headings and diagrams. findings and discussion using huckin’s framework of analysis, i applied a close textual examination of the textbooks to investigate the extent to which different discourses had been represented. i discovered that a great deal of prominence was given to the western discourses, in particular britain's cultural, social and political practices, whereas discourses about indonesia and the rest of the world were largely underrepresented, resulting in imbalanced power relations. at the same time, the texts had also been constructed to establish a strong link between britain (and the inner circle countries) with its superior practices and the absolute role and high stature of english to guarantee access to many highly valued social goods. the analysis revealed the use of such discursive strategies as eltej issn: 2621-6485  budairi 55 foregrounding, framing, and visual images to construct britain as a center of excellence. the following section presents evidence from the textbooks foregrounding, backgrounding and framing topics the textbook real english 2 consists of 10 units and each unit features different themes such as geography, earth power, agriculture, welfare, history, communication and information technology, profession, money and international relations. within each unit, the author introduces different topics which are associated with the theme of the unit. having examined these topics, i classified them into four thematic categories: british social practices, general knowledge, science and technology, global issues, and social practices in indonesia and the rest of the world. the use of foregrounding in the textbooks is reflected in the way the writer gives prominence to social practices and traditions in britain. as can be seen from table 1, texts about british social practices form the bulk of the textbook, while only a small percentage of the textbook is allocated to description of social practices in indonesia and the rest of the world. table 1.text distribution in real english 2 thematic categories british social practices general knowledge, science and technology global issues social practices in indonesia and the rest of the world. units 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8. 9, 10 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 1, 2, 6, 10 2,4,6,8,9 number of texts 23 16 10 7 percentage 41 % 28.5% 17.8% 12.5% the second textbook, real english 3, shows an even more marked imbalance of text distribution. as in the case of real english 2, the second textbook real english 3 consists of 10 units, and each unit features different thematic titles such as economics, science and technology, politics, art and culture, society and population, trade and industry, international relations, energy, and the role of women. the distribution of texts based on thematic categories is presented in table 2. 56  e-issn: 2621-6485 table 2.text distribution in real english 3 as reflected in table 2, in the second textbook the description of social practices in britain takes up half of the total text distribution, while other discourses share the rest. the pattern of foregrounding in these two textbooks suggests that a great deal of prominence is being attached to britain and its social practices, whereas the social practices in indonesia and the rest of the world are given less or small significance. by doing this, the author constructs britain and its social practices as the dominant discourse in the minds of readers. the pervasive accounts of british social practices and english as an international language simultaneously function to invoke the notion of britain as a center of excellence, and mastery of english as key to many highly valued social goods. tables 3 and 4 show the different themes about britain which dominate the textbooks. thematic categories british social practices general knowledge, science and technology global issues social practices in indonesia and the rest of the world units 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10 1,2,6,9. 3,5,6,8,9,10. 1,4,5,6, 7, 9. number of texts 36 11 13 10 percentage 51% 15.7% 18,5% 14.2% eltej issn: 2621-6485  budairi 57 table 3.themes about britain in real english 2 unit thematic titles topics 1 geography weather conditions in britain and europe (pp. 9-10). 3 culture the city of london (pp. 44-45), holiday in london (pp. 56-57). 4 agriculture how british authority handles animal disease (p. 73) animal inspection procedure (p. 74) british government ‘s compensation for farmers (p. 77). 5 welfare british welfare system (pp. 81-82), illegal immigrants entering uk (p. 86), unemployment in uk (pp. 87-88), jobs allowance application, (p. 90), the influx of eastern europe immigrants, (p. 93). 7 communication and information technology making an invitation in english (p. 132), british teenage party (p. 134). 8 profession poll on public perception about professions in britain (pp. 139-140), most respected profession in britain (p. 146), british lottery (p. 150). 9 money credit card security (p. 162), the cost of going to university in britain and australia (pp. 163164). 10 international relations british protection for child education (p. 188) 58  e-issn: 2621-6485 table 4.themes about britain in real english 3 unit thematic titles topics 1 economics plain english campaign in britain (p. 21). 2 science and technology early inventions by british scientists (pp. 27-28), medical research and inventions by british scientists (pp. 33-34), an interview between thomas alfa edison with a reporter in february 1991 (pp. 39-40). 3 politics the british parliament (pp. 45-46), the queen‘s speech at the parliament (p. 48), the british monarch and the role of the queen (pp. 49-50), british and american election (pp. 51-52), the british prime minister‘s question time (pp. 6162), the hansard reporters, (p. 62) 4 arts and culture the history of liverpool, a multicultural city and the european capital of culture (pp. 65-66), audition at the liverpool institute for performing arts (pp. 77-78), successful story of a former liverpool student (p. 82), prospectus of the liverpool institute for performing arts (p. 83). 5 society and population early british settlers in new england and australia (pp. 87-88), illegal immigrants entering uk and australia (pp. 92-93), a somali refugee boy in england (pp. 101-102). 7 trade and industry early industrialization in britain and asian countries (pp. 134-135), british textile industry (p. 136), british call centers (pp. 138-139), the royal doulton company, (p. 145). 8 international relation international rescue corps (p. 157) 9 energy power sources and industrial revolution in britain (pp. 171-172). 10 the role of women the life story of lady diana (pp. 191-192). as reflected in tables 3 and 4, the topics about britain are selected to allow the author to foreground the positive aspects of british social practices. on the contrary, not much is said about the positive aspects of social practices in indonesia. as can be seen from tables 5 and 6, topics such as earthquake in jakarta, tsunami in aceh, atm fraud experience, indonesian workers as domestic servants overseas, and indonesian endangered orang-utans represent the bleaker sides of indonesia. eltej issn: 2621-6485  budairi 59 the other seemingly positive topics such as crops grown in indonesia, indonesian fishing industry, indonesian furniture export and western company in indonesia are nevertheless used by the author to indirectly emphasize the superiority of the west and the center and to de-emphasize the positive aspects of indonesia. for example, a topic such as ‘crops grown in indonesia’ is presented with foregrounded elements of capitalism, hence ultimately serving the interest of the center as an exporter of this ideology. this can be found in the sentence, “crops such as sugar cane, spices, tea, coffee, palm oil, cocoa, rubber and tobacco all provide the country with much needed export income” (p. 66). here, exporting crops to other (western) countries is being framed as the primary purpose of growing crops in indonesia. table 5.topics about indonesia in real english 2 unit thematic title topics about indonesia 2 earth’s power earthquake in jakarta (p. 26), tsunami in aceh (pp. 29-30), 4 agriculture crops grown in indonesia’s fertile land (p. 66), indonesian fishing industry (pp. 68-69). 6 history history of indonesian struggle for independence (pp. 114-115). 8 professions job adverts (p. 148). 9 money atm fraud experience (p. 169). table 6.topics about indonesia in real english 3 unit thematic title topics 1 economics indonesian craftsmen and women (pp. 1011), indonesian furniture export (p. 13), a foreign buyer ordering furniture from local workshop (p. 16). 4 arts and culture indonesia’s six world heritage sites (pp. 69-70). 5 society and population indonesian workers as domestic servants overseas (p. 97). 6 environment and preservation indonesian endangered orang-utans (p. 112), adventure holiday in sumatra (p. 121), preparation for adventure holiday in sumatra (p. 127). 7 trade and industry a western company in indonesia (p. 143). 9 energy indonesia’s different sources of energy (p. 182). similarly, topics such as atm fraud experience and indonesians working as domestic helpers overseas are included as part of the discursive strategy to construct the discourse of indonesia as a backward and less civilized country. for example, in real english 2 (p. 26), the author uses a character named ‘mr. 60  e-issn: 2621-6485 idi otic’ to share his experience about the earthquake in jakarta. the use of such a name for an indonesian character is clearly condescending and reflects the binary perspectives and stereotypes long held by the west about the third world. in fact, in unit 4 of real english 3, indonesian culture is described as mainly constituting buildings and natural sites, viewing culture as being detached and separate from the people, instead of focusing on the creative minds and ideas found in the diverse and rich traditions of different ethnic groups in indonesia. the dominant discourse of britain serves more to highlight the many positive aspects of british social practices. upon reading the texts, the audience is expected to build a mental model which links britain with the notion of english as a key to acquiring many highly valued social goods. it is in this light that the author established a link between the dominant discourse of britain throughout the text and the discourse of english being enacted in the texts. visuals there are abundant examples in the textbooks where visual images have been used by the author to help foreground and frame britain as a center of excellence. the images of britain such as ‘the prime minister speaks’, ‘indian in central london’, ‘shakespeare’s globe theatre’, ‘london national history museum’, ‘liverpool’s historic saint george hall’, ‘the magical mystery tour’, ‘a job center plus’, ‘a channel tunnel train’, ‘mr. marsh and john’ and ‘port of dover’ all contribute to the foregrounding of britain as a center of excellence. while images of britain are generally positive, images of other countries like indonesia and the rest of the world tend to be negative and bleak. some images are even juxtaposed to provide a contrast between britain or european countries and the third world. for example, in the text about weather (real english 2, p. 10), the author included two contrasting pictures: the winter in northern europe where people enjoy ice skating and the rainy season in southeast asia where buildings are inundated by floodwaters. it might be hard to conceive such juxtaposition as merely a matter of text illustration. rather, it may reflect the author’s discursive strategy to cast britain in positive light while simultaneously invoking the grim picture of the third world through the discussion of weather. one might wonder if the author could have otherwise featured a picture of rainy season in indonesia in a much more favorable way. a similar use of visuals to foreground the backwardness of the third world can be found in the text about women's rights (real english 3, pp. 192193) where the author presented two contasting pictures as text illustration. the first picture: ‘a man beating women’ projects the sweeping generalization that oppression against women’s rights is still rampant in the third world and that the same never happens in the west. by contrast, the second picture: ‘british girls receive their exam results’ highlights absolute protection and respect for women’s rights, which guarantees them equal opportunities to pursue the best education. eltej issn: 2621-6485  budairi 61 recommendations for pedagogical values in this section i would like to recommend some modifications to the textbooks under investigation. first the reading texts, which are mostly bland and unimaginative. the inclusion of approximately two to four reading texts in each chapter is something to be applauded, especially if it can lead to extensive reading. however, as the texts are organized around a chapter topic, there is not much variation of register and genre, and some are too technical and britishspecific to engage readers. for example, chapter 2 of real english 2 includes five reading texts of different length which discuss the british political system. they are ‘the british parliament’ (pp. 45-46), ‘the queen’s speech at the parliament’ (p. 48), ‘the british monarch and the role of the queen’ (pp. 4950), british and american election, (pp. 51-52), the british prime minister’s question time, (pp. 61-62), and ‘the hansard reporters’ (p. 62). it is worth questioning whether all of these topics are appealing and familiar to high school students in indonesia. similar tendencies in the two textbooks can be seen in tables 3 and 4. there is a lack of attention given to the role of fiction as a way to engage learners in the pleasures of reading, and help them develop a reading habit. the inclusion of fiction in the textbooks is likely to cater for learners’ affect and imagination, which in turn would make learning more interesting and engaging. in the same vein, it might be worth considering incorporating a variety of cultures into the course books. in this regard, bao (2006), suggests a number of reasons for the inclusion of international culture in course books. among other things is the fact that english has become the language of the multicultural world. he argues that learners need to have a reasonable understanding of the sociocultural views of both native and non-native speakers of english, to enable them to become successful communicators, receptive to different interpretations of world views. another kind of improvement can be made to the level of familiarity of topic contents, striking a balance between novelty and familiarity. as suggested by bao (2016), good materials utilize learners’ individual knowledge. as the reading texts are predominantly about the discourse of britain and the west, learners are barely given a chance to relate to their own cultural resources. for example, topics like ‘the hansard reporters’ (real english 3, p. 62), and ‘cyclone hardy’ (real english 2, p. 15) are likely to be alienating and boring for eleventh and twelfth grade students. the same is true of a speaking task in real english 2 (p. 14) which asks learners to work in pairs to make up a dialogue in which one of them gives advice to the other about staying healthy during a visit to european countries. obviously, the task could be very difficult for learners who have never been abroad or lived in such countries. thus, it is important that learners are given a chance to utilize their personal knowledge in communication tasks; textbooks might then be more stimulating and engaging, both affectively and intellectually. 62  e-issn: 2621-6485 conclusion the analysis of the two textbooks has strongly suggested the presence of imbalanced power relations enacted through discursive strategies. the textbooks' author has constructed the texts in a subtle way to propagate the superiority of the western tradition and its contemporary practices. we could see how the discourse of britain is socially constructed and produced to be circulated and consumed by the public, and in particular students. the two textbooks are laden with sprawling portrayals of the superior practices and values known in britain (and the west). the discursive strategies such as foregrounding and framing enacted throughout the textbooks could be understood as part of the author’s strategy to control the audience's reaction to the text. the author of these textbooks applied constraint on content to achieve his goal: to promote and preserve the dominance of the west over the periphery countries like indonesia. it is at this stage of discursive process that we begin to see the truth of the selective tradition: that the selection of certain meanings and practices to be emphasized is part of hegemonic practices by the more dominant class (william, 1989) and how textbooks serve as an ideological messsage system for trasmitting the dominant values and beliefs of society (apple, 1992). this reminds us of the notion of discourse imperialism (pennycook, 1994) and linguistic imperialism (philipson, 1994) where the expansion of english also comes with the propagation of its many highly valued social and economic benefits that it brings so as to help expand international capitalism through elt industry. it is also interesting to see how power relations may have come into play in the case of the textbooks under investigation. given the author’s background (peter james, a native briton with a postgraduate certificate in elt), we could imagine the power he assumed, generated both from his credentials, especially his being a native speaker, as well as the high stature of english as a foreign language in indonesia. this is perhaps one of the reasons why the books were able to meet the requirements of being prescribed as supplementary textbooks. this study provides a glimpse of how the dominant, powerful inner circle countries have positioned peripheral countries like indonesia; how they produce values associated with britain to be consumed, circulated and naturalized. in all of these instances, we are reminded that literacy practice is always inextricably linked to cultural and power structures in society (street, 1993). the textbooks under investigation have not, to a large extent, done justice to the discourse of the third world—by giving undue prominence to the discourse of britain as a center of excellence with many highly valued social goods. eltej issn: 2621-6485  budairi 63 references allwright, r. (1981). what do we want teaching materials for? eltj, 36(1), pp. 5-18. apple, m.w. (1992). the text and cultural politics, educational researcher, 21, pp. 4-19. bao, d. (2016). improvement in today’s elt materials development. in azarnoosh, m, zeraatpishe, m, faravani, a, & kargozari, h.r (eds) issues in material development. pp. 193-205. rotterdam: sense publishers. bao, d. (2006). developing materials for local markets: issues and consideratio ns. in j. mukundan (ed.) readings on materials ii pp. 52-76. selangor: pearson longman. beaugrande, r. de. (1996). the story of discourse analysis. in teun van dijk (ed.), introduction to discourse analysis (pp. 35-62). london: sage edge, j. & wharton, s. (1998). autonomy and development: living in the materials world. in b. tomlinson (ed.), materials development in language teaching. pp. 295-310. cambridge: cambridge university press fairclough, n. (1995a). critical discourse analysis. london: longman fairclough, n. (1995b). media discourse. london: edward arnold freeman, d. (2014) reading comprehension questions: the distribution of different types in global efl textbooks. in english language teaching textbooks: content, consumption,production. pp. 72-110. basingstoke: palgrave macmillan huckin, t.n. (1997). critical discourse analysis. in t. miller (ed.) functional approaches to written texts: classroom applications. pp. 78-92. washington, d.c.: united states information agency. luke. a. (1988). literacy, textbooks and ideology: postwar literacy instruction and the mythology of dick and jane. cambridge: polity press mcgrath, i. (2002). materials evaluation and design for language teaching. edinburgh: edinburgh university press pennycook, a. (1994). the cultural politics of english as an international language. essex: longman 64  e-issn: 2621-6485 street, b. (ed.) (1993). cross cultural approaches to literacy. cambridge: cambridge university press sheldon, l. 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(eds.), handbook of pragmatics, amsterdam, netherlands: john benjamins, (204-210). english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 3, 2018, pp. 149-160 e-issn: 2621-6485 multiple studies: the influence of collaborative learning approach on indonesian secondary high school students’ english-speaking skill berli arta monash university, australia bart0001@student.monash.edu abstract to respond the globalization, the importance of english communication skills including speaking skill increases. looking at indonesian context, secondary high school students find spoken english much more difficult than written english. students are good at grammar, reading, and writing but they can hardly speak (hairdara, 2016). this article proposes collaborative learning approach (cla) as one suitable solution to solve the obstacles of sharpening english speaking skill due to its benefits. the discussion of this investigation highlights some benefits of cla in developing speaking skill and the challenges need to be considered as well. receiving well proven evidence of its benefits, cla is recommended to be implemented in the teaching and learning of english speaking skill. as the results of this investigation, there are three main benefits of cla whose implementation can reduce language anxiety, raise students’ participation, and increase students’ self-confidence. keywords: collaborative learning approach (cla), benefits, and english-speaking skills how to cite: arta, b. (2018). multiple studies: the influence of collaborative learning approach on indonesian secondary high school students’ english-speaking skills. english language teaching educational journal, 1(3), 149-160. introduction background, definition, significance one of the consequences resulting from globalization is the increasing demand of the ability to communicate using english. to respond this phenomenon, indonesian students are demanded to be able to speak english. however, spoken english still seems difficult for many indonesian secondary high school students. haidara’s (2016) research reports that many indonesian secondary high school students are good at english written tests like reading and writing, but most of them still are hardly able to speak. meanwhile, “the mastery of speaking skill in learning any language including english is a priority for many second or foreign language learners” (haidara, 2016). there are some factors that can hinder students’ mailto:bart0001@student.monash.edu eltej issn: 2621-6485  arta 150 improvement in speaking skill. these factors can be lack of practice, high language anxiety, and lack of confidence (haidara, 2016). in response to these problems, one solution could be the collaborative learning approach (cla). many studies have shown the positive language learning outcomes of this approach in which students can engage and gain more opportunities to practice target languages in the classroom activities (thousand, villa &nevin, 1994; macaro, 1997; nunan, 1992). however, it seems that most of the indonesian teachers are not familiar enough with this approach. therefore, further research on cla would be beneficial for teaching practice where students’ speaking skill could be nurtured. collaborative learning is a process of learning in which students collaborate together to attain ‘common learning goals’ (macaro, 1997). it implies that cla is established through pairs or group works to involve students during learning process. there are at least five attributes of this approach. they are: “1) a common task or learning activity suitable for group work, 2) small-group learning, 3) cooperative behavior, 4) interdependence, and 5) individual accountability and responsibility” (davison, 1994, p. 25). all these attributes can facilitate students to develop their speaking skill. considering these features of cla, hence, this critical article will argue that collaborative learning is very beneficial to develop indonesian secondary high school students’ speaking skill. this main argument is constructed by the possible benefits of collaborative learning on speaking skill, such as reducing language anxiety, encouraging active participation, and increasing confidence and selfesteem. this study also provides a significant insight to overcome the problems of students’ english speaking skill. additionally, it will demonstrate the use of cla in teaching english speaking skills. at the end, it will give the article conclusion in which it will summarize the key points and provide some recommendation of further implementation of collaborative learning in english language teaching. based on these, english teachers also can benefit from this investigation in a way that they can insert collaborative learning approach into their teaching practice. in addition, of this study will provide different perspectives how collaborative learning approach influences the proficiency of english speaking skill. thus, english teachers or english education researchers can consider proper adjustments and modifications of the cla implementations to enhance their students’ english speaking skill. 151 e-issn: 2621-6485 research methods to understand the purposes of this study, the research questions are listed as follows: a. what are the benefits of collaborative learning approach on students’ speaking skill? b. what are the challenges of implementing collaborative learning approach in indonesian secondary high school level? c. how can the challenges of cla implementations be overcome? the research methodology of this study is literature review. to demonstrate the topic of the investigation, the first step is collecting academic literatures relevant to collaborative learning approach and english-speaking skill. the selected literature are gathered from books and articles of reliable academic journals. then evaluating and analyzing these academic sources are done critically to frame the issue and construct arguments. as mentioned above, another focus of the article is to elaborate the benefits of cla in developing students’ english-speaking skill and there are three benefits of it i.e. to decrease language anxiety during english classroom activities, the second one is to increase the participations of the students to take a part in learning, and to help students enhance their confidence in speaking english. the benefits of collaborative learning on english speaking skill reducing language anxiety the first benefit of collaborative learning approach (cla) on students’ speaking ability is to reduce the language anxiety. “anxiety is defined as distress or uneasiness of the mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune. general anxiety is the excessive and exaggerated worry about everyday things” (suleimenova, 2013). foreign language learners often experience anxiety in speaking the target language because the classroom environments seem threatening for students (dornyei, 2002). firstly, cla can contribute in reducing language anxiety because it offers safe environments of learning english as a foreign language in order that the language anxiety decreases. performing speaking english in small groups can make students feel more comfortable in making language mistakes then trying to deliver a speech in front of large groups of students. when a student sets an attempt to express an idea using english, only members of the group can listen (dalisa, 2015). the fear of eltej issn: 2621-6485  arta 152 making mistakes like mispronunciation or grammatical errors can diminish due to less threat of being judged by teachers or the entire classroom members (dornyei, 2002). secondly, cla facilitates students to support each other instead of competing. the common goals of learning particular english materials lead students to encourage all students to participate in achieving the target goals (dornyei, 2002), for example, performing a drama in which each member of the group should work together starting from preparing the plots of drama to practicing prior to the show in order to exhibit good performance. cla benefits in terms of providing social supports from peers as stated by dornyei (2002). to prevent language anxiety in english language learning classrooms, dornyei (2002) suggests avoiding competitions and promoting cooperation. cooperative behaviors generated by students through cla environments can let students feel less anxious to produce a speech or conversation among members of the groups (dornyei, 2002). thirdly, being set in a group helps students build a level of trust to share their feelings (gregersen, 2017). shy students can feel less reluctant to put their effort into practice of speaking skills due to the belief that peers would appreciate what they try to contribute (gregersen, 2017). this trust among group members gradually lessens fears or nervousness in communicating their ideas using the target language. as can be seen, cla plays essential roles in reducing language anxiety in speaking english by creating supportive environments of learning. although the above evidence may be true, drawbacks of cla in reducing language anxiety exist though, due to some reasons. the first drawback is that cla promotes interdependence to each other among students (gregersen, 2017). it implies that the success of completing a set task in cla classrooms relies on the contributions made by each member of the group. gregersen (2017, p. 122) argues that group works can “make students feel that they succeed and fail as a team”. hence, cla will trigger students to be afraid of making mistakes of performing their speaking skill because their failures will be seen as a part of group’s failures. as this pressure can hinder students’ willingness to contribute, students keep worrying that their contributions may create disadvantages to their groups. the second limitation is there is possible social incident that can appear during conducting cla activities. ‘social incident’ like disrespect in group learning can bother students’ confidence or cause fear in contributing (järvelä, volet, &järvenoja, 2010). insufficient understandings of respects among students can cause students to easily laugh or ridicule at their friends’ performance. finally, they become reluctant to express their ideas in the group discussion and the anxiety cannot be eliminated or even get increased. 153 e-issn: 2621-6485 to overcome the issue of pressure in providing good contribution to group and social incident, english teachers and students should have the same understanding about the concept of collaborative learning. the core concept of cla is about learning knowledge, skills, and competencies together (serrano-cámara et al., 2014). what students should do is to learn from each other by sharing language inputs and giving feedback to peers. once students understand the goal of cla, they can feel more comfortable to take a part in group discussion. macaro (1997) argues that students perceive learning collaboratively helps them gain better understanding of language and more ideas from small group. they believe so because the learning process they experience is done by helping each other (macaro, 1997). the values of helping each other in learning english can prevent social incident to occur. holding the supportive values, students can realize that each of them has strengths and weaknesses, so they can respect strengths and weaknesses of the other group members. eventually, cla can be very effective to minimize the level of language anxiety due to promoting secure learning environments, developing trust among students and helping each other. to sum, students can benefit from cla especially to reduce language anxiety. students can feel that speaking is less threatening when teachers are not around them (macaro, 1997). in addition, cla mediates students to encourage and learn cooperatively so the fear of producing mistakes may be less influential to students’ learning performance. active participation once students can feel less anxious in starting conversations, they tend to maintain their participation in the learning process. therefore, the second benefit of cla regarding speaking skill is it increases students’ participation. besides providing secure learning environments to increase students’ involvements, cla also promotes more opportunities for students to practice speaking english. manurung (2015) emphasizes the importance of opening wide opportunities to practice in the teaching of speaking. looking at indonesian contexts, generally each class consists of thirty up to forty students. moreover, the english learning hours are so limited approximately only two meetings a week. hence, many students cannot get adequate chance to practice their speaking skill during classroom activities. eltej issn: 2621-6485  arta 154 however, the sufficient opportunities can be provided through cla in which students can try starting to talk using english in small groups. each member of the chosen group is encouraged to take a turn in explaining ideas and counted as important resource person (nunan, 1992). another benefit of cla on students’ learning participation is individual accountability. each student’s participation that is acknowledged can support students to keep contributing to their groups (gregesen, 2017). take jigsaw as illustration, each member of group has their own job distribution and they must apply the abilities of gaining information from other groups; taking notes of the findings; and making the findings public by precise communication to their ‘home group’ (davidson, 1994). during the exploration of the given task, students can perceive how important their participation is because their presence is recognized by the learning process. furthermore, the sense of accountability makes students improve their sense of responsibility at their learning achievements as a part of collaborative group works. “the true interaction is actually to engage students’ awareness that they are not alone to finish class-works, they have their potency among individuals to accomplish all the tasks” (slavin, 2014, as cited in anwar, 2016, p. 225). the awareness of individual roles and collective efforts in achieving group goals trigger all members to be active in completing the tasks cooperatively. in a word, cla increases students’ engagements in speaking activities due to the increasing opportunities, level of individual accountability and responsibility in getting involved in the whole classroom activities. however, cla receives some critiques though, due to the potential social challenges that may hinder students’ engagements in the learning process. “groups can face multiple types of social challenges, which interfere with the social process of learning and task completion” (järvelä, volet,&järvenoja, 2010). the first challenge is social conflict. when students cannot come to consensus due to their ego to stick on their own opinions, this situation may lead students to be less involved. conflicts of students’ goals, characteristics, and interests can be obstacles to learning participations (ja¨rvenoja&ja¨rvela, 2009). it cannot be denied that reaching a consensus is difficult because students’ views on a task can be diverse. take ‘role play’ as an example, students can refuse to take a certain role that they dislike to do or two or some students wish to choose the same jobs or roles. if the conflict cannot be solved soon, the learning process cannot work as expected. then students’ speaking performance may seem impossible to occur because the unsolved dispute still restrains their willingness to take a part of collaborative works. the second challenge is students’ diversity that can influence social communication 155 e-issn: 2621-6485 during group discussion. students tend to feel comfortable to stay in a group with those whose characters or social and cultural backgrounds are similar. hence, students may experience communication difficulty generated by “interpersonal dynamics”, such as different priorities and expectations in learning; different styles of working or communicating; the tendency of some individuals to rely on others to do their share of the work, and power dynamics among members” (arvaja, salovaara, hakkinen, &jarvela, 2007, as cited in järvelä, volet, &järvenoja, 2010, p. 17). in short, the emerging issues regarding social conflicts and diversity seem so challenging for students to participate in group works especially speaking aspects. even though some researchers believe that social challenges may occur due to difficulty in making agreements and differences, cla is still believed as a good language learning approach that can increase students’ engagements. this is because working as a group is a gradual process in which students need time to build relationship and value one another as learning partners (macdonell, 1992). the conflict mentioned above is just a temporary problem. moreover, in collaborative environments students are interdependent and share common targets, which in turn construct ‘feeling of solidarity’ and ‘comradely supportiveness’ (dornyei, 2002). the effects of those feelings can influence students to take their parts voluntarily and emerging disputes can be solved through supportive discussion. learning participation will not be seen as a burden, instead it can look like a fun for them. dornyei (2002) even emphasizes that students tend to like each other regardless of ethnic, cultural, class, or ability differences when working together. the differences are good to facilitate them to develop social relationship and friendship as they practice respecting and accepting the diversity among them. the communication difficulty as mentioned above will gradually diminish and fade and it will no longer be an obstacle for increasing students’ engagement in learning process. in brief, cla has essential roles in elevating learning involvement of students. it provides more opportunities and it also saves time. each student must have turns to demonstrate their speaking skills according to particular tasks or contexts. in addition, every individual is accountable and responsible to contribute to learning outcomes of groups which students belong to. even though there are some challenges that may appear and interfere relationship among them, those challenges are still manageable for students. instead, they can build stronger relationship regardless of eltej issn: 2621-6485  arta 156 differences they have and their learning participation of english speaking activities significantly rises. increasing self-confidence to speak english the third benefit of cla in improving students’ english-speaking skill is development of self-confidence and self-esteem. as mentioned above, students encourage one another in collaborative groups. “such groups can increase learners’ psychological health by providing a nurturing environment” (kohonen, 1992). moreover, mitigating the language anxiety and increasing opportunities to practice, cla gradually can develop students’ confidence in speaking english. this is because cla provides social interactions that are necessary to shift students’ confidence as well as self-esteem (kohonen, 1992). to be confident, one needs other people to shape it by intensively communicating ideas or feelings and confirming curiosities or interests (dornyei, 2002). “self-esteem and self-confidence are social products, which means that they are created by people around us”, (dornyei, 2002, p.90). the more students interact with their peers using english, the more confident they will be to employ english as a medium of communication. this is in line with anwar’s (2016, p.228) point of view that “self-confidence emerges by itself when the opportunity and the frequency of sharing and discussing have been accumulated”. furthermore, cla allows students to have experiences of success in learning. dornyei (2002) believes that there is no better way for building selfconfidence than to generate sense of success. in cla classrooms, sense of success is built by multiple efforts students do in attempting to speak english. as the language anxiety can be prevented and students’ participations are supported by cla, students can feel braver to put an effort. starting to try their performance, students will realize that they are better than they thought before. once they can demonstrate a successful effort, they will stay motivated to improve their current abilities. finally, their self-confidence can grow well due to sense of achievements. in addition, self-confidence can develop in cla due to the involvements of four behaviors of confidence. four behaviors that are considered as confidence are willingness to take risks, to confront problems, to raise questions, and to discuss difficult issues (clark, & gakuru, 2014). being accountable and responsible in contributing to their groups, each learner is encouraged to face challenges of completing their parts. at the first effort, taking a part in group discussion looks like a burden for them because they are obliged to do so. the more they engage with group interaction, the more they get used to facing possible risks of group discussion. furthermore, collaborative working improves sense of community where sympathy 157 e-issn: 2621-6485 among students emerges due to social support from one to another. “without a feeling of community people are on their own, likely to be anxious, defensive and unwilling to take the risks involved in learning” (wegerif, 1998, as cited in van den bossche et al., 2006, p. 551). similarly, the behaviors of confronting problems, raising questions, discussing difficult issue are shaped through tasks completion done by students. assigned a certain role in a group, individuals learn to face their own problems as a team. this situation can eliminate the threat of confronting a problem of the given tasks due to feeling of togetherness (anwar, 2016). during group discussions, students can learn to ask their own questions to satisfy their curiosity and demonstrate their opinions of given issues (mcdonell, 1992). in ‘buying and selling in markets’ as an example, students can apply their english knowledge of not only asking prices but also bargaining prices of products. all in all, as four behaviors of confidence are shaped well in cla environments, students can become more confident in speaking english. conclusion in conclusion, this article has shown that cla has significant benefits of improving students’ speaking skills of english. the first benefit is that language anxiety declines due to less threatening learning environments, cooperative behaviors and social supports generated by students. another benefit is increasing students’ active engagements in the learning process. students are encouraged to take a part of group discussions and they are accountable and responsible on their own roles in their groups. moreover ‘feeling of solidarity’ and ‘comradely supportiveness’ can increase students’ willingness to participate actively in classroom process (dornyei, 2002). the last benefit students can get from cla in improving their speaking skills is the growing self-confidence to speak english. this is because cla allows students to gain senses of achievements and develops four behaviors of confidence like taking risks, confronting problems, asking questions, and discussing difficult issues. consequently, the implementation of cla is really recommended to teach english speaking skill. in the future investigation, it is suggested to examine the influences of cla on the other english skills such as listening, reading, and writing. such research is very important to monitor developments of all skills in collaborative groups. besides teachers also must provide various activities regarding cla principles in order to eltej issn: 2621-6485  arta 158 involve students’ participations in learning process. such efforts are highly necessary to improve qualities of teaching english as foreign language in indonesian contexts. therefore, the better improvement of cla can influence teaching and learning english in better ways. references anwar, k. (2016). panel discussion and the development of students' self confidence. english language teaching, 9(4), 224-229. doi: 10.5539/elt.v9n4p224 clark, n.m. & gakuru o.n. (2014). the effect on health and self-confidence of participation in collaborative learning activities. health education & behavior 41(5), 476 – 484. doi: 10.1177/1090198114549157 dalisa, y. (2015). reducing anxiety in speaking english through pair work. jurnal pendidikan dan pembelajaran, 4(2). retrieved from http://jurnal.untan.ac.id/index.php/jpdpb/article/view/8951 davidson, n. (1994). cooperative and collaborative learning. in j.s. thousand, r.a. villa & a.i. nevin (eds). creativity and collaborative learning: a practical guide to empowering students and teachers (pp. 13-27). new york: paul h. brookes publishing co., inc. dornyei, z. (2002). motivational strategies in the language classroom. cambridge: cambridge university press. gregersen, t. (2017). improving the interaction of communicatively anxious students using cooperative learning. lenguas modernas, (26-27), 119-133. retrieved from https://revistas.uchile.cl/index.php/lm/article/viewfile/45488/47555 haidara, y. (2016). psychological factor affecting english speaking performance for the english learners in indonesia. universal journal of educational research 4(7), 1501-1505. doi: 10.13189/ujer.2016.040701 imai, y. (2010). emotions in sla: new insights from collaborative learning for an efl classroom. the modern language journal, 94(2), 278-292. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2010.01021.x http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/10.1177%2f1090198114549157 http://jurnal.untan.ac.id/index.php/jpdpb/article/view/8951 https://revistas.uchile.cl/index.php/lm/article/viewfile/45488/47555 159 e-issn: 2621-6485 järvelä, s., volet, s., and järvenoja, h. (2010). research on motivation in collaborative learning: moving beyond the cognitive situative divide and combining individual and social processes. educational psychologist, 45(1), 15-27. doi: 10.1080/00461520903433539 ja¨rvenoja, h., &ja¨rvela, s. (2009). emotion control in collaborative learning situations: do students regulate emotions evoked by social challenges?.british journal of educational psychology, 79, 463–481. doi:10.1348/000709909x40281 kohonen, v. (1992). experiential language learning: second language learning as cooperative learner education. in d. nunan (eds.), collaborative language learning and teaching (pp. 14-39). cambridge: cambridge university press. macdonell, w. (1992). the role of teacher in the cooperative classroom. in c. kessler (eds.), cooperative language learning (pp. 51-63). new jersey: prentice-hall, inc. macaro, e. (1997). target language, collaborative learning, and autonomy. bristol: multilingual matters ltd. nunan, d. (1992). collaborative language learning and teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. suleimenova, z. (2013). speaking anxiety in a foreign language classroom in kazakhstan. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 93, 1860-1868. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.131 thousand, j.s., villa, r.a., and nevin, a.i. (1994). creativity and collaborative learning: a practical guide to empowering students and teachers. new jersey: paul h. brookes publishing co., inc. http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1080/00461520903433539 http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1080/00461520903433539 http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1080/00461520903433539 http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/toc/hedp20/45/1 eltej issn: 2621-6485  arta 160 tuncel, h. (2015). the relationship between self-confidence and learning turkish as a foreign language. educational research and reviews, 10(18), pp. 2575-2589. doi: 10.5897/err2015.2445 van den bossche, p., gijselaers, w. h., segers, m., &kirschner, p. a. (2006). social and cognitive factors driving teamwork in collaborative learning environments: team learning beliefs and behaviors. small group research, 37(5), 490-521. doi: 10.1177/1046496406292938 english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 2, 2018, pp. 97-105 e-issn: 2621-6485 the dynamicity of the perceptive verb look: a cognitive linguistics study prayudha, s.pd., m.a. department of english education, universitas ahmad dahlan prayudha@pbi.uad.ac.id abstract perceptive verbs have important function, especially in cognitive linguistics perspective, because these verbs are directly related to real experience. cognitive linguistics focuses on the study of the relationship between language, mind, and socio-physical experience. thus, this paper discusses how the lexical semantic characteristics particularly the dynamicity or aktionsarten of the verb look. the verb look itself consists agentive and perceptive verb class. the dynamicity of agentive and the perceptive verb look were analyzed using distributional method combined with several techniques. most of the verb look constructions appear as phrasal verbs. at least, there are 17 phrasal verbs with look as the root and the constructions consist of at least 20 different meanings. the dynamicity test is also applicated for the phrasal verbs. the results of the research show unique lexical characteristics of the perceptive verb look and it influence the meaning as well as the construction of the verb. the relationship between lexical characteristic with its construction shows the schema of cognition processing language. keywords: perceptive verbs; cognitive linguistics, dynamicity, aktionsarten how to cite: prayudha, p. (2018). the dynamicity of the perceptive verb look: a cognitive linguistics study. english language teaching educational journal, 1(2), 97-105. introduction perceptive verbs are special, especially in cognitive linguistics. it is because cognitive linguistics focuses on the study of the relationship between language, mind, and socio-physical experience. perceptive verbs have important function because these verbs are directly related to real experience. the verbs are the most basic verbs. related to perceptive verb, gisborne (2010: 181-182) says, “i claim that verbs of perception are special precisely because they are directly embodied and experiental… after all, we only become aware of motion and causation via perception, so in this sense, perception is even more basic”. that is why perceptive is very beneficial to be analyzed. thus, this paper discusses lexical semantic characteristics of verbs, particularly the dynamicity of the verb look. semantic features are related to the meaning and semantic properties of a verb lexically. the lexical characteristic is related to the dynamicity of a verb. van vallin (2005) says, "to be able to determine the structure of an argument from mailto:prayudha@pbi.uad.ac.id eltej issn: 2621-6485  prayudha 98 a verb, the first thing to do is to ascertain actionsarten (the level of dynamism) of the verb" (p.59). this discussion is important to investigate the verb look. this is because the lexical semantic characteristics of the verb look will influence the structure of the argument. a notable research which inspired the study is a research from gisborne (2010) entitled the event structure of perception verbs. one of the discussions in the research is about dynamicity or aktionsarten. according to brinton (1988, in gisborne, 2010), aktiansarten is referred as actions which consist of: dynamism, telicity, and duration. gisborne (2010) discuses dynamicity of perception verb in general. some of his theories and approaches about perceptive verb are used in the research. in order to find out how lexical semantic of the verb look, the step that must be done fist is to describe the definition of look. this definition will illustrate the lexical characteristics of the verb look. the definition is taken from the fourth edition of the oxford advanced learner dictionary. in the dictionary, the verb look has two definitions. the first definition is ‘to turn one's eyes in a particular direction in order to see somebody or something.' the second definition of the verb look is ‘to seem to be; to appear ' or ‘looks like'. the verb look itself is a type of regular verb which is affixed {-ed} in the second and third form that is looked. from the definition above, look can be classified into several types. levin (1993) classifies verbs which has the same characteristics with look as perceptive verbs: a verb related to stimulus. cognitive linguistics cognitive linguistics is a relatively new study. the study that emerged in the late 1970s and began to develop in the 1980s tried to get out of the dominance of the formal approach in linguistic studies at that time. the birth of cognitive linguistics is influenced by the development of cognitive studies regarding memory, perception, attention, and categorization at that time especially cognitive psychology. cognitive linguistics focuses on the study of the relationship between language, mind, and socio-physical experience. the relationship between the three according to geeraerts and cuyckens (2007) is that the formal structure of language is not learned autonomously, but rather a reflection on general conceptual organization through the categorization principles and processing mechanisms and the influence of experience as well as environment. by that postulate, the definition of language becomes different in the cognitive linguistics perceptive. lakoff (1990 in evans, bergan, & zinken, 2007) explains that cognitive linguistics has a number of key commitments. evans & green (2006) divides the commitment into general commitment and cognitive commitment. both of them become determinants of theories and models of analysis in cognitive linguistic perspectives, including study of lexical semantic. study of dynamicity of a verb becomes important and also reliable to conduct. 99  e-issn: 2621-6485 perceptive verb a verb is a class of words which usually functions as a predicate (kridalaksana, 2008). broadly speaking, chafe (1970) distinguishes verbs into three types namely state verb, process verb, and action verb. state verb is a verb that states the condition of the subject. process verb is a verb that explains a process of change experienced by the subject. action verb is a verb describing what the subject does. the kind of verbs are divided to number of other types of verbs: action-process verb and experiential verb. action-process verb is a verb that explains what the subject does while desiring the presence of another noun as an object. meanwhile, the experiential verb is a verb that explain the things experienced by the nominee. experimental verb itself is divided into emotional, cognitional, and perceptive verb. the perceptive verb is an experiential verb which the type of stimulus experienced by the subject is a sensation that can be received by the five senses (jackendoff, 1976). gisborne (2010) divides perceptive verb into three kinds: listen-class, hear-class, and sound-class. listen-class (agentive) verbs hear-class (experiencer) verbs sound-class (percept) verbs look/a listen feel/a smell/a taste/a see hear feel/e smell/e taste/e look/p sound feel/p smell/p taste/p research method this descriptive qualitative research takes data from oxford dictionary and bnc (british national corpus). at the collecting data process, sentences with different structure are selected from oxford dictionary. after that, the various structures where the verb “look” as head are taken from bnc. the organized data then were analyzed using distributional method. distributional method is analytical method in linguistics that uses parts of the language itself as the determiner (sudaryanto, 1993). there are some techniques in distributional method and the research used permutation technique, insertion technique, and deletion technique. the three different techniques were used because there are some steps in revivifying the aktionsarten of a verb. findings and discussion the class of verb look from several types of perceptive verbs, look is divided into two types. gisborne (2010) argues that the verb look consists agentive and perceptive verb class (referred as look [a]) and the pure perceptive verb classes (referred as look [p]). the following data shows the differences between the two types of the perceptive verb look. eltej issn: 2621-6485  prayudha 100 (1) elizabeth looked at her sister-in-law. (2) they look horrible! data (1) shows the verb look [a] because it explains what the subject is experiencing. in chafe (1970), the verb look [a] belongs to the experiential verb category. the verb look [a] is also referred to perceptual experience verbs that are directed at a stimulus or directed perception. the verbs which are classified as agentive perceptive verbs are check (on), gape, gawk, gaze, glance, glare, goggle, leer, listen (to), ogle, peek, peep, peer, sniff, snoop (on), squint, and stare. data (1) is an agentive perceptive verb because it explains the things experienced by the subject, including the stimulus. it can be observed if the verb look at the data explains the stimulus her sister-in-law which are experienced by elizabeth. the verb look [a] always requires a preposition when it appears in a construction. both levin (1993) and gisborne (2010) concluded that look [a] collocated with preposition at. meanwhile, data (2) is a verb look [p] because the subject of the composition is equivalent to the object of look [a]. according to chafe (1970), such verb falls into state verbs category because it explains the condition of the subject. more specifically, jackendoff (1976) explains the verb falls into the category of static perceptive verbs or static perception verb. this verb type explains the condition of the stimulus. the stimulus is real or can be accepted by the five senses. some of the verbs included in this type are feel, smell, sound, and taste. it can be observed if the subject they in the data (2) occupies the same role or equivalent to the object of her sister-in-law in the data (1) as something experienced or stimulus. the verb look in the data explains the condition of the stimulus. the dynamicity of agentive verb look as an agentive perceptive verb, look [a] verb have their own semantic characteristics. this characteristic is related to the level of dynamics of the look verb [a]. dynamism of a verb is related to dynamism, telicity, and duration. to find out the dynamics of look [a] verbs can practice a number of tests. the following is data that shows dynamic look verbs [a]. (3) he looked at her with an icy contempt. (3a) he {was looking} at her with an icy contempt. (3b) he {finished} looking at her with an icy contempt. (3c) he looks at her with an icy contempt {for a minute}. 101  e-issn: 2621-6485 the data shows the lexical characteristics of verb look [a]. data (3) shows the verbs look in an agentive perceptive class because the verb can answer a question about what is experienced by the subject as well as include the stimulus experienced. the verb look at the data explains the stimulus experienced by the subject he. although the verb look [a] is a perceptive verb, this verb is dynamic because it is able to be present in a progressive period as indicated by data (3a). regarding dynamism, van valin (2005) distinguishes perceptive verbs from dynamic verbs (activity verb) and static verbs (state verbs). verb look [a] is a perceptive verb that is classified as an activity verb so that it is dynamic. in addition, look [a] verbs are included as telic verbs as shown in data (3b). it is because the data can be expanded by finished verbs which means stopping. telis verbs are verbs that describe as completed actions (kridalaksana, 2008). data (3c) shows the verb look [a] is durative because it can be expanded with a description of time ‘for a minute’. it means that the verb look [a] has a period of time when the action occurred. durative verbs are verbs that show timeconsuming activities (vendler, 1967 in gisborne, 2010). it can be determined that the semantic characteristic of the verb look [a] is dynamic, telic, and durative. the dynamicity of the perceptive verb look the definition of the verb look [p] in the oxford advanced learner's dictionary shows that the verb is lexically different from the verb look [a]. thus, the verb also has dynamic properties that are different from verb look [a]. it is as shown in the dynamic test of the verb look [p] as follows. (4) that book looks interesting. (4a) * that book {is looking} interesting. (4b) * that book {finished} looking interesting. (4c) *{for an hour}, that book looks interesting. the test series in the data above shows the lexical properties of the verb look [p]. data (4) shows the verb look in perceptive class because they cannot explain the activities carried out by the subject. the verb look at the data explains the state of the subject whose role as the stimulus. data (4a) shows if the verb look [p] cannot appear in progressive times. therefore, the verb look [p] can be said to be stative. data (4b) cannot be expanded with information when it finished. it shows that the verb look [p] is not telic. on the contrary, the verb look [p] is atelic. atelic verbs are verbs that describe actions that are not complete (kridalaksana, 2008: 254). data (4c) cannot be expanded with a time statement that explains the duration ‘for one hour’. it shows if the verb look [p] is not durative but punctual. punctual verbs are verbs that explain the situation right eltej issn: 2621-6485  prayudha 102 away. from the serial tests, it can be formulated that the semantic characteristic of verb look [p] is static, atelic, and pangtual. the dynamicity of the verb look in phrasal verb construction there are many phrasal verb constructions in english. according to jackendoff (2003), a phrasal verb consists of a verb as root which is paired with one or two particles. the term particle is used to make it easier to distinguish particles as prepositions in prepositional verbs and particles as adverb in the phrasal verb. phrasal verb is almost exactly the same as the prepositional verb but both are different in treating particles. phrasal verb treats particles as adverb while prepositional verb treats particle as preposition (palmer, 1987). phrasal verb orthographically separates the verb from its particle, but both are one unit and behave as a single verb. biber, johansson, leech, conrad, and finegan (2007) explain that the phrasal verb is a multi-word unit consisting of a verb followed by adverb particles which indicate spatial meaning (directive) or aspect. the prepositional verb is the verb root look [a] that are collocated with a preposition at levin (1993). in addition to the construction of verb + particle, similar construction can be classified as a horizontal verb. this includes the construction of look + particle at in its meaning extensions. more verb look appears as in phrasal verb construction. according to oxford dictionary, at least, there are 17 phrasal verbs with look as the root. the phrasal verb are look after, look ahead, look at, look away, look back, look down, look for, look forward, look in, look into, look on, look out, look over, look around, look through, look to, and look up. the phrasal verbs have various meaning. there are 20 different meaning from the 17 phrasal verbs. it is because some phrasal verbs have more than one meaning. the different phrasal verbs meaning of course form differences of verb class. the condition lead to the diverse aktionsarten of the phrasal verb with look as the root. by using the same type of dynamism analysis for agentive verb look and perceptive verb look, here are the result of aktionsarten analysis of phrasal verbs with look as the root. no. meaning phrasal verb verb class aktionsarten 1. to turn away look away movement verb dynamic, telic, durative 2. to stare look on aspectual verb dynamic, telic, durative 3. to think look at cognitive verb dynamic, telic, durative 4. to predict look ahead look to 5. to remember look back 6. to consider look at emotive verb static, atelic, durative look on 7. to underestimate look down 103  e-issn: 2621-6485 no. meaning phrasal verb verb class aktionsarten 8. to admire look up 9. to feel happy look forward 10. to expect look to 11. to beware look out 12. to become better look up 13. to examine look into actionprocess verb dynamic, telic, durative look at 14. to delve look through 15. to search look for look out look up 16. to share look on 17. to take care of look after look out 18. to visit look over look around look up 19. to avoid look out 20. to read look over look through in general, the phrasal verbs with look as root are atleast separated into movement verb, aspectual verb, cognitive verb, emotive verb, and action-process verb. a movement verb class, phrasal verbs with look as the root are dynamic, telic, and durative. as aspectual verb, the phrasal verbs are dynamic, telic, and durative. dynamic, telic, and durative are also the semantic characteristic of cognitive phrasal verb. as an emotive verb class, phrasal verbs with look as the head are static, atelic, and durative. the semantic characteristics of the action-process phrasal verbs dynamic, telic, and durative. conclusion perceptive verbs are important to be analyzed because it directly embodied and experimental. cognitively, the verbs are core class which will develop into other verb classes. the agentive verb look is dynamic, telic, durative. it synthetized that as agentive verbs, agentive verb look can be eltej issn: 2621-6485  prayudha 104 developed into various constructions. on the contrary, the perceptive verb look is static, atelic, and punctual. by the characteristic, the construction from the perceptive verb look is limited in intransitive construction. the result of the research can be developed into numerous hypotheses. moreover, there are many verbs look in phrasal verb construction. at least, there are 17 phrasal verbs construction with look as the root with 20 meaning and 5 verb classes. the phrasal verbs consist of different meanings. if all of the constructions are analyzed, there will be unique network among them, and it shows how cognitive processing language works. references biber, douglas., johansson, stig., leech, geoffrey., conard, susan., finegan, edward. (2007). longman grammar of spoken and written english. london: pearson education limited. chafe, wallace l. (1970). meaning and the structure of language. chicago. university of chicago press. evans, vyvyan. & green, melanie. (2006). cognitive linguistics: an introduction. edinburgh: edinburgh university press. evans, vyvyan., bergen, k. benjamin, zinken, jörg. (2007). the cognitive linguistics reader. london: equinox publishing ltd. geeraerts, d. & cuyckens, h. (2007). introducing cognitive linguistics. in: geeraerts, d. & cuyckens, h., the oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics. oxford: oxford university press. gisborne, nikolas. (2010). the event structure of perception verbs. new york: oxford university press. jackendoff, ray. (2003). foundations of language: brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. new york: oxford university press inc. kridalaksana, harimurti. (2008). kamus linguistik. jakarta: pt. gramedia pustaka utama. levin, beth. (1993). english verb classes and alternations: a preliminary investigation. chicago: the university of chicago press, ltd. palmer, frank robert. (1987). the english verb. singapore: longman singapore publisher, ltd. 105  e-issn: 2621-6485 sudaryanto, (1993). metode dan aneka teknik analisis bahasa. yogyakarta: duta wacana university press. van valin, robert d. jr. (2005). exploring the syntax-semantics interface. new york: cambridge university press. online sourches: situs british national corpus: http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk. situs etymonline: http://www.etymonline.com http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/ sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 pp. 133-141 e-issn: 2621-6485 integrating literary works as the local content of elt materials for undergraduate students 1pratiwi amelia, 2agci hikmawati, 1,2 stkip muhammadiyah bangka belitung, indonesia pratiwi.amelia@stkipmbb.ac.id abstract the objective of this study is to design english materials for undergraduate students. in designing the materials, the writers focused on the general english materials integrated with bangkanese’ folks as one of the literary works existing in bangka belitung province, indonesia. this idea was based on the writers’ awareness to introduce local values to the students. thus, the existing literary works were taken and modified by the writers to meet the purpose of the research. the writers used the theory of hutchinson and waters (1987) and borg & gall (1989). the theory offered six steps, namely need analysis, writing syllabus, developing materials, trying-out materials, evaluating materials, revision, and writing the final draft. the participants of the research were 37 students studying in one of the private colleges in bangka belitung province. these participants were chosen randomly. the designed elt materials integrated the english lessons and the local folktales and culture. the integration was intended to improve the students’ communicative competence of both productive and receptive skills. furthermore, it was expected that the designed materials were able to encourage the students to communicate more communicatively and appropriately in their social context. keywords: designing materials, bangkanese’ folks, elt how to cite: amelia, p. and hikmawati, a. (2019). integrating literary works as the local content of elt materials for undergraduate students. english language teaching educational journal, 2(3), 133141. introduction in indonesia, english is treated as a foreign language (efl). it means that indonesians do not use english in their daily conversations. they only use english in particular condition, such as in the field of business, economy, education, and science. among these fields, it is known that learning english for education is more popular and the most commonly used in indonesia. most of the students in indonesia learn english in order to fulfil the academic demands from their school or university. as a result, the teacher as the main facilitator in the class should be able to build the knowledge and skills needed by the students in order to succeed their learning. in teaching english as a foreign language, there are two kinds of skills learned; they are productive and receptive skills. speaking and writing belong to productive skills, while reading and listening are categorized as receptive skills. receptive skills refer to how people extract meanings from the discourse they see or hear, and this processing is called listening and reading. in addition to these two categorizations, students also need knowledge of language building and construction such as grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and phonics. this knowledge is required to make students be able to communicate effectively and appropriately, especially in constructing and making sentences. for this kind of case, teachers should make and use various and propriate methods, techniques, and materials to provide all the elements of language needed by the students. appropriate and interesting lesson and materials will create students’ curiosity and motivation in learning english. thus, english teachers should be familiar with language use in order to develop mailto:pratiwi.amelia@stkipmbb.ac.id 134 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 their own skills and understand language as a social phenomenon and not merely as an exclusive learning branch, (keshavarzi, 2012). in relation to materials or course books, it’s said that it’s important to ensure that the course content needed for ready implementation is delivered in a consistent format. research has found that appropriate language content motivates learners to develop language skills (viswanath, 2019). it’s due to the nature that language is associated with culture. that is, language is the carrier of cultural messages. one of the cultural forms is literature. in a learning context, literature is considered very significant when it’s employed in a language teaching and learning. literature is a good source to teach english. moreover, it has a particular context to contextualize the teaching activities (keshavarzi, 2012). as a result, teachers can use many sources of liteary works as teaching materials. wellek and warren (1996) define literary work as a branch of literature which deals with any materials to create a picture, an idea or a story in a meaningful pattern. the literary work is also a work of art. it can be a drama, fiction, essay, biography, or journalism and so on. literary works nowadays are more popular to use since it has many advantages in language teaching. literary works such as poetries, novels, stories, or plays should be used in foreign language teaching because these works include all the features needed to teach a foreign language (erdem, 2016). there are several types of literature that can be used for teaching purpose, as well as the approach to the use of literature in language teaching, and the underlying reasons for using literature in language teaching (arafah, 2018). in regard to teaching materials, hutchinson and waters (1987) wrote that there are three kinds of materials, namely materials evaluation, materials development, and material adaptation. as for teachers, they can evaluate from existing materials and then revise it, develop materials by the teacher, or modify the existing materials and then writing the materials. in elt, the teacher can use literature to evaluate, to develop, or to adapt the material for the students, so the students will not get bored and be attracted to the materials. why this research? there are four reasons why this study is essential to be conducted. first, literary works will be able to make lessons enjoyable, to make the students learn wisdom and knowledge, and to increase the student’s cultural awareness and moral values. harmer (2001) says learning materials should attrack and raise the students’ challenge to learn english, so the students would not feel bored during the lesson. interesting materials in the classroom will raise the student’s ability and motivate them to involve actively in the classroom. second, the use of literary works in the elt classroom as media or material in teaching and learning activity can give a chance for students to analyse, to critics, to evoke their feelings and thoughts creatively. studying through literary works will raise the student’s interest to study english. third, the use of literary works will improve the students’ awareness of their own culture. fourth, teaching english through literature enhances the students’ vocabulary mastery and reading comprehension (ismail & masnur, 2019). besides, it can promote literary understanding and general linguistic awareness among teachers and learners (shazu, 2014; yadav, 2014). most of the previous studies also found that the use of literature on language teaching has a positive influence on students’ level of motivation and interest (khodabakhshi & lagos, 1993; goh, 1996; estridge, 2000; ho, 2000; wu, 2001; chen, 2006). furthermore, more explicitly teaching english through folklore as part of literary works is such an eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ amelia & hikmawati 135 effective strategy to promote and enable cross-cultural understanding because folklore can be found in everyday life (gholson & stumph, 2005). literature enables the student’s intercultural awareness to live, nurtures empathy, improves tolerance for diversity, and emotional intelligence (ghosn, 2002). unfortunately, not many students are aware of their local literature. subhan (2006) claims that not all people like and love literature. even many people have a terrible attitude toward literature. these people usually regard literature as something irrational or something useless. these facts show that there are people who do not like literature; even they said that reading literature is donkey work. however, there are so many works of literature that have rich content, yet they have not been explored adequately. especially in bangka belitung province, the condition is almost similar where there’s not much attention paid to literary use in elt. another problem concerning english language teaching there is that there are no elt materials which provide local content. the problems in bangka belitung province above is also occurring in at the one of the private colleges in bangka belitung, which was the setting of the research. based on preliminary study conducted by the researchers, it was found out that many students were not aware of their own culture. based on this identified problem, the researchers were eager to conduct a study to design elt materials that integrated local content and elt materials. it’s hoped that it could expose the students to their own local culture while at the same time learning english effectively. with this, the students can get advantages of not only knowing about literature but also learning new vocabulary and phrases in order to improve their english ability. thus, this study focuses on designing elt materials by using bangkanese’ folks. this study presents the integration of literary works especially in teaching reading comprehension, speaking, writing, vocabulary, and grammar. it is hoped that the designed materials can in addition, the reserachers would like to promote the local content of bangka belitung to the students so that they will be more accessible and popular. research method this study aimed to develop an effective product that can be used in an educational program as the learning materials. according to borg & gall (1983), research and development is a process to develop and validate education products. products produced by r & d include teacher’s training materials, learning materials, set of behavioural objectives, media, materials, management system and so on. products are developed to meet specific needs and according to detailed specifications tested and revised until a specified level of the effectiveness is achieved. the product designed in this research was a set of english materials for undergraduate students by using literary works focusing on folktales. this study used local bangkanese’ folks which hasn’t been explored yet in english teaching materials. the total participants in this study were 37 first semester students taken randomly from two departments of a private college in bangka belitung province. the participants consisted of 20 students of primary education department and 17 students of sport education department. the instruments used in this study were two-phase of the questionnaire and interview, try-out, and group discussion with an expert senior lecturer. for the validity and reliability of the instruments, the researchers used the item validity to make sure that the instruments used were valid and reliable. several steps were conducted to meet the criteria of research and development (r&d) research. the researchers followed hutchinson & waters (1987) model in designing the research. the researchers implemented the seven steps to create an effective product. first, the researchers distributed a questionnaire for the need analysis. second, the researchers analyzed and processed the questionnaires based on the students’ need. third, the researchers wrote a course grid and syllabus based on the result of the need analysis and 136 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 designed the materials and activities based on the result of the needs analysis conducted previously. fourth, the researchers conducted a try out by using designed materials and checked the validity and reliability of the material. fifth, the researchers distributed the questionnaires to evaluate the designed material to the students. sixth, the researchers analyzed and revised the designed materials based on the validation of the content and construct of the materials by using an expert judgment. seventh, the researchers published the final draft. results and discussion 1. the results of the need analysis the results of the need analysis were taken from the distribution of the first phase questionnaire. the first questionnaires were distributed to the students to know the students needs, wants, and lacks. the questionnaire was also intended to be a guidance to design the materials in the latter step of the material designing process. most of the students took parts in the study were female. it consisted of 25 female students, while male students were only 12 students. the age and the range of theirs varied. most of them were in the range of 17-20 years old. the results of the need analysis were divided into two kinds of elements i.e. the students’ knowledge level and the distribution based on the students’ interest. the results of distribution of the students’ needs are shown in the table below: figure 1. the distribution of students’ knowledge level figure 1 shows the distributions of the students’ knowledge level and also the students’ lacks in learning english. it was divided into seven aspects, namely listening comprehension (beginner students were 55 %, intermediate students were 37%, advanced students were 8%), reading comprehension (beginner students were 65%, intermediate students were 33%, advanced students were 2%), grammar mastery (beginner students were 69%, intermediate students were 23%, advanced students were 8%), vocabulary mastery (beginner students were 58%, intermediate students were 35%, advanced students were 7%), words pronunciation (beginner students were 47%, intermediate students were 30%, advanced students were 23%), sentence constructions (beginner students were 56%, intermediate students were 38%, advanced students were 6%). based on the results, it can be concluded that most of the students have poor ability in english. sentence construction word pronunciation vocabulary mastery grammar mastery reading comphrehension listening comphrehension 56% 47% 58% 69% 65% 55% 38% 30% 35% 23% 33% 37% 6% 23% 7% 8% 2% 8% advanced intermediate beginner eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ amelia & hikmawati 137 figure 2. the distributions of learning activity based on the students’ need figure 2 shows the distributions of students’ needs on learning english. it was divided into six aspects covering listening comprehension (beginner students were 56 %, intermediate students were 39%, advanced students were 5%), reading comprehension (beginner students were 55%, intermediate students were 30%, advanced students were 15%), vocabulary task (beginner students were 65%, intermediate students were 28%, advanced students were 7%), grammar task (beginner students were 50%, intermediate students were 35%, advanced students were 15%), story re-writing (beginner students were 68%, intermediate students were 25%, advanced students were 7%), and role-play (beginner students were 72%, intermediate students were 17%, advanced students were 11%). from this figure, it can be summed up that the students’ needs on learning english varied. based on these results, therefore, the writer tried to provide all the learning activities based on the results on figure 2 during the step of material designing. figure 3. the distributions of students’ interest in bangkanese’ folktales from the distributions of the students’ interest in bangkanese’ folktales in figure 3, it can be said that most of the students chose and were interested in bangkanese’ folktales. they also agreed that learning english through literary works would stimulate them to learn english more enjoyably. so, based on the results of need analysis on the kinds of bangkanese’ folktales chosen by the students, the researchers decided to include all the seven bangkanese’ folktales listed into the designed materials. 2. designing materials re-telling story and role play story re-writing grammar task vocabulary task reading comphrehension listening comphrehension 72% 68% 50% 65% 55% 56% 17% 25% 35% 28% 30% 39% 11% 7% 15% 7% 15% 5% advanced intermediate beginner mak per and telaga warna (28%) the bird of kedidi (15%) pak udak (18%) putri pinang gading (15%) the legend of batu balai (7%) bujang antan (12%) quail killed lion (9%) 138 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 the data taken from the questionnaire were used as a basis to design the elt materials. the materials consisted of two parts. each part consisted of warming up activities, vocabulary building, exercise, pronunciation practice, grammar rules, and conversation practice activities. the materials also covered all skills of english i.e. reading, writing, and speaking, and the language knowledge focused on grammar (simple past tense, past continuous, past perfect tense, past perfect continuous tense; temporal sequence; conjunctions), and vocabulary (action verbs). each unit consisted of the learning goal and the main competence that should be achieved by the students after learning the materials. the sample of tasks presented in the designed materials are shown below: a. role play b. re-write the story instruction: re-write and complete this story based on your own imagination by using appropriate vocabulary and sentence constructions. mak per dan telaga naga one night, a grandmother said to his grandchild. “bujang... don’t be naughty, please! a naughty boy who played far away from home would be eaten by the dweller of telaga naga, said her. your grandfather often told us about the giant of telaga naga. i would tell you. once upon a time, there was a bay in the coastal areas near tempilang village. the bay was telaga naga. a long ago, there was a giant living in this lake _________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ c. fill in the blanks instruction: fill in the blanks and complete this passage by using appropriate vocabulary. burung kedidi in a village there lived two sons with their mother who was very old and she ___________ crooked. their father died when they were still in their childhood age. because they lived in suffering, one day they __________ to leave their village. they asked their mother’s _________ to allow them. “mom, we wanted to sail over the sea and see the world. i wanted to change our life. i did not want it if we lived in suffering through all my life. please, _________ us to go”, said the sons. instruction: ✓ work in groups. read the story of mak per and telaga naga on your textbook. ✓ create your own dialogue based on that story ✓ make a role-play and act out your dialogue in front of the class. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ amelia & hikmawati 139 3. try out and evaluation the try out was implemented to the 37 students of the setting of the research. these participants participated in the questionnaire filling previously held. the try out was conducted in 6 meetings. based on the results of the try out, it can be summarized that the designed material has been appropriate and suitable for the students. furthermore, an evaluation was needed to evaluate and validate the designed material. thus, the content materials designed were evaluated and validated by a senior lecturer who was considered an expert in english language teaching. the results of the content validation were used to revise the designed materials. it was also found out that, after the try out, the students were more interested in learning english. most of them agreed that the use of literature could be used as one of techniques for teaching english for both language skills (i.e. reading, writing, listening and speaking) and language aspects (i.e. vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation). these results were in line with the research conducted by hismanagolu, (2005) and the research conducted by chen (2014) which claimed that literature could be effectively used to acquire english as a foreign language for students in all ages. students got benefits from being challenged with language input that was slightly beyond their independent level of comprehension. furthermore, erdem (2016) stated that literature had a number of benefits, including, but not limited to the availability of unique material, stimulation of the reader's development and contribution to the reader's vocabulary and cultural enrichment. along with the benefits mentioned, diversity, interest, vagueness, and universality could also be named as other advantages. literature in language teaching materials should give students the opportunity to learn and use the language more creatively and to develop a better understanding of the language they are studying (daskalovska & dimova, 2012). meanwhile, some researchers found the challenges in implementing the literary works into language teaching. hasan (2019) stated that the language of literary works are difficult to understand, unfamiliar culture-related elements in the texts can be sources of difficulty in literature studies, and the problem with the genre. so, the teachers need to evaluate and consider the effectiveness of the literary texts use especially in terms of linguistic difficulty. besides, need analysis is a mandatory pre-requisite before designing and producing any curriculum. so, it is important to consider the issues of context and culture before using it as a source of learning and designing appropriate exercises that best facilitate learning in the classroom. thus, for teachers in using literature as learning materials, they should take into account the aspects of the learners’ age, language level, clear learning objectives, appropriate pedagogically designed materials, and learning activities. the teachers should make sure whether the materials designed are suitable for the learners. besides, the teachers should also consider the students’ motivation, needs, and cultural background. last but not least, one major factor to consider when using literature is whether a particular work is capable of revealing the kind of personal involvement by stimulating the interest of the learners and generating strong, positive reactions from them, (hişmanağolu, 2005). to make it effective, the teachers need to evaluate, analyze, adapt, and modify the texts presents on the literary works before using it with the learners. because not all literary works are suitable for teaching. it should meet the students’ need and also it should match with the learning goal of learning. otherwise, it will not be able to help the students in learning english and make it useless. conclusion to sum up, the results of this study showed that developing english materials through local content integration were considered suitable for the intended students as showed through the results of try-out and evaluation done with the students and an expert in 140 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 the fileld. the results of this study were in line with the previous study conducted by some researchers, who found out that literature can be used as an alternative way to teach english. thus, it is essential to be creative in designing the materials by focusing on a particular field of study. however, not all the literature or literary works can be used as materials for teaching. the teachers need to select whether to make them suit the learners’ age, english level, and syllabus appropriateness. that is why in designing elt materials, teachers should follow the principlse of language teaching and materials development. the materials should be based on the needs of the students. besides, the teachers have to pay attention to insert the cultural awareness and moral value when engaging the materials during the process of teaching and learning. by so doing, it would give the students a chance not only to know more about their culture but also to teach good character to the them. that is why the teachers nowadays should pay attention not only to the contexts of the materials but also how to teach a moral lesson to the students. references arafah, b. (2018). incorporating the use of literature as an innovative technique for teaching english. paper presented at the 1st annual international conference on language and literature. kne social sciences. pages 24–36. doi:10.18502/kss.v3i4.1914 borg. w. r., gall, m. d. gall (1983). educational research an introduction. new york: longman. chen, y. m. (2006). using children’s literature for reading and writing stories. asian efl journal, 8(4), 210-232. retrieved from http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/ chen, mei-ling. (2014). teaching english as a foreign language through literature. theory and practice in language studies, 4(2), 232-236. doi:10.4304/tpls.4.2.232-236 daskalovska. n., & dimova. v. (2012). why should literature be used in the language classroom? procedia social and behavioral sciences, 46, 1182 – 1186. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.05.271 estridge, p. g. (2000). changing attitudes and behaviours toward reading using children’s literature (doctoral dissertation, the union institute, ohio, united states). retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/products-services/dissertations/ erdem, mustafa. (2016). literature in english language teaching. european journal of language and literature studies, 2(1), 157-162. doi: 10.26417/ejls.v4i1.p157-162 gholson. r., stumph. a.c. (2005). folklore, literature, ethnography, and second language aqcuisition: teaching culture in esl classroom. tesl canada journal 22(22).7591. doi:10.18806/tesl.v22i2.88 ghosn, i. (2002). four good reasons to use literature in primary school elt. elt journal, 56, (2), 172-179. doi:10.1093/elt/56.2.172 goh, l. (1996). using my folktales, and fairy tales in the adult esl classroom (thesis, simon fraser university, british columbia, canada). retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/56371372.pdf https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v3i4.1914 https://www.proquest.com/products-services/dissertations/ https://dx.doi.org/10.26417/ejls.v4i1.p157-162 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/56371372.pdf eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ amelia & hikmawati 141 hasan (2019). students’ perception towards literature integration in the english language departments at duhok and zakho universities. advances in language and literary studies, 10(4), 130-152. retrieved from https://www.journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/ harmer, jeremy. (2001). the practice of english language teaching (3rd edition). london: longman ho, l. (2000). children's literature in adult education. children's literature in education, 31(4), 259–271. doi:10.1023/a:1026431003032 hişmanoğlu, murat. 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(2014). recognizing the importance of literature and integration in elt classes. international journal of education and research, 2(9),393-400. retrieved from https://www.ijern.com/journal/2014/september-2014/34.pdf https://www.jlls.org/index.php/jlls/article/view/6/7 https://doi.org/10.33487/majesty.v1i2.119 http://coreilimagination.com/books/v1.pdf#page=55 https://iiste.org/journals/index.php/jaas/article/view/12079/12419 https://www.ijern.com/journal/2014/september-2014/34.pdf sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 3, 2019, pp. 112-120 e-issn: 2621-6485 emerging challenges of teaching english in non-native englishspeaking countries: teachers’ view 1nurul hasanah, 2pratiwi tri utami 1,2 hiroshima university, japan nurulhasanah21995@gmail.com abstract teaching english to students, particularly non-english speakers, requires proper strategies and methods. by doing so, each teacher has his/her challenges. this study intends to unveil the emerging challenges faced by english teachers from non-native english-speaking countries (non-nescs) such as china, japan, thailand, senegal, mongolia, cambodia, and laos. this study stands on to answer two research questions: 1. what are the challenges of teaching english in non-native english-speaking countries? 2. is there any effort to overcome the challenges? if so, how do they overcome it? by utilizing the qualitative method, seven teachers are interviewed to tell their challenges. the result indicates three main problems, including learning materials which do not cover students’ need, too big classroom size and school environment, and also students’ low motivation. some programs are conducted to overcome those challenges. for example, japan has an assistant language teacher (alt) who comes once a week to cooperate with the english teacher in each school. then, volunteer english teacher (vet) program helps english teachers in laos. keywords: english language teaching, challenges, non-native english-speaking country, non-native english-speaking teacher how to cite: hasanah, n., utami, p. t. (2019). emerging challenges of teaching english in non-native english-speaking countries: teachers’ view. english language teaching education journal, 2(3), 112120. introduction nowadays, learning english is one of the prominent needs of a human being. oder & eisenschmidt (2018) clarify the importance of learning english as a tool to access in achieving new knowledge and opportunities in a global context. also, english is widely used in every continent that uses english for their day-to-day needs, totals over 250 million (broughton, brumfit, flavell, hill, & pincas, 2003). not only from this aspect, the use of english worldwide, but this phenomenon is also mainly influenced by colonization, shipborne trade with the americas, and politic (howson, 2013). therefore, non-native englishspeaking countries attempt to create an english environment in every school as the primary step to learn english from an early age. teaching english as a foreign language means that english is learned in non-native english-speaking countries. braine (1999 as cited in chun, 2014) states that a native speaker—not english as the specific context, will create a better teacher than a non-native speaker. by this statement, an english teacher must have many challenges when teaching their students both in english skills or teaching skills (faez & valeo, 2012). besides enhancing their english ability, a teacher should maintain their motivation and enthusiasm in teaching (oder & eisenschmidt, 2018). sometimes students 'learning motivation decreases so that students' learning performance is not following the lesson plan (ayres, swayer, & dinham, 2001; nurvita, pratolo, nuroniah, rizon, 2019; zulfikar, dahliana, & sari, 2019). this problem is one of the causes of teachers' lack of enthusiasm in teaching, mailto:nurulhasanah21995@gmail.com eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ hasanah & utami 113 and this will affect their teaching performance. also, another factor coming from the school climate can affect teachers’ motivation. school climate covers positive atmosphere which is contributed by supportive work conditions from the principal, teachers partner, school staffs, and communal school organizations (brown & roloff, 2011 as cited in oder & eisenschmidt, 2018). in this twenty-first century, an english teacher is also required to teach effectively. measuring effective teaching is something unstable and challenging because it will emerge a subjective view. two studies (frenzel, taxer, schwab, & kuhbandner, 2019; oder & eisenschmidt, 2018) indicate that measuring effective teaching is coming from two aspects, intrinsic and extrinsic. the intrinsic aspect involves the teacher’s trait, such as motivation, enthusiasm, and interpersonal between teachers and students. the extrinsic aspect is coming from the teacher’s skill, which can be formed by the training to improve their effective teaching, for example, their competency in instructional material and teaching strategy. instructional content is like designing and developing a syllabus, lesson plans, and supplementary material (gormley, hammer, mcdermott, & rothenberg, 1993). then, teaching strategy relates to the way of teaching, managing the classroom, teaching approach (raganwati, 2015). regarding the essentials of english in language teaching, we query the main challenges of english teachers in non-native english-speaking countries (non-nescs) in teaching english according to their context and views. two main questions are formulated, which can furtherly analyze within this study: 1. what are the challenges of teaching english in a non-native english-speaking country? 2. is there any effort to overcome the challenges? if so, how do they overcome it? literature review bolhuis & voeten (2004, as cited in oder & eisenschmidt, 2018) find that motivated teachers are likely to promote active and functional learning strategies that achieve the best outcome of students. frenzel et al. (2019) show that displayed enthusiasm had significant main effects on perceived teacher motivation, teacher enjoyment, and seen clarity and structure. all of those indicators were well measured by the high displayed enthusiasm condition than in the low displayed enthusiasm condition. it means that teacher motivation and enjoyment have very high effects on students’ motivation. this result supports radel et al.’s (2010 as cited in frenzel, taxer, schwab, & kuhbandner, 2019) finding, which reveals that when students had learned from a motivated teacher, the students can learn in autonomy and high behavior. demir (2017) finds three main challenges of english teachers when teaching english as a foreign language: student-related, teacher-related, and institutional difficulties. the student-related problem appears because turkish students are not interesting the material which is not in turkish and not relevant coursebook. however, this statement is subjectively coming from students who believe that english is difficult. in teacher-related, the most challenging problem is managing the classroom. some teachers say that because the students are lack of motivation, the teacher cannot teach the lesson as their planning. whereas, the institutional-related refers to classroom size and technological support provided by the school. in other words, demir's (2017) finding shows that the problems emerge from the motivation itself. other related challenges faced by efl teachers are classroom practice and commitment to teaching (hayes, 2009). he says that classroom practice refers to the difficulty of thai students in learning english because of less vocabulary, considering grammatical errors, and no one peer can join in the conversation. then, commitment to teaching relates to the teachers, which lead to teachers’ motivation again. if we genuinely 114 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 pay attention to those problems, the root of the problem is from two sides, which are interrelated to one another. similarly, hayes (2005), his finding reveals the problem faced by non-native english speaking educators in sri lanka. commitment to teaching as a job or vocation. through an in-depth interview, the teachers, as reflected in hayes's (2005) finding shows that the teachers are proud to be an english teacher, but only 20% dedicates themselves as a vocation. it happened because of some factors: more work for teachers, intensified stress levels, lack of interest in teaching, and a rise in the numbers of alienated students at school. some studies also compare english teaching performance between native englishspeaking teachers (nests) and non-native english-speaking teachers (non-nests). students perceive that nests are more competent in teaching reading, speaking, and pronunciation because they are more fluent and understand their cultural knowledge. nevertheless, for teaching writing and grammar, students prefer to be taught by non-nests who have a sensitivity to difficulties (chun, 2014). chun's (2014) finding supports walkinshaw & thi hoang duong's (2012) result which reveals that nest is better in teaching english in an oral context, but they cannot understand students’ culture. it always makes misunderstood between teachers and students (walkinshaw & thi hoang duong, 2012). the emerged problems displayed by some previous studies generate tensions to non-nests. because of this, some researchers seek solutions to break the primary issue in teaching language (hayati, 2010; rahimi & zhang, 2015; serdiukov & tarnopolsky, 1999; steyn & jaroongkhongdach, 2016; todd, stinson, & sivakumaran, 2016; yu, 2018; zhang, 2013). applying video-conferencing, which involves nest from various native englishspeaking countries, can gain more intercultural awareness and ignite discourse strategies to let converse as is (wang, 2006 as cited in yu, 2018). in such, applying critical pedagogy to non-nest also can enhance non-nests’ awareness of their strengths as bilingual or multilingual speakers and how they can properly utilize these strengths in the classroom (hayati, 2010). restructuring and sheltering instruction also can be used by non-nest to teach in the class where teachers use tools such as visuals, supplementary materials, cooperative learning, and hands-on activities to teach (todd et al., 2016). by reviewing some results showed by previous studies, this study also wants to unveil the emerging challenges faced non-nests in some countries like china, japan, thailand, senegal, mongolia, cambodia, and laos which are non-native english speaking countries and how the effort of each country to overcome those challenges. research methods by involving seven english teachers (n = 3 females) who are from china, japan, thailand, senegal, mongolia, cambodia, and laos, this study unveils the emerging challenges of teaching english. all the participants are master students in the international department of a university in japan and have capabilities in the teaching field. the age ranges from 24 to 40. the length of the teaching of each respondent is different from six months up to 17 years. also, they teach english spread over the primary level to higher education. methods this study stands on qualitative data by using an in-depth analysis of the semistructured interview. a semi-structured interview can let the researchers use the questions with the focus group, but still, investigate and clarify quickly and more depth (gilham, eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ hasanah & utami 115 2000). only one person attends each interview session. a session takes 20-30 minutes within one week. because this study involves people from various countries and has an international atmosphere in faculty, the interview uses english to ask questions. the advantages of a semi-structured interview will give the interviewer full of attention and make them comfortable to answer all the questions. even the interviewer can dig the respondent’s answers, which has an ambiguous meaning. because taking notes will distract the interviewer’s focus, the researchers are suggested to use tape-recorder during the interview session. the questions of the interview are about their experiences during teaching english, what challenges they faced, and what efforts they did. the items can be modified while the interview session to gain a sincere answer from respondents (johson & christensen, 2004). each of the responses will be analyzed in detail and in-depth in the discussion part. findings emerging challenges 1. china he taught at lower secondary level in tibet for six months in 2017. the type of school was a dormitory, which covered primary until upper secondary level. the school had very few teachers, but the teachers had a high salary than teachers in mainland of china. it was because of the condition of the school in that area. the situation was at the top of the mountain, pretty cold and dry. the school only had five hydrants, which were not enough for drinking and taking a bath to all the students. then, the students had low motivation to learn english. many factors influenced them, such as unsupported environment, lack of english learning resources, over class size, and also a socioeconomic factor. the majority of students were coming from a poor family, so they had no future planning to continue to study. also, the number of students was over class size. one grade had seven classes, and each class had 50 students. it was a vast number, which was difficult for teachers to reach each of the students’ progress. 2. japan his experience of teaching english was one year in 2017. the students in primary school liked studying english because they thought that english was an activity, not a subject. however, now the majority of secondary students started thinking that english became more difficult because they learned grammar with many new vocabularies and practiced speaking. they realized that english was essential as a tool to communicate with foreigners and to go abroad. still, the environment did not support to let them speak english naturally, even though the teacher engaged them. also, the class size was too big for a teacher to teach english. about 40 students in one class covered different characteristics of students. the textbook sometimes was not appropriate for students’ needs, so the teachers use supplementary material to perfect it. 3. thailand she taught at the primary level for three years until now. the most challenging problem was the language barrier. they still attempted to translate or find the same meaning between english and thai. they had unstable motivation because they did not learn english initiative, but their parents’ initiation. to keep maintaining their motivation, the teacher brought up exciting topics with fun teaching material in every meeting. 4. senegal he got a professional certification for teaching at the secondary level in 2014. since that, he taught english at the upper secondary level for three years in senegal. 116 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 the hardest problem of him was managing students in the class. the students did not like studying because most of them were reluctant to learn, especially english. however, it all depended on how the teacher treated his students. if the teacher had good intention in the treatment, they could study well in the class. another challenge was students’ background, including economic background which affected their motivation and achievement in class. when teaching english in class, the teacher should ensure every student paying attention to the teacher. unfortunately, the number of students was too big, about 40-50 students in which surely over to learn english. then, he thought that his school was still better, because in a remote area in senegal, the number of students could reach 60-70 for each class. ultimately, he emphasized that the textbook also was not updated for students’ needs and should be revised. 5. mongolia she taught english spreading over the primary and secondary levels for five years. in learning english, some students showed negative attitudes when learning english. because some unmotivated students disturbed other students who had high motivation. they perceive that english was too tricky both in speaking or writing. regarding this problem, the language structures of mongolian language and english were different, which sometimes was quite complicated for students. based on the entrance examination of english to university, english teachers tended to teach mostly on the grammar and vocabulary sessions. then, most of the students were bored to learn english grammar. another problem was the textbook which was not adequate enough to be discussed in one hour, but the direction was for one hour. therefore, it was not suitable for the students’ needs. 6. cambodia he had been an english teacher from 2008 to 2018. he was also an english trainer in cambodia. he trained secondary english teachers. being a teacher and trainer, the respondent faced many problems as also experienced by most english teachers in cambodia. because english started to be taught in 2003, there were not adequate english resources, including qualified english teachers and course books. to become qualified english teachers in cambodia, they should graduate from the english department, passed a national examination, and also had teaching experiences. with a short period from 2003 until 2019, there were not many qualified teachers, but contract teachers. 7. laos she had taught english from 2002 until 2017 at a university level in laos. she was also a trainer for primary school teachers, specifically on curriculum development once a year. reflecting on her experiences, she stated that the most challenging experience in teaching english for primary teachers was the classroom size which was too big, consisting of 40-50 students. they could not manage well every student when teaching english. comparing to other countries, laos was still low in the english context. the second problem of teaching english was a language barrier. the english teachers were lao people who were non-native english speakers. the teachers found challenges to pronounce some english words correctly, disregarding the fact that at primary level, students will need to follow teachers’ pronunciation. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ hasanah & utami 117 efforts and its implementations 1. china the educational department of china attempts to facilitate every school with an appropriate textbook as well as trained and certified teachers. then, the government also cooperates with the university, asking the university to send university students to teach in a rural area such as tibet. 2. japan alt is one of the efforts proposed by mext (ministry of education). they invite native-speaking english teacher such as american, canadian, australian, and singaporean to come to school and teach together with japanese teachers in one moment. every thursday, they come to school, making a plan with various and exciting methods as their suggestions. as a result, the students are more excited to learn english because they directly learn from nest. 3. thailand to enhance students’ motivation in learning english, the teachers use any possible teaching materials. the teachers can use music, disney movie in its native language, flashcard, and other things relate to the materials. they like to sing and dance so that they will solve the problems a little bit. the teachers also try to speak english frequently with a slow and bright tone and right intonation, so the students can understand the meaning and with their effort to answer in english. besides, the teachers let them learn by their initiation and way to ignite their awareness in learning english. 4. senegal senegal is a developing country. so many obstacles faced by the teachers teaching in class. to overcome those problems, the educational government recruits a voluntary teacher who passes the national standard in education to teach in school. the government got them by collaboration with other countries. in the class context, the teacher uses supplementary material to perfect the textbook when teaching in class, mainly english subject. 5. mongolia the educational government in mongolia conduct an activity to facilitate students’ interest like a competition—language olympiads. the government pays attention to who want to learn more then, transfer them to that competition. also, the teacher uses various materials in teaching english to engage the other students who have a lack of interest, such as maps, movies, posters, and other exciting material that can support them. 6. cambodia the educational government of cambodia cooperates with the australian government to improve english education in cambodia. by developing a coursebook called english for cambodia (efc), it is planned to help english teachers in cambodia teaching english in school. 7. laos lao government tries to facilitate teachers to join the training. the training proposes to make them more qualified uniquely as an english teacher. then, another effort is the government cooperates with nescs to recruit a voluntary teacher to teach at school. this program is called voluntary english teachers (vet) program. hopefully, nest gives english knowledge to the teachers by using various strategies and methods. so, students are more motivated to learn english. 118 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 discussion the fact of teaching english in non-nescs that quite challenging is actual. faez & valeo (2012) said that being an english teacher is complicated. it means that a teacher should have english knowledge and the proper way to transfer that knowledge. as shown in the results, we indicate three main problems faced by the teachers from nescs (china, japan, thailand, senegal, mongolia, cambodia, and laos). the three main issues are inappropriate textbooks, too big classroom size and school environment, and also students’ low motivation in learning english. talking about textbooks is something crucial (dejene, 2017). english handbook is one of the sources for students to learn english besides teachers or other sources. many teachers complain that english textbook sometimes is not suitable for students’ need nowadays (as reflected by japan, senegal, mongolia, and cambodia). to create a wellprepared textbook based on students’ need takes time in several process and revision. one aspect of improving school quality is the instructional process contribution (fuller, 1985). he said that a good textbook could consistently influence students’ achievement. by this statement, it is clear enough that textbook or coursebook also include one crucial aspect in contributing learning improvement. they can reflect on the cambodian government effort that making collaboration in developing textbooks will support a standard textbook for students’ need in learning english. the second problem is classroom size, which also is the most challenging case from those countries (china, japan, senegal, and laos). teaching english will effectively teach in a small size number of students (broughton et al., 2003). because learning english is involving four skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing, it will be effective if the number of students in the class ranges from 20-25. however, this number must be hard for several countries like senegal, as mentioned by the respondent that every district only has one single school. looking at developing countries or even developed countries which are non-nescs, they still encounter this such problem—too big classroom size. this problem probably can be solved by implementing various teaching strategies and methods, also including supplementary material to teach english in big classroom sizes. the last emerging challenge is students’ motivation in learning english, which is a big problem from all countries in this study. moreover, education ministries in several countries such as japan, laos, and china notice this as a severe problem. various programs are implemented by the government and schools in collaboration with multiple parties from the university level and even with the nescs. it means that learning motivation is the root of ideal teaching and learning activities (frenzel, taxer, schwab, & kuhbandner, 2019). by implementing some programs such as assistant learning teacher (alt), voluntary english teacher (vet), and the collaboration with student teachers in the university are expected to be able to spur student motivation in learning as well as teachers in developing their knowledge in teaching english. conclusions in conclusion, this study found the challenges of teaching english in non-native english-speaking countries. the challenges were categorized into three main problems which indicated by the findings; they are learning materials which do not cover students’ need, too big classroom size and school environment, and also students’ low motivation. however, each of non-necss had some efforts which had been attempted to resolve those problems. eventually, this study also has limitations because it only involves seven eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ hasanah & utami 119 participants, and this is considered not adequate enough to explore the real emerging challenges in the teaching of english in non-native english-speaking countries. however, this study can be a reference for other researchers who want to investigate a similar topic more deeply and in detail so that research can be refined as time goes by. references ayres, p., swayer, w., & dinham, s. 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(2019). an exploration of english students’ attitude towards english learning. english language teaching educational journal, 2 (1), 112. doi: https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v2i1.947 http://www.ijstr.org/final-print/oct2019/the-analysis-of-senior-high-school-students-speaking-performance.pdf http://www.ijstr.org/final-print/oct2019/the-analysis-of-senior-high-school-students-speaking-performance.pdf http://www.ijstr.org/final-print/oct2019/the-analysis-of-senior-high-school-students-speaking-performance.pdf https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v2i1.947 sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 3, no. 1, 2020, pp. 41-51 e-issn: 2621-6485 kahoot in maritime english teaching: its impact on nautical science cadet’s oral reproduction and vocabulary sri sartini nautical science of sekolah tinggi maritim yogyakarta, indonesia sartinisri69@gmail.com abstract this type of research was participatory action research using the denzin and lincoln (2005) model which consists of the kahoot pre-action cycle and post-action cycle. this study aimed to examine the use of kahoot platform in maritime english learning. it improved the speaking skill of nautical science cadets by the increasing number of maritime vocabularies as an indication. the results of this study described that the use of kahoot quiz made learning experienced in the classroom very interactive, interesting, and effective, because of the two cycles carried out increased from the beginning of the cycle to the next cycle marked by the increasing number of correct answers done by the cadets. thus, their vocabulary mastery increased as well. kahoot not only increased vocabularies that supported cadet’s speaking skill initiated by the correct oral reproduction, but also increased cadet’s enthusiasm in learning maritime english. in conclusion, the use of online gamification-based kahoot quiz toward nautical science cadets at sekolah tinggi maritim yogyakarta had a significant impact on vocabulary mastery for effective communication skills. keywords: kahoot quiz, maritime english, oral reproduction how to cite: sartini, s. (2020). kahoot in maritime english teaching: its impact on nautical science cadet’s oral reproduction and vocabulary. english language teaching educational journal, 3(1), 41-51 introduction digital technology-based learning in the 4.0 era has become a compulsory that cannot be negotiated. in fact, the era of the industrial revolution was not only in the economic field but also in the field of education. this is in line with the statement of saturno, pertel, deschamps, and de f.r.loures e. (2018) that entering this era, education must adopt the current knowledge by involving technological sophistication such as the use of artificial intelligence (ai), cloud, big data, iot, and robotic. stanic, hadjina, fafandjel, and matulja (2018) also mention that in fact, industrial revolution 4.0 transformations have spread into maritime sector and shipbuilding industry. therefore, a variety of careful preparation needs to be done for the success of learning in any sector. those forms of learning preparation are preparing materials as well as the assessment procedure to measure the ability of students to understand the information and material provided. besides determining the media to be used in learning is also important. educators become an important key in the learning preparation process. with those good learning preparations by educators, it is hoped that the quality and learning targets will be wellachieved according to the expected result and it leads to qualified and benefited outcomes. maritime english learning in maritime higher education is mandatory and it is crucial. it is mentioned by pratama and sartini (2019) that in era of industrial revolution 4.0, maritime higher education must produce qualified human resources that should be wellacknowledged with the technology and proficient in english. maritime english learning includes english for specific purposes. english teaching which belongs to specific purposes is important (hutchinson & waters, 1987) and it requires practical teaching which combines the theories and practice (nunan, 2003). the international maritime organization (imo) as a global maritime policy regulator has issued a nautical science cadets handbooks of imo model course 7.03 that is for deck officers and imo model course 7.04 for prospective mailto:sartinisri69@gmail.com 42  e-issn: 2621-6485 engine room officers. those handbooks both regulate curriculum content that must be given to prospective seafarer officers to meet minimum requirements as professional, competent and skillful seafarers so that the graduates or cadets are ready with the market needs at national and international levels. in fact, english which is considered as a foreign language in indonesia is a big challenge in the maritime teaching process. this is due to the fact that learning a foreign language is not that easy. as it is argued by nunan (1999), the measurement of successful foreign language teaching is the student’s capability of making conversation in the targeted language. further farabi, hassanvand, and gorjian (2017) also claim that capability in speaking shows proficient skill in the targeted language. meanwhile, the targeted indonesian seafarers needed are those who are capable and skillful in mastering knowledge in their fields and able to communicate actively in minimally english as one of international languages. another statement from florez (1999) says that speaking should be prioritized in language learning. more active language skills are demonstrated by the ability to speak up or give utterances. on the other hand, as it is mentioned by st-pierre and beland (2010) the word reproduction means to, good speaking skill can be derived from the ability of making correct oral reproductio state the production of language both in written and orally. therefore, speaking skills initiated by correct oral reproduction become more emphasized skills for all prospective seafarers including the nautical science cadets. effective teaching strategies to enhance cadet speaking skills through oral reproduction and vocabulary drills are also very important. various language teaching methods are now available. e-learning method by involving gamification (game-based learning) becomes one of positive alternatives to improve the achievement of learning objectives. this is due to the fact that e-learning with gamification provides attractive learning opportunities and is not boring. esteve, pereira, veiga, and vasco (2018) state that gbl (gamification-based learning) can make learning interactive, interesting and effective. he considers that game-based learning makes the learner get motivation that encourages the learner to get new knowledge easily according to his learning experience. haryanto (2018) highlights that e-learning model as a game-based learning creates faster and easier transfer of knowledge. the term game-based learning emerged from cheng, c. h. and su, c.h (2012) who tried to compare conventional or traditional learning methods with game-based learning methods and found that game-based methods provide more learning. wiggins (2016) also states that gamification-based learning provides an alternative teaching and learning process that is new. further explained that the existing facilities in e-learning can connect the distance (between educators and cadets) separated by space and time. in e-learning method educators and cadets can be connected to online classes even if they are in separate place. in addition, besides it attracts the enthusiasm of cadets in learning it can also support the learning process itself becoming easier, more practical, and even preparing human resources who are ready with technology. one of the e-learning lessons that can be done is the use of kahoot. kahoot media is a learning media based on online gamification that can utilize the features as a quiz, questionnaire, survey and others. kahoot was created by three talented entrepreneurs namely johan brand, jamie brooker, and morten versvik in 2013 (vidhiasi, 2018). by kahoot game, educators can provide various types of quizzes, tests, questions that are designed to measure the ability of cadet’s knowledge according to the material which is already transferred. learning becomes interesting because all cadets using gadgets or cell phones can be directly involved actively in learning with other cadets and with educators. indirectly kahoot makes learning integrated with the use of technology and provides space eltej issn: 2621-6485  sartini 43 for cadets to explore more with technology. kahoot quiz was used by researchers to improve cadets’ vocabularies mastery in order to achieve effective speaking skills by a lot of drills. this is inseparable from the statement that vocabulary knowledge is one of important elements in supporting one's speaking skill. by the increased mastery of vocabulary knowledge cadets will also immerge on their oral reproduction because every vocabulary given has its phonetic symbol. using kahoot, the lecturer involved the quiz to assess the cadet’s knowledge on phonetic transcription upon certain word. thus it leads cadets to produce correct sound on every word tested. from this analysis it is known that it is true if learning which involves e-learning or online-based media in the form of game is needed by cadets. therefore, the researcher examined the use of kahoot as an alternative effort to improve speaking skills initiated by oral reproduction of the cadets of sekolah tinggi maritim yogyakarta. it begins with the formation of vocabulary mastery so that learning difficulties in english especially in the field of speaking skills both in general and maritime english context which has been difficult may find a solution. as it is mentioned by the previous research conducted by vidhiasi (2018), learning by kahoot game instead of learning with old-fashioned method makes them communicate more each other, being more attracted and the kahoot method enhance teaching and learning process. eventhough, he focused his study on the use of kahoot to teach standard marine communication phrases, it showed similarity that it was related to student’s speaking skill. further, hadijah, pratolo, and rondiyah confirm that kahoot (2020) can help the students to be more active and it provides fun learning in the classroom, and makes the students more enthusiastic in doing the test. however, their research also found some negative sides of using kahoot. first, the students become less confident especially when they get lower scores than other students; second, some students had a lack of knowledge in using the application; and the last, the time was limited. furthermore, esteves et.al (2018) strengthens that kahoot is one of the tools to get the students being involved well in learning process besides there are other tools like edpuzzle and socrative. the previous researchers tried to prove the effectiveness of kahoot to teach standard maritime communication phrases (smcp) and to teach any materials as a whole, here the researcher burden of proof was how the use of kahoot might influence and had impact on cadet’s speaking skill through the effective design of vocabulary and oral reproduction drills or tests. research method this research included participatory action research denzin and lincoln (2005) by involving researchers directly involved in the research process from the beginning to the end of the process. in this classroom action research data were collected through tests, observations, questionnaire, and documentation. in maritime english teaching, there was a standardized english used to converse among seafarers which was issued by international maritime organization. therefore, this standard was used by the researcher as valid basis of the test and evaluation given in every cycle of quiz. the research method used was a combination method (mixed method) of sequential exploratory type that the data obtained were analyzed descriptive qualitatively then strengthened quantitatively in the form of a percentage obtained with ibm spss statistics 23. there were two cycles of kahoot usage, pre-action kahoot intended to identify the use of kahoot as a vocabulary drills in order to support the cadets’ oral reproduction skills in the evaluation of early learning. the postaction kahoot was used to find out the improvement in learning outcomes using the quiz. each cycle contained stages of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting or using kemmis and taggard model (1988) as explained in arikunto (2015). planning in the pre-action kahoot was done by making a learning scenario about wheel order, casting off procedure, 44  e-issn: 2621-6485 and internal communication on bridge. besides scenario, making observation sheet and designing evaluation materials through kahoot quiz were done. acting stage was done by implementing kahoot as a teaching media. once acting stage was done, observation was then conducted to ensure how the quiz ran. afterward reflection was noted in order to note down the weaknesses and the strengths to be evaluated ahead in the next cycle. therefore, the weaknesses could be eliminated and the strengths could be maintained. by the increasing score in the use of kahoot, vocabulary mastery and oral reproduction skills of cadets were assumed to increase. this was due to the same subject area which were used in the quiz. those as research subjects were cadets of the nautical science program in 2018/2019 with total numbers of 21 people. table 1. the blueprint of the kahoot test no. section number 1. wheel order 5 2. casting off procedure 5 3. internal communication on bridge 5 findings and discussion pre-action kahoot kahoot quiz was given in two cycles namely kahoot pre-action and post-action kahoot. each quiz on each cycle contains vocabulary knowledge related to the use of maritime english both for internal and external communication on board. for pre-action activities, some materials were given related to internal communication on board such as maritime english that is used in conducting communications on the bridge between watchkeeping officers (for example steering orders or wheel orders, use of international alphabet, order of casting off ropes to officers on the deck both the front deck (bow) and the rear deck (stern) when the ship will do berthing and unberthing procedures and when the ship will do anchoring. in addition to the material also alluded to parts of the vessel in four times meetings, cadets were given the material above and kahoot quiz was given as evaluation material. this information had been well-informed in advance so that cadets understood well that they had to get well-prepared for the exam with the kahoot quiz. cadets studied more actively to prepare for the quiz. this was because they felt a little embarrassed if they could not answer the question. each material was given in the form of a role play conversation as well as vocabulary drills according to their respective topics. the researcher observed the learning experiences of the cadets in doing role play and understanding the vocabulary used in the contents of the conversation. it was found during the role play that some cadets were still less active because in each group there must be cadets who might be more dominating so that other cadets tend to be passive. there were also less active cadets because they were still not confident in communicating in english. on the other hand, it was also found that some cadets already understood the concept of the standard marine communication phrases (smcp) delivered, but in this cycle they still felt insecure about their english pronunciation or articulation. as a follow up, the lecturer gave a kahoot quiz as an effort to strengthen vocabulary mastery and strengthen their articulation. here it was the difference from the previous research lies in. previous research done by vidhiasi (2018) proved how kahoot could be used to teach standard maritime communication phrase. whereas esteves et.al (2018) proved the use of fun kahoot in learning process instead of other fun online game. however, here researcher proved how eltej issn: 2621-6485  sartini 45 kahoot could bring impact on vocabulary mastery and oral reproduction of cadets which later contribute to cadets’ speaking skill. it was found by using the quiz, it turned out that cadets learn more actively and responsibly because each of them used their gadgets and participated totally without external coercion. this game-based quiz turned out to have a strong motivational effect on the cadets so that they were more serious about working on the quiz without even being asked by their own active lecturer. it seems that learning was more fun for them and the questions in the form of vocabulary memorization tests and articulation of sounds that are right for them were not a burden unlike other written tests that might be felt draining their energy and mind further it sounds monotonous. one of the highlights of this quiz to be used as a media of learning and evaluation is that this quiz was limited by the time for each question and answer displayed so that the cadets must really focus and concentrate on the questions that did not appear on their gadget screens but only appear on the lecturer slide screen. after a few moments the questions were closed automatically and the answer choices given within a few seconds were set according to the lecturer decision. here it was where the excitement of this game lies in because they had to use the right vocabulary and chose the right words for the right expressions in english especially according to the material given. the results of the kahoot pre-action quiz were as shown below. figure 1. percentage form of pre-action kahoot score from the figure, it is known that from 21 nautical science cadets, the total correct answer is 53.79% while the total incorrect answer is 46.21%. some errors that often occurred are questions related to standard wheel orders and internal communication on bridge. for example, when cadets were asked a question to say the "right 15 degree" steering command according to the smcp they should choose the "starboard fifteen" but many of them chose the "fifteen starboard" even though the phrase already has its own standard. from the observation done, it was found that the cadets who answered correctly but they were considered to be wrong by the system were due to the time laps to think and answer questions over because it was just 10 seconds length. while for cadets who answered incorrectly, there were indeed many of them who experienced panic situation between having to think quickly to find answers by only being given a very limited time. so the level of their panic became the main factor causing them to fail in answering correctly. however, those who did the kahoot quiz seemed to be enthusiastic and very happy regardless of the results of their answers. they felt motivated and enthusiastic. the results of the kahoot pre-action quiz can be analyzed as follows. 46  e-issn: 2621-6485 tabel 2a. pre-action kahoot statistics of kahoot result n valid 21 missing 0 mean 7.4762 std. deviation 1.50396 minimum 5 maximum 10 tabel 2b. pre kahoot frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid 5.00 6.00 2 9.5 9.5 9.5 4 19.0 19.0 28.6 7.00 4 19.0 19.0 47.6 8.00 7 33.3 33.3 81.0 9.00 1 4.8 4.8 85.7 10.00 3 14.3 14.3 100.0 total 21 100.0 100.0 from the statistics above it is known that all cadets worked by answering a total of 15 questions. the maximum number of questions that can be answered correctly is 10 questions. the average question that can be answered correctly by cadets is eight questions. table 3. pre kahoot analysis no. section percentage 1. wheel order steering order 9.5 2. casting off procedure procedure single up line and spring procedure heave up line and spring procedure let go all rope 23.5 3. internal communication on bridge ensuring course and speed duties of watchkeeping on bridge 20.79 from the table above it is also known that out of 53,79% correct answer of the cadet’s trial frequently correct answer were on the material of “casting off procedure”. it means that cadet understood well the material about procedure of letting go all rope and line or spring better than the other two material sections of wheel order and internal communication on bridge. this fact was well noted as a reflection or a highlight of the lecturer to prioritize in the next cycle of kahoot quiz. based on the observation done during the quiz which was written down in observation sheet, it was found that some of the failures in answering questions by the 21 cadets were caused by the panic situation. it correlates to the questionnaire distributed showing that this quiz was their first time to deal with. however, based on the observation sheet 16 cadets out of 21 or it is about 76,19% they became more enthusiastic about eltej issn: 2621-6485  sartini 47 memorizing the vocabulary taught and managing their own level of panic. fortunately, this motivation would be benefit for them for the next cycle of kahoot. post-action kahoot kahoot's post action quiz was given to evaluate vocabulary mastery related to external communication on board which involved internal communication as the basis terms to send information. external communication included ship to ship communication, ship to vessel traffic services (vts) communication and ship to shore communication. however, the communication used still well-related to the internal communication therefore the vocabulary used were also related. external communication which was tested in kahoot covered the same expressions which were applied for internal communication. for example, in external communication ship to ship, “standard wheel orders” which belong to internal communication used in the first cycle kahoot were used in term of sending message to tell about the current position and present course of the ship. this communication was intended to avoid the collision of the vessels. another example of external communication which used internal communication basis was ship to shore communication such as the activity when the vessel intended to do berthing in a port. before the vessel moored to the quay, it had to send a “casting off procedure” or sending out rope to the port labors. besides, internal communication on bridge was also important to send external communication especially between ship to vts. for instance when the vessel starts to enter or leave a port, it had to give information to vts as well as asking permission to pass the fairway. external communication involved the terms used for internal communication on board. however the dialogue and vocabularies used based on researcher’s observation were more difficult to memorize than that of internal communication. hence, it could be stated if the result of next cycle quiz using kahoot is better than the previous means that the kahoot itself was effective to conduct. the distinguish of the pre and post kahoot lied in the length of the utterances and vocabularies tested. both tested the use of the same basic internal communication which were applied as a means of internal communication on board and external communication on board. learning from experiences in the previous cycle, cadets did not want to fail again in answering questions in the next cycle of kahoot quiz. based on observation sheet, their obstruction in the first cycle was due to the lack of vocabulary mastery in maritime english context. then they became very motivated to memorize those vocabularies and terminologies. expecting by mastering the vocabulary according to the topic of the exam, they would be no longer panic in working on the quiz. and his confidence grew up. the time allocation in post kahoot quiz was increased from 10 seconds in the first quiz to 15 to 20 seconds due to consideration that external communication required more time in determining the answer. this is because in external communication the understood vocabularies were more numerous and complex even not only in the form of words but also in the form of expressions and groups of words or phrases. so that cadets were expected to be able to express utterances which were commonly used in external communication between ship to port authorities and with vts (vessel traffic services). as an example of a communication between a ship and port authority is that when a ship is about to go berthing, communication will occur with the pilot station to ask for pilotage and directed to its pier. phrases and not just short words were required as it was ruled and structured by standard maritime communication phrases. by referring to this, the communication was easily understood and structured. as the results of kahoot quiz in the post-action phase, it led more cadet’s enthusiasm to memorize vocabularies and terminologies in the form of words and structured expressions so that when they played with this quiz they would be 48  e-issn: 2621-6485 ready with the expressions they should use when they are exactly aboard the ship. the results of the kahoot post-action can be seen from the following statistics; tabel 4a. post-action kahoot statistics of post kahoot result n valid 21 missing 0 mean 9.7619 std. deviation 1.72930 minimum 7 maximum 13 tabel 4b. post-action kahoot frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid 7.00 8.00 2 9.5 9.5 9.5 4 19.0 19.0 28.6 9.00 3 14.3 14.3 42.9 10.00 5 23.8 23.8 66.7 11.00 3 14.3 14.3 81.0 12.00 3 14.3 14.3 95.2 13.00 1 4.8 4.8 100.0 total 21 100.0 100.0 it is known that out of the 21 cadets who took the kahoot post-action quiz as an evaluation test increased their ability in answering the 15 questions. compared from the pre kahoot quiz there was increasing number of cadets who can answer more correct answer. here, we can see the chart below. table 5. tabulation of the frequent number of correct answers no. section mean 1. pre-action kahoot 7.47 2. post-action kahoot 9.76 frequent number of correct answers made by the cadets increased significantly from the pre-action kahoot quiz to the post-action kahoot. it is shown from the average correct number done by the cadets. the mean of correct answer in the second kahoot quiz is higher than that of the first which increased from 7,47 to 9,76. it means cadet’s mastery on terminologies which could be assumed to make them having better capability on their oral reproduction developed either. out of the 15 questions given, the average cadet who could answer correctly at least 10 questions were about 12 cadets or around 57.2%. moreover, there were three cadets who could answer 12 questions correctly or it was around 14.3%. and there was one cadet with the most correct answers of 13 questions or about 4.8%. in conclusion there were about 16 cadets or 76,19% that could answer more correct answer compared to that in the pre-action kahoot. eltej issn: 2621-6485  sartini 49 constraint of the quiz the use of kahoot as online quiz did not always run smoothly. based on the observation sheet, it was analyzed that there might be some constraints occured. one of the mostly occured obstruction it was due to the internet connection. at first, the lecturer could run the quiz smoothly because of the good internet bound using wifi facility at campus. however, once the cadet would response to the quiz the problem happened when they used their own internet data. if they had got sufficient quotas there would be no connection obstruction happened. on the other hand it was found that 23.81% or it was around 5 cadets out of 21 did not get enough quotas to run the quiz smoothly. besides, another problem occured toward some cadets who used distinghuised internet provider. it was caused by the signal strengths. for several cadets who got strong signal, they can follow and response to the quiz immediately without any delay thus they did not miss any single question to answer. fortunately, there were around 14 cadets out of 21 or it was about 66.67% that had got opportunities to answer all questions. the other 9,52% or it was around 2 cadets found difficulties in responding to the quiz due to the poor signal. as a result, prior the use of kahoot quiz, the internet and data connection as technical support is compulsory to consider. lecturer must ensure that kahoot quiz could run smootly and there were no obstructions due to technical problems. conclusion from the results of the two kahoot quiz cycles, it could be seen that the kahoot quiz turned out to have a significant influence in the vocabularies and terminologies mastery of maritime english context and it supported the smoothness of cadet’s oral reproduction. regarding the involvement of kahoot quiz as online gamification in maritime english teaching, the cadets felt more enthusiastic and pleased to learn so that they themselves were better encouraged to learn more and more. this self-motivation brought a great learning desire and led to better understanding. furthermore, in the recent era of industrial revolution 4.0, integrating online gamification learning in foreign language (efl) learning with technology-based learning would present a good alternative teaching method for educators to attract cadet’s interest and achieve cadet’s target of learning while at the same time it prepares them to 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( 2016). an overview and study on the use of games, simulations, and gamification in higher education. international journal of game-based learning. vol. 6 (1), 18-29. doi: 10.4018/ijgbl.2016010102 https://www.researchgate.net/deref/http%3a%2f%2fdx.doi.org%2f10.6084%2fm9.figshare.7988576?_sg%5b0%5d=kwqmosqg1f-vyadcvn0wa-plnennzteyriq_pk2tjml9cevyw5g0qb_jtywwqrueay5odvu8pvrqxt0cbhwchbopja.cpizdbtqzawuyf4tkbaki0pfhhj4cfh4fuhw3vymmfwaujfiujwr7rwvzmkno1j6i0iri08k5awmvpv0ebgi2a microsoft word surono 240-252.docx english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 240-252 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.8168 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id analysis of hots and lots of instructional questions in the english textbook "when english rings a bell" for grade viii surono a,1*, bambang widi pratolob,2, siti latifah hanun c,3 a, b, c universitas ahmad dahlan, jl. ringroad selatan, kragilan, tamanan, kec. banguntapan, kabupaten bantul daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55191 1 surono@pbi.uad.ac.id, 2bambang.pratolo@pbi.uad.ac.id, 3sitilatifahhanun669@gmail.com * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 13 september 2022 revised 25 october 2022 accepted 5 december 2022 english textbooks have an essential role in learning english subjects for students in junior high school, so the quality of textbooks must be of high quality. to make students master english language skills, they need a good quality of textbooks to improve their critical thinking skills. this research aims to find out the representation of higher order thinking skills (hots) and lower order thinking skills (lots) and the appearance frequency in the instructional questions in english textbook entitled “when english rings a bell” grade viii. this study used a content analysis with qualitative approach. six chapters of the textbook were taken as the sample. observation and note-taking techniques were used to collect the data using observation sheet. the data were analyzed by using miles’s et al. model regarding coding method. the research findings showed that chapters i, vi, and vii represented lots with the most dominant in remembering and applying. meanwhile, the appearance of lots and hots in chapters v and xii looked nearly in balance dominating the verb remembering for lots and the verbs evaluating and creating for hots. the realization of hots in the chapters was less than lots, except chapter xiii. after the instructional questions in all activities were categorized, the distribution of lots in the textbook appeared in 66 (58%) and hots in 47 questions (42%). it is concluded that the textbook distributed less evenly in hots and lots composition. it implies that the textbook still focuses on lots. it is recommended that the authors of the textbook balance the hots and lots in the instructional questions proportionally to encourage students to think critically. teachers should creatively modify the instructional questions to meet the balance. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords hots lots instructional questions content analysis textbook how to cite: surono, pratolo. b. w., & hanun, l. s. (2022). analysis of hots and lots of instructional questions in the english textbook “when english rings a bell” for grade viii. english language teaching educational journal, 5 (3), 240-252. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.8168 1. introduction nowadays, education must go beyond simply retaining material and memorization (qasrawi & benyabdelrahman, 2020). higher order thinking skills (hots) and lower order thinking skills (lots) are terms used in education. the indonesian government popularized hots, and the idea was used in the country's national test (ariawan et al., 2023). hots are very often incorporated in instructional questions of a textbook. the purpose of instructional questions is to get students to 241 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no, december 2022, pp. 240-252 surono et.al (analysis of lots and hots of instructional questions……) reflect on and interact with the subject matter. instructional questions are frequently included in textbooks to aid students in understanding and applying the principles they are learning including the culture of the target language (soviyah, 2022). depending on how much thought is needed to respond to each topic, they can either be classified as hots or lots. however, higher cognitive levels are necessary to increase students' awareness of their own learning processes and teach them how to use such capacities to improve their academic performance. (ching & da silva, 2017). one of the most crucial and integral parts of the language instruction process is the use of textbooks (dabbagh & safai, 2019). hots development resources and exercises are a requirement of a good textbook (erdiana & panjaitan, 2023). so, it is essential to develop textbooks with adequate material in order to fulfill learning objectives (lestari et al., 2022). wale and bogale (2021) stated that textbooks and the educational field are intricately related. a textbook is a piece of educational material that is used in schools and universities to support a teaching and learning program, based on the modern and widely accepted definition. however, the teachers’ expertise is very crucial to complete the role of textbook (apichat & fatimah). additionally, teachers must have the ability to modify the learning paradigm to fit the circumstances, including in selecting the textbook (purwanti et al., 2023). in the teaching and learning process, textbooks can be used as a guide for teachers and students, namely as the main reference or as a supplementary material. in learning activities, students are not limited to observing what is explained by the teacher. students also need references to explore knowledge so that their abilities and critical thinking can be optimized. according to febrina et al. (2019), reading a suitable textbook with hots issues is essential for students to strengthen their critical thinking abilities (hatmanto et al., 2023), which assist students in navigating constraints and successfully resolving problems (sutama et al., 2022). thus, teachers must intelligently determine which textbooks should be used in the learning process. if a teacher can determine a good textbook, it will consequently have a big influence in the learning process (tomlinson & masuhara, 2018). english assignments from textbooks are crucial to learning. because of this, instructional questions give students the chance to hone their abilities and produce effective teaching and learning. by practice, language learning exercises are streamlined and completely grasped. students are required to complete instructional questions from textbooks as one of their exercises (gilakjani & sabouri, 2016). because "when english rings a bell" is a guide book that highlights the potential to build information, abilities, and attitudes as a complement and companion for learning english, the researchers chose it as the material for the study. this textbook, which is a component of the advanced 2013 curriculum, exhorts students to engage in active learning and critical thinking up until the production stage. (errington & bubna-litic, 2015). english textbooks, for example, which are skill-based, are seen as a rich source of resources and content that may represent the hots and lots, due to the large number of reading passages and writing activities (qasrawi & benyabdelrahman, 2020). unfortunately, many textbooks do not represent hots proportionally and only focus on lots (hasanah, 2017). in fact, students must also be familiar with the hots materials they are learning. therefore, the representation of hots and lots should be proportional in the english textbook. this is because incorporating hots in textbooks can help students understand critical thinking. in turn, this can help teachers to be able to advance their students through bloom's taxonomy levels (kelly, 2014). critical thinking requires creativity, careful analysis, and the ability to adapt (changwong et al., 2018). there have been many researches on textbook analysis with different focuses and intensities. sucipto and cahyo (2019) analyzed the reading assignments in the english textbook "bright 2". similarly, azizah and bharati (2021) explored reading activities in package b modules. then, similarly, febriyani et al. (2019), nastiti (2020), fahmi (2020), aryani and wahyuni (2020), ariawan et al. (2023), and erdiana and panjaitan (2023) analyzed the hots focusing on the reading materials from english textbook. zainil et al. (2019) also looked into the hots reading comprehension problems found in the english textbooks for a senior high school in padang. rindawati, et al. (2014) analyzed writing skill in english textbooks to improve students' positive attitudes and communicative competence. meanwhile, zaiturrahmi, et al. (2017) focused their analysis on the exercises of english skills with limited varieties in the textbook entitled "when english rings a bell" for class x. they also revealed hots and lots in the exercises in elt issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 242 vol. 5, no, december 2022, pp. 240-252 surono et.al (analysis of lots and hots of instructional questions……) textbooks, and they focused more on discussing textbook quality. however, they only focused on different aspects and language skills in the textbook. the same thing happened to hots they analyzed in instructional questions which tended to only discuss one english skill. though analyzing hots, rizkiani (2022) just focused on the integration of hots in lesson objectives for elementary school textbook. in more general idea, the idea of fostering critical thinking in speaking was discussed (viana et al., 2022), writing (arifin et al., 2020), and listening abilities (irianti et al., 2022). a similar study but different in viewpoint was conducted by dabbagh and safai (2019). they analyzed iranian nationwide elt textbooks. then, kamarulzaman et al. (2017) compared hots and lots scores gained by the students. in sum, the previous studies explored hots and or lots in english skills separately. however, though in a bit contrast, this study focused on discussing hots and lots in each instructional question contained in all skills altogether in the textbook. based on the description above, two problems were formulated as the main discussion. they were (1) how is the representation of hots and lots in the instructional questions in the english textbook “when english rings a bell”? and (2) how frequently are hots and lots emphasized in the activities in the english textbook? these two issues are very important to investigate because the efl textbooks published by the indonesian government are used by english teachers throughout indonesia, and thus are expected to improve the quality of the instructional questions contained in the textbooks. this study aims to analyze the representation and frequencies of instructional questions considering the hots and lots. in terms of cognitive domains, the revised bloom’s taxonomy (anderson et al., 2001) indicates that there are two categories of cognitive domains that must be included in the textbook, namely hots and lots. in lots, what students do is usually in the form of taking notes, copying, memorizing, or following. in other words, lots include remembering (c1), which refers to the ability to retrieve, recall, or recognize pertinent knowledge from long-term memory; students may mention definitions, imitate pronunciations, state structures, pronounce them, and repeat; understanding (c2), which requires students to explain an idea, principle, rules, or practice in one or more ways to show that they have understood; and applying (c3), that is, students can apply their understanding in a new scenario by employing information or a skill in a new situation hots is defined as the ability to think strategically to use information in solving problems, analyzing arguments, negotiating issues, or making predictions. it can be concluded that the understanding of hots is a complicated level thinking ability that requires the use of description, conclusion, analysis, and other higher order thinking skills and actual instances. anderson et al. (2001) states that hots include analyzing (c4), namely the skill of being able to break down concepts into their component parts and connect them in order to fully understand the concept; evaluating (c5) is the ability to determine the degree of something based on certain norms, criteria or benchmarks; and creating (c6), namely the ability to integrate pieces into a new whole and broad form, or to create something original. therefore, it is very important to design textbooks with appropriate content of lots and hots so that learning objectives can be achieved. the implication of this research is that it can provide valuable information to the stakeholders involved in learning in the classroom, curriculum design, and syllabus development. in addition, materials development also gets teachers to discover how to better overcome the textbook's weaknesses with innovative methods to achieve the learning goals effectively (hafizhah & pratolo, 2022). 2. method this descriptive qualitative study employed content analysis to describe the information obtained from analyzing a textbook. the research subject of this research was the english textbook "when english rings a bell" for grade viii published by ministry of education and culture of the republic of indonesia which consisted of 13 chapters with 234 pages in total. the data of this research were gathered through observing six chapters selected to represent other chapters and note taking on the instructional questions in the english textbook. an observation sheet was used as the instrument to collect data which was based on revised bloom’s taxonomy (anderson et al., 2001) to observe the representation of hots and lots in the instructional questions. then, the instructional questions and activities contained in each of the six chapters in the textbook were listed. in order to obtain valid and reliable data, the researchers conducted a data trustworthiness using four criteria, namely credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability (elo et al., 2014). 243 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no, december 2022, pp. 240-252 surono et.al (analysis of lots and hots of instructional questions……) to analyze the data, several steps were taken based on miles’s et al, (2004) approach by regarding coding method (st. pierre & jackson, 2014; schilling, 2006). in data reduction, two steps were conducted, namely classifying and coding. the classification in this study was based type of cognitive domains – hots or lots. so, to make it easier to classify the hots and lots in textbooks, each instructional question was coded. after that, the first data display step was to make an observation sheet assist researchers to find out the number of each type of hots and lots. after the data were calculated, they were input in a table. the data on each page were compiled into a chapter, and each chapter was compiled into the entire book. then, the percentage of the data were presented in tables to see the difference in the number between the hots and lots of instructional questions. finally, after all the analysis processes were carried out and described, the results of the analysis were concluded. 3. findings and discussion this study set out to find out the representation and frequencies of hots and lots in instructional questions of all the english skills. the following discussion focuses on the analysis of the instructional questions from textbook regarding hots and lots based on revised bloom’s taxonomy. 3.1 representations of hots and lots in the instructional questions in the english textbook when english rings a bell grade viii all of the cognitive domains were covered by the classification of instructional questions based on the revised bloom's taxonomy in the textbook. they were the levels of remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. based on data analysis, it was seen that chapter 1 represented lots with the most dominant instructional questions appearing in the remembering and applying categories. then, chapter v represented lots with instructional questions that appeared in balance between lots and hots. in this chapter, the most frequent occurrence was instructional questions in remembering category for lots as also found by surtikanti et al. (2020) and instructional questions in the evaluating category for hots. next, chapter vi represented lots with the most dominant instructional questions appearing in the remembering category. furthermore, chapter vii also represented lots with the most dominant instructional questions appearing in the remembering category. meanwhile, chapter xii represented instructional questions that appeared in balance between lots and hots. in this chapter, the most frequently appearing were instructional questions in the remembering category for lots and instructional questions in the evaluating and creating categories for hots. chapter xiii, represented hots with the most dominant instructional questions appearing in the analyzing and evaluating categories. hence, the instructional questions in the textbook were still more dominant in lots (58%) than hots (42%). erdiana and panjaitan (2019) showed that the distribution of hots and lots questions differed significantly but only in reading skill. the same conclusion focusing on learning outcomes was drawn by sapkota (2022). similarly, with different foci, alzu'bi (2014), assaly and smadi (2015), and fitriani and kirana (2021) also revealed lots (69.6%), (61.4%) and (77%) more dominantly respectively. the nearly balanced occurrence between lots (51%) and hots (49%) was found by sucipto and cahyo (2019) but focusing only on reading activities. the partially similar conclusion was also drawn by dabbagh and safai (2019). the following are further explanations regarding the representations of hots and lots in each section. 3.1.1. the representations of hots in instructional questions in the textbook learners must exercise critical thought, analysis, and evaluation when answering hots questions. they push students to think imaginatively and apply what they have learned to novel situations. in textbooks, hots questions are generally used at the conclusion of a lesson or chapter to assist students in making connections between the content and real-world situations and to promote a deeper level of comprehension and analysis (anderson et al., 2001). as a result, the hots were incorporated into education, both in schools and at the university level (surtikanti et al., 2020). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 244 vol. 5, no, december 2022, pp. 240-252 surono et.al (analysis of lots and hots of instructional questions……) table 3.1 the representation of hots in the instructional questions code of instructional questions instructional questions page skill hots basic verb 13. “the activities i found most difficult were.” 18 writing c5 evaluate 23. “the activities i like most were.” 74 writing c5 evaluate 45. “i have just learn to.” 84 writing c5 evaluate 76. “what i need to do better is / are” 100 writing c5 evaluate 84 “write three different notes for our brother, sister, and parents.” 205 writing c6 create 112. “the activities i found most difficult were.” 222 writing c5 evaluate table 3.1 shows that the english textbook “when english rings a bell” had instructional questions that represented hots in each chapter (more clearly in table 3.3) distributed in different levels, even though the level of occurrence was less dominant than that of lots. this could be seen from the existence of instructional questions that had basic skills towards hots such as instructions that asked the students to evaluate and create, which are included in the top ranks in the bloom taxonomy pyramid. (anderson et al., 2001) the results of the hots analysis of instructional questions in chapter i entitled "it's english time!" showed that there were only four questions out of 14 questions in the textbook and they belonged to the evaluation level (c5). it is clearly understood more generally that in chapter i the representation of hots was lower than that of lots (zaiturrahmi et al., 2017; fitriani & kirana, 2021), it indicated that the students could state whether they were good or bad about a certain phenomenon or object that they were asked to write down their reflections during the learning process. furthermore, other data representing hots could be found in chapter v entitled "i'm so happy for you!" which contained materials that offered help for the students to determine what skills they were learning. it is known that at the evaluation level (c5) there were four questions and at the create level (c6) there was only one question out of 11 questions in the textbook. meanwhile, the results of the hots analysis of chapter vi entitled "our busy streets" showed that there were complete levels of hots, namely analysis level (c4) with three questions, evaluation level (c5) with four, and create level (c6) with one out of 23 questions in the chapter. as shown in the table above, one of the c5 levels that most often appeared was demonstrating instructional questions in writing activities in which the students were asked to write down their reflections during the learning process. chapter vii entitled "my uncle is a zookeeper" showed the results of the hots analysis at the analysis level (c4) as many as two questions, the evaluation level (c5) as many as four, and the create level (c6) as many as three questions out of 28 questions in the textbook. it means that in chapter vii the representation of hots was lower than lots. then, chapter xii entitled "don't forget it!" revealed that the hots analysis of instructional questions at c4 level appeared once, c5 level six questions and c6 level also six questions out of 26 questions in the chapter. it is clearly seen that in chapter xii there was a balance between hots and lots representations which was similar to sucipto and cahyo’s (2019). what appeared most often in hots were the levels of evaluation and create. as can be seen in the table above, one of the c5 levels that was used the most frequently was showing instructional questions in writing assignments (sapkota, 2022) where students were required to record their learning process reflections and to evaluate tables and pictures. and for c6 level, the most frequently occurring instructional questions were also related to writing activities, in which the students were asked to write notes for their brothers, sisters, and parents. in chapter xiii entitled "we have a lot of history", the results of the hots analysis of the instructional questions showed four questions for both c4 level and c5 level out of 11 questions in the chapter. hence, in chapter xiii the representation of hots was lower than lots. what appeared most often in the hots was the level of analysis and evaluation which were similar to assaly and smadi’s (2015). in c4 levels, the instructional questions were correlated with 245 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no, december 2022, pp. 240-252 surono et.al (analysis of lots and hots of instructional questions……) reading skill, in which the students were asked to find important messages in songs and required to have critical thinking (sutrisno, 2022). they needed to explore the information they had and actively sought information from a variety of sources relating to the topic (wale & bogale, 2021). then, in c5 levels, the instructional questions were devoted to writing activities (rindawati, et al., 2014), in which the students were asked to write down their reflections during the learning process. the research findings elaborated above were in line with the research by zaiturrahmi, et al. (2017) which discussed the level of thinking in each question activity. evaluation can be categorized into hots because evaluation requires the ability to think highly to know how far the implementation is carried out in order to achieve the stated goals. because create is also associated with hots, it challenged the students to design a new product by integrating diverse parts in fresh shapes or patterns which also required high-level thinking skills. hots could get least significant attention in the textbook for certain skills (dabbagh & safai, 2019) but sukmawijaya et al., (2020) found differently that hots in language skills were integrated well. meanwhile, rizkiani (2022) showed that the 2013-curriculum based textbook incorporated hots excellently and was relevant to language skills. then, only 19.4% of hots incorporation in the textbook was showed by erdiana and panjaitan, (2023). consequently, the efl textbook's ability to serve as direction toward a learning objective may be diminished by the absence of hots (ariawan et al., 2022). however, there are other things that were not found in abovementioned researches in specific but revealed in this study, though still related to hots, lots and instructional questions. 3.1.2. the representations of lots in instructional questions in the textbook the majority of lots questions are factual or knowledge-based and call on the learner to recollect details from the book. lots questions are frequently used in textbooks to check that students have understood the material delivered as well as to reinforce it. they usually serve to give students a foundational understanding of the subject at the start of a lesson or chapter. lots could be relied on to make decisions that facilitated the use of hots, particularly when doing complex tasks (kamarulzaman et al., 2017). table 3.2 the representation analysis of lots in the instructional questions code of instructional questions instructional questions page skill lots basic verb 1. “listen to our teacher reading the conversation. repeat after him/her.” 4 listening c1 remember 15. “listen to our teacher reading on the greeting cards. repeat after him/her..” 66 listening c1 remember 26. “listen to our teacher reading on the presentation. repeat after him/her. 76 listening c1 remember 68. “here are what dayu, lina and siti do as their routines, according to udin.” 98 reading c1 remember 96. “listen and repeat after the teacher reading the notices that often see around schools in the book.” 212 listening c1 remember 105. “read the lyrics of the song loudly, clearly, and correctly.” 218 speaking c1 remember table 3.2 shows that the english textbook “when english rings a bell” also contained instructional questions that represented lots in each chapter. this could be seen from the existence of instructional questions that had basic skills towards lots such as instructions that asked the students to remember as the lowest basic skill in the revised bloom’s taxonomy pyramid. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 246 vol. 5, no, december 2022, pp. 240-252 surono et.al (analysis of lots and hots of instructional questions……) based on table 3.2 the lots for the instructional questions in chapter i showed five lots questions belonging to c1 level, one question belonging to c2 level, and four questions belonging to c3 level in the textbook. it is clear that chapter i showed all lots representation. mostly the lots in chapter i often appeared at the level of remembering, meaning that the students could mention definitions, imitate pronunciation, state structures, recite, and repeat (nazri et al., 2021). it indicated that the students had only to recall and retain newly learned information. this conclusion was also supported by rustiyani et al. (2021) in their study of “pathway to english” textbook and febriyani et al. (2020) in their study of “bahasa inggris sma/ma/smk/mak kelas xii edisi revisi 2018”. in other words, it was in knowledge level (ariawan et al., 2022). furthermore, other data representing lots could also be found in chapter v of the textbook which contained materials that offered help for the students to identify what skills they were learning. the table shows that the lots for the instructional questions in chapter v comprised c1 level with four questions and c2 level with two questions out of 11 questions in the textbook. as can be seen in the table, the students were also asked to recall and retain newly learned information. however, it was clearly seen that the instructional questions in chapter v is in balance (sucipto & cahyo’s, 2019) between the lots and hots representation with six and five questions respectively. the same phenomena also happened to other chapters of the textbook with different number of questions and lots levels. chapter vi contained 12 c1 and three c2 instructional questions; chapter vii contained 18 c1 and one c2; all instructional questions (13) in chapter xii belonged to c1 level; and chapter xiii contained only three c1 questions which were less than the hots ones with eight questions distributed in c3 and c5 levels. most lots questions in the textbook still represented the level of remembering. in this aspect, sucipto and cahyo’s (2019) study showed differently informing applying as the most dominant. in most cases, the c1 level verbs were represented in activities in which the students were asked to recall and retain newly learned information. as can be seen in table 3.2 above, the c1 level instructional questions were realized in different activities, namely speaking activities (viana et al., 2022) emphasizing on word stress and pronunciation, reading activities emphasizing on asking the students to read the examples carefully and then list the routines, and listening activities emphasizing also on word stress and pronunciation. the abovementioned research findings indicated remembering as the most dominant in lots. remembering is the ability to recall information from previously acquired recollections or memories, whether they were just acquired or have been collected over a long period of time (anderson et al., 2001). hence, the tendency of lots questions appearance was clear (zainil, 2019). it means that lots questions were more dominant (ariawan et al., 2023). this finding ran counter to wu and pei's (2018) assertion that hots-based questions should ideally be utilized more frequently, particularly for fostering critical thinking as a crucial 21st-century skill (alghamdi, 2022). however, there were other things that were not found in their study but revealed in this research, namely the comparison of hots and lots in all instructional questions of all english skills under investigation. meanwhile, low english proficiency served as a cognitive barrier for students, preventing them from progressing to the higher levels of bloom's revised taxonomy (dabbagh & safai, 2019). additionally, lots was critical in establishing a framework for the implementation of hots (kamarulzaman et al., 2017). 3.1.3. the occurrence of hots and lots in the activities in english textbooks. it is a good idea to utilize instructional questions in textbooks to get students interested in the topic and to think critically about the ideas they are learning. textbooks can offer a thorough learning experience that aids students in developing a solid comprehension of the subject matter by using both lots and hots questions. these inquiries can be used to gauge students' comprehension of the subject matter and to promote deeper learning and critical thinking. regarding the point, the occurrence of hots and lots in the textbook can be seen in table 3.3. 247 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no, december 2022, pp. 240-252 surono et.al (analysis of lots and hots of instructional questions……) table 3.3 the frequency and percentage of activities in english textbook chapter levels of cognitive domain total c1 c2 c3 c4 c5 c6 i 5 1 4 4 14 v 4 2 4 1 11 vi 12 3 3 4 1 23 vii 18 1 2 4 3 28 xii 13 1 6 6 26 xiii 3 4 4 11 total 55 7 4 10 26 11 113 percentage 49% 6 % 3 % 9 % 23 % 10 % 100 % the research revealed that the activities in the english textbook required both lots and hots. partly, this corresponded to the research by zaiturrahmi, et al. (2017) which discussed that the majority of the listening, reading, speaking, and writing activities placed a strong emphasis on lots. additionally, the authors struggled to significantly modify the cognitive domain of the speaking, listening, reading, and writing activities. it was a wonderful thing that the authors of the textbook included certain materials that possibly inspired and encouraged students to use all of their cognitive capabilities to the possible maximum extent. although the quantity of instructional questions demanding a high level of cognitive ability did not yet meet the standard for the educational objectives, it was clear that the authors had taken this into account when encouraging the students to use hots. the distribution of hots in the textbook was not significantly unequal which was in contrast to febriyani’s et al. (2020) conclusion. a very sharp imbalance between lots (97%) and hots (3%) was found by azizah and bharati (2021) who analyzed package b textbooks or modules for the students of non-formal equivalency education. according to the ministry of education and culture, students must learn to use hots and develop the ability to make realistic assumptions in accordance with the curriculum 2013 mindset, but it was not commonly promoted through textbooks (peyró et al., 2020). however, because 58% of the activities in the textbook only focused on lots, the authors of the textbook found it challenging to succeed in their goal of inspiring students to be hots. they were evidently unaware of the k13 curriculum's emphasis on developing students' hots. the studies by sapkota (2022), razmjoo and kazempourfard (2012), igbaria (2013), and alzu’bi (2014) also supported this finding. their research revealed that the authors of english textbooks created materials that placed emphasis more on lots than hots, despite the curriculum's stated objectives of developing students' critical thinking to be more creative, imaginative, and competent. nastiti’s (2020) study also showed similar point, but she did not focus her study on hots, lots and instructional questions specifically. regarding the elaboration above, the english textbook “when english rings a bell” grade viii was determined to be less relevant to the 2013 curriculum since it placed emphasis more on lots than hots in the instructional questions. but the imbalance between lots (58%) and hots (42%) in the textbook was still tolerable. the explanation above indicated that out of 113 questions in the textbook, remembering skills were realized in 55 questions, understanding skills in seven questions and applying skills in four questions. it implied that out of 113 questions in the textbook, analyzing skills were realized in 10 questions, evaluating skills in 26 questions and creating skills in 11 questions. finally, most of the instructional questions that were dominantly found in the textbook were in the lots category (chapters i, v, vi, vii, and xii). only one chapter dominated the hots category (chapter xiii). hence, critical thinking-oriented tasks in educational materials require the establishment of national norms and must begin at the top of the educational system in order to transform and affect the entire curriculum over time (susandari et al., 2019). as also stated by aryani and wahyuni (2020), the current findings appeared crucial for educators, textbook authors, and academicians as they had to collaborate to create hots-based textbooks in the future. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 248 vol. 5, no, december 2022, pp. 240-252 surono et.al (analysis of lots and hots of instructional questions……) 4. conclusion considering the discussion above, it can be concluded that the textbook "when english rings a bell" for grade viii 2017 revised edition contained the instructional questions comprising hots and lots. however, they were not represented in balance emphasizing the lots levels instead of the hots ones. although they were not balanced, at least the authors have tried to include the hots materials. even, the imbalance was still tolerable. then, the hots were also represented quite well in this textbook. there was only one out of 13 chapters which represented the hots in the textbook. it implies that the textbook will continue stressing the lots which can be more easily internalized by the students in learning the textbook materials. however, to improve students' critical thinking, it is suggested that the textbook authors balance the level of thinking in instructional questions proportionally and teachers intelligently employ more hots than lots creatively. acknowledgment the researcher extends the gratitude to all parties who helped in the process of this research project, data collection, data analysis and provided constructive feedback so that this paper could be completed. therefore, the researchers would like to thank and appreciate to all parties who have supported and encouraged the researchers to complete this manuscript. declarations author contribution : surono was responsible for the entire research project. he also led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the second author. bambang w. pratolo revised and proofread the final draft. siti lh. participated in the data collection, transcription and analysis. all the authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research did not receive any funding from any party. conflict of interest : all authors declare that they have no competing interests. ethics declaration additional information : : we as authors acknowledge that this work has been written based on ethical research that conforms with the regulations of our university and that we have obtained the permission from the relevant institute when collecting data. we support english language teaching educational journal (eltej) in maintaining high standards of personal conduct, practicing honesty in all our professional practices and endeavors. no additional information is available for this paper. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references alghamdi, a (2022). empowering efl students with 21st-century skills at a saudi university: challenges and opportunities. international journal of education, learning, and development, 10(3), 39-53. https://doi.org/10.37745/ijeld.2013/vol10no3pp.39-53 alzu’bi, m. a. 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(2019). an analysis of reading comprehension questions in english textbooks for sman padang: hots. proceedings of the eight international conferences on languages and arts (icla_2019), 76-80 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). zaiturrahmi, kasim, u., & zulfikar, t. (2017). analysis of instructional questions in an english textbook for senior high schools. english education journal (eej), 8(4), 536–552. https://jurnal.unsyiah.ac.id/eej/article/view/9217/7224 sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 2, 2019, pp. 79-89 e-issn: 2621-6485 improving students’ awareness of functional literacy 1dita surwanti, 2isti’anatul hikmah 1sarjanawiyata tamansiswa university 2sarjanawiyata tamansiswa university e-mail: ditasurwanti@ustjogja.ac.id abstract one of the ironic facts that existed in our society is functional illiteracy. it does not mean that people cannot read or write. people know how to read and write but are unable to understand the meaning of a text they read. thus, this research was held to answer the question of “how can students’ awareness of functional literacy be improved?” this research applied a classroom action research. the results showed that functional literacy was not working due to several reasons such as the students’ ignorance of the surroundings, misunderstanding of the instructions, and lacking reading comprehension and language mastery. students’ awareness of functional literacy was improved by implementing regular instructional announcements and reminders. the functional literacy which was also measured from the students’ reading comprehension increased from the pre-test, which was 34.09, to 63.17 on the 1st cycle and 69.69 on the 2nd cycle. it can be concluded that functional literacy requires practice and habituation. students reading comprehension and language mastery are the other matters to be considered in the success of functional literacy. the last, habituation that is directly related to daily life needs sustainable practices, not only in the classroom but also outside in order to become a habit and they can live well in the society. keywords: functional literacy, reading, awareness how to cite: surwanti, d. & hikmah, i. (2019). improving students’ awareness of functional literacy. english language teaching educational journal, 2 (2), 79-89. introduction literacy and basic knowledge cannot be clearly separated from each other. although the term literacy is a part of basic knowledge, it is a prerequisite and also a result of basic knowledge. when people discuss about literacy, it involves productive skills (writing and speaking) as well as receptive skills (reading and listening) (smagorinsky, 2001) to extract, construct, integrate, and give critique through interaction and involvement in the social practices (frankel et al., 2016). literacy develops throughout life. it is not the skill that is only learned in the school years. it makes people to be able to use printed or written information in order to function in the society, to achieve personal goals and to develop personal knowledge and potential (mukan and olena, 2016). meanwhile, literacy and basic knowledge may work well whenever people are aware. dourish and bellotti say that awareness is an understanding of the context of the activities (1992). people need to have awareness or a general interest in others to overcome narrow-mindedness and egocentrism. the availability of awareness can improve the effectiveness of how information is spread in the society and give positive influence on social interactions in the community (reinhardt et al., 2012). that is why it is necessary to bring about the students’ awareness in literacy. ironically in a study conducted by central connecticut state university (2016), indonesia ranked 60th out of 61 countries about reading interest. this shows that the reading level of people in indonesia is still very low. even the functional illiteracy rate of indonesia is 55% percent of the total population according to the world bank report (2018). functional illiteracy does not mean that people cannot read or write. the community knows 80 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 how to read and write but cannot understand the meaning of a reading or the text they are reading. functional literacy is a set of real skills: reading and writing, which in the context of a globalized world, means from a simple process of acquiring basic cognitive skills to use these skills by contributing to socio-economic development, to develop capacity for social awareness and critical reflection as a basis for personal and social change (unesco, 2015). functional literacy can be situated from educational, social or political viewpoints. a functionally literate person is an individual who is able to read and write well enough to understand any signs, ads, newspaper headlines, and able to fill out job applications, make shopping lists, and write (groenestijn, 2003). a functionally literate person must be able to fulfill moral obligations including being able to provide for themselves in the society (johnson, 2016). higher literacy ability is resulted in greater work productivity and higher incomes especially in the context of employment and economic development (bravo, contreras, & larrañaga, 2002 and edwards & corson, 1997). bhola and gómez categorize functional literacy into autonomous literacy, critical literacy, ideological literacy, dysfunctional literacy, document literacy, narrative literacy/ prose literacy, numeracy or quantitative literacy, and integral literacy (2008). the low ability to comprehend reading or a text certainly affects many things. for example, the low understanding of literacy (especially digital literacy) has negative impacts such as the high rates of hoaxes, pornography, misuse of private content, to the spread of terrorism or radicalism in cyberspace (hadi, 2019). a more concrete example of the poor understanding of literacy in society is that there are still many people who litter in our society. at traffic intersections, there are many motorcyclists who stop in the special waiting areas for cyclists. there are some rules and restrictions when refueling at the gas station but sometimes there are still motorcyclists who operate mobile phones during the refueling. in the researcher’s campus environment, there are several students who are definitely literate, but they still park their vehicles in the specific areas for employees and lecturers. there are also university’s dressing regulations that are not obeyed bythe students, for example wearing sandals, masks, hats, etc. inside the classroom. as what nafukho, amutabi and otunga (2006) suggest that education including literacy need to emphasize on social responsibility, job orientation, political participation, spiritual, and moral values, it is one of our major responsibilty as teachers and lecturers to assist our students to acquire basic cognitive skills and to develop their capacity for social awareness and critical reflection by possessing higher functional literacy. therefore, the functional literacy of the community needs to be improved. of course, starting from the smallest scope, like family and school, especially in the university. therefore, the researchers was interested in improving students’ awareness of functional literacy in reading classes, especially for english education department students.based on the background of the problems and objectives above, this research was held to answer the following question of “how can the students’ awareness of functional literacy be improved?” the functional literacy program (depdiknas, 2009) is developed through a bottomup strategy based on several principles, namely: local context, local design, participatory processes, and the results of actions. the functional definition depends on what reading and writing skills are usually needed in the learning community. people who live in cities and work in factories and offices clearly need information and literacy skills than people who eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ surwanti & hikmah 81 live in remote villages. therefore, each group needs their own definition of functional literacy. according to vagvolgyi, et al. the factors that influence functional literacy are related to language deficits, general cognitive deficits, and deficits related to numerical ability (2016). some ways to improve functional literacy (unesco, 2015) are effective cooperation, tot, communication support, teacher training, independent study groups, integrated evaluation, and active support systems. there are three levels of programs that can be implemented to improve functional literacy skills: eradication, coaching, and independent learning. basic skills activities should focus on the needs of individuals who lack basic reading, writing and math skills. guided learning activities provide opportunities for students to develop functional competencies to use their literacy skills in everyday life. whereas the focus of the independent learning activities is in helping students develop the capacity to meet their own learning needs through finding their own reading material needs, joining community development programs, planning their own income activities, and so on (depdiknas, 2009). research method the method used in this research is classroom action research using qualitativequantitative data. the method used in this research is classroom action research using qualitative-quantitative data. according to riel (2016) classroom action research is a research that involves a deep inquiry process. it is the systematic and reflective research where its actions affect in a workplace context, such as professional action of researchers. the researcher uses the data collected in order to characterize the forces that can be shared and used with other practitioners. this kind of research brings about a reflective stage in which the researcher formulates new plans for action for the next cycle. action research is an activity and / or action to improve something whose planning, implementation and evaluation is worked out systematically so that its validity and reliability reaches the research level. action research is also a process that includes an action cycle, which bases on reflection; feedback (feedback); evidence (evidence); and evaluation of previous actions and the present situation. the number of cycles in an action research depends on whether the (main) problem encountered has been solved. this research was conducted in four classes of the extensive reading course of the fifth semester in the 2019/2020 academic year and took place from april to november 2019. the subjects in this study were 68 students of the fifth semester of the english education department at sarjanawiyata tamansiswa university, yogyakarta. this action research was carried out in two cycles according to the problems that need to be addressed. there were 66 students who attended the pre-test. while in the first cycle, there were 68 students attended the class and did the tasks given. and there were 67 students who joined the second cycle. to obtain the data needed in this study, the researchers applied pre-test, observation, interview, written and oral reading tests. the method of presenting the data in this research was descriptive and numerical. after analyzing the data that answered the main formulation of the problem, the conclusions were drawn. each cycle consisted of planning, action, analysis, and reflection stages. the stages carried out in this research were contained in the flow chart below: 82 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 figure 1. cycles of action research (indriyanti & prasetyo, 2018) each cycle in this study consisted of several stages. the first was about understanding practical problems and planning solutions. secondly, actions based on solutions were determined and implemented. third, from classroom observations the evidence was collected and analyzed according to what happened in the class. the fourth, reflection was done to check whether the solution implemented was appropriate or not to solve the problem. if the problem still persisted, further plans had been made and continued to the next cycle. findings and discussion the following is the description of the results of this research, namely the first and second cycle treatments that include planning, action, analysis, reflection, and re-planning. the planning stage included gathering information sources and libraries, selecting materials that were appropriate to the extensive reading learning method, selecting and compiling lesson plans and materials according to the extensive reading learning method, and conducting a pre-test to understand the situation, condition, and functional literacy problems of students. the action phase was implementing the learning process with the planned extensive reading method. in the analysis phase, the ability of students’ functional literacy in the learning process was observed. reflection phase was to reflect the three stages that had been carried out and the re-planning stage for the second cycle. 1st cycle the steps that had been taken before and during the first cycle of treatment were: pre-test and planning to test the functional literacy of students, then in the first meeting the lecturer (researcher) put some instructions in front of the classroom door, almost all students did not read the instructions in front of the classroom door for various reasons such as the students did not see the instructions, the students thought the instructions were not for them, the student read the instruction but did not understand that it was an instruction or command. then the lecturer explained the intention and purpose of the instructions posted at the door so that the students were aware of functional literacy. then the discussion about reading strategies was carried out to help students to understand the reading text and understand the main idea in each paragraph. one way to assess students’ reading ability is by assessing their reading comprehension. comprehension is a process in which readers make meaning by interacting with text eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ surwanti & hikmah 83 through the combination of prior knowledge and previous experience, information in the text, and the views of readers related to the text (duke, 2003). while keenan, betjemann, and olson say that “reading comprehension needs the successful expansion and arrangement of a lot of lower-and higher-level processes and skills” (2008). that is the reason why the pre-test was carried out. gilakjani (2016) mentioned that there are three types of reading comprehension (mental representations, content literacy, and cognitive processes). mental representation is how the reader understands the text. content literacy is the ability to read, understand, and learn from texts. the last, is the automatic and unconscious practice of syntactic and semantic rules with the previous knowledge. in the pre-test, there were five items in the pre-test. each question only had 1 minute to answer. the first two questions were about understanding the main idea in the paragraph. students were expected to be able to understand paragraphs and knew the main idea in a fairly fast period of time and rewrote the main idea by using their own words (paraphrase) to develop their critical thinking. the next three questions were questions for understanding difficult words with the help of the sentence contexts and without opening a dictionary. all of these pre-test questions were adjusted to the basic principle of extensive reading, which is fun and fast reading that focuses on the meaning rather than the language (renandya, 2007) without using a dictionary. the number of students who attended the first meeting in four extensive reading classes totaled 66 students. the results of this pre-test score were minimal or low. the average value obtained was 34.09 from the range of values from 0 to 100. the highest value was 75 while the lowest value was 0. based on the results of the pre-test and analysis of student answers, there were many obstacles or problems experienced by students in understanding the questions, such as students who did not understand the instructions, so the answers deviated from what was expected. many students did not follow the examples of exercises, by paraphrasing the main ideas. the students’ pre-test score is summarized in the table below: table 1. the scores of pre-test the lowest score the highest score means 0 75 34.09 departing from the above constraints, a learning plan was developed that aimed to improve students’ functional literacy, especially in understanding instructions. several different instructions were posted in several different places, such as in front of the classroom door, on the classroom wall, and on the lecturer desk. it was needed to be done to stimulate students’ awareness of functional literacy. some of the instructions given were "knock the door”, “sign the attendance list before sitting”, “fill the front rows first”, “sit in a circle”, “sit in a small circle of four people”, “ask permission before leaving the class”, “ask for a permission before leaving the class or going to the restroom”. to cognitively measure students’ reading comprehension especially regarding to functional literacy, students were asked to do several tasks through google classroom. there were two tasks given, each was reading a short story written by minfong ho, entitled birds of paradise and rhizomes. the selected story was an english story that was still quite easy to read, this was because extensive reading should prioritize reading for joy and reading for speed. the tasks given were different in the first and the second assignment. in the first task, students were asked to make a short summary of the story using their own words (paraphrasing). in the second task, they did not only make a summary but also answered several questions about the story. 84 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 action stage this activity was carried out for 4 weeks (meetings). each week different instructions were posted in different places, from the front door of the classroom, lecturer’s desk, blackboard, and wall in the classroom. the reason for this changing placement was in addition to improve the functional literacy of the students, and of course, to increase students’ awareness of written instructions that are around them. it was done so that they were aware of other instructions in real life, such as ban of litterings, prohibition of parking, etc. for the tasks in google classroom, students received info about the tasks one week before the assignment was collected. in extensive reading courses, the reading process was not done in the classroom. so, students read stories at home. they had one week to read the story and did the work given. in the class, the discussion was conducted. this activity was carried out twice with two different stories. analysis stage most students were aware of the instructions given both around the classroom and in tasks in google classroom. they were enthusiastic and curious where the instructions were posted. each student entered class one by one carefully and tried to find and examined the available instructions. however, there were still some students who sometimes forgot and got rush into the class without paying attention to the instructions given. for the two tasks in google classroom, almost all of them (68 students) understood the questions. however, there was still misunderstanding of the story given. the average score obtained from the given assignment is 63.17. this value had increased considerably compared to their pre-test score which was 34.09. the highest score was 83 while the lowest one was 40. this indicates that the instructions and tasks given were able to sufficiently improve students’ functional literacy. table 2. the scores in cycle 1 the lowest score the highest score means 40 83 63.17 reflection stage in the second to fourth week trials, almost all students were aware of the instructions. however, some of the students were just imitating or following their friends’ actions. there were still those who also did not understand the meaning of the instructions. some students who were not present at the previous meeting could not and were not aware of the instructions, especially those students whose reading ability was low. therefore, it was necessary to plan an independent learning model that could be done by each student without the need to imitate his/her friend and further to increase students’ awareness of functional literacy and improve students’ reading comprehension skills. 2nd cycle the steps that had been taken before and during the second cycle of treatment were: planning departing from the results of the first cycle, it was necessary to plan an independent learning model that could be done by each student without the need to imitate his friend and eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ surwanti & hikmah 85 further to increase students’ awareness of functional literacy and improve students’ reading comprehension. therefore, independency in functional literacy could be increased by checking their functional literacy personally and directly in an individual oral test. action stage the lesson plan for students in this 2nd cycle was to read a novel outside the classroom hours within three weeks. in the weeks before the due date, students were asked to fill in a progress report form. they had to fill in the development of their reading process. the information and instructions were given in the google classroom. after three weeks students met the lecturer one by one in the lecturer’s office. there were instructions posted outside the lecturer’s office which consisted of a higher number of instructions than the previous instructions. in the lecturer’s room, students were given a list of written questions about the contents of the novel they had read. this was chosen in order to ensure that the students could perform correctly of the instructions given and improve their functional literacy by understanding the meaning of the questions given and able to answer correctly according to the instructions given. analysis stage from the instructions posted outside the lecturer’s room, students were getting used to reading any announcements. the number of instructions given previously was only around two or three instructions. in this second cycle there were 5 instructions and almost all students were able to understand the instructions. there were 8 students out of a total of 67 students who did not read the announcement. however, the lecturer reminded them about the existence of the instructions and after that they were able to perform correctly based on the instructions given. in terms of reading comprehension of the novel they read, there were only 2 students who did not understand the story because of their lack of english skills. the average value of this oral test was 69.69. in this 2nd cycle, the students’ score also increased by almost 7 points from the average score of 63.17. the lowest score in this cycle was 40 and the highest one was 85. table 3. the scores in cycle 2 the lowest score the highest score means 40 85 69.69 reflection stage based on the results of the first and second cycles, it could be derived that students’ awareness of functional literacy had improved quite significantly but they were constrained by the english proficiency of each individual and the continuation of habituation in daily life. discussion from the results of the first observation of giving simple written instructions in front of classroom door, it could be seen that the students’ functional literacy was quite low. almost all of them were not aware with the simple instructions given. it reflected of how most of the university students, who are able to read and write, were functionally illiterate. on this first observation, it could be seen that the students were quite ignorant about their environment and they were not able to socially and functionally aware of their surrounding. the excuses given by the students of their functional illiteracy were varied from those who did not read the instructions before they entered the classroom, those who did not see the 86 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 instructions in front of the door, to those who read the instructions but they thought that the instructions were not addressed for them. based on the results of the pre-test and the analysis of the students’ answers on the pre-test, the researcher figured out that there were many obstacles or problems experienced by students in comprehending the texts and the questions even though they had done the example exercises before the test. most of the students got low scores because they could not answer the questions correctly about the meaning of words and main idea. another disfunction of students’ literacy was that they did not paraphrase the main idea as the instructions given. there were even 11 students out of 66 students who failed at answering open ended questions with multiple answer way. the results of this pre-test proved that the students’ functional literacy was low, and their english language mastery was also low. some excuses given by the students were they felt that the time to do the exercise was too short so they did not really comprehend the questions and instructions given and they did not understand the meaning of some words in the texts. in the 1st cycle, each meeting they got different instructions that were posted in different places, from the front door of the classroom, lecturer’s desk, blackboard, and wall in the classroom. most of the students could perform the instructions given. however, some of them were just imitating or following their friends’ actions. there were still those who also did not understand the meaning of the instructions. some students who were not present at the previous meeting could not and were not aware of the instructions, especially those students whose reading ability was low. then, the students were asked to do several tasks through google classroom and in the first task, students were asked to make a short summary of the story using their own words (paraphrasing). in the second task, they did not only make a summary but also answered several questions about the story. the students were quite successful in understanding the instructions and the ten questions given in the google classroom. the problem was there were students who did not really understand the story because of the low english language mastery. there were seven students who wrongly interpreted the meaning of the questions given. in the 2nd cycle, the independent learning model was an individual oral test to check the students’ functional literacy personally and directly. from the instructions posted outside the lecturer’s room, students were getting used to it. eventhough the number of instructions given in this individual oral test was more complex, almost all students were able to understand the instructions. there were 8 students out of 67 students who did not read the announcement. after the lecturer reminded them about the existence of the instructions, they were able to perform correctly based on the instructions given. almost all students were aware of their functional literacy and getting used to any instructions in their surroundings. in terms of the reading comprehension of the novel they read, there were only 2 students who did not understand the story because of their lack of english skills and their laziness to read the novel. those two students admitted that they read the synopsis of the novel on the internet because they could not understand the story when they read the novel. based on the results of the two cycles, it could be seen that the students’ functional literacy had improved from the 1st cycle to the 2nd cycle. the average score was 34.09 in the pre-test and it had improved to 63.17 in the 1st cycle and increased again to 69.69 in the 2nd cycle. the stages of students’ improvement can be seen in the figure below. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ surwanti & hikmah 87 figure 2. the students’ average score in each cycle conclusion from the results and discussion, it can be concluded that functional literacy emphasizes students’ performance in reading tasks that relate directly to daily life and require practice and habituation by involving reading comprehension skills. the habituation of giving instructions and reminders in each meeting turns out to be able to increase students’ awareness of functional literacy through their reading skills. students get aware of any texts or reading instruction around them. students’ functional literacy had improved significantly from the pre-test to the 1st and 2nd cycles, from the average score of 34.09 in the pre-test to 63.17 in the 1st cycle and increased to 69.69 in the 2nd cycle. although there was a significant increase in the results of this study, the students’ average score at the end of the treatments is still average and it is needed to be improved. students’ functional literacy of simple instructions can be developed through practice and habituation. the habituation should be directly related to daily life and also requires sustainable practice, not only in the classroom but also outside the class so that it becomes a habit and they are able to live well in the society. for improving students’ functional literacy of complex and sophisticated longer texts, the students’ reading comprehension and language mastery are the other matters to be considered in the success of students’ functional literacy. thus, it is strongly suggested for those who are interested in conducting research on functional literacy to consider about a longer-term research in order to successfully change the habit and emerge the students’ awareness of functional literacy. lastly, it is also necessary to improve students’ reading comprehension and language mastery to increase the functional literacy. references bhola, 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(2016). understanding action research, center for collaborative action research. pepperdine university. retrieved from http://cadres.pepperdine.edu/ccar/define.html retrieved on may 30, 2019. smagorinsky, p. (2001). if meaning is constructed, what’s it made from? toward a cultural theory of reading. review of educational research, 71(1), 133–169. the world bank. (2018). indonesia economic quarterly. washington: world bank group. unesco. (2015). adult and youth literacy. uis fact sheet. paris: unesco institute for statistics. vagvolgyi, et al. (2016). a review about functional illiteracy: definition, cognitive, linguistic, and numerical aspects. retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc5102880/ retrieved on may 30, 2019. http://rel.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/38/2/133 http://cadres.pepperdine.edu/ccar/define.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc5102880/ english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 3, no. 1, 2020, pp. 52-63 e-issn: 2621-6485 english scholarly publishing activities in the industrial revolution 4.0: what, why, and how? dedi turmudi universitas negeri malang, indonesia tdeditur@gmail.com abstract the presence of the industrial revolution (ir) 4.0 has inevitably affected the way how scholars proceed to write. thus, activities intended to yield a piece of scientific writing facilitated by the obtainability and accessibility of internet browsing is called scholarly publishing. since english has indisputably become the language of international scholarship and research, it is urgent to have the skill in writing scientific articles benefitting the support from ir 4.0 principles. what is going on with academics and what should they do dealing with the ir 4.0 pertinent to their scholarly writing activities, benefits, and drawbacks. this paper discusses what scholarly publishing in the industrial revolution 4.0 and how it supports the process of writing articles for publishing. the purposes of this paper are to explain (1). what are scholarly publishing and industrial revolution? (2). why is it essential for academics? (3) how does writing scholarly publication in industrial revolution 4.0 work? writing the scholarly publication in english has become obligatory for teacher-educator authors (teas) and undergraduate students to doctoral students in indonesia. the study was a descriptive qualitative library to build a conceptual paper for the purpose of a further study. the method was by reviewing any related kinds of literature to provide sufficient arguments for the three research questions. the outcome is several claims, arguments, and evidence gambits for any author to consider. theoretically, the ir 4.0 principles have significantly eased the flexibility of the process, the quality, and the credibility of research outputs. keywords: activities, industrial revolution 4.0, english scholarly publishing, teas how to cite: turmudi, d. (2020). english scholarly publishing activities in the industrial revolution 4.0: what, why, and how? english language teaching educational journal, 3(1), 52-63 introduction as an academic language, english has indisputably become the language of international scholarship and research (flowerdew, 1999). therefore, writing scholarly publications has become an obligation business for teacher-educator authors (teas) and undergraduate students to doctoral students, at least in indonesia. every year, around 150.000 students get enrolled, and thus each of them has faced required obligations to publish articles in english before they graduate (wiryawan, 2014, 2019). as a result, the minority of them succeeded in publishing; the majority of them managed to find their articles published, and the rest of them had to work very hard to get their manuscripts published. it is not untrue that scientific publishing in developing countries was projected to be a future challenge (salager-meyer, 2008). the same problem happened in other countries in china (zheng & guo, 2019), egypt (shehata & eldakar, 2018), and poland (duszak & lewkowicz, 2008). the industrial revolution of 4.0, on the other hand, is promised to give academicians many benefits to overcome the appearing the challenges. rajko claimed that ir 4.0 was triggered by the development of information and communications technologies (ict). ‖its technological basis is smart automation of cyber-physical systems (cps) with decentralized control and the advanced connectivity of the internet of things (iot functionalities)…‖ (rojko, 2017, p. 80). mailto:tdeditur@gmail.com eltej issn: 2621-6485  turmudi 53 why it is worth exploring and how it is applicable in the process of research is the subject of this conceptual paper. therefore, it is essential to explore more the current tendency of researchers related to the development of an industrial revolution. also, i found the current work as a redeeming process of mastering academic essays, in which scientific writing is a small part of it (turmudi, 2017). accordingly, this paper is resulted from reviews of related works of literature to answer the following questions; (1) what are scholarly publishing and industrial revolution? (2) why is it essential for academics? (3) how does writing scholarly publication in ir 4.0 work? the objective is to provide theoretical gambits so that readers may have a clear envision when they are faced with writing a piece of scientific writing. research method data collection the study was a descriptive qualitative library work. it was a literature review to build a conceptual paper. the essences were qualitative data to support the statement arranged in the research objectives, and thus the statistical calculation was not applied (heigham & croker, 2009; wilson & creswell, 1996) the data were gathered by browsing some articles and books from any journal by the guide of research questions. all were in pdf files and stored in a file of the computer before being uploaded to mendeley desktop as secondary data. for this review or conceptual paper, i did some steps to support the writing process, as described in the following procedure. 1. using the fixed research questions as the bases keywords to find articles 2. searching for the target articles using keywords in google search and certain websites 3. downloading from the sources in pdf 4. filing the downloaded articles in my notebook 5. listing the references using mendeley desktop. all of these steps are to support the further process of data analysis and to secure the references. data analysis the needed arguments were gained by reading the related articles in pdf. all data type were qualitative data (ridder, miles, michael huberman, & saldaña, 2014). as all needed articles were selected and filed, i did some steps to support the analysis process. 1. reading the relevant articles repeatedly based on the research question guideline 2. citing the supporting arguments based on the topic in-text by paraphrasing the contents or citing directly 3. listing the sources in the reference list simultaneously 4. checking the in-text citation and list of references when all process was completed, i synchronized the research questions and the result and discussion. findings and discussion what is scholarly publishing? scholarly publishing activity is defined as any activity of studies intended to yield a piece of writing, review, or research for publication, which is also called the scholarly publishing process. in the following, it is beneficial to clarify the various term of the same sense by the author. further, what is meant by ir 4.0 in the current study? finally, what are the benefit and the implication for university students are schemed to discuss? 54  e-issn: 2621-6485 given scholarly publishing, i referred to the context of undergraduate students, graduate, and postgraduate students. however; to avoid confusion, i referred the term of scholarly publishing to as described in the table 1. table 1. sources, terminology and meaning sources used terminology meaning (flowerdew & wang, 2016) ―writing articles for publication‖ article in english for publication (jiang, borg, & borg, 2015) ―writing articles for publication‖ (fazel, 2013), ―writing for publication‖ (salager-meyer, 2014) ―scientific publication‖ or ―scientific articles‖ (cheung, 2010), ―referred english journals‖ (hyland, 2016), ‖academic publishing― (hyland, 2016; shirey, 2013) ―scholarly writing ― (choi, choi, & kim, 2019; lei & hu, 2019) "scholarly publishing" or research aiming at producing a scientific paper for publication. (flowerdew, 2015) ―in english language‖ i meant the same thing despite differences in terms. the core sense is any activity to compose scientific manuscript in english for publication. what is the industrial revolution 4.0? industrial revolution 4.0, what is it? the industrial revolution is defined as‖ the changes in manufacturing and transportation that began with fewer things being made by hand but instead made using machines in larger-scale factories‖ (www.dictionary.com). henceforth, ir4.0 is "a strategic initiative recently introduced by the german government aiming at transforming industrial manufacturing through digitalization and exploitation of potentials of new technologies (rojko, 2017, p. 77). ir 4.0 is marked by the availability of (1) internet of things (iot), (2) integration of technical process and business, (3) digital mapping and virtualization, (4) smart factory, and smart production (rojko, 2017, p. 80). in other words, petrillo claimed: "the current industrial revolution is characterized by the collaboration of intelligent machines, storage systems, and production systems into intelligent networks, merging the real and virtual worlds in cyber-physical systems (cps)"(petrillo, felice, cioffi, & zomparelli, 2018, p. 3). this situationthe availability of iot—has been inevitably affecting social science and language studies in the sense of finding sources synchronously. what is the benefit of ir 4.0 for researchers? what does it mean for us as academicians? any activity of studies intended to yield a piece of scientific writing by reviewing literatures or doing research for publication which is facilitated by the easiness and accessibility of internet browsing is considered as scholarly publishing in the era of 4.0. its easiness might be affecting significantly on the paradigm of doing studies and the eltej issn: 2621-6485  turmudi 55 process of publishing outcomes simultaneously. also, it leads to the pathway of being the professionalism of elt teachers (afrianto, 2018) by having knowledge management (roblek, meško, & krapež, 2016). further, what is the benefit of 4.0 for researchers? some studies are reported to have the positive and negative side of 4.0 technology. the benefits are found to be; big accessibility data gained from the sources, the content available online, information sharing, and collaboration synchronously (roblek et al., 2016). whereas, the drawbacks are relative to be: alleviating inflexibility, disclosing the secret of data, unsealing copy-right, and borderless ideas. what is the implication for university students and teas? referring back to the ir 4.0 principles; interconnection; information transparency; decentralized decision; and technical assistant (afrianto, 2018), it implies that the process of researching with ir 4.0 paradigm involves the essences of (1) the browsing of related articles, (2) clarity of sources and free-plagiarism, (3) autonomous selection of reliable sources, and (4) synchronous peer review, (5) synchronous publication of the studies. why is it important? inevitably, the existence of ir 4.0 has facilitated the process, quality, transparency, and accessibility of any ideas the international communities in many ways (choi et al., 2019). thus, the following parts are some reasons why it is beneficial. the first way is by voicing ideas as a contribution to the international academicians. authors can bring their current research with local sense to the world so that their findings will be a contribution to the global academicians, and thus they are their contribution. the second way is by internationalizing your local context. it may change the local sense of the idea into the general idea substantially. the third way is by integrating the status of the researcher into the knowledge society. authors are part of the global knowledge society inevitably. finally, it enables authors to have self-esteeming. as a result, by writing and publishing the piece of your study, it will have an impact on the broader scientist and borderless countries (board of editors teflin journal, 2012). the prior evidence also proves these essential arguments. referring to english as the language of scholarly publishing, it has positive sides and drawbacks. flowerdew has highlighted some helpful things for non-native speakers (henceforth called nns); such as providing global lingua franca enabling them to communicate with each other across countries in order to share knowledge and becoming other lingua franca in other field and thus, english is no longer a foreign language (flowerdew, 2015, p. 252). however; it also has drawbacks for nns or non-anglophone. first, english is the native language of one group of scholars (a minority) and is the additional language for the rest of the global citizen. whereas, the so-called anglophone is benefitted since they are freed from any burden to learn the language since they know the tools and the contents. the minority of anglophone gets benefits economically, academically, and a more significant share in 'paradigm building.' (flowerdew, 2015, p. 252). on the other hands, the non-anglophone have double burden when associating with scholarly publication in english. they need special effort to master english by investing money to learn english in education sectors. beyond this, they are pushed to hire tutors or editors unless they acquired the language for written manuscripts. finally, it may remove the scholars and professionals who do not know the english language with sufficient proficiency(flowerdew, 2015, p. 252). some benefits are also reported by many researchers (flowerdew, 2015; hyland, 2016; rathert & okan, 2015). in particular, rathert &okan highlighted the benefits with 56  e-issn: 2621-6485 three learning principles: authorship: capable of creating ideas to be shared, authority: enable to gain authority as they recognize their expertise, authorization: projects, networks, or publication authorize teachers to move forward in developing sharing knowledge(rathert & okan, 2015, pp. 364–365). further, flowerdew claimed the negative facets pertaining predominant english language citing phillipine (1992) and pennycook (1994) in that english; 1) carries very much ideological baggage ( transmitting ideology);2) devaluating local language and culture;3) perpetuating between native (ns) and non-native speakers (nns); 4) publishing in english has benefitted the ns scholars in that writing in english is less challenge compare to that of nns scholar (flowerdew, 1999, pp. 244–246). other researchers also report paybacks or drawbacks. the positive things are summarized from a published article viewed by certainly experienced authors. it was reported that the benefits cover: 1) a pathway to reach international audiences; 2) a way to communicate ideas with more comprehensive authors; 3)building confidence of intellectual potency; 4) knowing who has been in the scholar areas; 5) learning more from more experienced authors; 6) building international networks; 7) awareness that knowledge is meaningful when it is shared (board of editors teflin journal, 2012, p. 123). upon all reviewed sources, we may have a profound glimpse of enriching our schema when writing scholarly publishing so that the benefits of ir 4.0 are inherent in our habit of doing studies. how does writing scholarly publication in ir 4.0 work? knowing what is scholarly publishing is and what ir 4.0 is the necessary foundation to now know it works. henceforth, the step is to know how it works simultaneously. scientific article preparation can be divided into several parts. gillum and mendoza have proposed that the manuscript preparation can be divided into three main areas: ― 1) planning and conducting the research; 2) analyzing the data; and 3) writing the article (gillum & mendoza, 2014, p. 116). among the three parts, writing the article is the most challenging one. therefore, the process is a time-consuming and long-lasting revising process. thus, it is difficult to write an article for publication unless certain aspects are mastered. there are eight stages of how an article is written to make it publishable in an individual journal. it is begun from a good idea to publication or novelty. the eight stages cover; "in novel contemplation, in preparation, submitted, in a review, revision-revisedresubmitted, accepted, inpress, publication‖(donovan, 2018, p. 2–5). this proposition needs a technical description to make it clear-cut. the process to find what attracting topic will be addressed is called "in novel contemplation.‖ while the process to prepare what to write based on the determined novelty is called ―in preparation.‖ when the fixed manuscript is sent to a publisher is called ―submitted.‖ the process of a manuscript is being judged by a reviewer is called ― in a review.‖ after the author has revised the reviewed manuscript and resubmitted to the publisher is called ―revision-revised-resubmitted.‖ last but not least, when the article is stated to be fine for publishing by the journal editor is called ―accepted‖ which is further followed by a process called ―inpress.‖ finally, when the target journal officially publishes the final version of the article is called publication. all of these processes may be slightly different from the latest process of how an article is written with the principle of industrial revolution 4.0. eltej issn: 2621-6485  turmudi 57 the characteristics of scholarly publishing in the era of ir 4.0 are marked by the concept of knowledge management (roblek et al., 2016). the characteristic of the processes is sit up in the following flows figure 1. flow charts of initial writing scholarly publication the flows show that not all aspects are covered by the whole process of writing an article. it looks fine if some options are added to the flows, such as literature management using the software. as for the characteristic of the process, the procedures of researching both old and new paradigms are described in the table 2. table 2. old paradigm versus new paradigm old paradigm new paradigm 1. searching topic in the library 2. copying with a different subject or place 3. searching sources in the library offline 4. proposing a research proposal 5. doing research 6. writing the result 7. publishing in the library (asynchronous) 1. defining what interest 2. searching a topic in internet 3. checking the local context or available research data 4. redeeming the topic by reading related articles 5. finding what has not been done (gaps) 6. finding as many as related articles online 7. focusing what will be done (specification) 8. thinking of what impact or contribution (novelty) 9. setting up research questions 10. writing a research proposal 11. doing research 12. writing the result 13. publishing openly online (accessible for everyone) 58  e-issn: 2621-6485 the new paradigm takes authors to stages of doing research, pre-during, and postwriting scholarly articles for publication (turmudi, 2019). among the many models is the following example. however, it may work for a specific qualitative study only. pre-1 1. setting authors interest 2. searching related topic synchronously 3. downloading the selected articles in pdf 4. consolidating collection in a referencing tool (word reference manager, mendeley desktop, mendeley cite (free) 5. reading some trustable, reliable, reputable articles 6. finding what has been done 7. identifying what has not been done or what are left out (findings, methods, subjects, sites) 8. specifying a focus 9. elaborating what will be impact or contribution to the knowledge 10. setting objectives of the study 11. making research questions pre-2 1. creating instruments 2. validating instruments 3. writing a draft or outline a research proposal 4. presenting formally 5. revising based on feedback during-1 1. data gathering 2. data reduction and coding 3. data analysis (qualitative) 4. statistical calculation (quantitative) during-2 1. writing the result findings 2. discussing findings (1,2,3, ...); what prior evidences, what current findings, compare both of them, interpret the results, set temporary conclusion(1,2,3,..) 3. concluding findings based on rq 4. expressing sincere what is not in this research (limitation) 5. outlining what implications (what should be done or practiced next by educators, researchers 6. checking component of articles; introduction (previous studies); rq, findings, discussion, conclusion vs. rq, 7. reading, revising, peer review, reading revising, synchronizing in-text and references post-1 1. asking peers to review 2. self-revising (manual and online) 3. checking plagiarism-free (online) 4. submitting to a journal 5. receiving feedback (online) 6. revising accordingly eltej issn: 2621-6485  turmudi 59 7. resubmitting the revised version (turmudi, 2019, pp. 1–160) referencing tool although the citation system is part of a support system in writing a scholarly publication, it is useful to highlight a vital part of the whole process of doing research. i realized that knowing the skill of using referencing is 25 % of mastering the research itself. henceforth, it is not wrong to present what type of referencing tools are used by the current researchers. to best of my knowledge and experiences i found some models as listed below; 1. manual typing system by typing the references; 2. manual typing system with the format by typing the sources using word reference manager; 3. manual system by coping reference sources from scholar google; 4. offline automatic system by using mendeley desktop 5. online automatic system by using mendeley cite the description is explained simply in the following table. table 3. a brief description how referencing tool system works types of the citation system short visual illustration 1. manual typing system by typing the references. it is compatible with any type of ms word and libre office. typing manually; last name, first name, year, title, city of publication and publisher 2. manual typing system with the format by typing the sources using word reference manager; it is compatible with ms word 2010 or latest. 3. manual copying system by coping reference sources from scholar google; it is compatible with any type of ms word and libre office. 60  e-issn: 2621-6485 types of the citation system short visual illustration 4. offline automatic system by using mendeley desktop; it is compatible with ms word but is not with ms word 365. 5. online automatic system by using mendeley cite. it is compatible with ms word 365 and with internet connection when using. table 3 shows how authors cite the references from the manual model to the latest model that is a mendeley cite. this means that there are still many authors who use one of them. in addition, it is found that all the presented types of referencing tool are still being used by authors of articles. i found this case from reviewing 100 articles published in volume 1 no 1, 2011 to volume 8 no 2, 2019 of premise: journal of english education and applied linguistics. limitation this study focused on retrieving supporting arguments on why ir 4.0 is essential for teacher educator authors (teas) from the internet. the types of articles were various. they were reputable, non-reputable journals, and books. it was found that there was not any restriction on finding the articles to support the proposition of this article. thus, all were secondary data. some parts of the essences were taken from a draft of the dissertation by the author of this article. further study would be recommended to involve some subjects and types of how data were gained. the suggested subjects would be active teacher-educator authors who have techno-alert. the instrument may involve a questionnaire and interview. thus, a further study on how ir 4.0 affects the current studies comprehensively is needed. conclusion the study focused on three research questions underwriting scholarly publications by knowing what, why, and how ir 4.0. the arguments have shown the academics that the presence of ir 4.0 supports them in writing a research result in many ways. the first one is by providing unlimited, trustable, reputable articles from establishing to established journals. the second one is by providing synchronous feedback from peers, experts, and others. finally, it is facilitating the availability of online journal publications, enabling eltej issn: 2621-6485  turmudi 61 academics to cite the work efficiently, and thus the citation is an element of impact factor for the authors. these conclusions may be digestible from the extract of theories since the data are secondary. thus, this paper is limited to conceptual review that may be applicable only for researchers in a qualitative study. references afrianto. 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(2019). publishing in and about english: challenges and opportunities of chinese multilingual scholars’ language practices in academic publishing. language policy, 18(1), 107–130. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-018-9464-8 sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 1, 2019, pp. 22-31 e-issn: 2621-6485 the cipp model-based evaluation on integrated english learning (iel) program at language center 1noor qomaria agustina, 2fanni mukhtaruddin 1kent state university 2institut teknologi nasional yogyakarta, e-mail: nagustin@kent.edu, fanni@itny.ac.id abstract the challenging situation in the workforce leads the education institution to make suitable programs which later help the learners to be more competitive in the world of work especially in mastering the english. language training centre of a university provides service on teaching language skill especially english. the research purpose is to make an evaluation on the program conducted by the centre namely integrated english learning (iel) using the cipp model developed by stufflebeam. the methodology was the qualitative design with case study at a language centre at a private university in yogyakarta indonesia. the participants were the students from departments that had implemented the iel in six semesters. the data collection was from the interview and the data analysis used the qualitative data analysis software. the steps in analysing the data used the methods in the grounded research. this study described the iel program seen from its context, input, process and product (cipp evaluation model) from the students’ experience and perspective. the context was described from the effectivity of the program, while the input took the point of view from the quality. the process was to reveal the program implementation and the product described the achievement of the goals. keywords: cipp model, evaluation, elt, language center how to cite: agustina, n.q., & mukhtaruddin, f. (2019). the cipp model-based evaluation on integrated english learning (iel) program at language center. english language teaching educational journal, 2 (1), 22-31 introduction achieving a set of goals and objectives is one of the main reasons why an educational program is designed in the first place. to ensure that the desired goals are met, an evaluation to a program is an extremely important step in the entire process of conducting a program so that the people in authority has the bases whether to continue or bring any necessary revisions in the program (bazargan, 2007a; birjandi, 2009; piccardo, north & maldina, 2019). staub (2017) stated that “…there is the critical groundwork that must be laid for a healthy, productive environment that sees evaluation and assurance not as perfunctory activities, rather opportunities for the organization, or unit, to learn and grow (p. 75)”, so the evaluation has deeper funtion. the aim of an evaluation program is to focus on the goals accomplishment for the next alternative in decision making (bazargan, 1997; kusumawati, darmawan and latifah, 2018; stufflebeam, 1971; sundoyo in umam and saripah, 2018). an educational program that is really interesting to observe is an english language program that has been established by language training center (ltc) of muhammadiyah university of yogyakarta (umy) called integrated english learning. the program provides four complete skills in english language learning i.e., listening, speaking, reading, and writing. the program is divided into 12 levels that has its own descriptor. since the first time the program was established, there has not been any official analysis or evaluation eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ agustina, mukhtaruddin 23 regarding the iel program although the improvement of the program has already been made. there are four reasons to conduct the evaluation on iel program. first, the program is unique and interesting. it is different from other general language programs in that it has distinctive features such as the conduct of pre-test and post-test to determine the students’ level, special method of teaching using mixed teaching methods, and a detailed scoring system utilizing several components. second, there has not been any research-based evaluation on the program. third, there is curiosity to find out the weaknesses and strengths of the program. fourth, a will to describe the implementation of the program in a detailed form from the project pilot until the last revision of the program. the success of classroom teaching depends on many factors. as shown by dunkin and biddle in chaudron there are four classes of variables which show the complexity and interconnectedness of college teaching (birjandi, 2009; kuo in umam and saripah, 2018, oscarson, 2019). this research was guided by two major research questions which are listed as the following: (1) how do the students and the teachers perceive the iel program at the language center? (2) how is the iel program implemented? iel program integrated english learning (iel) program of umy is an english learning program that involves all skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in every single meeting and uses levelling categorization-based class (wisniewski, 2017; piccardo, north & maldina, 2019). before the program is conducted, all the students following the program join the toeic-based english proficiency test consisting of listening, speaking, reading, and writing skill. the test is conducted by at least 50 english instructors covering approximately 350 classes in a semester. after the test is graded, the students are categorized in groups based on students’ department, year, and english proficiency level. the main purpose of this categorization is to give a good english program based on their needs and abilities. there are 12 levels of proficiency in the program. summative and formative evaluation scriven (1991) introduced two different kinds of evaluation namely formative and summative. formative evaluation needs collecting and sharing information to improve the program. the formative evaluators provide the program planners and staff with information, make adustment to the setting and improve it (dressler, 1997; bazargan, 2007b; dixson & worrel, 2019; mahshanian, shoghi & bahrami, 2109; english & english, 2019). formative evaluation takes place usually during the development or improvement of a program, product or person and it is held more than once (scriven, 1991). the purpose is to validate or ensure that the goals of the instruction whether they are being achieved. else, it is to improve the instruction giving identification and remediation to the problematic aspects (boon, 1987; cheng, 1996; brence & rivza, 2012). on the other hand, the formative evaluation provides data to made necessary changes during the program (xiao & yang, 2019). learning activities is possible to be changed in the range and depth of instructional activities, and curriculum can be revised in ongoing process (tylor-powell, steele & douglan, 1996; dressel, 1997). the changes are possible to both course improvement and students’ growth (doll, 1992; sowell, 2004; darusslam, 2010). in sum, the formative evaluation is operated during the program to provide direct input for the program directors. summative evaluation is implemented after a program ends to provide the strength and challenging factors after the curriculum is completely designed (houston & thompson, 2017). a summative evaluation might be conducted to determine how effective the 24 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 curriculum is (boon, 1987; tyler, 1990; doll, 1992; sowell, 2004). the summative evaluator’s function is to obtain the data and write report to describe the program and its achievements. it figures out the information about the product’s efficacy, such as the learners’ satisfaction and what kind of learning that learners have achieved. summative evaluation usually uses numeric scores or letter grades to assess learner achievement cipp evaluation model there are various evaluation approaches and models, but the researcher should choose the most appropriate one according to the objectives and conditions. stufflebeam’s cipp model (stufflebeam, 1971; tunc, 2010; ulumi, 2016; halimah and hadjar; 2018) can be utilized to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in general and the quality of input, process and product. cipp, the abbreviation of context, input, process, and product, is a program evaluation model useful for evaluating educational programs. as the name suggests, it is the evaluation of context, input, process, and product of an educational program. context evaluation comprises examining and describing the context of the program, performing a needs and goals assessment, deciding the program objectives, and verifying whether the proposed objectives are sufficiently responsive to the identified needs. stufflebeam (2000) suggests that it helps in program-planning decisions making, as he said that “context evaluations assess needs, problems, and opportunities as bases for defining goals and priorities, and judging the significance of outcomes”. in the input evaluation, the activities are the program inputs and resources description, the comparison of the program performance compared to other program, a prospective benefit/cost assessment, an evaluation of the proposed design of the program, and an examination of the recommendations for the alternative strategies and procedures that should be considered as recommended. according to stufflebeam (2000), “input evaluations assess alternative approaches to meeting needs as a means of planning programs all allocating resources”. process evaluation involves examining the implementation of the program, monitoring how the program performance, auditing the program to be in line with the required legal and ethical guidelines, and identifying defects in the design or implementation. evaluators require feedback to program personnel because it can be helpful in making decisions for formative evaluation, as stufflebeam said “process evaluations assess the implementation of plans to guide activities and later to help explain outcomes (ibid)”. product evaluation includes determining and examining the general and specific outcomes of the program, measuring anticipated outcomes, attempting to identify unanticipated outcomes, assessing the merit of the program, conducting a retrospective benefit/cost assessment, and conducting a cost effectiveness assessment (to determine if the program is cost effective compared to other similar programs). product evaluation is very helpful in making summative evaluation decisions; “process evaluations identify intended and unintended outcomes both to help keep the process on track and determine effectiveness (ibid)”. related research the cipp evaluation model invented by stufflebeam can be used to evaluate the program from the context, input, process and product. the evaluation model gives the comprehensive way to view in the holistic manner. there are many areas that use its system in evaluation, and some researches have been conducted in the topic. aziz, mahmood and rehman (2018) conducted a research to in quality evaluation in the school level. the eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ agustina, mukhtaruddin 25 purpose of this research is to evaluate the educational quality at school level. the participants are the principles, division heads, and teachers. there are two different perspectives on the success of education, from the stakeholders and teachers. the stakeholders’ point of view was more on how to build different strategies to facilitate the success of learning. on the other hand, teachers saw from the theoretical point of view and fall to apply the root learning, that turned out to burden the students and put the learning in more on the uncomfortable situation. tootian used the cipp model to evaluate succession planning training program for human capital management. the aims of the research are to know the whether the training meet the objective and it is being successful and effective. the result of the research also provides with the feedback and guide for the decision making. ulum used the model of cipp to evaluate an english language program at state schools in turkey from students’ perspective to see the effectiveness of the program. there are four aspects of the program that should be highlighted. the first was the textbook that was too hard, the second was the tests that were hard, the third was the topic that needed to be improved and the last was the time that was too much for the students. another research that used the cipp model is the evaluation of the arabic language learning program at a higher education to seek the quality assurance of the learning system. the evaluation is very comprehensive from the very beginning of the program until it is completed from the context that comprises the purpose and background of the learning process, the input that examine the implementation process of the curriculum, students, lecturers and infrastructure, and the evaluation process that viewed the curriculum, teaching materials, and media in the classroom activities. the product viewed the outputs and outcomes of the language learning. research method the objective of this study was to gain the experience of iel program from the perspectives of the students, instructors, staffs and stake holders. the cipp (context, input, process, and product) evaluation model developed by stufflebeam (1971) is utilized in the study. this research used the qualitative research methodology. qualitative data were gathered through interviews with the umy students who joined in the iel program. written documents were used of to obtain more detailed information. the target participants were the third-year students of agriculture and international relation department, 15 english instructors who has been teaching the programs since the first time, and the head of the two departments of agriculture and international relation of the department. the researcher invited them to participate in the current research by interview. findings and discussion the program evaluated is the integrated english learning; it is an english levelled program based on the cefr levelling using integrated learning which combine four skills of english namely listening, reading, speaking, and writing. there are two departments involved for the pilot projects which is conducted in six semesters, and the length of learning per semester is 48.5 hours or 291 hours altogether. the intuition plan to prepare 12 levels, but so far there are only 9 levels are used. the institution develops the program’s curriculum and syllabus on their own empowering the english instructors to collaborate in establishing the programs. the participants of this research the sixth semester werr the students of batch 2012 from 2 departments that are selected to be used as the pilot project. the data were gathered from the in-depth interview and focus group discussion (fgd) from 25 students consisted 26 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 of 9 females and 15 males. for the data triangulation, the interview was also conducted to the ltc’s management and instructors of 7 participants consist of 5 females and 2 males. context evaluations it is important to define the needs of the learners in designing a program. stufflebeam (2000) stated that “context evaluations assess needs, problems, and opportunities as bases for defining goals and priorities, and judging the significance of outcomes”. in this section, there is exploration on the need based on the participant point of view and supported by the questionnaire result. integrated english learning (iel) is designed to teach the general english using integrated learning that integrates four skills namely listening, reading, writing, and speaking and the students are levelled based on the cefr levelling system (winiewski, 2107; oscarson, 2019). to some extends, general levelled english is still acceptable, however, there are also needs to have very specific english to increase specific skills like grammar, vocabulary, public speaking, english proficiency and so forth. “i think it is vocabulary and grammar. why grammar? because when we want to speak english…some people do not understand what we said, one wrong word can change the meaning (jodi).” another interesting thing in this need analysis is about the levelling system, whether it is appropriate or not. there are also arguments on the appropriateness of the levelling system at this center. there are some problems arise regarding this system. “in my opinion, appropriateness and suitability depend on what is their level, if they are fresh graduate from senior high school, for one semester or two they will be happy…but if they are in the higher semester, they will need something else like academic english…(sekar)” some agree with the levelling system, but there is a need to improve the system so that the mechanism of the levelling system is clear. there is also problem of the students who stay at the same level for some semesters that make them feel bored and get nothing from the teaching learning process. input evaluation to accomplish the goals, an institution needs an input evaluation where there should be description of program as well as planning and allocating the resources to accomplish the programs. there is also a need to find comparison to find out the effectiveness of the programs. in stufflebeam’s (2000) point of view, “input evaluations assess alternative approaches to meeting needs as a means of planning programs all allocating resources”. there are two aspects that will be discussed in this section, they are program development and teacher quality control. program development. integrated english learning is the general levelled english program run to serve the students in learning english. because it is levelled, this program needs placement test to place the students according to their level. the test used to put the students into different level using one of the english proficiency test. “the aims of integrated english learning is to make students grouping based on their english competency level…the second intention is to make the class more homogeny; for example, the students’ ability in one class is almost the same, therefore, the teaching learning process is easier (agus).” in comparison to non iel classes, there is no placement test, so the students’ competency level will vary from one student to another to make the class more heterogenic. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ agustina, mukhtaruddin 27 the teachers usually have difficulties in doing the teaching learning process since they should carefully prepare the material which is suitable for all. “…in my opinion, iel program tries to place the students based on their competency, and this will make the instructor easier to handle the class if there are not many differences among the students in a class…there will not be any big gap among them (ari)” another aspect that also needs attention is the program development. there are four steps to develop the program, they are defining the standard, determine the descriptors, make syllabus and material development and for the testing, design the term of specification (tos) and develop the test. the first step is determining the standards. the standard used is the common european framework of reference for languages (cefr) to measure language mastery (www.cambridgeenglish.org). “…they know well from the very beginning, from the descriptors, then they make the syllabus…after that process they will get feedback…and after the feedback they usually revised either syllabus, module or term of specification, tos is to make the test…(bambang)” from the cefr that is modified into descriptors, the centre plans to provide 12 levels. however, not all levels are made and used. there are 9 levels available, but only 8 levels are used. “based on the project in general, there are 12 levels, but for this semester there are only 9 levels. the highest level is the eighth level (dewi).” the process to make the descriptors until the module and test is a project that involves many instructors and management that also function as the professional development since the teachers will learn a lot about developing a program that hopefully this understanding will lead to better teaching. “…iel, if i am not mistaken, has 12 levels but only 8 levels are used, level 9 is already made but it has not been used yet. so, each level has its own coordinator… each coordinator will be responsible to the academic manager as the project leader. after the modules and syllabuses are done, they submit them to me…each level has coordinator, and these coordinators are led by the academic manager (wafa).” the explanation above is the process of program making that is a collaboration process that involved many teachers. the function of the management here is the coordinator of the project. for the evaluation and quality control, there is feedback session that is done either per level group or for all levels that is called grand review. teacher development is a process to make evaluation and quality control process. there are two kinds of evaluation for the teachers. the first is the end of the semester evaluation and monitoring during the semester. “we already have the sop. so, the first is the one who should handle the problems is the pic of the sharing group…the pic of the sharing group should handle the problem first. if he or she cannot handle the problems, the academic manager will handle it, and at last if the problems are very serious, then it must be handled by the centre’s head (alia).” to ensure the teacher performance, at least there are three kinds of evaluation, they are end-session feedback from the students in the form of questionnaire, peer sharing or sharing group as the media to share the problems and ideas, and the at last, the students can contact personally to the centre management by phone or face to face. process evaluation the evaluation on the implementation of a program is important for the institution to monitor how the program is carried out to see whether the program has already been conducted in line with its standard operating procedures. in this section, from the data http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/ 28 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 gathered, the implementation of the teaching learning process in the classroom can be seen from three aspects, they are material used, teacher and teaching method and the assessment. in relation to the material, the centre provides the syllabus and module for all levels. both the syllabus and the module are reviewed every year. teachers have different opinion about the module. some of them follow the module in giving the material, but some make modification on the module. “mmm we get the module from the centre…last semester was wonderful, because the book was new, and the students are happy… (jodi)” “…the lecturer has done her best…the lecturer always takes the material from the book (dewi).” however, the module is not always appropriate for the teaching learning process. therefore, the lecturers then make adjustment and find additional material. “mmm because i am not module base, what i mean by module base is that i don’t ask the students to do the exercise exactly like what it is in the book, so i have to modify…(antok)” except modifying the module, the teachers also find other resources to teach. the resources can be in the form of books, novel, games, interesting activities, games blog, as well as employ the other persons like friends, teachers, and colleagues. “the teacher can adjust the material so that the material can be more effective (dedi).” “…my class is full of games…(mawar).” “…for the assignment i gave homework for the students to read the book…(bambang).” it can be concluded that the centre provides the materials, but it is often that the module need adjustment to make it suitable to be used for the classroom activities. to make the class more engaging, the teachers also use additional materials such as games, books, blog and interesting activities. about the teacher and teaching method, the teachers at the centre possess various ways to teach in the classroom to provide good learning atmosphere. the teaching method is not only to convey the materials, but also to build relationship with the students. including in the teaching method is the teacher talk during the class, and the language use in the classroom. another important consideration is to engage the students to the activities and ask them to think on the material. assessment is one of the important aspects in the teaching learning process. there are different kinds of assessment used in the centre. the centre has already provided official assessment that is the same for all classes and the assessments are stated in the syllabus. there are five categories to do the assessment, they are attendance, in class assessment, home assignment, and progress test. besides the official assignment, the teachers also use different kinds of assessment. they use the exercise in the book to look the student’s mastery on the material. the assessment can also be in the form of review before the mid and final tests. book review and reading activities become alternatives of the assessment. product evaluation product evaluation is related to the examining the outcomes of the program. the outcomes can be traced back to the aims of the program to determine whether the aims are already achieved. there were four aspects highlighted for the evaluation. they are iel program, the levelling system, module, and the teacher. integrated english learning (iel) as its name suggests is the english language program which integrates the teaching learning of the four skills to be taught together in a eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ agustina, mukhtaruddin 29 level. this program is also general english in the sense that the material is not intended for the specific purposes that are in line with department. levelled classes are used to place the students based on their proficiency level. because iel is levelling class, it is very important that there is levelling system. one of the weaknesses of this program is the test design to place the students that are suitable for their level. there are many cases that the students are put in the wrong level they stay at the same level for several semesters. another important aspect is the module. there has not been yet the research study whether the modules used are effective or not. however, some attempts have already been taken to review the module. the centre already created 9 modules for 9 different levels along with the syllabuses, tos, and testing. the centre also continuously provided feedback for the development of the module in the form of module review and feedback. the feedback was gathered from the group discussion, teacher meeting and grand review module that was conducted special to review the module. the last feedback is on the teacher. there are differences in the teacher quality in conducting the teaching learning process. there was feedback that there should be benchmarking and careful system in recruiting the teachers so that the teacher quality can be guaranteed. the teacher should also engage and have good communication with the students; that is the one who will promote learning in the classroom. conclusion educational program is intended to conduct teaching learning process to create quality human resource. it is a kind of difficult task, so to make sure that the program can run well, there must be a kind of goals and objectives as the guidance for the implementation of the program. there must be a way to make sure the objectives and goals are met. therefore, there is a need to make evaluation and assessment. to do the evaluation and assessment needs tools. cipp model promoted by stufflebeam is one of the models that can be used. integrated english learning is one of the language programs conducted by a centre of a well-known university in yogyakarta. the research design was the qualitative method. the participants of this research are the students from two different departments who take the english at the centre and they have already joined the program for six semesters. the result was divided into four research questions asking about the context, input, process, and product evaluation of the iel program. the explanation is about the description of the program which picture the implementation of the program at the centre. the research gave useful input for the betterment of the program to know how the possible solution if there is any problem. the teacher who engaged in this program and for the teacher in general, it is to portray on how a language program should be conducted, then the 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(2018). using the context, input, process and product (cipp) model in the evaluation of training programs. international journal of pedagogy and teacher education (ijpte), 2, july 2018), pp.183-194. doi: 10.20961/ijpte.v%vi%i.26086. wisniewski, k. (2017). empirical learner language and the levels of the common european framework of reference. language learning, 67(s1), 232-253. xiao, y., & yang, m. (2019). formative assessment and self-regulated learning: how formative assessment supports students' self-regulation in english language learning. system, 81, 39-49. http://www.mich.edu/evalctr/checklists/cippchecklist sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 3, no. 1, 2020, pp. 64-74 e-issn: 2621-6485 the benefits of integrating video making in a speaking class edi dwi riyanto universitas airlangga, indonesia edi-d-r@fib.unair.ac.id abstract integrated teaching has been advocated and implemented for decades. lately it has been accelerated by the development of video making. this study aims to investigate the benefits of integrating video making in a speaking class of the 29 first semester students of a public university in surabaya, east java province, indonesia. it employed action research which was done to improve the quality of the teaching and learning process of the class. the data were collected through direct observation in the classroom, video reviews, and survey. the findings showed that the integration of video making in a speaking class gave benefits to students in the form of four components i.e. social, language and literary, psychological, and technical. the class has been successful in integrating the video making in a speaking class which means that the integration may be applied again in the same class in the future or for a wider scope with similar conditions or settings. keywords: action research, integrated teaching, video making how to cite: riyanto, e.d. (2020). the benefit of integrating video making in a speaking class. english language teaching educational journal, 3(1), 64-74. introduction it is quite common when people say that they can understand written and spoken language but not able to speak it (tatham and morton, 2006). however, in educational context, this partial competence is not acceptable. a student is supposed to master the four skills: listening, reading, writing, and speaking. unlike the other three which are usually done individually, most speaking is done with the presence of others. it is a two way process in which people communicate opinion, information, or emotions (florez, 1999; howarth, 2001). in the process of communication people are making and sharing meaning with others (chaney, 1998). to share meaning, people need to master the four language skills. lacking language skills as in mastering grammar, fluency and pronunciation may prevent good communication as seen in the performance of the students in hong kong (evans & green, 2007). however, speaking requires the presence of others in the process of meaning making whether it be in the stage of producing, receiving, or processing of the information (brown, 1994; burns and joyce, 1997). language skills only are not enough. speaking is a social activity, too. it involves social interaction. during a speaking moment, someone needs to listen, respond, and share information produced by others. time and context are shared. with its specific and complicated characteristics, speaking can be very burdensome for some people. in a master‟s thesis about japanese english learners it‟s reported how a mistake in speaking might bring a punishment. this brings negative atmosphere to the social dimension of speaking, which can become a serious threat to speaking performance in the forms of inhibitions and apprehensions (littlewood, 1981). students think more of the punishment rather than trying to perform. the thought of beign afraid to be punished will inhibit students‟ performance. they will also have the feeling of being ashamed to be punished in front of the class. mailto:edi-d-r@fib.unair.ac.idartinisri69@gmail.com mailto:edi-d-r@fib.unair.ac.idartinisri69@gmail.com eltej issn: 2621-6485  riyanto 65 another vital factor which often creates problem for speaking is the timing. unlike writing, in most cases speaking is an action to be done at once and cannot be repeated, edited, or deleted, to which a speaking class is designed. another issue related to timing is allocation of speaking practice especially for the class with large number of students (leong & ahmadi, 2017), since too little time for adequate time distribution for each student. those authors concern that “some learners dominate the whole class while others talk very little or never speak”. the latest development of technology of both in the hardware and software of digital video production has provided opportunity to produce video in a much more affordable way. more than two decades ago, automatic speech recogniction (asr) had been introduced to improve speaking leaning process (egan, 1999). bringing technology in speaking class can be a way to solve three problems namely social, psychological, and chronological aspects/components as explained above. this article is a report of the implementation of the integration of the video making into the speaking class for semester one at a university level by focusing on its benefits as seen during observation and as perceived by students. this speaking class for semester one was designed to tackle those three problems by integrating video making as key activities. two reasons for this are: 1. those students had different backgrounds in terms of educational, social, and cultural backgrounds. fifteen students were from urban high school of big cities of surabaya. others were from rural contexts. furthermore, there was -one student who was from pesantren or islamic boarding school. they also have different level of english even though have been enrolled in english literary department. 2. there were 29 students learning speaking in the same class sharing a moment of 100 minutes of each class sessions. that means less than 4 minutes opportunities for each student to talk. if the duration is deduced by instruction and explanation the length of time for students to speak was just about 2 minutes approximately, meaning timing becomes an issue in managing class in a conventional strategy. integrated teaching as described above, several skills are needed for speaking (arta, 2018). some scholars have long believed in that teaching speaking should not be separated from teaching other skills. an objection of the separation of the four skills of language competence has been raised (oxford, 2001). the main reason of the objection is that the separation contradicts with the use of language skills in normal communication. the other reason is because it is seen as in the wrong direction against the language teaching progression lately. for oxford language skills cannot be seen as a technical problem or a possession only which can be separated and segregated rigidly. to be operational those skills need supportive skills such as vocabulary and syntax which are overlapping each other. for oxford such a view is called integrated-skill approach. it is also proposed that since the skills are seen as overlapping, the skills are interwoven with each other during instruction”. this constitutes the integrated-skill approach. separating language skills into two domains of receptive (listening and reading) and productive (speaking and writing) are also quite common. however both domains are seen as supporting each other (harmer, 2007). for harmer, it „makes sense to integrate different skills‟ to students in order to „provide maximum learning opportunities‟. thus, the focus is on giving students the experience of learning language, not the skill in which the four skills of listening, reading, speaking, and writing “should be treated as integrated, interdependent, 66  e-issn: 2621-6485 inseparable elements of language” (ya-chen, 2007). integrating speaking, listening, and pronunciation has been reported as indispensable (murphy, 1991). for that reason the integrated and dynamic multi skill instructional models are more valued (hinkel, 2006). it focuses more on the learner‟s communicative competence. in a real communication context, people deploy multiple skills. thus in a classroom, students should learn the skill not in isolation but simultaneously in order to minimize the gap between learning process and actual language practice. further oxford (2001) proposes two forms the approach namely content-based instruction and task-based instruction. the content-based instruction requires students to learn and practice all skills based on certain content such as history and mathematics. the nature of the content is suited with the proficiency level (ibid). task-based model involves students in a certain task such as creating a wall magazine and enact a scene of a drama. the distinction of the two models is beneficial to see the nature of integrated teaching. however, oxford encourages a combination of the two. in line with the encouragement of oxford, this article is a report of a speaking class which combines the content and task for new students of a university. the contents are about the students themselves (experience, aspiration, and siblings), old-new social life (high-school vs university), and literary (characterization). the task is making the video out of those themes. this article is a report whether such combination brings benefits to students. previous related studies the integration of video into language teaching and learning has been done for decades. this involves not only those four language skills but also non-language skills such as psychological and social. a recorded process of teaching and learning in a video provides an opportunity of limitless repeated viewing for many different kinds of purpose. furthermore, even in the middle of playing, a frame of visual display can be slowed down or even frozen to allow much deeper look and investigation. thus a recorded activity allows an opportunity for a specific kind of research in which self-viewing as well as otherviewing provide ways for self and group reflection (tochon, 2001). before the turn of the century one of the most widely used of video has been the micro teaching by which feedback to improve the teacher or future teacher may be improved (ibid). using video students, teacher, instructor, and everybody else can see and observe the performance in the video. video is “both a witness and analytical tool” (tochon, 2001). they are the witness of students‟ performances. at the same time, video can be used as data collecting tools consisting of visual as well as verbal codes to be analyzed for certain purpose of certain research. talking about the process of making videos, it has been proven to involve many different skills such as language, psychological and social. the projects of video making improve the students‟ motivation, activity, interaction, and cooperation in the classroom (jany, 2015) . students‟ motivation is a very important psychological factor for the success of learning. approaches to teaching that focus on the development of motivation is growing more important (shakirova et al, 2016). thus, motivation and english language pedagogy are vital areas so that both need to be investigated carefully. if students are motivated to learn, they will learn more (james, 2012). when they learn more, they are more likely to improve their knowledge and skills. eltej issn: 2621-6485  riyanto 67 one of the forms of skills is known as social skills. social skills constitutes students‟ capability to behave appropriately in a certain context while performing social task (nowicki, 2003) such as managing team work, being tolerance, showing cooperation. thus, interaction and cooperation are categorized as parts of social skills. in relation to video making process, it can be said that a video project promotes the students‟ social skills. furthermore, it was perceived by the learners as providing motivation and giving a successful learning experience (watts, 1989). a video making is highly likely to involve a process of writing whether it be the story line or speech draft before the recording process takes place. during the course of draft writing which involved editing and rewriting, students increase their ability and awareness toward their own speaking skills. usually in a writing class, student would submit their writing to their teacher. in the case of video making, students need to read their own writing for the purpose of video making. this process gave ample opportunities for students to evaluate and contemplate on their performances (castañeda & rodríguezgonzález, 2017). research method this paper is a report of an action research done in a speaking class of semester one class in a university with 29 students in it. it was designed to have 14 class room sessions, one mid-term examination and one final examination so that there were 16 sessions in total. the research was conducted in one semester to see how the incorporation of video making activities improve the speaking class. this video making was chosen especially to solve the problem of limited allocated time for each of the students to speak during the classroom sessions. action research involves the process of studying a real classroom situation to understand and improve the quality of actions or instruction (johnson, 2012). the research was conducted to study a real class situation with the aim to improve the teaching and learning process in that particular class. it is part of the teacherresearcher‟s endeavor to understand more about his own class and at the same time involve himself in „a process of improvement and reform (hopkins, 2008). following hopkins, the process of this research was divided into four sequences: plan, act, observe, and reflect. however, in line with hopkins‟s suggestion, the implementation of the process was not a linear progression. it was more like a spiral in a continuous cycle. throughout the semester students were asked to create 6 videos, 2 individual and 4 group videos as follows: table 1. videos made by the students no topic duration indiv/group 1 siblings 6-12 mnts group 2 past experiences 6-12 mnts group 3 future plans 6-12 mnts group 4 comparing high school vs university life 6-12 mnts group 5 teaching one basic skill: greeting, inviting people, agreeing disagreeing, giving compliment, apologizing-expressing anger 6-12 mnts individual, helped by 4 others as the “students” 6 famous fictional characters 3 – 7 mnts individual the choosing of the topic was in line with the progression from talking about someone they knew very well into making a plan. meanwhile the topic number six was to 68  e-issn: 2621-6485 reinforce the basic skill they already acquired so that the videos were not about how they applied those skills but they shared their knowledge by teaching the skill. plan in the planning stage, students were made aware of the video making activities as the main projects for the whole semester. thus, from the first meeting the students were informed that the speaking class would be conducted using integrated approach, meaning that the students would need to listen, read, write, and speak with the ultimate activity was producing three video projects both individually and in groups. students were informed that classroom sessions were very limited in providing adequate opportunity for them to speak. the alternative was that they speak outside the classroom by making videos. groups were created and managed anticipate the coming assignments. details of the planning for the video making were given to students based on the assessment of the class progress. for example, topic number 1 (sibling), the lecturer assessed whether students had known each other adequately in order to work as a group comfortably and whether the students had acquired adequate knowledge and skills to discuss about siblings. the same assessment was done for the planning of the other five topics. throughout the semester, the implementation of the plan was divided into three acts, each followed by observation and reflection. in turn the reflection became the consideration in moving forward to the next act. in this fashion, there were small cycles of plan, act, observe, reflect. acts the three acts consisted of preparation, action, and revision. the preparation covered creating psychological comfort, social bonding, and performing language skills such as describing people, objects, places, feelings and time. lighthearted games were played to elevate the psychological and social atmosphere. group discussions were conducted to assess the base line of students‟ language skills. talking about people was among the first topics of speaking to improve both their language skills and social skills. this social skill would be developed later. to improve other language skills students were asked to listen, read, and write as much information as possible regarding certain topics such as siblings, past memories, and future planning. the outputs from this sequence were group videos and their scripts about siblings, places, and past memories (topic 1,2,3). special videos were made comparing the life of high school and university (topic 4). a big concentration was given to two topics comparing high school versus university life and making a future plan. those two topics wrapped other language skills, i.e. listening, reading, and writing. the outputs were some videos and their scripts. the second act dealt with basic conversational skills such as greeting, addressing, agreeing disagreeing, inviting friends, and giving direction. however, since respondents were english department students, they were assumed to have adequate background knowledge about these skills. thus, students were not asked to perform these basic skills in the class room; they were asked to conduct a micro teaching instead. this was to elevate the level of competencies in acquiring the basic skills, that was not only acquiring but also transferring the skills. students were asked to do a sort of „micro teaching‟ and record the activity in a video of 4 – 7 minutes. eltej issn: 2621-6485  riyanto 69 the third act goes back to the topic of people with some deepening. students were asked to read theories on characterization, read a novel closely, quote characterizations in the novel, and paraphrase the characterization to be performed in videos. the outputs were scripts and videos. these were to familiarize students with english literature and ways to analyze a character. observe in line with those three acts above, three sequences of data collection were conducted consisting of direct classroom observation, video reviews, and survey. direct observation during classroom sessions were done especially for the first act above to establish some preliminary assessment related to the progress of the class mentioned above. this progress assessment as the result of observation would become the basis for giving the further and more detail instruction of video making. in this second sequence videos were reviewed and treated as „witness and analytical tool (tochon, 2001). the video reviews were taken from the performances of the first and second attempts of video making. those videos were viewed outside the classroom by the teacher and then feedbacks were given to students to improve the next attempts of video making with special attention given to the process of the making. it is during these two sequences that the contemplation was done and the plan for improvement for the last act was made. the third sequence was done at the end of the semester in which students‟ perceptions were surveyed. the questionnaire was to find the perceptions of the students toward the benefits of the integration of the video making into the speaking class. the students were asked to check the columns on the questionnaire and check highly disagree, disagree, can‟t say, agree, and highly agree. the questions are intended to find whether students consider the integration as beneficial for them or not. reflect reflect was the report as the manifestation of the reflection of the action research. data gathered from direct classroom observation, video analysis, and survey were used to make the contemplation. since it was a cyclical process, the result of the first reflection would become the basis for the second cycle planning. the same was also true for the data gathered from videos. those videos submitted before the end of the semester were used as mirrors of reflection. each time data was gathered and analyzed, and some adaptations of the previous plan was made. for example, the timing of giving the video making assignment depended on the readiness of the students. a reflection was needed to make sure that the students were ready. only the contemplation from the data of the survey was could not be given back to the class since the survey was conducted after the semester ended. thus, those small cycle of reflection were intended to ensure the best preparation for the next sessions. a more comprehensive reflection was done mainly using the data from the survey with the result below. findings and discussion the findings and discussion of the data collected from the action research follows the three sequences of data collection above. 70  e-issn: 2621-6485 direct classroom observation the first was class room review which was mainly based on direct observation. the 29 participants were first year students. they showed eagerness and high spirit to study. they looked happy and seemed to feel that they had reached a great achievement of becoming a student of a university. however, it was also clearly shown that they had great expectation from the university and especially the lecturer. the dream to enter a university came true, now they were facing the real university. such a spirit and expectation were seen very clearly, for example in their being on time and being seated nicely before the class began. students also responded toward greeting whether it be welcoming and saying goodbye enthusiastically, in unison, and loudly, a reminder of high school routines. this high school reminiscence needed to be dealt with. an awareness of social transformation from high school time to university life was discussed in a special topic and recorded in a video. one of the students came and met the lecturer to discuss her transformation process of being a high school student in a quite remote area into a university in a big city. in this occasion review to the class was discussed. this was to help the student to deal with individual psychological issues as well as social and educational ones. however, most of the classroom reviews were done in classroom group discussions. this was to see how students interacted and built connection among them. after 4 sessions the class was ready for the next level which required independent learning and team work. the transformation was based on several results of the observation and reviews: 1. the readiness of the students to be „real‟ university students, leaving the habit of being spoon-fed 2. the competency to work independently to search and digest more knowledge 3. the capability to work as a team thus, from the first stage of data collection through observation and reviews of classroom activities, it was evident that respondents showed a gradual transformation from ex high school students into university students in which social, psychological and educational were eventually dealt with. video reviews time limitation which hinders adequate practice of speaking for these 29 students was dealt with activities outside classroom in the form of micro teaching and discussions. students read, wrote, listened, and spoke with ample time. video reviews helped them improve their process of video making. first and second videos were seen by the lecturer and then given the reviews in the classroom. the reviews included sonic and visual performances, verbal language, and non-verbal language. furthermore, reviews of teamwork management were also conducted. the students raised the issue of scheduling in which they found it hard to find the right time to meet and work together. place and technology for recording were problematic to students. they always found the best place to get together, such as in discussions room of the main library, in their houses, or even in class rooms. however, when those places became the setting of the video shooting, some attention needed to be paid especially their level of noise and light. in the aspect of technology, the students of this generation were able to access practical and affordable gadget in the forms of smart mobile phones. almost all students are able to record and edit videos. yet, some students used entry level of camera. eltej issn: 2621-6485  riyanto 71 first and second videos were evidence of the competence and capability of the students to produce video. this readiness gave way for the next level that is producing video with serious content. to do so, students needed to conduct some research such as by reading novels and theories of characterization. this would help them wrote a good script. survey the result of the survey is illustrated in the figure 1. figure 1. result of the survey showing benefits from video making process there were four main categories of benefits; language and literary, social, personal, and technical. 1. social skills, included group management (100), understanding about friends (100), tolerance (100), team work (97) 2. language and literary skills, included gaining general knowledge (100), new vocabularies (100), knowledge about literature (79) 3. psychological skills, included reflect on strength and weakness (97) 4. technical skills, included video skill (86), edit for best performance (86) from the figure 1, it can be seen that all students agreed that video making process helped them improve their social, language and literary skills. in social skills, students learned how to manage their group and how to work with their friends. included in group management skills were planning, distributing jobs, scheduling. meanwhile students‟ understanding about their friends was more than just knowing names but also siblings, hobbies, future plans, and many others which in turn generated more tolerance. this wass because students talked to their friends about those topics. language and literary skills covered general knowledge, literary knowledge and new vocabularies. reading novels, marking the characterization lines, and reading about characterization theories have brought more knowledge of literature. later, the acquired knowledge was synthesized in the students‟ own video performance reviewing famous characters. only one student expressed the disagreement toward the perception that video making process helped improve student‟s psychological skill. the other 28 students agreed. 72  e-issn: 2621-6485 this psychological skill was acquired through reflection on their strength and weaknesses as seen in their respective videos. this was made possible because those videos were made to be seen repetitively, unlike a real speaking occasion which happen only once. the psychological and social skills are in line with those proposed by jany (2015) who included motivation, interaction, and cooperation. the benefits regarding language skill were also reported by castaneda & rodriguez-gonzales (2017). additional benefits found in this research were technical skill in making video and knowledge about literature as the content of the video. conclusion the integration of video making into a speaking class has shown significant benefits to the students. from the survey students believed that the video making helped them improve their language and literary, social, psychological and technical skills. their knowledge was also improved. as for the current issue, it appears that the incorporation of media whether it be video or audio to learning process has dramatically risen its importance due to the covid-19 pandemic. the closures of classes have given ways for innovations and improvements in videos as alternative to ensure to continuation of learning. references arta, b. 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(1989). interactive video: what the students say. calico journal, 7(1), 17– 20. doi:10.1558/cj.v7i1.17-20 sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 3, no. 1, 2020, pp. 14-25 e-issn: 2621-6485 bringing zull’s four brain-derived pillars of learning into the english classroom jorge carlos correa rodriguez central china normal university, wuhan, china jorgecorrear@yahoo.com abstract teaching modifies the brain of the learners. in that respect, providing teachers with information about ways in which the brain learns could allow them to enhance their practices. similarly, language teachers should also embrace what experts and theories from educational neuroscience and mind, brain and education science (mbe) science can offer to pedagogy. this paper explored zull’s biological learning model in order to provide a practical way to support language teaching. the model depicts 4 pillars derived from his understanding of the learning brain. zull’s model was developed by his observations of the organic structure of the brain. it originated from the functioning of specific areas located in the neocortex of the brain; the sensory area, the back-integrative area, the front-integrative area and the motor area. zull (2002) posited that each area is in charge of general functions such as; gathering, reflecting, creating and testing respectively. this connection could benefit the teaching process by providing a path to follow at the moment of instruction. in that sense, this paper observed how his model could be connected with one language teaching methodology. presentation, practice and production (ppp). it was also observed that the synergetic nature of the connections within the human brain allows the pillars to move throughout the stages of ppp. it means that despite each stage was bound to specific pillars, the rest of them could be also used in each particular stage of ppp if needed. moreover, some suggestions for the general language classroom were also included. this paper, therefore, aimed to connect one theory derived from the understanding of the brain with pedagogy in order to enhance the way teaching and learning in language classrooms is conducted. keywords: biology of learning, the brain, zull’s model, language teaching; ppp how to cite: correa rodriguez, j. c. (2020). bringing zull’s four brain-derived pillars of learning into the english classroom. english language teaching educational journal, 3(1), 14-25 introduction language learning, similar to any mental process, is strictly bounded to the inner and complex workings of the human brain (friederici, 2017). language is shaped due to the biological complexity of our brain, a process which has been also connected with aspects our evolution, such as the need for communication. it is not then surprising that language, as a mean of communication, is considered as a unique human characteristic, which is strictly bounded to the particular development of our species (jackendoff, 2002). thus, the intricate organic and cognitive processes which shape language, and learning itself, should not be an unknown subject for language teachers. according to zull (2002), “(…) the more you understand the brain, the more artful you can be when you must teach” (p.vii). consequently, language teachers’ knowledge about how the brain learns may lead to improvements in the way languages are taught and therefore learned. for instance, language teachers may actually benefit from embracing what experts from educational neuroscience, and mind, brain and education science (mbe), which are two academic fields connecting brain science and education, have offered in respect to learning, teaching and several educational matters including mailto:jorgecorrear@yahoo.com eltej issn: 2621-6485  correa rodriguez 15 language learning (battro, fischer, & léna, 2008; caine, caine, klimek, & mcclintic, 2009; oecd, 2007; sousa, 2011; tokuhama-espinosa, 2011; tokuhama-espinosa, 2014). all the investigations from those two areas can definitely have impacts on the quality of teaching and the way students actually learn. however, the success of that connection, to some extent, relies directly on educators’ willingness to accept and include knowledge from those fields into their classrooms. for instance, in the words of geake & cooper (2003), “(…) the education profession could benefit from embracing rather than ignoring cognitive neuroscience. moreover, educationists should be actively contributing to the research agenda of future brain research” (p.7). consequently, over the past years, numerous researchers have reflected on and promoted the critical connection between brain science and education to support teachers from all educational levels and academic subjects (battro, fischer, & léna, 2008; blakemore & frith, 2005; campbell & patten, 2011; geake, 2009; jensen, 2008; sousa, 2011; sousa, 2011; willis, 2008), among others. the rationale to developing this paper then originated by one main reason; the biological basis of language in the brain. it means that if language is originated in the brain, then a higher understanding of the way the brain learns may lead to enhancements in the way language is taught. moreover, since zull’s model depicts an organic way of learning, then the possible connections between language teaching and his learning model were believed to be appropriate. finally, since his model describes learning as a universal process happening in the brain, then language learning would be included, and it could be taught by following the ideas within his model. thus, this paper will particularly examine in which ways zull’s four learning pillars could be connected to one well known language teaching methodology presentation, practice and production (ppp). the four pillars being connected with language teaching will be; gathering, reflection, creating and testing as presented in his model (zull j. e., 2002; zull j. e., 2006; zull j. e., 2011). the first section of this paper will explore the main theory behind zull’s four pillars in order to describe its theoretical foundations. the second section will firstly include a reflection on how the 4 pillars can be connected with one ppp. finally, some practical and general ideas to connect the pillars with the english language classroom will be presented. zull’s biology of learning the main theory supporting this paper was developed by zull (2002) when connecting kolb’s experiential learning cycle (kolb, 1984, 2015) with his knowledge of the human brain and the biology of learning. zull proposed the construct of learning as a 4 stage physio-biological process involving, broadly speaking; the sensory, integrative and motor areas in the brain. moreover, zull observed learning as a process which produces physical changes in the structure of the brain. in his own words (2002), “learning is about biology” (p.xiii). however, even though he acknowledged learning as a far more complex process including a variety of parallel and overlapping interconnections, he insisted that in end, the 4 pillars could be considered as the main framework where all the interconnections of the biological learning processes are encased and happen in an orchestral but no rigid fashion. to sum up, and based on zull’s ideas, we could define learning as a physical and cognitive experience encasing the integration, processing and assimilation of sensory stimuli from the environment and the body resulting in concrete and dynamic motor responses. this definition could 16  e-issn: 2621-6485 also apply to language learning because it includes some actions similarly performed by language teachers. zull’s four fundamental pillars of learning zull’s four pillars of learning have some organic foundations which depict four major areas of the neocortex as observed below. thus, an overview of these structures of the brain will be firstly included. the 4 major areas of the neocortex supporting the pillars these areas are, in general terms, in charge of gathering, reflecting, creating, and testing all data around and within us. the way in which these areas of the human brain interact in complex manners are believed to set the basis for our capacity to learn. in consequence, and before going into the four pillars, it is necessary to identify and describe the 4 major areas of the neocortex carrying out most learning processes. as described in zull’s model (2002), they are the following; the sensory area (gathering), the back-integrative area (reflecting), the front-integrative area, (creating) and the motor area (testing) as clearly observed in figure 1. figure 1. the 4 major areas of the neocortex in the human brain (zull j. e., 2002) from the previous diagram, it can be observed that the relationship between those four areas is not linear; it is actually a cycle which can include several processes and sub-processes within each area, all of them happening and overlapping simultaneously. the sensory area: the sensory area of the neocortex is in charge of receiving and gathering all the stimuli coming from the environment around us, as well as from our own bodies. this process is facilitated by all the senses human beings have. for example, the senses of sight and hearing allow us to see the light, images and hear sounds in the outside world. therefore, all the senses in the body play a fundamental role as receptors of information encased in the stimuli which will be processed later on in other areas of the neocortex connected to each specific sense. this particular collection of data is fundamental for all of us because it helps us to observe, understand and interact, as well as to learn from the environment we live on. in sum, all we can sense, feel, see, hear, taste, touch etc, is firstly received in the sensory area of the neocortex in the human brain. later on, this data will be internalized. eltej issn: 2621-6485  correa rodriguez 17 the back-integrative area: once the information from the stimuli has entered the sensory cortex and its particular nature has been identified, it may be immediately directed to the back integrative area of the neocortex for deeper association. the processes in this area can also be parallel and even overlap each other depending of the experience. moreover, in this area of the neocortex, the data is also processed and combined with existing data; it means it is connected with existing information in the memories of the person. this is a fundamental aspect of the learning process, the association between the new and the previous knowledge. in sum, in the backintegrative area the sensory information is integrated in order to obtain meaning out of the data received previously through the senses by connecting it with previous knowledge. the front-integrative area: in the next area of the neocortex, the data is consciously internalized due to our cognitive skills. it is in this stage where we can identify the data, as a construct itself which we can cognitively understand resulting in judgments and decisions. similarly, when the information reaches this area, we can comprehend its meaning and apply and attach our own thinking to it. one extra process happening here is the identification of its relevance and usefulness for the learning experience itself. in sum, the front integrative are of the neocortex is in charge of the consciously processing of the information, it also allows us to plan actions and make decisions on the possible ways we can actually try out hypothesis derived from the information within the learning experience in which we are at. the motor area: the motor area of the neocortex is what allows us to, after all the integrative and associative processes, to react to the stimuli we have initially received. this active and motor reaction is bounded to the meaningful understanding, and hopefully successful processing, of the data within the stimuli. it is then due to this specific area by which our actions can illustrate a real connection between the stimuli and our particular thinking derived from the assimilation process the information, which was contained in it. for instance, a clear illustration would be the ability to orally reply to a question in our own, or for the sake of this paper, in a foreign language. in sum, the motor are of the neocortex facilitates our “reaction” to the stimuli we have received. it means that after all the reflective and integrative processes originated from the assimilation of the sensory data of the stimuli, we can finally show a cognitive and bodily understanding of that sensory experience through actions. figure 2 shows the location of the areas of the neocortex in the human brain, the picture below was obtained from (zull j. e., 2002) (p.15). figure 2. the four areas of the neocortex the four pillars or learning the four pillars in zull’s model of learning are; gathering, reflecting, creating, and testing. in this section, each pillar will be described, in general terms, aiming to set the basis for the upcoming connections with the english language classroom. a visual representation of the four pillars is presented in figure 3. 18  e-issn: 2621-6485 figure 3. zull´s four pillars of learning (zull j. e., 2002) pillar one: gathering data the first pillar, similarly to its corresponding section of the neocortex, is related to information or data gathering. in order to learn, people need to actively interact with the world around them. we need to have access to concrete experiences and meaningful interactions. it is in this way how we are able to “absorb” and assimilate the information we will use in situations like surviving, socializing, and of course learning a language. the gathering of data, within any learning experience, is a critical step which should include the activation of all senses and it should hopefully origin from concrete experiences (zull j. e., 2002).the more senses involved in any learning situation, the more regions of the brain are activated. thus, if more senses are involved in the gathering of data, these processes then may ignite the activation of more neurons and therefore the activation of more neural connections leading to the creation of complex networks within the brain. in sum, the brain relies on its biological mechanisms to gather data through, hopefully from a complete sensory-based experience. pillar two: reflecting once the brain has received and gathered information from the environment, this data needs to be connected in order to make meaning. thus, in this stage, the assimilation of all the pieces of information occurs by creating associations for instance with the existing information. it means that the data which entered the brain is somehow “grouped” with other pieces of data in order to get some meaning out of it. this process may be considered as one of the fundamental aspects in the learning of a language due to its connective nature. it is in this stage where the learner actually creates connections between the new data with existing knowledge in the brain. moreover, this new knowledge is also classified based on its relevance for that specific experience, as well as related to the recall of previous knowledge coming from the memories of the individual (sousa, 2011). similarly, the reflecting stage of the learning process is the one which facilitates, activates and produces memory formation due to the connectivity nature of its functioning. in simple words, the brain connects the incoming information with the already processed information by means of reflection. so teachers need to guide students to create connections. eltej issn: 2621-6485  correa rodriguez 19 pillar three: creating at this stage, the brain performs processes related to conscious reflection and planning. moreover, it creates intentional and purposeful associations. it is in this stage where we test hypothesis and develop action plans to be performed with the information encased in the learning experience. it is in fact what we will actually do with the data we have received. most of these action plans will be tested out in the next stage; however, some of them may not be used and could be replaced with ideas which may be considered to be more appropriate and useful for the experience. a selective process aiming to state relevance and meaningfulness may also appear at this stage. the level of metacognitive skills a person may have can similarly enhance or hinder the process. it means that the capacities a person may have to create meaning from what they learn may be observed in this stage. students at this point think and consciously observe the usefulness and possible ways in which learning a specific topic may benefit them as well as what they can do with that information. pillar four: active testing this pillar encases the active testing of the action plans originated in the previous stage. it is in this stage where learners can observe if their predictions or hypothesis from the previous stage were effective. it means that the brain of the students after receiving, associating and planning what to do with the stimuli they received can finally try their ideas out in the real world. if the actions plans for some reason fail, they can start the process again and retest their ideas. this pillar, similarly to the first one has the experience-based foundations of zull’s model of learning. its relevance originates from the concrete usage of the information after all the internal systems dealt with the stimuli entering the body. in sum, students need to be given time to try out their ideas in concrete and active manners. the four pillars described in this section provided a general view of data processing in the brain, which according to zull, should be seen as the foundation of all learning. his model represents a general way of information processing which teachers could use to enhance their practices. research method this paper followed a library research method. it means that the corresponding information and theories depicting the main ideas supporting the study were drawn after revising and understanding the selected theorists´ books. hence, a description of the major foundations was initially observed, and then the possible applications of the theory were connected with english teaching. findings and discussion this section will aim to connect zull´s model with one language teaching methodology; (ppp) presentation, practice production (harmer, 2007a; harmer, 2007b). this methodology was selected because it was believed that most english language teachers should be familiar with the theory behind it. in future research, other methodologies could be observed. presentation, practice, production (ppp) and the four overlapping pillars if we think about language teaching we can recall the idea of presentation, practice and production. ppp depicts a specific way in which language or particular features of a language can be taught. for a more detailed description of ppp, please 20  e-issn: 2621-6485 refer to (harmer, 2007a: harmer, 2007b). in general terms, when teachers use ppp, learners are firstly presented with a language feature. at this point, the sensory cortex allows the brain to gather the incoming information. then, learners need to internalize it by means of practice and reflection. in other words, they need to reflect and use the information; some testing could also be needed at this stage if needed. finally, learners should produce the same or new language derived from what was presented. therefore, they have to try or test if the way in which they processed the information was correct based on the requirements of that particular learning situation. the overlapping nature of the model allows each area and each pillar to move from one stage to the other. it means that despite, to some extent, the fixed structure of ppp, the pillars can overlap as needed. zull’s idea of the model relied on the synergetic nature of the human brain, even though it follows certain patterns, its uniqueness relies on its capacity to create infinite connections to enhance its functioning. for example, practice can include two or more areas of the neocortex at the same time as observed in figure 4. in other words, learners may rely on different parts of the brain to integrate information in order to practice and produce the target language. for instance, even though at the presentation stage learners mainly receive and gather information, they may also reflect and test some ideas related to the topic they are learning in that specific initial stage. for those reasons, despite the 4 pillars were included in each stage in the figure below, the most relevant(s) for that specific stage will be presented in italics. to sum up, figure 4 was mainly included to clarify zull’s theory rather than to rigidly provide a pattern to follow. the main idea was to try to observe how ppp could mirror the pillars and how they could be placed along all the stages. it is relevant to mention again that due to the synergetic and intricate nature of the biological processes within the human brain, the 4 pillars of learning can overlap and therefore be activated through the 3 stages of ppp. figure 4. the connection between ppp and the 4 pillars of learning the 4 pillars in the general english classroom pillar 1. data gathering: include learning experiences which promote the highly inclusion and activation of all the senses. make learning experiential! in order to apply zull’s model, educators should start by designing learning experiences which include the ideas behind the first pillar. the first pillar deals with the eltej issn: 2621-6485  correa rodriguez 21 sensory gathering of the information because we receive most of the input from the environment. thus, language teachers should do their best to turn their classes into highly sensorial learning experiences. it is relevant to mention that these will be general ideas, it is then the task of the teachers to use their creativity and adaptation skills to apply the first pillar into their particular contexts and needs. following, a set of specific ideas to include the first pillar into language classes a) when dealing with vocabulary, teachers should use pictures, videos, realia and include concrete experiences to introduce it. according to zull’s first pillar, this may facilitate the creation of more complex and integrated networks in the brain because once the input enters the brain more senses will be involved. it means that if students see, hear, touch, and taste an object related to one specific word for example, this construct will be connected to “four neuronal networks”. of course that there may be more networks involved, but here we oversimplify the idea to make things clear. following the example, the resulting activated networks would be the visual, auditory, tactile and gustatory. on the contrary, if students just look at a word on a flashcard or written on the board, they may lack the opportunity to create more networks for that specific word which may probably later on hinder memory formation. b) if possible, take students out to field trips so they can learn and use language on the spot. for instance, a zoo, a museum, a park. this will allow them to interact with the stimuli in the environment while using the target language. concrete experiences activate and involve more neuronal networks. c) bring the outside world into your classroom. turn your classroom into a post office, a hospital, a restaurant, an amusement park etc. be creative! d) ask students to bring from home realia related to the topics they are learning. this could also add the affective connection with the learning experience. e) use songs, drawing books, scale models, plasticine. etc. make learning active and more organic, so not only visual and auditory sections of the brain will be activated. pillar 2. reflection: guide students to connect and associate the new information with previous experiences. neurons that fire together, wire together (hebb, 1949). once the data has been received, something must be done with it. so now it is reflection time! provide enough time for students to reflect on what they are learning with what they already know. however, learning is more than receiving data from the environment through the senses and to think about it is not enough; something very important needs to be done with that data. what it is needed at this point is the creation of connections. moreover, they have to be highly effective connections which should be achieved thanks to the reflection processes. it means that learners should be guide to effectively associate the new input or data with existing ideas in their memory systems. thus, they need to attach new knowledge entering through the senses with previous related knowledge stored in their brains. the following are some ways in which this can be possibly achieved. a) use the art of questioning, it means that you can use specific questions to make students think, connect and associate the new information with previous experiences. recalling! 22  e-issn: 2621-6485 b) provide “thinking time”. let students go into their memories to create those connections. c) encourage students to use mind maps to connect ideas. d) allow students to interact and share ideas with peers e) provide clues and guide them to make effective connections. f) allow students to interact in groups pillar 3. creating: guide students to generate and develop ideas based on the connections they have formed. this specific pillar may allow students to develop a sense of deep understanding of the data they have received and processed in the previous stages, and actually plan and try out what to do with it. this is actually the stage in which students use their cognitive capacities to consciously think and give meaning to knowledge, as well as to generate some potential final outputs. this capacity to think about what is being learned leads to the planning of the actions to be performed in the next stage. students can therefore mentally prepare themselves to try out a hypothesis or ideas connected to the element or topic they are dealing with. this stage provides them with the opportunity to personalize and connect their own thinking with the learning experience by becoming cognitively active manipulators of the knowledge. this could be considered as a cognitive trial an error process. here students plan and test their ideas because it is a fully metacognitive stage. below, some ideas to get the best out of this pillar. a) provide appropriate time for students to reflect and try out their mental ideas. b) celebrate mistakes as part of the learning process! c) encourage students to think about learning. promote critical thinking. d) show them ways to enhance their metacognitive skills. e) guide the reflection by being a supporter rather than a corrector. f) promote creativity among your students. pillar 4. testing: see learning as an experiential process where students can test their ideas. after the data, content or knowledge passed the previous pillars, students need to test the ideas specifically developed in the reflection and creating pillars. it means that they need to have the opportunity to observe how their assumptions on the new knowledge, which was already processed, can be applied or tried out. this stage may provide a concrete way to meaningfully use the data which was received, associated and integrated in the first stages. similarly to the previous stage, in the last pillar, students will also experience mistakes at the moment of trying out their ideas. it is then the task of the teacher to guide and make them aware of the importance of mistakes as fundamental part of learning. in the case errors are done, they should be encouraged to rethink and reconsidered their hypothesis or ideas in order to retry them until they get it right. this, in the end, should produce a new sensory and concrete experience and the cycle may start all over again. a) the inclusion of acting and role plays in the language classrooms are specific ideas related to the last pillar. these two, and other similar activities, may allow eltej issn: 2621-6485  correa rodriguez 23 students to fully and bodily immerse themselves in the use of language. in a class performance, the students will use all their bodies and senses to communicate when acting out. in other words, they would be actively testing and integrating knowledge within an experiential process. b) at this point it should be mentioned that the performance of dialogues in front of the class may a little distant from the pillars because, in general, students mainly read aloud from their notes or a given handout. the idea is to make learning a highly sensorial experience in which they were active participants. so, encourage students to be creative by developing their own dialogues using the target language. c) encourage students’ active participation! d) similar to the previous pillar, celebrate mistakes as part of the learning process. e) design your classes so all students can use the target language in experiential and active fashions. the previous examples included some general ideas to include the four pillars in the english classroom. however, considering the vast amount of specific topics, levels and contexts related to language learning, it was decided to include mainly some broad ideas for the teacher. it is then recommended that teachers should use their creativity to include the pillars when designing their classes because as observed in zull’s model, that is how the brain actually learns. conclusion in general words, this paper reflected on the connection between zull’s biological model of learning and one language teaching methodology; presentation, practice and production. it overviewed zull’s model main foundations rooted in some of the major areas of the brain; the sensory, integrative and motor areas of the neocortex. similarly, it observed how zull connected those areas of the brain with learning itself by proposing 4 pillars depicting a natural, but not fixed, cycle of learning. it also included a reflection on how one language teaching methodology (ppp) may connect to the pillars. it was also observed that the synergetic nature of the connections within the human brain allows the pillars to move throughout the stages of ppp, it means that despite each stage was bound to specific pillars; the rest of them could be also used in each particular stage of ppp if needed. moreover, it included some general ideas to incorporate each pillar into the language classroom. it is relevant to mention that this paper mirrored a similar review which observed the ways in which other learning principles found within (mbe) science could be similarly included into the english classroom (correa rodriguez, 2018). to sum up, learning involves mental and physio-biological process. educators then should take into account both aspects of learning when designing and conducting their classes. they should not focus only on the cognitive aspects of learning; they should also pay attention to how the brain organically processes that knowledge and bring that information into their classrooms when possible. as zull, (2002) stated, “(…) learning is change. it is change in ourselves, because it is change in the brain. thus, the art of teaching must be the art of changing the brain” (p.xiv). hopefully, zull’s model of learning can provide a different perspective for teachers to use so they can enhance their practices and make learning a more organic-based experience. 24  e-issn: 2621-6485 references battro, a. m., fischer, k. w., & léna, p. j. (2008). the educated brain. essays in neuroeducation. new york: cambridge university press. blakemore, s.-j., & frith, u. (2005). the learning brain. lessons for education. oxford: blackwell. caine, r. n., caine, g., klimek, k. j., & mcclintic, c. (2009). 12 brain/mind learning principles in action. thousand oaks, ca: corwin press. campbell, s. r., & patten, k. e. (2011). educational neuroscience: initiatives and emerging issues. west sussex: wiley-blackwell. correa rodriguez, j. c. (2018). connecting english language teaching with 12 brain/mind learning principles. international journal of indonesian education and teaching, 2(2), 161-169. https://doi.org/10.24071/ijiet.2018.020208 friederici, a. d. (2017). language in our brain: the origins of a uniquely human capacity. cambridge, massachusetts: the mit press. geake, g. j. (2009). the brain at school. new york: mcgraw-hill companies. geake, j., & cooper, p. (2003). cognitive neuroscience: implications for education? westminster studies in education, 26(1), 7-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/0140672030260102 harmer, j. (2007a). how to teach english: an introduction to the practice of english language teaching (2nd ed.). essex: pearson education limited. harmer, j. (2007b). the practice of english language teaching (4th ed.). essex: pearson education limited. hebb, d. o. (1949). the organisation of behavior. new york: wiley. jackendoff, r. (2002). foundations of language: brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. new york, u.s.a: oxford university press inc. jensen, e. (2008). brain-based learning. thousand oaks: corwin press. kolb, d. a. (1984). experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development. new jersey: prentice-hall. kolb, d. a. (2015). experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development (2nd ed.). new jersey, u.s.a: pearson education, inc. oecd. (2007). understanding the brain: the birth of a learning science. centre for educational research and innovation. oecd. sousa, d. a. (2011). how the brain learns. thousand oaks: corwin. sousa, d. a. (2011). how the ell brain learns. thousand oaks : corwin. the royal society. (2011). brain waves module 2. neuroscience: implications for education and lifelong learning. london. the royal society. tokuhama-espinosa, t. (2011). mind, brain and education science. new york: w.w. norton & company, inc. tokuhama-espinosa, t. (2014). making classrooms better: 50 practical applications of mind, brain and education science. new york: norton. willis, j. (2008). how your child learns best. naperville: sourcebooks inc. zull, j. e. (2002). the art of changing the brain. enriching the practice of teaching by exploring the biology of learning. virginia: stylus publishing, llc. zull, j. e. (2006). key aspects of how the brain learns. in s. johnson, & k. taylor (edits.), the neuroscience of adult learning: new directions for adult and eltej issn: 2621-6485  correa rodriguez 25 continuing education, (pp. 110, 3-9). u.s.a. jossey-bass. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.213 zull, j. e. (2011). from brain to bind: using neuroscience to guide change in education. sterling: stylus publishing. english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5822 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id collaborative learning and classroom engagement: a pedagogical experience in an efl chilean context jessica vega-abarzúa a,1,*, javiera pastene-fuentes b,2, constanza pastene-fuentes c,3, camila ortega-jiménez d,4, tamar castillo-rodríguez e,5 a,b,c,d,e, universidad adventista de chile, camino a tanilvoro km. 12 sector, las mariposas, chillán, ñuble, chile 1 jessicavega@unach.cl*; 2 javierapastene@alu.unach.cl; 3 constanzapastene@alu.unach.cl; 4 camilaortega@alu.unach.cl; 5 tamarcastillo@alu.unach.cl * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t ( 1 0 p t ) article history received 8 march 2022 revised 19 april 2022 accepted 26 april 2022 in the context of teaching english as a foreign language (efl), there is growing attention towards collaborative learning and learners’ engagement. despite the interest on these topics, there is little research in chile, in the english classroom, about both collaborative learning and learners’ engagement at a school level. therefore, this study emerged to explore and describe the impact of collaborative-based instruction on learners’ engagement during an intervention of five weeks in a private-subsidized school in the city of chillan. the participants of the study were 62 female and 70 male students, aged 15 to 17. based on an action research methodology, the researchers used quantitative and qualitative techniques to collect data which comprised a likert test (adapted from alsowat, 2016) administered before and after the intervention, and unstructured observation registered in every lesson by means of field notes learnt from efrat and ravid (2020). our results show that collaborative learning has a direct relationship with learners’ engagement, evidenced in our four classes where behavioral engagement was predominant. future studies may investigate whether the use of collaborative learning tasks, over a longer period, would still maintain learners’ engagement in the efl classroom as well as whether behavioral engagement is the most salient dimension among their students. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords collaborative learning engagement english high school efl how to cite: vega-abarzúa, j., pastene-fuentes, j., pastene-fuentes, c., ortega-jiménez, c., & castillorodríguez, t. (2022). collaborative learning and classroom engagement: a pedagogical experience in an efl chilean context. english language teaching educational journal, 5(1), 60-74. 1. introduction undoubtedly, english language educators pursue learners’ engagement in their lessons. this interest is not far from chilean education where the school curriculum encourages efl teachers to implement an active pedagogy not only to increase students’ interests towards english language learning but also to learn it meaningfully within a social context (mineduc, 2016). however, engaging learners in a chilean context becomes challenging when facing multiple educational issues. one of these problems has to do with the focus of the instruction, which in chile seems to still dominate a teacher-centered practice. a study conducted by alarcón, díaz and vergara (2015) about identifying university students metaphors’ reveals that pedagogy students mostly played a passive role in their education. this view is completely opposed to the communicative emphasis declared by chilean education. muñoz campos (2017) reports that the focus of the efl classroom, at some point, diverted to standardized testing though in an ill-structured way because the national expectations of attaining https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5822 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:jessicavega@unach.cl mailto:javierapastene@alu.unach.cl mailto:constanzapastene@alu.unach.cl mailto:camilaortega@alu.unach.cl mailto:tamarcastillo@alu.unach.cl http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5260-5584 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9631-0035 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7945-8185 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1276-9987 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1507-6353 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5822&domain=pdf issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 61 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (collaborative learning and classroom engagement:…..) an intermediate user proficiency have not yet been met. student-centeredness may be distant from the chilean classroom since educators must tackle different problems, leaving no time and room to innovate. for example, research studies report that chilean teachers face serious difficulties such as misbehavior and violence (cid et al., 2008; espinoza & arias, 2020; velasco-cortés, 2014) that threaten the optimal delivery of classes and therefore the implementation of strategies centered on the students. another educational issue that may be hindering student-driven education is classroom size. in a study conducted by ocde (2016), findings reveal that the average pupils per chilean classroom is 24, being the maximum 45, which is a frequent number in chilean urban schools. acción educar (2016) claims that it is vital to reduce large classes to improve the quality of chilean education, classroom didactics and classroom management. although the chilean government asserts to have an ongoing class-size agenda, not to exceed 35 learners per classroom (mayoría, 2013), no changes have yet occurred. the research site of this study was not an exception to the educational issues discussed above, specifically in terms of classroom size and teacher-centeredness. therefore, for this study, it was imperative to i) take a reflective role in our teaching context to bring changes to the classroom, ii) promote learners’ engagement to meet the pedagogical orientations of the national curriculum, and iii) select an approach or method likely to be implemented in our context. in this endeavor, collaborative learning (cl), a student-centered method to reach a common goal (laal & laal, 2012) emerged from the literature review which has reported various benefits for the educational communities in different contexts. this method also matched our expectations to improve our teaching practices. our study was exploratory in nature given the fact that we did not find similar investigations, at the time of the investigation, focusing on collaborative learning and learners’ engagement in a chilean context. the research purpose was to implement an action plan, in this case basically translated into collaborative learning tasks, during five weeks to explore and describe its impact on the engagement of our high school learners in a school of ñuble region, chile. to attain this goal, we have posed the following research questions: is there a relationship between collaborative learning and learners’ engagement? in what way would collaborative learning tasks impact learners’ engagement in the efl classroom? 1.1. engagement for some, the concept of engagement is interchangeably used with the notion of involvement. to some extent this use is acceptable as these two concepts hold a positive connotation, for they imply an active participation. nevertheless, beyond the ordinary use, researchers claim that engagement is broader than involvement as it comprises other elements such as feelings, meaning making and active participation (harper & quaye, 2009). the broadness in the term has allowed a categorization to serve educational purposes, specifically at a school level. thereafter, it is not uncommon to encounter studies and books addressing different types of engagement. fredricks, blumenfeld and paris (2004) distinguish three dimensions of engagement in the literature: 1. behavioral engagement. it entails the active participation and engagement to successfully meet academic and extracurricular demands. 2. emotional engagement. it is characterized by affections, bonds and willingness to commit with the educational setting and actors. 3. cognitive engagement. it is marked by the level of participation and effort to thrive in learning and more challenging tasks. not far from this appraisal, hu and kuh (2001) define engagement as “the quality of effort students themselves devote to educationally purposeful activities that contribute directly to desired outcomes” (p.3). similarly, coates (2007) asserts that engagement is “a broad construct intended to encompass salient academic as well as certain non-academic aspects of the student experience” (p.122). although these definitions are more general, they relate back to the three dimensions of engagement in fredricks, blumenfeld and paris’ work as they signal one or more elements, showing the interaction between the same. 62 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (collaborative learning and classroom engagement:…..) empirical studies on learners’ engagement and collaborative learning have revealed a favorable relationship between these two areas. huang (2021) studied the effects of a smartphone-based collaborative project on efl students’ performance and learning engagement during an eight-week intervention, where learners’ speaking performance and engagement increased. blasco-arcas et al. (2013) used a framework including interactivity, collaborative learning and engagement to investigate the use of clickers in the classroom, yielding positive results in favor of learners' performance. myller et al. (2009) found a positive correlation between high levels of learners’ engagement and collaborative activities. in a more recent study, the researchers qureshi et al. (2021) examined the social factors in the learning performance through collaborative learning and engagement, highlighting the importance of such elements on learners’ academic achievement. clearly, the concept of engagement possesses various definitions and empirical evidence points at being beneficial in stimulating a classroom environment that facilitates learning. for the scope of this study, engagement will be understood as “a broad construct intended to encompass salient academic as well as certain non-academic aspects of the student experience” (coates, 2007, p.122) . 1.2. collaborative learning in a nutshell, collaborative learning (cl) is understood as learning while interacting. barkley, cross and howell (2012) define cl as “group work, avoiding solo projects to achieve goals of common interest” (p. 17). gerlach (1994) maintains that learning takes place in learners’ interaction and negotiation. this socialization is facilitated by the attainment of a specific task (gokhale, 1995) that allows learners not only to gain academic skills but also to develop group work abilities as well as affective benefits as they support each other. in other words, cl has an emotional implication (laal & laal, 2012) that enriches learners’ academic life (brown, 2008) as learners convey, listen and respect different ideas and beliefs. while the concept of cl is interchangeably used with the one of cooperative learning, barkley, et al. (2012) highlight a theoretical difference. in cooperative learning, students work in groups arranged by the instructor who maintains the role of authority and decision making as students make progress with their work and peers. collaborative learning, on the other hand, implies students working on their own, finding and building their own learning as the teacher monitors and provides feedback on their tasks (ibrahim et al., 2015). it might be concluded that whilst cooperative learning reinforces group work, led by the strong figure of the teacher, collaborative learning enhances teamwork from students’ own organization and decision making. in gokhale’s words “the students are responsible for one another’s learning as well as their own'' (1995, p.1). particularly, in implementing collaborative learning in the classroom as tasks, barkley, et al. (2012) state that students have a crucial role. there is no gain in collaborative learning activities if just one student does all the work. collaborative learning activities are successful when all the group members fulfill and take responsibility for a role (collazos & mendoza, 2009; villa, thousand & nevin, 1994). proponents of cl assert that working collaboratively does not only entail developing social skills but also individual accountability (collazos, & mendoza, 2009; johnson & johnson, 2017; villa, thousand & nevin, 1994) as learners commit to a shared goal. it must be noted that teachers have a vital bearing as well, for they design, plan and create a cooperative environment that triggers motivation and involvement (collazos, & mendoza, 2009). in other words, collaborative learning has an ‘intentional’ implication given that “activities performed by students are specially designed by teachers for pairs or small groups” (barkley, cross & howell, 2012, pp. 17-18); affecting positively students’ learning experience. to enrich group work, educators must highlight the relevance of each student by assigning a role to all group members (collazos, & mendoza, 2009; villa, thousand & nevin, 1994). regarding this aspect, a research study exploring students’ perceptions on cl conducted by brown (2008) showed that students had negative perceptions towards cl since some group members assumed most of the work. these findings lead to a major significance to group organization and role distribution to ensure active involvement and commitment in every student. empirical studies reveal various other benefits of cl (see table 1). there is evidence that shows that in collaborative-based work students no longer centered the attention to their grades but to selfsatisfaction as the result of group work in challenging tasks (scager, bonstra, peeters, vulperhost & issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 63 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (collaborative learning and classroom engagement:…..) wiegant, 2016). furthermore, and considering the social nature of learning, many studies on cl address learners’ social abilities development and consolidation (chen, 2018; brown, 2008; escofet & marimon, 2012; gómez gutiérrez, 2018; scager, bonstra, peeters, vulperhost & wiegant, 2016). additionally, findings also highlight the improvement of higher levels of thought as seen in the study conducted by gokhale (1995) where learners engaged in analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating tasks, revealing significant changes in higher other thinking skills after working collaboratively. one strand of research focuses on the impact of cl on teachers, finding positive results in broadening teaching competences. sheldon (2002) pinpoints the importance of exposing instructors to the advantages of various teaching strategies in favor of students’ learning. table 1. summary empirical evidence on cl. authors empirical evidence on cl context brown f. (2008) cl is interesting for learners in addressing academic and social skills. higher education cadavieco, iglesias & cabezas (2016) cl had a positive impact on teachers’ praxis. higher education escofet & marimon (2012) cl exerted a positive impact on learners’ social skills. higher education gokhale (1995) cl fostered students’ critical thinking. higher education gómez gutiérrez (2018) cl had enhanced group work skills such as respect and problem solving. primary education mulligan & garofalo (2011) cl positive impact on learners’ writing. higher education scager, bonstra, peeters, vulperhost & wiegant, (2016) cl fostered responsibility and shared ownership. higher education source: personal elaboration despite the advantages that cl poses for english language teaching, most of the research studies focus on tertiary education. furthermore, it was evidenced that there is little empirical evidence on collaborative learning in chile especially at a high school level. 1.3. the efl classroom in high school education in chile, high school education starts approximately at the age of 14, undergoing 8 semesters in 4 years. the aim of the efl classroom at a secondary level is to use the language in communicative situations reinforcing primary school contents (marco curricular, 2009), which students begin mandatorily learning in 5th grade around the age of 9. in this context, at the end of the 4th semester of high school education, students are expected to attain a pre-intermediate level of english to eventually reach an intermediate level at the end of the 8th semester (bases curriculares, 2015). the chilean curriculum outlines a progression of learning outcomes and linguistic complexity between grades summarized in progresion de objetivos de aprendizaje. this transition requires a slow pace and time to consolidate and improve students’ english proficiency (marco curricular, 2009). in the development of the four abilities of the english language (reading, writing, listening and speaking) with an average of three hours a week, students are expected to develop a communicative competence (bases curriculares, 2015). in a didactical and methodological field, the chilean curriculum does not limit the different approaches, techniques and methods for english language teaching, yet it does stress the use of student-centered methodologies as well as the use of information and communication technologies (icts) to slowly master the target language (bases curriculares, 2015). 2. method this exploratory study adopted an action research methodology using both quantitative and qualitative techniques for data collection. given the fact that the researchers of this study were teachers investigating their work and deliberately intervening in their own classroom settings to seek improvements, the most adequate methodology to employ was action research. in particular, action research is understood as a type of inquiry led by teachers who become agents of change “in their own educational setting in order to advance their practices and improve their students’ learning” (efrat & ravid, 2020, p. 13). furthermore, action research has a cyclical nature, which at the time is characterized by flexibility as a result of moving between action and reflection (allan, herbert, peter, & bridget, 2018). considering this continuum, experts in the field of action research have suggested 64 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (collaborative learning and classroom engagement:…..) different steps in the inquiry process. we arranged our study following the six-step put forward by efront & ravid (2020, p.8): 1. identify a problem 2. gather background information 3. design the study 4. collect data 5. analyze and interpret data 6. implement and share the findings the researchers were four preservice teachers of english in charge of the four class groups of the 10th grade in a private-subsidized school in the city of chillan as part of their pedagogical training program. the researchers were in their 20s and received pedagogical guidance by their mentor, an inservice teacher in her 30s with 8 years of teaching experience in english teaching in different educational contexts. prior to the investigation, the researchers took some actions including the familiarization with the research site, detection of a pedagogical issue, and tailoring an action plan in response to the issue. after two weeks of observation, the researchers concluded that learners' engagement was an area to explore and likely to be targeted with collaborative-based instruction. the research site in which the study was conducted is located in a rural area of the city of chillan, ñuble region of chile. the universe of students attending the school are from a lowerto middle-class socioeconomic community, mainly living in the schools’ surroundings. the educational institution, private-subsidized, is part of one of the adventists schools of chile and has approximately 640 students in high school education. the participants of our study included 132 students, 70 male and 62 female, aged 15-17, divided into four class groups (a, b, c, and d). at the moment of the study, they were undergoing their fourth semester (10th grade) of high school education. the observed level of english was basic, implying that learners decoded messages and were able to communicate ideas with the help of the teacher; students’ behavior ranged from moderate to normal, and they had efl lessons twice a week, one lesson of 90 minutes and the other of 45 minutes. 2.1. ethical considerations before conducting the study and tailoring the action plan, the researchers socialized their investigation interests with the school’s director and teachers of english. after the school’s approval, the researchers introduced themselves to the four class groups and communicated their basic research plan that by then consisted of research site observation to plan an intervention. once the researchers detected the pedagogical issue, they provided more details to participants, informing that they would take over the english lessons during five weeks where they would implement an action plan comprising four phases embedded in their regular lessons. the researchers also explained that they document the experience by collecting data to which participants could decide whether to participate or not. the investigation and intervention was also communicated through a written letter attached with a consent letter to be signed by the participants’ parents. these documents were distributed in spanish to avoid misunderstandings. 2.3. intervention design once we had problematized the issue and found background information, we moved to the third step of our research cycle, designing the study. this step underpinned a complex process because we needed to find a way to organize, share and present the detailed actions of the intervention with the schools’ stakeholders. consequently, we design our own procedures to illustrate our action plan which basically comprises four phases as shown in figure 1: planning, induction, development and closure. the planning phase, executed by the researchers, encompassed administrative work and the validation of pedagogical material with the appointed teacher of english of the school so as to meet curricular and institutional requirements. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 65 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (collaborative learning and classroom engagement:…..) fig. 1. intervention design the induction phase, marked by the first interaction with the learners in instructional mode, took place with a threefold purpose carried out in two lessons where participants 1) explored the characteristics and major aspects of collaborative learning activities, 2) examined their assessment criteria to complete a portfolio, and 3) distinguished the importance of group work roles to ensure cooperation and commitment (barkley et al., 2012; collazos, & mendoza, 2009) in every lesson. in this phase, learners took responsibility for the roles of organizer, speaker, assistant, summarizer, recorder and elaborator. students themselves selected their roles and used sticky labels to remind and identify their roles throughout the intervention. role importance and team organization were learned from villa, thousand and nevin (1994). it is worth noting that we excluded the role of ‘leader’ because it might have been thought as more protagonic or important over other roles. regarding group formation, learners were grouped with their closest classmates not to alter classroom arrangement. in the development phase, learners engaged in collaborative learning tasks tailored to their efl curriculum and school’s guidelines during six lessons. learners worked with the same teammates and everybody maintained their roles. in every lesson, learners and their groups completed challenging tasks that resulted in a product that was added to their portfolios. this phase also encompassed selfassessment scales that were also added to their portfolios. the final phase, closure, comprised two lessons. in the first lesson, learners reflected upon the various tasks of their portfolios and collaborative work, and in the second lesson, learners were individually tested using an end-of-unit written assessment. 2.4. data collection as it may be seen in figure 1, data collection happened in different moments that responded to the techniques employed. on the one hand, it was imperative to reach a large number of students in a short time, and it was also crucial to compare the initial engagement with the engagement after the intervention. therefore, we decided to collect quantitative data, surveying participants’ engagement before and after the implementation of collaborative learning tasks using a likert test (adapted from alsowat, 2016). the instrument, administered by the investigators, displayed 19 indicators to which learners reacted in terms of totally agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, totally disagree, in a scale from 5 to 1. consequently, we administered a pre-test to measure the engagement of learners prior to collaborative-based instruction, manifested for learners from the induction phase to closure face. once we finished the intervention, we used the same instrument to gauge students’ engagement after our intervention. on the other hand, we wanted to keep a record of how collaborative learning was impacting learners in every lesson within a natural context. therefore, we decided to employ a qualitative tool, observation, as in efron and ravid’s words it “provides a powerful insight into the authentic life of schools and classrooms” (2020, p.91). this observation process extended from the induction to the closure (see figure 1). given that we did not have a predetermined agenda to observe, we opted for unstructured observation, for it gives “an overall description of social settings and social dynamics in 66 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (collaborative learning and classroom engagement:…..) the research site” (lecompte & schensul, 1999, p.19). the observation protocol was learnt from efron and ravid (2020), comprising the use of field notes to register descriptive and reflecting comments. we designed an ad hoc observation sheet, displaying the features of class group, time, date, observer’s name, sheet number and notes (see figure 2). class group date sheet nº observer time notes ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ _____________________________________________ source: personal elaboration fig. 2. sample observation sheet it is worth mentioning that, in every lesson, there were two researchers where one was in charge of the instruction and the other one was appointed to document the observation process during the classroom time and breaks. 2.5. data analysis and results this step involved analyzing data emanating from two different sources. quantitative data, gathered with a likert test adapted from alsowat (2016), was analyzed using the software spss v23. in this test, engagement was measured regarding the frequency in reaction to 19 indicators ranging from totally agree to totally disagree, in a scale from 5 to 1 respectively. table 2 shows the contrast between the scores obtained before and after the intervention, applied on a scale of 100 to measure learners’ engagement. the overall scores in all the class groups (a, b, c, d) were higher in the post-test. table 2. overall scores of preand post-tests on learners’ engagement. n mean low high overall pre-test 132 66,69 39,05 87,62 overall post-test 113 70,72 42,00 95,00 figure 3 illustrates the overall results of pre-and post-tests in t test, showing a difference (p <, 000) between both tests. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 67 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (collaborative learning and classroom engagement:…..) fig. 3. overall scores of pre-test and post-test in t-test. among the scores obtained per group as seen in table 3, it was observed that group b obtained a greater difference in scores; the mean was 68,80 in the pre-test and 75,95 in the post-test, increasing 7,15 points. it was also observed that group d maintained similar scores during the pre-test with a mean of 71,61 and 71,26 in the post-test, observing a small drop between the two tests. table 3. overall scores of pre and post-tests by class group on learners’ engagement class groups n mean low high overall pre-test a 36 61,56 39,05 80,95 b 29 68,8 45,71 84,76 c 31 64,97 45,71 80,00 d 36 71,61 46,67 87,62 overall post-test a 31 66,93 42,00 88,00 b 24 75,95 47,00 95,00 c 24 69,62 53,00 92,00 d 34 71,26 46,00 88,00 qualitative data from our field notes yielded a total of 40 observations sheets. before organizing the data, we examined the comments evaluating a possible way to sort them into categories. at this point, we received methodological guidance from an experienced professor who informed us that it was possible to use predetermined categories drawn from the literature review. therefore, we manually divided our data into the dimensions of engagement as addressed by the authors fredricks, blumenfeld and paris (2004). we designed a table ad hoc with the three categories or dimensions: behavioral engagement, emotional engagement and cognitive engagement. table 4 shows an excerpt of the data organization per category. 68 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (collaborative learning and classroom engagement:…..) table 4. data division based on fredricks, blumenfeld and paris’ (2004) dimensions of engagement. data dimensions arranging groups by their own initiative checking their notes prior to the lesson waiting for the teacher in groups raising their hand to answer participating communicative showing interest organizing group work asking questions to the teacher helping classmates distributing tasks willingness to participate behavioral curious glad at the arrival sense of making a contribution satisfied with their roles showing responsibility expressing satisfaction towards collaborative learning emotional different attempts to complete tasks attentive trying to use english to answer making extra efforts to complete tasks on time tasks cognitive after dividing our data into categories, we created a concept map since this allows researchers to establish the relationship among them (efrat & ravid, 2020). in this process, it was crucial to go back to our research questions and to the implementation design to establish the interconnections and have more grounded interpretations. we decided to present our interpretations by the engagement dimensions that grouped most of the data. behavioral this dimension grouped the majority of the observed data. we believe that the induction phase is directly related to the behavioral dimension of engagement. observations including actions such as distributing tasks, organizing group work, revising notes and grouping before the teacher arrived were actions spontaneously maintained and repeated throughout the lessons by learners in all the class groups. we believe that these common actions were the result of raising awareness on the implications of collaborative work on the first day of instruction. it might also be possible that learners reacted proactively to the methodological change from a traditional approach to a student-centered one. it can also be concluded that the behavioral dimension was more visible because it was evidenced from the first day of implementation, collecting more observable actions. similarly, we reckon that behavioral engagement was more prominent because learners adopted the same or similar actions as they observed other groups. for example, the student organizer in one group asked their teammates to arrive a few minutes before the break so that she could make sure that everybody had their school materials and tasks. as other groups observed this type of organization, they followed it. consequently, almost everybody was already in the classroom at the instructor’s arrival. emotional this dimension was the second area of major impact. we observed and documented many actions that denoted an emotional engagement such as satisfaction to work in groups, curiosity towards the tasks, group commitment, enjoyment and pride. after exploring the implications and duties of every issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 69 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (collaborative learning and classroom engagement:…..) role, learners selected their own roles based on their skills and preferences which might have contributed to feeling motivated towards something they had chosen. for instance, there were participants who expressed that they had selected the role of speaker because they enjoyed communicating with their peers and teachers. we believe such role accountability contributed to peer acceptance as well as group commitment. it was observed that before the intervention there were some learners that were at the margin of interacting with their classmates and were somehow uncomfortable when told to check their exercises with their peers. during the intervention, we observed satisfaction towards group work in those learners. although these students kept introverted during collaborative work, they seemed to be enjoying their participation and contribution to their groups. it was also evidenced that students made an effort to comply with the duties of their roles. we observed different strategies that emerged from the same learners to comply with their roles. some of them had a notebook specially designated to keep a record of what occurred during the lesson. others used a checklist to monitor their teammates’ work while others used graphic organizers to make plans about the completion of tasks. cognitive making efforts to use english in the classroom as well as to complete assignments, marked the engagement patterns in this dimension. although cognitive engagement grouped the least number of observable data, it must be considered that measuring cognitive engagement by means of observation methods in large groups might not be the best technique to employ. however, our observations before the intervention shed light on the actions that were notoriously different such as students' effort to speak in english and time spent on the completion of their tasks. moreover, and compared to the other dimensions, cognitive engagement was not substantially evidenced until the second and third week of intervention that corresponds to the development phase. conclusions the present study described the implementation of collaborative learning tasks and their impact on learners' engagement in the chilean efl classroom. our results show a direct relationship between classroom engagement and collaborative work evidenced in our four class groups of large size where behavioral engagement was notoriously predominant. during this pedagogical experience, it was not expected that group organization and role accountability would have such relevance for the participants and the investigation. quantitative data reveals a high engagement after the implementation of collaborative-based instruction. our pedagogical experience showed an overall increase in learners’ engagement; however, there was a class group, group d, that maintained the initial level of engagement, 71, in both pre and post engagement tests, presenting a slight drop reflected in decimals. a plausible explanation might be connected to the class prior engagement levels that once high, improvements turn more complex to be increased. qualitative data also shows that collaborative work has an important bearing in learners’ engagement. we could evidence that engagement was maintained in every lesson and that behavioral engagement was the most salient dimension followed by emotional and cognitive engagement respectively. we believe that behavioral engagement is connected to one of the phases of our methodological design, the induction phase that set expectations, organization and raised awareness on the implications of collaborative learning. we noticed that accounting for a specific role in the completion of collaborative tasks was paramount for the whole intervention. we had learnt from empirical studies that implementing cl without assigning roles may generate negative perceptions on students (brown, 2008; villa, thousand & nevin, 1994). therefore, we included this indication in our methodological design applied to large class groups ranging from 31 to 36 students where they show satisfaction and willingness to work. participants did not feel individually overwhelmed nor showed reluctance to work with their classmates. therefore, our results match the favorable findings of cl implemented in other studies (collazos & mendoza, 2009; scager, bonstra, peeters, vulperhost & wiegant, 2016; villa, thousand & nevin, 1994). this fact leads us to conclude that collaborative learning, in its student-centered nature, helps learners gain meaningful knowledge and self-confidence. in this sense, literature broadly 70 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (collaborative learning and classroom engagement:…..) discusses that a student-driven instruction has the potential to develop and consolidate learners’ affective factors and social skills (gokhale, 1995; laal & laal, 2012; scager, bonstra, peeters, vulperhost & wiegant, 2016). in general terms, we are satisfied to have been able to provide an answer to our research question which is translated into a direct relationship between collaborative work and learners’ engagement. we could also determine that collaborative-based instruction had an impact on learners’ actions and attitudes in the classroom as they showed self-initiative and satisfaction towards collaborative work as well as proactivity in the completion of their tasks. it is worth noting that the final step to complete the full cycle of our investigation comprised the dissemination of our work. we shared our findings in a formal presentation held by the english language department of our faculty, and we also wrote the present report in the hope that it can be a contribution for our fellow pre-service teachers. beyond doubts, the hard work to design and implement the action plan was worth it, for we enriched our teaching practices and were able to tackle an educational issue in our national and regional context. the next step is to take this experience and knowledge to our future classrooms. recommendation this experience has allowed us to draw some recommendations for our fellow pre-service teachers, or in-service educators that teach english as a foreign language. first, in numerous classes, collaborative tasks are avoided to not trigger misbehavior or chaos. yet, if collaborative work is planned ahead and learners are assigned roles, it is possible to have an organized learning environment (collazos & mendoza, 2009; thousand & nevin, 1994) that is likely to positively impact learners’ attitudes and perceptions about collaborative learning as evidenced in our study. second, in groups showing a lack of engagement towards the english language, the constant incorporation of collaborative tasks that imply the execution of meaningful activities rather than being passive about a topic has the potential to motivate learners as they will not just listen but do. our action plan comprised varied and challenging tasks to solve in groups in every lesson. our field notes indicate that not in a single lesson learners showed boredom or lack of interest to complete their challenges. third, collaborative work can be the stepping stone to strengthen learners’ autonomy since by establishing a collaborative routine where every student takes responsibility for a role is likely to bring an increasing level of proactivity in the whole class as we were able to experience with our class groups. limitations and suggestions for further research it is worth mentioning that the significance of this study was limited due to time; therefore, our students could not further explore collaborative tasks on other topics. consequently, it is expected that further studies are able to implement collaborative-based work over a longer period. likewise, it would be interesting to know if the level of engagement decreases in this period, and whether it increases again. it is also expected that this study could be improved and implemented with large groups to determine whether the design plays the same importance as it occurred in this pedagogical experience and whether some phases are more determining than others. in the same trend, future investigators could use other instruments to collect data and thus bring more substantial results. finally, it is expected that experienced teachers could test our methodological procedures since their expertise in teaching english could bring further areas or results that are worth exploring. acknowledgement we would like to express our gratitude to the editor and anonymous eltej reviewers for their constructive comments on the earlier versions of this paper. declarations author contribution: jessica vega-abarzúa led the research group, adapted and elaborated the research tools, analyzed the data and revised the final manuscript. javiera issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 71 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (collaborative learning and classroom engagement:…..) pastene-fuentes, constanza pastene-fuentes, camila ortega-jiménez identified the research problem, conducted the literature review, intervention, and collected the research data. tamar castillo-rodríguez identified the research problem and complemented the literature review. funding statement : the research is non-funded. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. references acción educar. 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(2021). factors affecting students’ learning performance through collaborative learning and engagement. interactive learning environments, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2021.1884886 scager, k., boonstra, j., peeters, t., vulperhost, j., & wiegant, f. (2016). collaborative learning in higher education: evoking positive interdependence. cbe life sciences education, 15(4). https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-07-0219 sheldon, c. q. (2002). building an instructional framework for effective community college developmental education. eric digest. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-07-0219 velasco-cortés, a. (2014). origen y dinámica de violencia en chile desde la atribución de sus propios protagonistas. [origin and dynamics of violence in chile from the voices of their own protagonists]. revista inclusiones, 1(1), 73-85. villa, r. a., thousand, j. s & nevin, a. (1994). creativity and collaborative learning: a practical guide to empowering students and teachers. p.h. brookes pub. co. appendix questionnaire addressed to students mark with an x the box that best reflects your perception considering the following criteria: • totally agree = 5 • agree = 4 • neither agree nor disagree = 3 • disagree = 2 • totally disagree = 1 no. indicator score 5 4 3 2 1 1. group activities are more attractive than traditional tasks. 2. group activities give me more opportunities to communicate with my classmates. 3. i feel that group activities improve my understanding in the english language. 4. it motivates me to learn english when working with my classmates. 5. i listen carefully when i am in the english class. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2021.1884886 https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-07-0219 https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-07-0219 74 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 60-74 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (collaborative learning and classroom engagement:…..) 6. i show a job attitude when i am in the english class. 7. i enjoy learning new things in the english class. 8. i feel supported in group work tasks. 9. i underline information we study in the class to help me study. 10. i ask myself questions to make sure i understand the contents. 11. before starting a project or task, i organize the work with classmates to determine how we are going to do it. 12. when i have a project or some homework for the english class, i worry a lot about that. 13. i pay attention in the english class. 14. i am interested in doing my tasks and activities in the english class. 15. when i read in english, i ask myself questions to make sure that i understand the text. 16. the assessment in the english class can evaluate in a good way what i am able to do. 17. i do more than what i am required in the english class. 18. i enjoy talking about the topics discussed in the english class with my classmates outside the classroom. 19. the english class makes me want to learn the topics discussed more thoroughly. sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no 3, 2019, pp. 102-111 e-issn: 2621-6485 metalinguistic awareness of multilingual first graders: an exploratory study 1irish mae fernandez-dalona, 2alvert dalona 1,2 msu-iligan institute of technology, iligan city, philippines, irishmae.fernandez@g.msuiit.edu.ph alvert.dalona@g.msuiit.edu.ph abstract this study, which utilized a modified metalinguistic awareness test adopted from dita’s (2009), probed on young children’s metalinguistic awareness in identifying syntactic errors; determining sounds and the use of phonological segments; and explaining a word on their own by describing its appearance or its functions in english, filipino, and cebuano. this study attempted to elucidate young children’s readiness to take on more difficult linguistic tasks in the succeeding academic levels. since the children’s level of metalinguistic awareness is average, this study recommends that schools are encouraged to provide strategies and lessons that would enhance learners’ metalinguistic awareness, most especially in terms of language arbitrariness in english and filipino; and since there is significant difference in all three languages in all tests, parents and teachers should ensure that the pupils achieve full proficiency in all three languages by providing rich experiences equally in these languages. keywords: metalinguistic awareness, bilingualism, multilingualism how to cite: dalona, i.m.f. & dalona, a. (2019). metalinguistic awareness of multilingual first graders: an exploratory study. english language teaching education journal, 2(3), 102-111 introduction bilingual/multilingual education has been the subject of never ending debate as to its possible harm or gain. one of the strongest defenses to promoting bilingualism/ multilingualism is that “in contrast to monolinguals, bilinguals develop communicative sensibility, creativity and metalinguistic awareness” (goetz, 2003). metalinguistic awareness refers to an individual’s understanding that language is a system of communication, which follows certain rules; and the rules become the basis for the ability to discuss different ways to use language (baten, hofman & loeys, 2011). an individual with such ability is aware that linguistic forms and structure can be framed and manipulated to communicate a variety of meanings. in thailand, a study was conducted to test children’s metalinguistic awareness to determine whether bilingualism inhibit their learning or not. the study shows that monolinguals and sequential bilinguals do not differ. importantly, bilingualism does not affect the development of their first language (l1). in the present educational system in the philippines, young school-age children are tasked to read and write in english and filipino, the philippine’s national language. this can pose a bigger challenge to those whose first language is neither filipino nor english. dita (2009) conducted a study in the northern part of philippines to test the metalinguistic awareness of filipino bilingual children, foci of which is on: (a) language arbitrariness, which demands the ability of a person to recognize correct syntactic errors; (b) phonological awareness, which demands the capability of a person to identify sounds and use phonological segments; and (c) vocabulary, which demands the ability of a person to explain a word on his own by describing its appearance or its functions. her investigation revealed that full bilinguals outscored the partial bilinguals in the entire test conducted suggesting that those children who were proficient on two or more languages perform multilingual tasks better than the monolinguals. since the philippines is now facing a new educational system which supports the use of mother languages, and classes are getting more culturally and linguistically diverse, schools should discern whether learner’s knowledge is adequate to face the demands of the succeeding academic levels. this, therefore, motivated the researchers to conceptualize this study, which particularly focuses on bilingual children in an elementary school in davao city, philippines, which is home to various linguistic communities, especially cebuano, and where english and filipino are encouraged mediums of instruction in schools. specifically, this is sought to provide answers to the following: 1. what is the level of students’ metalinguistic awareness in english, filipino and cebuano? mailto:irishmae.fernandez@g.msuiit.edu.ph mailto:alvert.dalona@g.msuiit.edu.ph eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 ◼ dalona & dalona 103 2. is there a significant difference between the students’ level of metalinguistic awareness in english, filipino, and cebuano in terms of language arbitrariness, phonological awareness, and vocabulary? 3. what can be deduced about language instruction at the basic education level in the country? this study is deemed important as it shed light on the linguistic proficiency of young learners and their capacity to perform linguistic tasks as they continue their academic pursuits. bilingualism is the ability of a person to speak two languages: the frequent oral use of two languages and multilingual ability of a person to use several languages. however, the distinction of multilingualism and bilingualism has been greatly argued. in the study of wachira (2006) on the multilingualism in kenya she discussed the relevance of multilingualism and bilingualism. she cited that bilingualism occurs when a given society two or more languages are spoken. as cited in grosjean and li (2013), haugen (1956) defines a bilingual, as a “bilinguist” or as one who knows two languages or more than two (languages). some refer to them as a pluralingual, a multilingual, or a polyglot. therefore, based on this definition, bilinguals and multilinguals are technically the same, i.e. those who can use more than one language. as defined by grosjean and li (2013), bilingualism is a regular use of two (or more) languages. thus, bilingualism and multilingualism have similar concepts. an individual who has the capacity to function in two or more languages in muticultural communities at an equal level of proficiency with native speakers and in accordance with the sociocultural demands for communicative and cognitive competence by these communities, (skutnabb-kangas, 1984), can either be a bilingual or a multilingual. metalinguistic awareness, on the other hand, is the ability of an individual to analyze the subparts of any language, and to understand how every component of a language operates and how they are incorporated into the wider linguistic system (beceren, 2010). according to tunmer and cole (1985), in hill (1998), metalinguistic awareness is the ability to deliberately reflect on and manipulate the structural features of spoken language. that is, people who understand the nature of language rather than the ability to use language to communicate meaning are said to possess metalinguistic awareness. metalinguistic awareness, therefore, refers to the ability of a person to consciously reflect on the nature of language using the following skills: (a) an awareness that language is more than just a collection of simple symbols, (b) an awareness that words are separable from their referents, and (c) an awareness that languages has a structure that can be manipulated. donaldson (2013) argues that metalinguistic awareness is essential in the development of reading skills in young children and a vital component in the development of learner’s cognitive skills because of its documented relation to language ability, symbolic development and literacy skills according to bialystok (2011). among the popular concepts in the study of bilingualism is metalinguistic awareness, which could refer to learners’ awareness of the language’s phonological, morphological, syntactic systems and pragmatics (tunmer, herriman, & nesdale, 1988). amongst the four, phonological and word awareness are the two aspects of metalinguistic awareness that have gained the greatest attention in bilingual literacy research. metalinguistic awareness in bilingualism is that, a person has the ability to objectify outside one language system and languages’ rules, functions and structures. studies reveal that when bilinguals have profound linguistic experience in two different language systems, they develop an articulated understanding of how languages work (adesope, et al., 2010). bialystok and barac (2012) related the degree of bilingualism, those who are proficient in two or more languages and those who are not, to aspects of linguistic awareness in terms of their demands on analysis of knowledge. two studies are reported in which the respondents differ in the level of bilingualism to solve a metalinguistic task that made demands on their analysis and control. the hypotheses were that all bilinguals would perform better that those who are monolinguals in all metalinguistic tasks requiring high levels of control of processing and that full bilinguals would perform better than those who are partial bilinguals in all metalinguistic task requiring high levels of analysis of knowledge. the results were largely consistent with these predictions. galambos and goldin-meadow (1990) believe that experiencing two languages hastens the development of metalinguistic skills of young children. and so, bilingualism of the children is associated with their cognitive skills that are influenced by immediate speech community and media (bialystok, 2011; baker, 1996). the theory of cromdal (1999) emphasizes that children demonstrate syntactic awareness when they have sufficient levels on receptive vocabulary. that is, bilingual children who have higher combined perceptive vocabulary eventually outscored their less proficient bilingual peers in terms of syntactic measure. wachira (1986) in bialystok and barac (2012) also cited an advantage of bilingualism, which states that since bilingual children have words in different languages to refer in a same thing, they can easily grasp the arbitrariness of a word and its 104 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 104 referent, and can understand the sound of a word even if it has no relation with the meaning. while in terms of phonology bilinguals according to yelland, pollard, and mercuri (1993) that limited exposure to second languages will result in phonological advantage. however, it may not be bilingualism alone, since languages affect the children’s metalinguistic awareness, particularly, in terms of their awareness to the language’s syntactic pattern. the importance of the learners’ awareness to the language is also confirmed in the previous study. surwanti and hikmah (2019) revealed that students reading comprehension and language mastery are the other matters to be considered in the success of understanding the meaning of a reading text. in the theory of peal and lambert (1962) in which they emphasized that bilinguals are based on the relationship between the proficiencies or awareness of the respective language that bilinguals master. that balance bilinguals are those who acquire similar degrees of proficiency of both languages while unbalance bilinguals are those whose proficiency or awareness in one language is higher than that of the other languages. flood and menyuk (1983) indicated that reading achievement and age were positively related with metalinguistic ability. in their study, subjects were tested on non-grammatical, anomalous and ambiguous stimulus items in sentences and passages. it was found out that they were better to judge than to produce correct forms. good readers’ performance on oral tasks equaled their performance on written tasks by adulthood. mora (2009) exclaimed that most children between the ages 6 and 8, begin to expand their metalinguistic awareness and start to recognize irony and sarcasm. this concept requires the child to understand the subtitles of an utterances of social and cultural context. recently, in the study of dita (2009) on metalinguistic awareness, she used three tests to determine the metalinguistic of filipino bilingual children. this includes language arbitrariness, phonological awareness, and vocabulary knowledge. dita’s study, however, focused only on two languages (english and filipino), while this study included a regional language (cebuano). language arbitrariness, according to eviatar and ibrahim (2012), imposes high demands on the control of attention and the capacity to detect and correct syntactic violations. since the child is expected to suppress the expected answer and stick to the rule of the game, he/she would eventually know that language is arbitrary and subjected to change. edwards and christophersen (1988) reported that bilinguals have better performance in language arbitrariness than monolinguals. language is an arbitrary system because there is no significant relationship between the words of a given language and the concept it represents. the rules of the combination of signs to produce complete thought differ from one language to another and no sets of rules can claim the “right” one (nor & rashid, 2018). phonological awareness is measured by children’s ability to identify sounds of phonemes and to isolate and manipulate phonological segments. there are three versions of this task. the first two involve identification of first and last sound, respectively. the third consist of deleting a phoneme or a syllable and identifying the sound of the left phoneme or syllable after the deletion. it was eviatar and ibrahim (2012) who forwarded an extensive body of literature which discuss the relationship of phonological awareness to learners’ levels of language facility, reading experience, and literacy. children who have well-developed phonological awareness when it comes to school have a head start making sense of how sounds and letters operate into prints. this ability is important for using sound-letter effectively in writing and reading (adams, et al., 2003). vocabulary knowledge is measured by the child’s ability to explain a word on his own, drawing either on the function of the word or its general appearance. vocabulary is a crucial tool to express ideas, feelings and learn about the world. since words are foundation of learning, improving one’s vocabulary becomes an educational priority (massey et al., 2005). limited vocabulary prevents students to comprehend a text. therefore, vocabulary knowledge and academic achievements are strongly connected. eviatar and ibrahim (2012) investigated the way the degree of difference between the linguistic systems influenced metalinguistic awareness. in the study entitled “bilingual is as bilingual does: metalinguistic abilities of arabic-speaking children”, to which one hundred sixteen (116) israeli children participated, it was revealed that there were no differences in the scores of arab children and russian-hebrew bilinguals when it comes to arbitrariness. besides, the scores of both groups are significantly different from the scores of hebrew monolinguals. with regard to vocabulary, both russian-hebrew bilinguals and hebrew monolinguals showed eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 ◼ dalona & dalona 105 a significant difference in their scores comparing the grade 1 and kindergarten. however, no improvement took place with arab children. the study conducted by eviatar and ibrahim (2012) is related to the proposed study because both studies aim to investigate the metalinguistic awareness of bilinguals/multilinguals; however, the two studies differ in the respondents involved. the study of eviatar and ibrahim focused on the metalinguistic awareness of bilingual and monolingual kindergartens and grade 1 pupils who were hebrew-russian bilinguals and russian monolinguals while the present study focuses on the multilingual pupils of san roque central elementary school in davao city. a relevant study was conducted in thailand by turbpaiboon and onsuwan (2011). the study compares thai children’s metalinguistic awareness from different age groups and educational backgrounds. it suggested that the metalinguistic awareness of monolinguals and those who have sequential bilingualism does not differ. the metalinguistic development seems to emerge first age wise in structure meaning domain, then phonological, and lastly lexical. interestingly, at around the ages of five and six, thai monolinguals and bilinguals show a strong level of metalinguistic awareness in structure-meaning domain. they are able to produce grammatical sentences and also have the knowledge of syntactic rules. in both educational programs, the 8-9 year olds performed significantly better than that of the 5-6 year olds in all tasks except for the test on word arbitrariness. the study conducted by turbpaiboon and onsuwan (2011) is related to the proposed study because both studies aim to investigate the metalinguistic awareness among children. however, the study differs on the number of languages spoken and chosen respondents because the study that was conducted in thailand has two languages spoken namely: thai and english and focused on children with different age groups 5-6 and 8-9 years old while the present study has three languages spoken namely: english, filipino and cebuano and will focus on the grade 1 pupils with the age range from 6-8 years old. in the study of smith and tager-flusberg (1982) on metalinguistic awareness and language development”, 36 preschoolers were given six metalinguistic tasks and two measures of language development: the peabody picture vocabulary test and a sentence comprehension test. the children have been found to perform some metalinguistic judgment and the authors’ content that metalinguistic awareness improves with age. the study of smith and tager-flusberg is related to the proposed study since both studies aim to investigate the metalinguistic awareness among children. however, the studies differ on the type of tests and the respondents because the study of smith and tager-flusberg conducted 6 types of metalinguistic tests and focused on the preschoolers while the present study has 3 metalinguistic tests and focuses on the grade 1 pupils. another study was conducted by maxilom and tecson (2009), investigating metalinguistic awareness of adolescent multilinguals in cebu city. the results showed that the multilinguals who were highly proficient in cebuano performed best in the control of linguistic processing in three languages. in the analysis of linguistic knowledge, the multilinguals who were highly proficient in three languages performed better in the error identification while the highly proficient in english and cebuano performed better in the correction and grammatical error explanation. the study of maxilom and tecson is related to the present study. the two studies only differ in the respondents and the type of metalinguistic tests given. maxilom and tecson focused on the metalinguistic awareness of adolescents who underwent error identification, correction and explanation while the present study focuses on the metalinguistic awareness of grade 1 pupils whose knowledge on language arbitrariness test, phonology and vocabulary will be tested. dita (2009) conducted a study on metalinguistic awareness among children. the subjects were asked to answer three metalinguistic tests namely: language arbitrariness, phonological awareness and vocabulary test. the result shows that those who are full bilinguals outscored the partial bilinguals in all three tests conducted. this study is related to the present study because both studies aim to investigate the metalinguistic awareness on filipino bilingual/multilingual children. however, the studies differ in their scope and limitation because the study of dita focused on the kindergarten while the present study will focus on the metalinguistic awareness of grade 1 pupils in a pilot elementary school in davao city, a city located in the southern part of the country. the participants of the present study speak english, filipino, and cebuano at home and in school. 106 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 106 research method this research followed the purely descriptive quantitative type of research which involves collection of quantitative information that can be tabulated along a continuum in numerical form, such as scores on a test. this is descriptive since this involves data, culled from participants’ scores from an administered test, that can then be organized and tabulated to describe (glass & hopkins, 1984) the metalinguistic awareness of multilingual pupils in the elementary level, specifically on language arbitrariness, phonological test and vocabulary. the tests are modified from dita’s (2009) metalinguistic awareness test. the study involved thirty (30) multilingual learners whose ages range from 6-8 years and enrolled as grade 1 pupils. results and discussion students’ level of metalinguistic awareness in english, filipino and cebuano this section shows how students performed in the test written in three languages. table 1. level of students’ metalinguistic awareness in three languages metalinguistic tests language arbitrariness phonological awareness vocabulary overall english mean 5.87 21.13 6.37 20.3 level average high high average filipino mean 4.9 21.87 7.17 22 level average high high average cebuano mean 5.97 24.6 7.6 22.32 level high very high high average table 1 shows that in english the multilingual pupils scored average in language arbitrariness (with mean score of 5.87), which means pupils were good in detecting syntactic violations; while phonological awareness (with a mean score of 21.13) and vocabulary (with a mean of 6.37) scored high, which means that they were outstanding in recognizing both initial and final phonemes and deletion task in a word and were outstanding in describing the functions and appearance of a given word. in filipino, they scored average in language arbitrariness (with the mean score of 4.9), which means they were good in detecting syntactic violations; while in phonological awareness (with the mean score of 21.87) and vocabulary (with the mean score of 7.17) both scored high, which means that the multilingual pupils were outstanding in recognizing both initial and final phonemes and deletion task in a word and in describing the functions and appearance of a given word. while in cebuano, they scored high in language arbitrariness (with the mean score of 5. 97) and vocabulary (with the mean score of 7.6), which means that the pupils were outstanding in detecting syntactic violations and in describing the functions and appearance of a given word; while in phonological awareness, the pupils scored very high with a mean score of 24.6, which means that they were excellent in recognizing both initial and final phonemes and deletion task in a word. the results confirmed the study of cromdal (1999) that children who are proficient on receptive vocabulary have better performance in syntactic awareness measure. that is, bilingual children who have higher combined perceptive vocabulary eventually outscored their less proficient bilingual peers in terms of syntactic measure. this also confirms the study of smith and tager-flusberg (1982) which also found out that bilingual children have good level of metalinguistic awareness especially in vocabulary. and these findings were verified by the present study since all grade 1 multilingual pupils were found to be either on the average or high level in language arbitrariness even if they are still first graders. the findings also support the contention of vygotsky (1986) in bialystok and barac (2012) in the advantage of bilingualism, which states that because bilingual children have words in different languages to refer to a same thing, they can easily grasp the arbitrariness of a word and its referent, and can understand the sound of a word even if it has no relation with the meaning. the present study confirms maxilom and tecson’s (2009) study. in their study, in terms of english and cebuano, pupils scored high in the metalinguistic tasks like correction and grammatical identification. the findings in the present study also shows that the multilingual pupils scored high in english and cebuano in terms of language arbitrariness. the findings also affirmed the theory of yelland, pollard, and mercuri (1993) that even limited exposure to eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 ◼ dalona & dalona 107 second or third language will result in phonological advantage. however, it may not be bilingualism per se, but the finding reminds us that languages affect children’s metalinguistic awareness, particularly, in terms of syntactic awareness, considering that the children’s first language/s has/have entirely different syntax compared to english. these findings were confirmed by the result of the present study since the grade 1 multilingual pupils were established to score high in phonological awareness in all three languages. and so, the bilingualism of the children is associated with their cognitive skills that are influenced by the immediate speech community and media (bialystok, 2011; baker, 1996) since the media of today has a big impact on children’s learning most especially in second language learning. the result also affirms the theory of mora (2009) that most children between the ages 6 and 8, begin to expand their metalinguistic awareness and start to recognize irony and sarcasm. this concept requires the child to understand the subtitles of the utterance’s social and cultural context. that in this crucial stage of learning, language is not the only factor in learning or acquiring vocabulary. the results also support the theory of galambos and goldin-meadow (1990) who believe that the experience in two languages hastens the development of metalinguistic skills of young children. that is, the difference between languages may also affect children’s syntactic awareness and that being bilingual helps detect grammatically correct sentences better. and thus, higher receptive vocabulary score in cebuano does not necessarily translate higher syntactic awareness into other languages that they are rarely exposed. this is similar with the findings of the present study since the grade 1 multilingual respondents got high score in cebuano, which is their mother tongue, compared to english and filipino. the findings also confirm the study of dita (2009) in which the pupils scored higher in filipino rather than in cebuano because of the different exposure and learning in the two languages. the results were verified by the present study because they scored higher in their mother language, cebuano, than english and filipino. in the tests conducted to the multilingual pupils, they scored average in all three languages. among the three versions, the grade 1 multilingual pupils got the highest mean of 22.32 in the cebuano test; followed by the filipino version with the mean of 22 and lastly, the english test since it recorded the lowest mean of 20.3. this means, in all three tests, the multilingual pupils are good in analyzing language and its subparts: the languages’ structure, sound pattern, function and appearance. this finding supports the theory of bialystok (2011) in bilingualism or multilingualism that those who are proficient in two or more languages are more likely to perform linguistically better than that of monolinguals. that is, it involves speakers who have native-like control of a language when they are interacting with other people and have as much knowledge and control over language as they have of the other languages. from the findings, it could be deduced that overall, the pupils were indeed multilinguals and they scored average in all three tests. this proves their control of these three languages despite the frequency of exposure. statistical difference of students’ level of metalinguistic awareness in the administered tests table 2 shows the difference in the performance of students given the use of different languages in the test. table 2. significant difference between the students’ level of metalinguistic awareness in english, filipino and cebuano in all tests metalinguistic test language arbitrariness phonological awareness vocabulary english sig. value .000 .011 .075 remarks sig. different no sig. different sig. different cebuano sig. value .000 .012 .018 remarks sig. different sig. different sig. different filipino sig. value .026 .226 .014 remarks no sig. differ. sig different no sig. differ. the findings in the cebuano test reveals that there is significant difference in terms of language arbitrariness (with significant value of .000); phonological awareness (with significant value of .012) and vocabulary (with the significant value of .018) since the significant value of the mean scores of the grade 1 multilingual pupils was higher than the significant value of 0.05. this indicates that the extreme heterogeneity of pupils’ metalinguistic awareness was apparent in the cebuano test, even if it is their native language. this could be due to different exposures to the language or to varied linguistic experiences of the grade 1 multilingual pupils when it 108 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 108 comes to learning cebuano. as indicated by their scores, the researcher was able to realize that some pupils have enough knowledge while there were others who lack awareness on cebuano language arbitrariness, and vocabulary. based on the result in the english test, the participants’ scores in terms of language arbitrariness (with significant value of .000); phonological awareness (with significant value of .011), and vocabulary (with the significant value of .075). the mean scores of the grade 1 multilingual pupils when it comes to language arbitrariness and phonological awareness are significantly different since the significant values were less than the significant value of 0.05. this means that children has different metalinguistic awareness in language arbitrariness and phonological awareness while in terms of vocabulary, children have almost the same level of metalinguistic awareness. in the filipino test, on the other hand, the scores of grade 1 multilingual pupils are significantly different only when it comes to vocabulary (with significant value of .014). this means that they have different metalinguistic awareness; whereas, in the filipino test for language arbitrariness (with significant value of .026); and phonological awareness (with the significant value of 0.226), students’ scores are not significantly different. this implies that in terms of language arbitrariness and phonological awareness, the multilingual pupils have almost the same metalinguistic awareness. the findings imply that there is no significant difference between the learners’ metalinguistic awareness in english and cebuano in terms of language arbitrariness, which confirms the study of eviatar and ibrahim (2012) in their study of arab children and russian-hebrew bilinguals. the findings also affirm the theory of peal and lambert (1962) in which they emphasized that bilinguals are based on the relationship between the proficiencies or awareness of the respective language that bilinguals master. balanced bilinguals are those who acquire are those who acquire similar degrees of proficiency of both languages while unbalanced bilinguals are those whose proficiency or awareness in one language is higher than the other languages. this helps explain the significant difference between learners’ metalinguistic awareness in three different languages. table 3. significant difference in the overall level of metalinguistic awareness in english, filipino and cebuano metalinguistic tests sig. value remarks english .000 there is significant difference. filipino .000 there is significant difference. cebuano .000 there is significant difference. overall, the awareness of multilingual pupils in each language differs from one to another. this means further that each student has diverse linguistic experience and that they do not have similar exposure to the phonological, morphological, and syntactic structures in english, filipino, and cebuano. this supports the claim of genesee (2015) that bilingual children can acquire the same proficiency in all aspects of their two languages over time. bilingual children may have different patterns of development in certain aspects of language in the short term, but children generally acquire the same proficiency in the sound system and morphological-syntactic pattern of the two languages, when given sufficient input. bilingual children's overall proficiency in each language reflects the amount of time they spend on each. the theory was verified with the result that the grade 1 multilingual pupils have different awareness in each language they were proficient based on the exposure they have in the multilingual environment. parents can ensure that their children achieve full proficiency in both languages if they are supportive of the idea that children need to be provided with rich experience with each language, especially with the language that might otherwise not get strong support in the extended community. it is, therefore, important that parents continue to use their native language so that they expose their child to varied and rich ways of using the language. in summary, this study reveals that in both english and filipino, the grade 1 multilingual learners scored average in language arbitrariness and high in phonological and vocabulary; while in cebuano, they scored high in language arbitrariness and vocabulary and very high in terms of phonological awareness. the overall level of young school-age children’s metalinguistic awareness in english, filipino, and cebuano is average when analyzing language and its subparts: syntactic structure, sound pattern, function and appearance in all eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 ◼ dalona & dalona 109 three languages. there is significant difference between the learners’ metalinguistic awareness in english and filipino in all the tests; while in cebuano, there is no significant difference between the learners’ metalinguistic awareness in all three tests. finally, there is significant difference between the overall level of metalinguistic awareness in english, filipino and cebuano. conclusion this study concludes that grade 1 multilingual learners still need to improve their linguistic experience to english and filipino particularly in the identification of syntactic errors, since they will likewise be using these languages in their succeeding academic endeavors. the study further posits that the young school-age children’s metalinguistic awareness in cebuano helps them in fulfilling their linguistic tasks in filipino and english. based on the results, the study recommends that teachers and curriculum designers can provide strategies and lessons that would enhance learners’ metalinguistic awareness most especially in terms of language arbitrariness in english and filipino. since there is significant difference in english and filipino in all three tests, parents and teachers should ensure that the pupils achieve full proficiency in all three languages by providing rich experiences in these languages. and to develop this study to know further the factors that would best develop 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(2006). multilingualism in kenya: focus on language use and its implications. in: trans. internet-zeitschrift für kulturwissenschaften. no. 16/2005. retrieved from http://www.inst.at/trans/16nr/03_2/wachira16.htm yelland, g. w., pollard, j., & mercuri, a. (1993). the metalinguistic benefits of limited contact with a second language. applied psycholinguistics, 14(4), 423-444. doi: 10.1017/s0142716400010687 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1017/s0142716400010687 sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 3, 2019, pp. 121-132 e-issn: 2621-6485 uyghur and china in the american media discourse: a critical discourse analysis of cnn news articles 1prayudha, 2ma’ruf fawwaz 1, 2 english education department, universitas ahmad dahlan, indonesia prayudha@pbi.uad.ac.id abstract this paper analyzes the textual aspects in critical discourse analysis (cda) norman fairclough model of cnn news discourse about uyghur issue. when this research is conducted, there are only at least five articles specifically discussing uyghur issue that are 29th december 2011, 29th february 2012, 29th february 2012, 30th october 2013, and 5th september 2014 publications. the research focuses on analyzing the text representation and the relation between participants in the discourse. objectives of the paper are: 1) to analyze the text representation of news in the news channel of cnn related to the uyghur case, and 2) to analyze the relation between participants in the news channel of cnn related to the uyghur case. the subject of this paper is uyghur issue as reflected in the news articles of cnn international. the paper applies qualitative descriptive method. as a consequence: cnn often put formality features and a vague vocabulary to block and obscure the negative value from the readers to china. the relation here is presented by cnn to china rather than cnn to uyghur. it is reflected by the power of the status of china. keywords: critical discourse analysis, uyghur issue, cnn how to cite: prayudha, & fawwaz, m. (2019). uyghur and china in the american media discourse: a critical discourse analysis of cnn news articles. english language teaching educational journal, 2(3), 121-132. introduction uyghur issue has become international topic. quoted from human rights watch (2019), united nations experts responded it by issuing critics toward chinese government’s counterterrorism law that is being used to justify violations of basic rights and freedoms in xinjiang. the counterterrorism program was started since 2014 when local government demand new identity card for uyghur community (finley, 2019). the prosses was started by making project of mass interment. in the perceptive of china’s government, the uyghur are extremist. china perceives that the muslim ethnicity were increasingly on creating their independent state (terhune and matusitz, 2016). according to soliev (2016) the judgment occurred seriously after the execution of chinese a freelance consultant from beijing by isis in syiria in november 2015. the chinese government argues that the execution was related with the uyghurs. about 300 migrants from uyghur joined isis as foreign fighters (clarke and kan, 2017). uyghurs ethnic group itself are the indigenous population of the xinjiang region that is a large area in the northwestern part of the people’s republic of china (dawyer, 2005). conflict between uyghurs versus chinese government is actually related with global issue of terrorism. battle between liberal value and islam dominates western medias discourse especially american media after the attacks on september 11th, 2001. that condition strengthen of islamic practice aggravates preexisting tensions or may initiate new conflicts (mahmood, 2006). one of the examples of that conflict is in china. islamic practices and uyghur ethnic markers were increasingly framed in the public written media as sources of social and national insecurity (castets, 2007). 122 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 that condition has been approved by several scientific research. meyer (2012) from university of cambridge wrote a dissertation entitled governing muslim minority as security threats: the case of the uyghurs and the concept of new chinese nation. that research found that hundreds of chinese official news report framed uyghurs as islamic extremism and a serious treat for chinese nationalism. the framed discourse is not only published in china. beijing attempts to develop it into global understanding including in u.s perspective. jai (2016: 3) concludes that china makes uyghur issue as a commodity which can be placed as equal as international war on terror. if the campaign has been done massively, the question is whether it influences international media especially american media in capturing uyghurs issue or not. to answer the question, an approach is needed to be applied. this research discusses the perspective of american media toward uyghur and chinese government using critical discourse analysis (cda) model norman fairclough (2013). as one of the largest medias in united states of america (usa), cnn news portal becomes the data source of the research. founded in 1980 by ted turner, the media is also considered as a liberal media. cnn had earned a reputation as a more liberal network (gilbert, 2012: 40). news published by cnn had influenced global political issues and then it is uttered as “cnn effect”. the cnn effect for instance had shaped conflict in kosovo (1998) and iraq (2003). in kosovo civil war, the media focuses on the topics which were not merely beneficial for the albanian and it gradually shifted western policy toward military intervention (bahador, 2007). almost similar with that, in iraq war, jaramillo (2009) argues that cnn strategy was retelling the official narrative of the government to justify war. jaramillo (2009) also says that the cnn strategy is driven by some motives: ideology, economy, and ratting. to know the motives, here cnn news about uyghur issue, it needs cda analysis. cda becoming the approach of the research is because the approach can discuss a discourse not only from the appearance but also from the power and ideology behind the discourse. ideologies are propositions that generally figure as implicit assumptions in texts, which contribute to producing or reproducing unequal relations of power, relations of domination (fairclough, 1995). the ideology and power behind a text can be observed by seeing the language in a text critically. critical is used in a special sense, to denote the connections that might be hidden. for example, budairi (2018) revealed how textbooks have been designed to foreground the supremacy of western practices and in doing so, to preserve the hegemonic power of the center. this study observes ideology and power behind news article published in cnn about uyghur issue. it is expectantly that the study can answer how the “cnn effect” works in the conflict between uyghur and chinese government. critical discourse analysis according to van dijk (2009), cda is one of analytical research that studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context. in other words, cda is the study of law by language perspective. van dijk also stated the practice of language power inequalities often occurs. in fairclough (2010) perspective, cda aims to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes; to investigate how such practices, events, and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles over power. hence, cda is a form of discourse analysis that studies eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ prayudha & fawwaz 123 the relationship between discourse and ideology. according to fairclough (2013), ideology is closely linked to power, because the nature of the ideological assumptions embedded in particular conventions themselves, depends on the power relations which underline the conventions. fairclough (1992) states that there are three dimensions in cda: (1) text dimension, (2) discursive practice dimension, and (3) social practice dimension. the text dimension attends language analysis of texts. the discursive practice dimension specifies the nature of the process of text production and interpretation for example which types of discourse (including 'discourses' in the more social-theoretical sense) are drawn upon and how they are combined. the social practice dimension appears on issues of concern in social analysis such as the institutional and organizational circumstances of the discursive event and how that shapes the nature of the discursive practice. this study focuses on the text analysis. texts here are parts of social events (fairclough, 2003). fairclough (2013) sees the text on many levels. a text is not only about how the object is displayed but also how the relationship between object definitions must be calculated. in this stage, there are two elements that can be described: text representation and text relation that is the relation between participants in texts. text representation this aspect is linked to how someone or group, action, or tragedy are shown in the text. fairclough (2013) states there are three types of representation, including representation in clauses, representation in a combination of clauses, and representation in an egalitarian sequence. in representation in clauses level, there are two points in this section: vocabulary and grammar. at vocabulary level, there are many words to provoke the readers. for instances, these two words are "could not yet and cannot." in this case, a writer could put someone, groups or incident to be shown as action or an event. every word gives a different meaning and also different perceptions. the word "could not yet" is better than "cannot." “could not yet” means someone or group did not finish the job at that time, but it was possible for them to try again because they are not given up. the word cannot mean inversely proportional to the previous one. at the grammar level, fairclough's model focuses on whether grammar is displayed as a process or participant. generally, when it is displayed as a process, the transitive structures would be (subject + verb + object). when it is displayed as a participant, as an actor's generally, it is shown as an active word. this actor is also do something to the object. in this case, generally, the objects are displayed as passive words that is "poor people did a suicide last night." based on the example, there is only one point to “suicide action” in the data. there are no specific actors and the motive behind it. the next level is representation in a combination of clauses. this aspect discusses how two or more sentences are arranged. one important aspect is whether participants are considered independent or displayed to react in a news text. another important aspect is whether there is any information displayed as a foreground or background. in a clause that occupies a position as a background, displayed is a summary of the news theme which then given as the information of the event backgrounds. placing a sentence arrangement as implicit would show the practice that the writer wants to convey. text relation this aspect is related to how the participant is displayed in the text. fairclough (2013) states that there are three types of participant: a reporter, the media, and the public. this aspect is not focused on how public participation is displayed in media. it is about how that 124 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 pattern is connected to each other in the text. one of the examples is a news which is covered papua merdeka issue. the news can produce two choices; the first is the papuan party who is not satisfied with the news and the second is the government who wants papua to remain peaceful under the authority of the indonesian government. research method this research is a qualitative descriptive study because the ultimate goal is to explain and describe all facts objectively with the final results in the form of lingual units such as words, phrases, and sentences not in the form of numbers. in this study, the object studied is the text representation and text relation in the news channel of cnn related to the uyghur issue. the news is chosen due to several factors, such as uyghur issue is hot topic in all around the world until today and the background of the media which cover the issue is one the biggest news portal in usa. after searching on the cnn international website, at least, until the research finished, there are five articles in cnn which covers uyghur issue. that are 29th december 2011, 29th february 2012, 29th february 2012, 30th october 2013, and 5th september 2014 editions. the data collecting method used in this study is simak method. the technique that follows is a note-taking technique. the data of this research is collected by reading some news in the cnn international website that related to the uyghur case. after collected, the data is analyzed using padan method with the technique of pilah unsur penentu with daya pilah sebagai pembeda referen. according to sudaryanto (2015), padan method is determined by outside factors and it is not part of the language concerned. the determinant factor here are the text representation and relation as postulated in the cda model fairclough (1984). the example of the data analysis can be seen as follows: (1) “the chinese authorities have often blamed militants of uyghur descent for outbreaks of violence in xinjiang in recent years.” (text 1, paragraph 7). text 1 paragraph 7 would more be represented as an event (the chinese authorities (s) have often blamed (v) militants of uyghur descent (o) for outbreaks of violence in xinjiang in recent years (a)). the subject or agent here has a responsibility to the object of the sentence. the subject is reflected inanimate participants, so it can be called as nondirected action. thus, this sentence must be an event. results and discussion the research findings are taken from five different news texts from cnn international online newspaper but those texts are still spotlighted uyghur case. the text or articles published on 29th december 2011, 29th february 2012, 29th february 2012, 30th october 2013, and 5th september 2014. the analysis includes text representation and the relation between participants. the theories in this analysis belong fairclough (2013). a. text representation in cnn related to the uyghur issue text representation is divided into two analysis: vocabulary and grammar. the vocabulary in a discourse is used to display and describe something, includes ideology and expressive things. the vocabulary components include experiential values, relational values, expressive values, and metaphors. the second is grammar. the grammar in discourse is used to underline the action or event. the grammatical components include eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ prayudha & fawwaz 125 experiential values, expressive values, relational values, and how the simple sentence are linked. a. vocabulary 1) experiential value experiential value is how the ideological differences between texts in their representations of the world are coded in the vocabulary. there could be by synonym, antonym, or hyponym. the sentence below is taken from text 1 and also for the instance of experiential value analysis. (2) “police opened fire when locals clashed with officers during a demonstration outside the police bureau, he said.” (text 1, paragraph 5). there is synonym in the sentence as a repetition of words. it is ‘police’ and ‘officers.' the meaning is the same, but the repetition of ‘officer’ has its own ideology. in the vocabulary, the word ‘officers’ is politer, and the influence in social relations is higher than 'police' itself. in this case, the word ‘officer’ as repetition could protect the agent from the object, and the impact is the object did not have the power to take over his position as a victim. 2) relational value relational value is how the text choices the words to create social relationships between participants; this word includes formal and informal words. it can be observed from the data bellow. (3) in december, chinese authorities killed seven uyghurs in a bid to free two hostages kidnapped in the rural county of pishan, near yecheng, in an incident which the stockholm-based world uyghur congress disputes. (text 2, paragraph 7). the meaning of this phrase 'rural county' is similar to the 'village,' but cnn as the producer of the discourse more likely to choose a 'rural county' to the component of the text. ideologically, this phrase could to represent the other words. it might be more appropriate, but this phrase is more formal. the phrase also does not have a reduction in the sentence meaning. thus, this would be probably like the respect of social relations. 3) expressive value a discourse or text occasionally contains the word or phrase which has a certain ideology. expressive refers to the persuasive language, and it aims to show the contrastive ideology. thus, this all can be called as expressive value. the sentence below is taken from text 2 and also for the instance of expressive value analysis. (4) in december, chinese authorities killed seven uyghurs in a bid to free two hostages kidnapped in the rural county of pishan, near yecheng, in an incident which the stockholm-based world uyghur congress disputes. (text 2, paragraph 7). the expressive value is reflected in the phrase 'a bid.' it can be represented as a positive expressive value to the consumer. in this case, the phrase 'a bid' acts as an active 126 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 word to combine two clauses. the prominent meanings to the consumers would be likely like this 'before they killed uyghurs, they had already offered 'a bid' to free to the hostages.' it gives an advantage to the uyghur because the phrase 'a bid' is covered them from their criminal activity (killed seven uyghurs). expressively, it gives disadvantages to the uyghur even it is positive for several readers. 4) metaphors metaphor is a means of representing something by another term. it could be poetry and literary discourse. the particular interest of metaphor here is the relationship between alternative metaphors that displayed as different ideology. further discussion can be seen from the data. (5) uyghur exile groups claim that beijing uses the etim as a red herring to rationalize its repressive policies against the uyghurs. (text 5, paragraph 14). a metaphor occurs in the phrase 'a red herring.' the meaning of this metaphor is diverting the conversation from the main problem, but in this case, there is any other hidden meaning. interestingly, the producer here acts as a neutral participant. briefly, the producer placed himself on the uyghur sides after all news about uyghur in the previous sentences. the producer also got a moment to blame china. it is reflected in the clause 'to rationalize its repressive policies against the uyghurs.' expressively, the metaphor aim is to get a fight between uyghur and china. b. grammar the text representation of grammar includes experiential value, relational value, expressive value, and how the simple sentence linked. 1) experiential values the experiential aspect of grammar is how the relation grammatical forms of language codes are connected in this world. it includes people, animals, or things involved in those happenings or relationships. the experiential value itself contains four components; there are the process, nominalizations, active or passive sentences, and positive or negative sentences. a) the process the process is a choice between different grammatical process and participant types, and the selection that is made can be ideologically significant. it includes actions svo (subject + verb + object), events sv (subject + verb), and attributions svc (subject + verb + complement). the sentence below is taken from text 1 and also for the instance of the process analysis. (6) "we chinese are glad to see these muslims' death!"(text 5, paragraph 5). the sentence above refers to possessive attributions. the components are “we chinese” (s) are “glad” (s) “to see these muslims' death” (c). the agent here is an animate thing, so the agent is responsible to the other participant. thus, the agent here does not try eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ prayudha & fawwaz 127 to reduce the meaning of the sentence. this sentence is shown to express the resentment of citizens to uyghurs with the human common sense. b) nominalizations nominalization is a conversion process of verb or adjective into a noun (or a multiword compound noun, as here). the sentence below is taken from text 1 and also for the instance of nominalization analysis. (7) the iraqi army has captured an islamic state in iraq and syria fighter from china, the baghdad-datelined report said. (text 5, paragraph 1). the first is text 5, paragraph 1. the nominalization process is reflected in the word 'fighter.' the 'fighter' here is also could be called a participant. the aim is to spotlight the main subject, 'the iraqi army.' this nominalization has a reduction of the action, but the causality and the responsibility are clear. c) active or passive sentences the active or passive sentence here is used for avoiding the hiding when the information is already given in some way. text 5 contains the active sentences, and there is no found the passive sentences. this active sentence here is predominantly of the agent who introduced by the verbs that follow it. thus, it makes causality, and the agency is clear. (8) a spate of violent incidents has been blamed on the uyghurs. (text 5, paragraph 10). the sentence refers to the passive sentence. the agency here is unclear because it is reflected by an inanimate thing (a spate). also, it leaves the causality of the text unclear. thus, this sentence can be called an agentless passive sentence. d) positive or negative sentences the positive or negative sentence here is based on intertextuality of a text. there are only two negative sentences that found in text 1, and it is dominantly by positive sentence. the sentence below is taken from text 1 and also for the instance of the positive or negative sentence. (9) however, dilxat raxit, a spokesman for the stockholm-based world uyghur congress, said the shooting did not stem from a rescue operation. (text 1, paragraph 4). this sentence comes from the direct informant (dilxat raxit) which has been paraphrased by cnn. it could make the sentence more valuable. it is said that the shooting did not stem from a rescue operation. in this sentence, there are two participants who were cornering the uyghur, i.e. dilxat raxit and cnn, so it could lead the consumer views to give a negative value to the uyghurs. 2) expressive value the expressive value here refers to expressive modality. it could be modal auxiliaries, the verbs with non-modal present tense, and perfect tense forms. the sentence below is taken from text 1 and also for the instance of expressive value in grammar. 128 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 (10) the report, which could not be independently verified, gave no details about what could have sparked the violence. (text 2, paragraph 3). the word ‘could’ means the possibility. the agent here is an inanimate thing, and the word 'could' itself did not have a responsibility to the agent. the modality here is the interpretation of what the agents have done. 3) relational value there are some varieties of grammatical features of texts which have relational values. there are modes of sentence, modality, and pronouns. a) modes of sentences here, there are three major modes: declarative (s followed by v), grammatical question, and imperative (do not have an s at all). the sentence below is taken from text 1 and also for the instance of modes of sentences. (11) xinhua said the trouble began when a group of knife-wielding assailants attacked people in a market. (text 3, paragraph 2). the sentence above is likely to be a declarative sentence. the components are the xinhua (s) followed by said as (v). the subject here acts as the giver (of information), and the addressee's position is the consumer. this would be that the xinhua as china's side put himself into the victim in this sentence; it reflected how the agent is accentuated himself. b) modality modality has to do with speaker’s or writer’s authority. it can be observed from the data 12. (12) neither account could be independently verified. (text 3, paragraph 6). the modality in the data 6 is reflected in the word ‘could.' this modality refers to the expressive modality. it is reflected by the subject (account) is speaking about the possibility. notice also the adverb in front of the account. it makes the modality is clear to be relational modality. c) pronouns pronouns here have relational values of different sorts. this closer to the relation between the agent to the other participants. the sentence below is taken from text 1 and also for the instance of pronouns. (13) beijing says militant uyghur groups linked to the east turkistan islamic movement, a separatist organization it says operates from neighboring afghanistan and pakistan, have been fomenting trouble in the region. (text 3, paragraph 11). eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ prayudha & fawwaz 129 a pronoun in the data (13) is reflected in the ‘it.' the ‘it' here refers to the separatist organization. it has been reduced in the textual structure, but the meaning is the same. the writer aims probably to make the subject is more specific. 4) how the simple sentences linked it is how the formal features are connected together parts of texts. it is also about how the relationship between texts and contexts: some formal features point outside the text to its situational context, or to its 'intertextual' context. it includes the logical connector, coordination or subordination, and the means inside and outside. a) the logical connector this connector is based on ideological perspective. in other words, this connector is an effect of an agent action to the other participant. the sentence (14) is taken from text 1 and also for the instance of the logical connector. (14) the wuc said the deaths occurred when police opened fire on a demonstration outside a police bureau where uyghurs were protesting a recent security crackdown in hotan city. (text 2, paragraph 8). the logical connector here is manifested in the word ‘when' and ‘where.' both pronouns here are connecting three clauses. the first clause is connected by ‘when' which refer to causal relationship between the first and the second clause. the second connector is ‘where' which connected the second clause to the third clause; it also refers to the consequential relationships. the producer aim in this sentence is to show that the police has a reason to blamed the uyghurs. thus, it gives a positive value from the consumer to china. b) coordination or subordination coordination or subordination is how the sentence in the complex sentence are combined. it also how the texts commonsensically divide information into relatively prominent and relatively backgrounded. (15) the news agency said that 10 people were killed in riots in the restive xinjiang province and police shot dead a further two people in the disturbance. (text 2, paragraph 2). (16) it said a group of knife-wielding assailants attacked people in a market in yecheng county. (text 2, paragraph 3). in the data (15), the first clause up to 'province' is the main clause, the second (the rest of the sentence) is subordinate. the main clause is contained to statement which followed by the conjunction 'and.' it is asserted that the riots left 10 people died also followed by the police actions. expressively, this conjunction is covering the agent (police) to his action, because the first clause is more uptight for several consumers. the pronouns 'it' in the data (16) shows the unclear extension of meaning. the agent here is shown as an inanimate thing. it is not compatible because there is no responsibility of the agent. thus, it makes the reader assume that the information is valid, although the previous sentence says not. expressively, this pronoun leads the consumer to the producer aims. 130 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 b. the relation between participants in cnn related to the uyghur issue a relation here is how the participants in the media relations and displayed in the text. there are two main participants in discourse; it includes the participants: china and uyghur. the analysis below is taken from cnn related to the uyghur case. text 1 entitled "china, uyghurs offer a different account of deadly shooting" published on 29th december 2011. in-text 1, the relation between cnn and china is apparent rather than to the uyghurs. it reflected by how many times the cnn's put attention to china in many ways. the sentence below is taken from text 1 for instance. (17) chinese officials said they killed seven members of the uyghur ethnic group in the restive western region of xinjiang in order to free two hostages -an account the uyghurs disputed. (text 1, paragraph 1). (18) beijing has said uyghur militants are often based overseas and has linked some of them to the east turkistan islamic movement that allegedly trains in pakistan. (text 1, paragraph 8). (19) uyghur activists say the crackdowns have only heightened anger among uyghurs who already accuse the government of religious and political repression. (text 1, paragraph 10). in the first instance, in the data (17) uyghur is displayed as a passive agent. cnn's is more interested in putting relations with the chinese. it showed how social power is represented. it is reflected by the vocabulary they use. 'chinese officials' here has a large power of social to provoke the consumer. it aims to convince the consumer about the validity of the information and also to give respect to the social status. however, the other participant (uyghur) is harmed because of the social status itself. it obviously the uyghur here is the victim, but that was blocked by the social status. the second instance, sentence (18) shows the partiality of the producer to text. this sentence comes from a direct speech which has been changed to the indirect speech. it is said that beijing claimed the uyghur militants are often based overseas and has linked some of them to the east turkistan islamic movement. this conversion could affect the imagination of the reader is overtaken. expressively, it also signaled if cnn or producer agrees with what beijing says. the third, data (19) is the cnn take attention to the uyghur. it can be seen by how cnn gives a chance to uyghur to take part in this news, although the informant of uyghur here does not have social power as china. this is a disadvantage for uyghurs in the practice of discourse. the other disadvantage is that the word 'only' before (have) would probably give a negative relation between uyghurs to the consumer, and it could make the situation worse. conclusion the conclusion deals with some findings. cnn, as one of american media, from the discussion above is obscuring the negative value from china as a government to get positive value from the readers. cnn here also used formality features that can block a negative value or perspective. uyghurs here does not have a place to protect himself even in text. in some articles, cnn put attention to china. it is reflected by how many vague eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ prayudha & fawwaz 131 vocabulary or sentences that come after every china’s statement. the aim is to blur the negative value from china to the readers. when giving uyghur extra attention, in some articles, cnn uses many vocabulary or sentence that corner to the uyghurs. unfortunately, it also does not work as vice versa to china. they block a negative value from the readers by formality features. although, in one article, cnn textually puts attention to both of them. however, implicitly, cnn refers to china. it is reflected by the vocabulary and grammar they use. china gets a vague meaning to block the negative value from the readers. in relation between participants level, cnn is numerically interested in cnn rather than uyghur. it is reflected as directly and indirectly in the five different data above. although, in some part, cnn tries to spread his ideology about an islam phobia to the public. this discussion is not based on the actual condition of china and usa relationship. it is interesting to analyze cda analysis for latest cnn news article about uyghur issue and then compare it with the findings in this research. references bahador, b. (2007). the cnn effect in action: how the news media pushed the west toward war in kosovo. new york: palgrave macmillan. budairi, a. (2018). traces of linguistic imperialism enacted through discursive strategies in elt textbooks in indonesia. english language teaching educational journal,1(2), 49-64. doi:10.12928/eltej.v1i2.581 castets, rémi. (2003). the uyghurs in xinjiang – the malaise grows. china perspectives [online], 49 | september-october 2003, online since 17 january 2007, connection on 25 february 2020. doi:10.4000/chinaperspectives.648. clarke, c. p. & kan, p. r. (2017). uyghur foreign fighters: an underexamined jihadist challenge. icct policy brief, 8 (2), 3-19. doi: 10.19165/2017.2.05. dawyer, a. m. (2005). the xinjiang conflict: uyghur identity, language policy, and political discourse. washington, dc: east-west center washington. finley, joanne smith. 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(2016). growing uyghur militancy: challenges for china. rsis commentary. retrieved from https://www.rsis.edu.sg. sudaryanto. (2015). metode dan aneka teknik analisis bahasa. yogyakarta: diandra primamitra. terhune, v. & matusitz, j. (2016). the uyghurs versus the chinese government: an application of realistic conflict theory. journal of applied security research, 11 (2), 139-148. doi:/10.1080/19361610.2016.1137174. van dijk, teun a. 2009. society and discourse: how social contexts influence text and talk. cambridge: cambridge university press. online sources https://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/29/world/asia/china-hostage-rescue/index.html. accessed on saturday, january 15, 2019. https://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/29/world/asia/china-riots-archive/index.html accessed on saturday, january 15, 2019. https://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/29/world/asia/china-riots/index.html accessed on saturday, january 15, 2019. https://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/29/world/asia/china-tiananmen-suspects/index.html accessed on saturday, january 15, 2019. https://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/05/world/asia/china-isis/index.html accessed on saturday, january 15, 2019. https://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/29/world/asia/china-hostage-rescue/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/29/world/asia/china-riots-archive/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/29/world/asia/china-riots/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/29/world/asia/china-tiananmen-suspects/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/05/world/asia/china-isis/index.html english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 2, 2019, pp. 50-61 e-issn: 2621-6485 understanding efl teachers’ beliefs about lesson study and their knowledge development viewed from social cultural theory of vygotsky 1eko purwanti, 2endro dwi hatmanto 1,2universitas muhammadiyah yogyakarta 1ekopurwanti@umy.ac.id, 2endrodwihatmanto@umy.ac.id abstract lesson study has been implemented in indonesian classrooms since more than a decade ago, and it is seen as a means to improve teacher knowledge. this study aims to investigate secondary english teachers’ opinions about lesson study in relation to their knowledge development viewed from the lens of social cultural theory of vygotsky. using a descriptive qualitative design, the study involved twelve secondary english teachers from two different cities as the participants. in collecting the data from the participants, group interviews were used. the findings showed that most of the participants developed their teaching capacity, particularly in terms of english language knowledge, teaching pedagogy, and teaching innovation. this implies that lesson study is worth to be conducted in different contexts of teaching and learning process. keywords: lesson study, teacher knowledge, sociocultural theory, teacher professional development how to cite: purwanti, e., & hatmanto, e. d. (2019). understanding efl teachers’ beliefs about lesson study and their knowledge development viewed from social cultural theory of vygotsky. english language teaching educational journal, 2(2), 50-61. introduction lesson study is a japanese professional development by which teachers who are involved in a lesson study group collaboratively plan, observe, and reflect their teaching practices (lewis, perry, & friedkin, 2009). of several types of professional development, lesson study is regarded as the most suitable activity for teachers because it is conducted in the real classroom, using hands-on and minds-on activities (saito, imansyah, kubok, & hendayana, 2007), and school-based activities (supriatna, 2011). it means that teachers remain in their classroom and teach their students as usual while they are doing their professional development. in implementing lesson study, teachers normally invite their colleagues such as the principal, peer teachers, school stakeholders, and outside specialist or expert of the subject to an open lesson / research lesson activity. open lessons, or sometimes called as research lessons, are real classroom activities in which a model teacher delivers a lesson and other teachers or colleagues observe the teaching and learning process focusing on students’ learning (lewis & tsuchida, 1998). in these open lessons, teachers not only invite their colleagues to observe their teaching and learning process, but also welcome them to give input and suggestions related to their students’ learning. the main objective of lesson study is to ensure that students learn something from the lesson. the practice of lesson study applied by japanese teachers since a century ago has proved to increase teachers’ competences in teaching (farrell, 2015), and therefore lesson study has been adopted in indonesian teaching and learning process, especially in secondary school contexts, since more than a decade ago. lesson study is regarded by many researchers as a means to develop teachers’ knowledge (lewis, perry, & hurd, 2004; lim, white, & chiew, 2005; stigler & hiebert, mailto:ekopurwanti@umy.ac.id mailto:2endrodwihatmanto@umy.ac.id eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 ■ purwanti & hatmanto 51 1999; tall, 2008; yoshida, 1999) because of its cyclical processes. in the indonesian context, the cyclical process of lesson study is simplified into plan, do, and see. due to the steps of plan, do, and see, teachers are exposed to various learning opportunities (anggara & chotimah, 2012). these become beneficial factors for improving teachers’ knowledge. in fact, teachers’ development has become an important issue in indonesia as it corroborates the teacher and lecturer law no 14/2005. based on this law, teachers and lecturers in indonesia are demanded to maintain their competencies such as professional, pedagogical, personal, and social competencies. therefore, all teachers, including english foreign language (efl) teachers must have these competencies and failing to do so will result in poor qualities of efl teaching and learning process. the english language subject has been included in the curriculum of indonesian education, starting from secondary schools to the highest levels of education. as one of the compulsory subjects, the english language is taught to all secondary school students by which the students are expected to master the four basic skills of english language such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. these basic skills of english are very important for the students so that they can update the latest news, information, and technology. in addition, these skills are necessary for them to help them prepare their national exam as well as continue their study into higher level of education. to achieve these goals, efl teaching should be effective, and in order to have effective efl teaching, teachers should be qualified and competent. however, many researches have reported that the current teaching and learning process of efl in indonesia is regarded as unsatisfying due to the low levels of efl teacher competences (nurkamto, 2000). furthermore, many efl teachers in indonesia do not master the english language itself so that it is very challenging for them to deliver the lesson and transfer their knowledge in their efl classrooms (lie, 2007). therefore, teachers’ knowledge should be improved by implementing continuous professional development. among various types of continuous professional development, lesson study is regarded as the most effective way to increase teachers’ capacity (hendayana, 2015; lewis, perry, & murata, 2006; marsigit, 2015). initially implemented in mathematics and science subjects, lesson study has now been conducted in almost all subjects, including efl subject. indeed, the development of teachers’ knowledge happens as a result of their interaction with other colleagues during lesson study cycles plan, do, and see. how these phases enable the teachers to improve their knowledge, especially efl teachers at secondary schools in remote areas of yogyakarta province, is quite interesting if viewed from social cultural theory of vygotsky. while much research are focusing on lesson study implementation and how lesson study build teacher’s knowledge, only few discusses about lesson study from the perspectives of social cultural theory. this study was then aimed to investigate more about the efl teachers’ belief about lesson study and their knowledge development at secondary schools through the lens of vygotsky social cultural theory. literature review lesson study lesson study was initially implemented in indonesia in 1998-2003 by three leading universities in collaboration with japan international cooperation agency (jica) through imstep (indonesian mathematics and science teacher education project). being successful in indonesia (suratno, 2012), it was then followed by various similar projects such as imstep follow-up in 2003 – 2005, sisttems (strengthening in-service teacher training in education of mathematics and science) in 2006-2008, and pelita from 2008 ■ e-issn: 2621-6485 52 to 2013. since then, lesson study has been implemented by many schools in different parts of indonesia. the concept of lesson study is simple because if teachers want to improve their teaching, the most effective way to do so is in the context of classroom lessons (stigler & hiebert, 1999). lesson study becomes an important aspect to improve effective teaching practice due to the underlying principles attached to it, such as: 1) teachers are able to learn and improve their teaching by observing other colleagues; 2) knowledgeable teachers should share their knowledge and experience with novice teachers; and 3)teachers should empower students’ interest and emphasize their learning quality (burghes & robinson, 2010). as lesson study in indonesia is conducted based on the three phases plan, do, and see, during the plan phase, teachers collaboratively design a lesson plan based on the goals chosen by the teachers. the lesson plan is then discussed and revised based on the feedback during the discussion. the next step is delivering the lesson plan in a real teaching and learning process in which one teacher becomes the model teacher and other teachers become the observers. in this step called do, these teachers critically observe the students’ learning and write detail situations about the teaching and learning process in the classroom. it is common to record the lesson for research and reflection purposes. when the lesson is completed, the teachers engage in a reflection session. this session usually begins with the model teacher reflected on what worked well in the lesson and what did not work based on the objectives of the lesson plan. then other members of the group give their critical opinion focusing on the lesson and the students, not on the model teacher. they are, in fact critiquing themselves in the reflection session, and this is an important part of the lesson study because it shifts the focus from a personal evaluation to a self-improvement activity (stigler & hiebert, 1999). based on their observations and reflections, the lesson study group revises the lesson plan. once the revised lesson plan is ready, it is taught again to a different class with a different model teacher, and thus another cycle of lesson study begins. sociocultural theory and knowledge development teachers learn through interaction with their peers, meaning that learning happens as a result of a sociocultural process (bocala, 2015). sociocultural theories explain that individual learning and development are attached to social events and happen as a result of people’s interactions with other people, objects, or events in their community (vygotsky, 1978). in this context, social-cultural theories appear effective to explain efl teachers’ development caused by their interaction during lesson study activity. vygotsky (1978) believes that knowledge construction includes both a social and cognitive process. according to him, community plays a central role in the social process of individual knowledge development. thus, how people develop their knowledge and how they get meaning from their knowledge are created in social contexts. the social interaction between an individual and his/her community is mediated by psychological symbols such as language, number, arts, and technical tools such as books and a calculator. among these symbols, vygotsky puts more emphasis on language as one of the social interaction mediations. though there are many forms of language such as symbols, gestures, or motions, the most common type of language, verbal language, is mostly used among the participants in the study because that type of language can make sense of complex and abstract thought. therefore, vygotsky believes in the role of language as the most important tool for accessing this social knowledge. thus, teacher learning in the study is mediated by language. in addition to the previous concept, vygotsky also believes that learning includes cognitive process, meaning that learning will be effective only if an interactive process of eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 ■ purwanti & hatmanto 53 interaction such as discussion, negotiation, and sharing occurs. further, he asserts the cognitive process of an individual is influenced by cultural and social factors. in this case, vygotsky mentions that the first cultural development of people on the social level is called inter-psychological, and the second one lies on the individual or personal level called intrapsychological. regarding the social factor, vygotsky believes that children have curiosity and eagerness to learn something new that leads them to a learning situation. learning, in this case, occurs through social interaction between the children and people who have more knowledge or as vygotsky termed as the more knowledgeable other (mko). the more knowledgeable other can be parents, teachers, coaches, experts, professionals or friends who can provide verbal instructions for the children. the mko can be anyone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, with respect to a particular task, process, or concept (vygotsky, 1978). besides the mko, vygotsky (1978) introduces the concept of the zone proximal development (zpd) to describe a difference between what a child can complete independently and what a child can complete with the guidance of another. the gap between what is known and what is not known by the child creates a learning situation. to help the child achieves the new knowledge, the mko gives step by step guidance based on the knowledge level of the child. in this case, scaffolding occurs. despite the fact that sociocultural theory is frequently used to frame child’s knowledge development researches, as mentioned earlier its theory is still relevant to explain adult learners (bonk & kim, 1998) like the participants in this current study, and few researchers and educators have addressed adult learning from sociocultural theory (bocala, 2015; bonk & kim, 1998). bonk and kim (1998) argued that sociocultural theory can be used not only to explain children and students’ cognitive development but also to frame adult learning. also, as learning resources have expanded, adult learning becomes more self-directed; therefore, there are more chances to assist and scaffold adult learning. concerning the principles of sociocultural theory such as the zpd and the mko, learning assistance may come from friends, relatives, text resources, mass media, technology, or work colleagues. however, one of the greatest challenges and opportunities in adult education is utilizing assisted learning practices teacher-centred when most adult learners have lived their entire lives with more traditional, programs and assembly line schooling (bonk & kim, 1998). previous related studies sociocultural theory of vygotsky has been applied in various fields of education and other disciplines of study. research on a group of efl teachers implementing lesson study was conducted using vygotskian sociocultural theory as one of its theoretical frameworks to understand the interaction among the efl teachers, their students and the administrators of the school, and the trace of teachers' cognitive development (tasker, 2014). using a grounded content analyses, the findings showed that 1) school administrator involvement is necessary to affect school change; 2) outside experts might need to take a more active, longer-term role to help teachers adopt a critical perspective; 3) efl teacher professionalization should include participation in professional development activities; and 4) lesson study is a viable ‘second stimulus’ and potential to provide teachers with an effective conceptual tool to mediate their learning and bring about expansive transformation; and 5) sociocultural theory provides a theoretical foundation for understanding how teachers learn through participation in lesson study (tasker, 2014). an interesting study on sociocultural theory was also conducted by lantolf and beckett (2009) who analyzed forty-eight notable publications as an attempt to seek common patterns emerging from those research focusing on the theory that all mental activity is ■ e-issn: 2621-6485 54 symbolically mediated. within the general mediational framework, the findings showed four themes which characterized their publications which can support the literature such as 1) the theory as a lens for interpreting data (naturally occurring as well as elicited), 2) the theory as an educational framework for promoting l2 development (i.e., developmental education), 3) a concern with specific concepts with which the theory operates, and 4) a concern with explicating a concept or theoretical issue. while the research focusing on sociocultural theory in relation to teaching and learning process have been done by many researchers, the one focusing on lesson study is still in scarcity. therefore, this study was aimed to bridge the gap. the findings on sociocultural researches are expected to inform the current study focusing on adult learners such as the english teachers and the english lecturers. as adult have more opportunities to learn, their learning environment are developing too. with more exposure to learning possibilities, adults have more opportunities to improve their knowledge, and in this case, a sociocultural view of adult learning can promote their learning and better utilize their experience and wisdom (bonk & kim, 1998). research method the study employed the qualitative research approach using a qualitative descriptive design which enabled the researcher to describe in detail what was happening in a group, in a conversation, or in a community (lambert & lambert, 2012). in addition, as understanding the efl teachers’ beliefs about lesson study and their knowledge development requires human experiences and invites the researcher's interpretation to understand their meanings and their impact on the world, this qualitative approach fits into this study. in addition to the qualitative approach, a qualitative descriptive is chosen as the research design. the qualitative descriptive design used in the study aimed to give “a comprehensive summarization, in everyday terms, of specific events experienced by individuals or groups of individuals" (lambert & lambert, 2012, p.255). in this case, the design was applied to describe detail summary of particular events related to lesson study implementation experienced by a group of efl teachers at secondary school levels. focus group interviews were used to collect the data from the participants. focus group interviews were intended to obtain the participants’ beliefs about lesson study in a ‘permissive, nonthreatening environment’ (krueger & casey, 2014). the focus group interviews which consisted of twelve efl teachers enabled these teachers to ‘hear each other’s responses and to make additional comments beyond their original responses as they hear what other people have to say’ (patton, 2002). the data collected from these efl teachers enabled the researchers to figure out the teachers’ development as the result of their interaction with other peer teachers in implementing lesson study in secondary schools level. twelve participants included in three lesson study groups were involved in the study. two groups were from braga (pseudonym) province, while the other one was from yamuna (pseudonym) province. the idea to include different groups of participants was to find out whether there were differences in lesson study implementation between one province and another province. in addition, these groups of lesson study implemented different types of lesson study; the junior secondary school teachers conducted subject teacher lesson study and the senior high school teachers implemented school based lesson study. purposive sampling focusing on selecting the participants who were potential to give resourceful information was used to obtain the objectives of the study (patton, 2002). in selecting the participants, some criteria were applied. first, these efl teachers were involved in lesson study for at least three years so that they had enough experiences eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 ■ purwanti & hatmanto 55 regarding lesson study. next, these efl teachers implemented lesson study in their teaching so that they experienced lesson study cycle starting from plan, do, and see. finally, these participants were willing to participate voluntarily in the study. having these criteria, these participants were expected to be familiar with lesson study, and therefore they were able to share their experiences and give their opinions about how lesson study was implemented and how it supported their knowledge development in teaching. in presenting the findings, the participants’ pseudonym was used in order to maintain their confidentiality. findings and discussion the data collected from the focus group interviews revealed that there were three themes emerging from the participants. after implementing lesson study for more than three years, most of the participants believed they developed their english language knowledge and teaching pedagogy as well as teaching innovation as the results of their interactions with their peer colleagues when conducting lesson study. these findings are now discussed in the following section. lesson study develops efl teachers’ english language knowledge since the very beginning, the participants were required to work together in all phases of lesson study. as the teachers worked together in planning, observing, and debriefing, at the same time, lesson study also promoted sharing activity among these teachers so that they were able to exchange their teaching experiences. the data obtained from the focus group interviews revealed that collaboration and sharing activity during lesson study phases had improved these efl teachers’ capacity, especially in their english knowledge. the following statement from isabel proves the fact. “during planning, we discuss many things, such as finding appropriate media to teach a certain topic, followed by (planning) the steps. thus, when we get back (to our school), we still remember about this topic as well as the steps to conduct the lesson” (isabel). based on this excerpt, it is shown that isabel improved her english knowledge due to her involvement in the first step of lesson study, plan, by which she worked together with her peer colleagues in designing the lesson. thus, it can be concluded that plan phase in lesson study is useful in improving her english language knowledge. indeed, a lesson plan took important roles in teachers' teaching as it functions as ‘a scenario' for teachers so that they knew what to do in the classroom and what learning targets should be achieved. therefore, lesson plans should be designed carefully and with full of thought by the teachers. to achieve learning objectives, the teachers should design their own lesson plan as they know the characteristics of both the students and the class. however, the situation is slightly different in lesson study process by which lesson plans are discussed and written collaboratively by teachers. in some cases, sometimes the model teacher makes the lesson plan herself, and after that, she asks for inputs and suggestions from the peer teachers. the interaction happening during the discussion creates learning activity among the teachers, and they are motivated to perform better teaching by designing the best lesson plan. this model of lesson plan designing seems suitable for these teachers and they admit that they feel more confident using their lesson plans due to the collaboration attached in it. this is what chloe said: "lesson study improves my english knowledge because we plan the lesson collaboratively. so, we discuss the lesson plan together. of course, during the ■ e-issn: 2621-6485 56 discussion, sometimes we do not know about something. but, we can always ask to other peer teachers.” as mentioned earlier, a lesson plan functions as a ‘teaching scenario' so that it can help teachers perform their teaching in front of the class. in lesson study, the lesson plan is presented in an open lesson by the model teacher, and when it is over, the teachers gather and discuss what has happened in the classroom. one of the discussions is related to the lesson plan regarding its effectiveness in achieving learning goals in the class. based on the discussion in the reflection session, the lesson plan is often revised and then applied in another class. the revised lesson plan then can be used by other teachers in their class. thus, the authenticity of the lesson plan is not important as it is written by many teachers, and it can be used repeatedly by other teachers in the same group of lesson study. also, the lesson plan is not a fixed thing which cannot be revised, so the more teachers use the lesson plan, the better the lesson plan because it can be continuously revised based on the real situation happens in the classroom. similarly, the improvement in teachers' english knowledge can also be traced from another phase of lesson study such as do (observation). amy stated: “i learned from bu rini, a lecturer from a public university in braga city, when she taught ‘english for children’ using english songs. i previously never used songs, but now, i use english songs and the students like them much.” it is interesting to find the fact that amy was inspired by one of the expertise during lesson study implementation in which this expertise demonstrated teaching practices using english songs as the media to teach in the classroom. as she found the effectiveness of the media, she applied this teaching method in her classroom. interestingly, this teaching improvement led to another positive thing when she added another statement: “also, i try to use media when teaching (english) now...” these excerpts show that the nature of lesson study which involves teachers’ collaboration and sharing activities in its phase has improved the efl teachers’ english knowledge. thus, most of these participants believed their teacher’s capacity developed due to lesson study. indeed, the efl teachers involving in lesson study have been exposed to social interactions in which they meet professionals such as various teachers from different subjects and other professionals in education such as the principal, the superintendents, the students' parents, the knowledgeable resources, and so forth. collaboratively, these professionals interact with each other and design open lessons which focus on students’ learning aiming to improve their achievement. to achieve their goals, these professionals must have similar visions and missions. because the teachers and the other professionals have many opportunities to learn from each other while doing collaborative work in lesson study, their knowledge develops. this situation fits the sociocultural theory of vygotsky which states that individuals’ knowledge develops as a result social interaction. this finding is also in line with the study conducted by tasker (2014) who stated that the interaction done by the teachers in lesson study became a potential trigger for these teachers to accelerate their learning, and therefore the social cultural theory is able to foster teacher learning (tasker, 2014). lesson study develops efl teachers’ pedagogy besides improving english knowledge, the efl teachers also gained skills on how to deliver teaching materials in front of the class. this improvement was mostly caused by their observation to the model teachers during open lessons and by teachers’ discussion during reflection sessions. lesson study gives chances for these efl teachers to observe other teachers delivering a lesson in an open lesson, a real classroom which is observed by other teachers. at the beginning of lesson study implementation, the teacher who was eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 ■ purwanti & hatmanto 57 teaching in the research lesson was usually a lesson study facilitator, a senior teacher, or even an expert or a knowledgeable resource to give good teaching samples to other teachers. thus, it can be said that the model teacher represents someone who is more knowledgeable as mentioned by vygotsky (1978). in this case, the teachers also got many of teaching methods from other teachers who taught subjects other than english. after these efl teachers were mainly involved in english teaching practices and their experiences were limited to english teaching areas, they finally gained new teaching insights from teachers who taught subjects other than english. one of them mentioned: "well…lesson study is currently implemented in all subjects, and teachers may attend open classes other than their subject. this is good as we (observers) can then get new knowledge from another teacher who teaches different subject from us, for example, math teacher, or economic teacher, and others. thus, teachers from cross subject complete and inspire each other" (hendry). in addition to the previous finding, the efl teachers also learned teaching pedagogy from model teachers. these teachers got much benefit such as more learning strategies from these model teachers who taught other subjects. irish said: ” when i observed open lessons from english class, i probably have been familiar with the (lesson plan) steps. thus, i got more (experiences) when i observed lesson study from other subjects." through this observation and reflection, the efl teachers obtained many ideas in teaching styles and strategies. the following excerpt described the situation: “…, we always got something (useful) ..even we can get something [teaching ideas] from a new teacher…only, we have to adapt this idea [of teaching] into our own school culture...different school different culture…and different school different students too…thus it all depends on us [the teachers] (samuel). another teacher added some more information: “from model teacher, i could get something good and bad, and if it's bad, then i promised myself not to do the same thing in my class. so, we adopt the positive things, and we ignore the negative things from another teachers' teaching. (rosemary) as stated by some participants, their teaching strategies improve since they are involved in the interactions of professionals and peer colleagues during lesson study. the observation to the model teacher in the research lessons and the debriefing discussions after the lessons are believed to be the factors improving their teaching pedagogy. the model teacher in the observation session of lesson study often presents new teaching innovations, and thus gives ideas to the other teachers who observe the lesson. this also happened to preservice teachers (soviyah, 2018). in this case, the model teacher functions as the more knowledgeable others (mko) like what is stated by vygotsky's social-cultural theory because many participants who were initially unfamiliar and unaware about certain teaching style became familiar and got new ideas in teaching. then, after that, they tried to apply what they got from the model teacher in the observation session into their class. it is also interesting to know the finding that the more knowledgeable others are not necessarily from the same subject with the teacher. one of the english teacher participants stated he got new techniques in teaching from a model teacher whose subject is not english. this ■ e-issn: 2621-6485 58 phenomenon appears reasonable as according to vygotsky (1987) the mko can be anyone who is expertise in their field. lesson study develops efl teachers’ teaching innovation during the phases of plan, do, and see, the teacher participants had many opportunities to learn how to improve their teaching practices from peer teachers, model teachers, facilitators, knowledgeable resources, school principals, as well as supervisors from district education department which finally encouraged their motivation to become better teachers by applying new and innovative teaching and learning ideas. the intention to perform new and innovative teaching was caused by their motivation such as motivation to have more teaching preparation that leads to better teaching performance, motivation to conduct research, and motivation to be more innovative in teaching. based on the interview results, most of the participants had strong motivation to perform new and innovative teaching practice due to collaborative observation in open lessons. samuel mentioned: “…when i became a model teacher, i prepared my best….. however, when we didn’t have open lessons, we were back to our previous teaching style because it took a lot of time and energy in preparing an open lesson in lesson study.” (samuel) samuel’s statement proves that lesson study led his teaching practice to be more innovative due to the existence of many observers in the classroom. first, he became more creative and innovative in preparing his teaching when he became the model teacher in the open lesson. the open lesson is live teaching in which a model teacher is delivering a lesson while observed by peer teachers and sometimes by the school principal and superintendent. this enthusiasm barely happens when he teaches in a normal class where no observers come. second, samuel revealed his reluctance in conducting innovative teaching in his daily class due to limited time and resources. he confessed that lesson study took a lot of time and energy, while as a teacher, he had other responsibilities such as maintaining students' achievement in the national examination and support them to pass the exam. however, the first fact emerging from samuel’s statement gives evidence that he wanted to perform better in his teaching and therefore prepared everything prior to teaching because of the presence of many observers in his class. thus, it could be assumed that a model teacher would use all his/her efforts to perform the best teaching in the open lesson. in many cases, the effort to prepare better teaching by making various media or using various teaching techniques, no matter what reasons underline his actions, results in knowledge development of the teacher. in addition, open lessons, as a part of lesson study activity, are usually attended by many observers, and it often leads to learning ideas to the teachers. one of the ideas was the use of technology by the model teacher. based on the focus group discussion with these efl teachers, it is revealed that they seem more advanced than teachers from other subjects. they often employed technology and software assistance such as computer, power point presentation, and other teaching software. the application of technology usage by these efl teachers have motivated teachers from other subject to learn technology from them since they also want to present the best practice of their teaching in the future. the followings are teachers’ excerpts on this case: “…other teachers from different subject, such as indonesian subject were mostly senior teachers and they were not familiar with the use of computer in teaching. when they became observers and attended my class, they saw how i used power eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 ■ purwanti & hatmanto 59 points in my teaching. then, they were motivated to use computers in their subject too. they wanted to learn from me” (yendy). the excerpt above shows that efl teachers are regarded more advanced in terms of their skills in teaching and their technology skills in teaching. this is caused by their english language skills which make them easy to learn new technology such as using computers, using hot potatoes software, and so forth because usually such information is presented in english language. indeed, in indonesian context, people who can speak english well is regarded as prestigious, and thus having higher status than other people who cannot speak english. the same case also happens to the english teachers. as efl teachers, they are assumed to be more sophisticated than other teachers, and thus the other teachers sometimes expect them to share their teaching methodology and their knowledge, especially in terms of information technology in teaching. another interesting fact about the findings of the study is that the efl teachers were eager to research due to their lesson study experiences. in addition, they were willing to join workshops, seminars, and similar activities where they became not only the participants but also the presenters where they could present their research results. the researches the teachers mostly did were based on their daily teaching experience. this situation was not common in the past because research activity was usually dominated and conducted by lecturers in the university level. irish stated: "…uhm…in my school, we had assistance from a lecturer of the indonesian university of education, and she said that open lessons could be conducted using action research. therefore, many teachers did action research and presented their research in seminars, both in local and international seminars". the idea of becoming presenters or being researchers for secondary school teachers was probably not present in these efl teachers' mind in the past. hence, lesson study had brought the teachers motivation to become better or even extraordinary professionals because a lot of research opportunities it provides which could be conducted in their classroom. indeed, the best research the teachers could do was based on their classroom because it was attached to their work place, manageable, affordable, and accessible (stigler & hiebert, 2009; yoshida, 1999). conclusion the current study investigated efl teachers opinion about lesson study in relation to their knowledge development viewed from the lens of social cultural theory of vigotsky. the findings revealed that the efl teachers believed they developed their english language knowledge and teaching pedagogy as well as teaching innovation as the result of their interactions with their peer colleagues during the phases of lesson study. these findings bring implications that lesson study should be implemented in broader contexts, not only in secondary level but also in tertiary level. in addition, since lesson study should be carried out collaboratively and systematically, its sustainability should be maintained so that teachers can have more opportunities to enhance their professional development. ■ e-issn: 2621-6485 60 references anggara, r., & chotimah, u. 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(2008). using japanese lesson study in teaching mathematics. scottish mathematical council journal, 38, 45-50. tasker, t. c. (2014). exploring efl teacher professional development through lesson study: an activity theoretical approach (unpublished doctoral dissertation). pennsylvania: the pennsylvania state university. vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. harvard: harvard university press. yoshida, m. (1999). lesson study: a case study of a japanese approach to improving instruction through school-based teacher development.(unpublished doctoral dissertation) university of chicago, department of education. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789812835420_0015 http://www.e-li.org/ sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 3, no. 1, 2020, pp. 1-13 e-issn: 2621-6485 exploring how silence communicates dat bao monash university, australia dat.bao@monash.edu abstract this article argues that silence as communication can be academically practised in the classroom as much as talk, simply because talk and silence are both essential components of everyday interaction (nakane, 2012). these two constructs are interdependent in the sense that one would not exist without the other. silence can be practised in two different ways: one is to employ it as a mental processing process in learning; two is to observe and discuss how silence is used in communication. the article begins by sharing the literature review on how silence works in education, how it deserves a place in sls theorisation, and how it constitutes communication competence. secondly, it highlights classroom tasks that trigger silent processing and explain why this is the case. thirdly, the discussion recommends an activity which addresses the value of silence, which was developed by the author through research and experience. finally, there are recommendations for task design in which similar activity types are introduced to assist the learning of reflective students. keywords: silence, talk, mental processing, inner speech, private speech how to cite: bao, d. (2020). exploring how silence communicates. english language teaching educational journal, 3(1), 1-13. introduction the duality of speech and silence in communication deserve more attention in academic discourse. language teaching is not always about talk. in the real world, effective communication is both about speech and silence. sometimes, we express ourselves through words but at other times, we speak better without them. for example, when a friend is internalising from the loss of a loved relative at a funeral, quiet sympathy would be essential unless one finds helpful words to say and locates the right moment. because of this duality in the nature interaction, it is absurd to only rely on what we hear to make sense of the world, but there is the need to rely on feeling, observation, understanding, knowledge, empathy, and other non-verbal clues such as eye contacts, gestures, movement, tone, posture, and artefacts. in a word, while speaking out fluently is an essential ability; employing silence productively represents another major capability as well (bao, 2014). the discourse on how silence works the silence and talk can be equal in communication values. if we ask two people: ‘do you agree?’ one person may say ‘no’; while the other person may simply keep silent. both responses seem to denote the same attitude, that they do not agree. as zembylas & michaelides (2004: 207) explain, ‘silence can be colonized by talk, of course, but meaning cannot. suggests that while talk might dominate as an utterance system, silence can operate as a productive system of its own. in many cases, it is the structure of silence among talk intervals that help enhance articulation quality. because of this, in reviewing silence, it would be unreasonable to remove talk from the background of the discussion, simply because without the presence of talk, one cannot recognise how silence really occurs. this project investigates students’ ways of responding to classroom tasks and documents their justification when a decision on participating modes is made. based on this, mailto:dat.bao@monash.edu 2 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 recommendations are offered to task design. being able to comprehend the rationale behind decisions to cope with a task will benefit tasks in optimising students’ learning strengths. to understand classroom silence is one step forward in uncovering the learning mechanism. as educators, we need to ‘hear’ and interpret silence attentively, not only from experience but also on the foundation of research, without which we might, in the words of zembylas & michaelides (2004: 207), happen to conduct ‘teaching with ignorance’. although the current discourse has expressed appreciation for the silent mode of learning (see, for example, creelman, 2017) and has recognised students’ choices to be either silent or verbal, not much research has unpacked the process of students’ verbal or non-verbal behaviour as tactically influenced by task characteristics. this article responds to this gap through an empirical project that sheds light on the relationship between the nature of the task and students’ responses in either spoken or reflective ways. in search of silence in sla theories silence is an under-explored theme in the mainstream literature on second language acquisition and on the methodology of teaching a second language (bao, 2019). silence is a hard topic to deal with when it comes to empirical research, simply because when learners talk, the research can record data for analysis, yet when learners are speechless, data hardly exist for one to collect and read. in fact, the association between words and silence have historically divided eastern and western social, educational, and academic attitudes over the past century toward which one is the more cherished mode of communication (zembylas, 2008; belanoff, 2001). while in some non-western cultures, silence may be required to express a role or a voice, in many western contexts, the obsession with words sometimes causes one to be intolerant toward silence and view the wordless person as subordinate, or in karmen’s (2001, p. 4) words, as being ‘inadequately educated’. believe it or not, more research on silence has come from other disciplines including psychology and sociology than research in second language acquisition. although the discourse has embraced rich discussion on the silent period (krashen, 1985), the innerspeech stage (vygotsky, 1986), internalisation (winegar, 1997), private speech (savilletroike, 1988), and inner voice (tomlinson, 2001), it has been acknowledged that today’s research on inner speech is not much easier than such research in vygotsky’s time (ehrich, 2006). given all the subtleties and complexities of human talk that makes it hard to research on talk (edwards & westgate, 1987), research on silence is many times more difficult as there is virtually no scientific method to transcribe silence. as a constantly evolving discipline in the fields of linguistics and psycholinguistics, second language acquisition was initially concerned with cognition and over the years has moved to exploring affect (chambers, 2007) as well as other areas in language development. despite such dynamics, the role of silence in l2 education has been treated with great caution and, as far as research findings are concerned, has hardly been connected to learning abilities in optimistic ways. scholarly research during the 1960s and 1970s pointed out that children who remain reticent in class were often perceived as socially and intellectually incompetent (gordon & thomas, 1967) as they make poorer school progress than their peers (feshback et al., 1974; stevenson et al., 1976; colligan, 1979). in fact, silence in sla discourse until the 1980s was mentioned as resistance to speech (harder, 1980), difficulty in performance, and lack of comprehension (dulay et al., 1982; gibbons, 1985). while acknowledging silence as the initial stage of language study, sla scholarly research until recently remains uncertain about how to proceed to address the continuing eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ bao 3 role of silence in the ‘post-silent era’ – a term which indicates the end of silent film era and which is mentioned to criticise how excessive talk can weaken the subtlety of communicative silence. although this debate in the movie industry seems irrelevant to language learning, it reminds us that silence should be seen more than just a period when we were hopeless due to the inability to produce speech and that silence continues to play a significant role in l2 development. in fact, sla shows less interest in private speech than overt production (saville-troike, 1988) and seems ‘insufficiently curious about silence as part of the second language learning process’ (granger, 2004, p. 30). silence as communicative competence it is important to note that silence, historically, has an integral role in communicative competence ever since the 1960s. according to hymes (1967; 1972), language competence comprises three elements: knowledge, ability and actual use. although silence may allow space for the construction of knowledge and ability, it may not show evidence of the actual use of language. the gap between silence and actual verbal communication, however, is not always clear-cut due to the existence of private speech and internalisation. private speech can happen in silence, through whispering to oneself or others, or in spoken and written form. it serves to draw one’s own attention (frawley, 1997) and has a self-regulatory nature (john-steiner, 1992). all of these skills are able to function thanks to learners’ exposure to social interaction and therefore it is hard to say that silence is far removed from verbal communication. instead, the internal world and the social world can be quietly negotiated in learners’ mental processes. such negotiation, which is known as internalisation (winegar, 1997), has the potential to become useful in future communication. although it is commonly acknowledged that silence plays a role in monitoring language, it remains a mystery how exactly that role can help develop communication strategies. strategic competence is the ability to make conversational plans and compensate for difficulties in verbal communication (canale & swan, 1980). even though one can quietly internalise such strategies through attentive listening, observing others’ communication, and engaging in self-directed speech, the development of such competence needs to be negotiated within the framework of language use (bachman & palmer, 1996). so far, the relationship between silent observation and strategy development has rarely been a concern in second language acquisition research. oxford (2001) argues that there is a connection between learning and social skills: those who are good at social communication strategies often tend to be good at language learning strategies. based on this understanding, if silent learners develop effective ways to learn l2, they have potential to develop social skills. these abilities, which celce-murcia et al. (1995) refer to as interactional competence, requires practical actions such as managing social introduction, turn-taking, initiation of talk, closing conversation, changing topics, interrupting, recognising the difference between l1 and l2 social norms, and so on. someone who remains silent from such practice may experience difficulty in communication. one may need to keep in mind that silence, in a similar vein to talk, is not context free. if talk has to be socioculturally appropriate depending on who, where, when, what role and what content, silence as part of language also shares similar needs in order for one to be welcome, accepted, valued and understood rather than to cause confusion and misinterpretation. celce-murcia et al. (1995) maintain that social competence includes factors such as power, politeness, and cultural awareness. arguably, if these elements play a role in how one communicates through talk, they also must play a role in how one appropriately keeps silent. in other words, to keep silent cannot be a decision made by the silent language user alone but is contingent upon social situations. in the context of the 4 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 classroom where the regulation to moderate between silence and talk is negotiated and co decided by both the teachers and students, silence needs to take place within the expectation of the class society rather than occur accidentally. on an additional note, today’s changing globalised contexts may prompt the need to research on silence beyond a face-to-face learning mode, that is, online silence. nowadays as words such as ‘interaction’ and ‘chat’ are placed on google search, their meanings often take on a digital connotation. likewise, the concept silence has altered its meaning as the nature of communication in the digital age constantly changes. as much as the concepts of social presence and social interaction have been modified (gunawardena et al., 2001; leh, 2001), silence can also refer to the state of being quiet from writing rather than from talking (zembylas & vrasidas, 2007). when someone is not making written comments during engagement with online discussion, the person is considered as keeping quiet. silence in this sense indicates social and psychological distance between humans, that is, the lack of attentiveness, engagement, responsiveness, and participation. the need to understand the nature of and reasons for such types of silence should be studied alongside the need to improve online learning and communication. research method this article itself is not a research study, but it follows up on two empirical projects conducted by the authors. the former took place during 2009 2013 (bao, 2014) and the latter happened during 2018 – 2019 (bao, 2014). both of the studies have been systematically reported in academic publications. the first project was a qualitative, phenomenological study in which bao (2014) interviewed 100 participants for two years to find out how these learners developed their language proficiency through silence. it was followed up with the author’s connection of the study outcome with the current debate in sla discourse (bao, 2019). the second project is also a qualitative, phenomenological study in which 10 east-asian participants were interviewed about how they responded to classroom tasks through the use of both silence and talk, with analysis related to when silence and talk occur respectively. the article, which is a follow-up on the above projects, responds to the appeal for knowledge about silence to be pushed further and becomes classroom pedagogy. the article focuses on a new activity, whose type is extremely rare in english language education. the activity, again, is founded upon the author’s two previous research studies, as mentioned above, about the use and value of the silent learning style in second language acquisition. in particular, two important research findings lay the foundation for the activity propose in this article. one is the need for silence to enter into task design; and two is the need to understand task types which allow for silent processing of information. these needs, which come from research effort, are explained in the subsequent section. findings and discussion the first finding, which comes from the project conducted by bao (2014), concluded that silence needs to be incorporated in classroom tasks. without this awareness and practice, communication would be unreal. teachers would continue to pretend that talk makes up 100% of everyone’s communicative repertoire. bao (2014; 2019) has discovered that in many teachers’ practical experiences, not every individual student who is highly articulate would demonstrate better academic skills than those who speak sparingly. for this reason, relying solely on students’ verbal participation to judge their ability and learning eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ bao 5 enthusiasm would seem to be an inadequate approach to educational practice. even when we become aware of this reality, to be able to comprehend how students learn effectively in silence remains a challenging task. the second finding, which arrives from an empirical study by bao (2020), highlights that a number of classroom tasks actually trigger silent learning and intense mental processing, a reality that many teachers are unaware of. collecting narrative data from 10 east-asian students in australia, bao was discovered that there are certain types of classrooms that actually require more silent processing than spontaneous talk; and if the teacher unknowing stress students out to come up with immediate responses, that pedagogy would ruin the discussion, risking low understanding of the learning process and risking poor quality contribution from students. such tasks would offer personal space and wait time, not requiring peer interaction, challenging the mind, inviting personal reflection, asking for a written response, and organising cognitive processing of rules or methods. they encourage students to work alone and produce output such as a written summary, an idea, an account of experience, and solutions to problems. of course, there are tasks that would that elicit verbalisation right away. they include, for example, fluency tasks (which involve spontaneous responses for verbal skills development), exploratory tasks (which involve peer discussion), communication and feedback tasks (which involve mutual support), collaborative projects (such as producing a poster, a video clip, or a summary), post-tasks (which follow up a main task for sharing further thoughts), and game-like tasks (which encourage teamwork, competition, and enjoyment). the common characteristic of these activities is that they involve collaborating with classmates rather than functioning alone, with clear emphasis on fluency, rehearsal, communication, collaboration, and sharing. they prompt talk by requiring quick, spontaneous answers or reactions, which focus on the process rather than outcome and are often not of a cognitively demanding type. arguably, tasks that go well with their knowledge and experience will give them the confidence to speak out more; and tasks of an informal nature that require no right or wrong answer also make students feel relaxed enough to participate. the proposed activity this section, which is the main part of the article, proposes a classroom activity in which silence is used as a discussion topic. in addition, silence is also employed as part of the learning process whereby learners watch a video clip from a movie, reflect on the content, take notes, and later on join a verbal discussion if they wish. observing and listening to silence attentively is an important skill in communication. this is an activity which the author designed and implemented for the first time in 2020 at monash university. the task has four steps: experience sharing, observation, reflection and discussion, as will be elaborated below. sharing your experience think about moments of tension or conflict in your life. when was the last time you experience such a moment? where? in what situation? with who? how long did tension last? how was it resolved? ex. you are waiting for someone or some news anxiously, not knowing when or even if at all that person/news will arrive. ex. you are struggling to express yourself in a specific situation and not sure if you should speak out or keep quiet. you want a promotion; someone bullies you, etc. share that with the person next to you. 6 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 in that experience, which tool seemed work for you: talk to explain, or silence to let things work. observe a movie scene watch this movie scene, as in the link below, to see an interesting example of the above. please also refer to the appendix at the end of this article to form an idea of what the conversation in the movie scene is about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hvc1ae-ycu you will notice that the first half of this scene is filled with words: you need to listen. the second half take place almost without words: you need to observe. discussion questions 1. which detail in this scene is your favourite moment? 2. in the end, why didn’t akatsuka kill ichi with his sword when ichi had no weapon? 3. suppose you are to add more dialogues into this scene, what you would add? would those make this scene better? 4. how would you comment on the use of words and that of silence? 5. what elements helps build tension and climax? 6. in your view, what content carries the most weigh in this scene? (ex. honour, manhood, sacrifice, respect, hypocrisy, tyranny, resolution, etc.) 7. in your imagination, how would hollywood movie depict this scene differently? (ex. consider gymnastics, clashes of words, dramatic dialogues, ways of telling the story, camera work, expression of emotion, etc.) if you like, watch the last scene of blind fury, a 1989’s american remake of zatoichi challenged to see a different interpretation of the scene. productive follow-up some people feel that the best part about the last scene is not words: it is the frugality of them. do you have a moment in your life which points to the same value where not talking out at the moment seems to be the best thing to practise? for example, one of my friends suffered from the loss of someone he loved. to comfort him i said very little but stay with him in silence to show that i was there for him, understood what he was going through, and share the pain with him by not verbally disturbing too much. would you like to write a comment, share a life anecdote, or create a poem about this scene or even part of it? here is an example: like paper lanterns flowing down the river the souls of two warriors torn apart in the winter steel and snow, cold. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ bao 7 recommendations for task design task developers might consider providing explicit suggestions for silent processing, verbal responses, or self-talk when necessary. one example provided by wilkinson and olliver-gray (2006) is an instruction that guides students to write down how they feel during exam time and then compare their responses with peers. stickler, batstone, duensing and heins (2007) suggest that task designers can specify which part of a task does not involve speaking; and can allocate specific moments when students are expected to reflect or silently type their thoughts. such instructions show the evidence that materials developers can consider including learning strategies to assist students in coping with the learning process. sometimes, to avoid disrupting students’ productive silent processing, teachers also need to keep silent to ensure that the shared space is observed and respected. it is noted that experienced teachers tend to use silence in their pedagogy more than novice teachers (vassilopoulos & konstantinidis, 2012). silence may not benefit learning unless teachers can monitor the ways in which learning takes place before, during, and after the productive silent moment. this requires thoughtful task design, clear expectation, and a well-planned management procedure. such a procedure includes explicit instruction, appropriate wait time, timely support, relevant follow-up strategies, and effective assessment policy. all these strategies should be included in task design with guidance for teachers to use the material. the challenge of the pedagogy above is that silence, unfortunately, might not be equally favoured by all members in a learning community depending on who shares the learning environment and its broader social norms. it is therefore important for teachers to handle such diverse preferences, with clear expectations when conducting multiple subtasks that allow various learning modes to come into play. similar activity design for reflective learners of course, the task introduced in this article is not the only one of its kind. below are some of my suggestions for working with both highly articulate and less verbal students in the english classroom: • asking students yes/no and either/or questions and accept brief responses • giving students the opportunity to participate in whole class activities whereby everyone takes note from both conversation and observation • using artefacts or props such as video clips, pictures and realia to encourage thinking and questions • having small groups of students present new vocabulary to the class by using pictures • providing listening activities and reflection time before verbal response • creating tasks that involve prediction, such as showing a picture and asking wait happens next, telling a story and pausing for guessing the continuation, and so on. these tasks allow for thoughtful responses and high-quality discussion. • supporting learning with graphic organizers, charts and graphs as frames to scaffold writing. • creating tasks that require memorisation, such as showing a detailed picture and having students report what they remember. classroom tasks sometimes exhibit a stimulating quality that inspires students’ thinking. at other times, they might have a routine and humdrum characteristic. when 8 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 learners are inspired, some mind find themselves spending more time in silent thinking; while others may prefer to speak out more with others. arguably, learners’ silent processing might occur quietly or at times it might develop into the occasional verbal articulation. for example, some reflective students prefer to quietly work on a written task, while other reflective counterparts might switch learning modes and share their thought with peers, especially when the task seems to require some exchange of ideas. some learners experience such moments of adjusting their participation mode. empirical research has found that peer influence is a factor which governs how much a learner is willing to participate in classroom discussion (see, for example, bao, 2014). however, findings from various case studies are often so diverse that they show no consistent formula with regards to what personality leads to talk and silence respectively. you might wish to reflect on your individual inclination in working with peers. to some extent, learners’ decision to speak out or to remain quite during a discussion might have to do with peers’ behaviour. conclusion once i was told this anecdote where an eloquent student was telling a classmate: ‘i can train you to become more confident at speaking in front of the class’; to which, the other student replied: ‘i can train you to become better at listening to others’. as can be inferred from this exchange, since different individuals have their own prioritised ways of learning best, it is hard to assume everyone would benefit from learning in the same manner. in many cases, not talking in class may not denote low confidence but could mean one simply feels confident enough to contemplate a less assertive disposition. teachers need to be unbiased about the various ways in which students respond to the demand of a task and should not hold on to any pre-determined expectations, such as assuming that talk is the natural route of learning. in many cases, it is teachers’ flexibility, supportive attitudes, and innovative pedagogical strategies that would improve task design by allowing both mental and verbal rehearsal to reach its optimum. although many communicative tasks might expect learners to switch to an impulsive learning mode, during the actual classroom process, some learners might choose to handle them in a more reflective manner. this is because some might need more self-monitoring time than others before verbal exchange can take place. when this happens, the quality of classroom tasks should not be measured by how much speaking occurs but by the depth of learner engagement. silence as mental rehearsal provides conditions for self-directed learning which may be either connected to or independent from the teaching. pedagogy founded on a profound understanding of productive silence can liberate learners from the constraint of having to produce impulsive, low-quality participation. silence needs to be managed with acute awareness of why, how, when and how long a student needs it to support their own learning and when the verbal mode of learning should take over. obligatory talk can be frustrating when learners are required to publicise their half-baked thoughts when they are unprepared to do so. silence training should be organised to include reflectivity, concentration, outcome and avoidance of idle, unproductive moments–the same way as talk that needs to be directed to enhance learning rather than become mere social time in the classroom. the structure of learning might fundamentally change when this knowledge is applied so that learners can employ both silence and talk as learning tools in conscious, informed ways. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ bao 9 references bao, d. (forthcoming). silence, talk, and in-betweens: east-asian students’ responses to task challenges at an australian university. in king, j, & harumi, s. (2020). east asian perspectives on english language education. bristol, uk: multilingual matters. bao, d. (2019). the place of silence in second language acquisition. english language teaching & research 1 (1), august 2019, pp. 26-42. bao, d. (2014). understanding silence and reticence: ways of participating in second language acquisition. london: bloomsbury. belanoff, p. (2001). ‘silence: reflection, literacy, learning, and teaching’, college composition and communication, 52(3), 399-428. canale, m. and swain, m. (l980). ‘theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing’, applied linguistics, 1(1), 1–47. celce-murcia, m., dörnyei, z. and thurrell, s. (1995). ‘a pedagogical framework for communicative competence: a pedagogically motivated model with content specifications’, issues in applied linguistics, 6(2), 5–35. chambers, j. (2007). ‘silence in sla research: from personality to identity’. j-quotes: a quest for great ideas web-site. retrieved 24 june 2013 at http://j quote.blogspot.com.au/2007/12/silence-in-sla-research-from.html colligan, r. c. (1979). ‘predictive validity of the myklebust pupil rating scales: a twoyear follow up’. journal of learning disabilities, 12, 264-7. creelman, a. (2017) silent learners – a guide. copenhagen: denmark: nordic council of ministers, accessed 6 november 2018. http://lnu.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:1171709/fulltext01.pdf dulay, h., burt, m. and krashen, s. (1982). language two. new york and oxford: oxford university press. edwards, a. d. and westgate, d. p. g. (1987). investigating classroom talk. london: the falmer press. ehrich, j. f. (2006). ‘vygotskyan inner speech and the reading process’. australian journal of educational and developmental psychology, 6, 12-25. feshbach, s., adelman, h. and fuller, w. w. (1974). ‘early identification of children with high risk of learning failure’. journal of learning disabilities, 10, 49-54. frawley, w. (1997). vygotsky and cognitive science: language and the unification of the social and computational mind. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. gibbons, j. (1985). ‘the silent period: an examination’, language learning, 35(2), 25567. gilmore, p. (1985) silence and sulking: emotional displays in the classroom. in d. tannen and m. saville-troike (eds.) perspectives on silence (pp. 139-162). norwood, nj: ablex. gordon, e. m. and thomas, a. (1967). ‘children's behavioural style and the teacher's appraisal of their intelligence’, journal of school psychology, 5(4), 292-300. granger, c. a. (2004). silence in second language learning: a psychoanalytic reading. clevedon, uk: multilingual matters. gunawardena, c. n., nolla, a. c., wilson, p. l., lopez islas, j. r., ramirez-angel, n. and megchunalpizar, r. m. (2001). ‘a cross-cultural study of group processes and development in online conferences’, distance education: an international journal,22(1), 85-121. harder, p. (1980). ‘discourse as self-expression: on the reduced personality of the second language learner’, applied linguistics, 1(3), 262-70. karmen, m. (2001). immemorial silence. new york: state university of new york press. 10 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 krashen, s. d. (1985). the input hypothesis: issues and implications. harlow: longman. leh, a. s. c. (2001). ‘computer-mediated communication and social presence in a distance learning environment’. international journal of educational telecommunications, 7, 109-28. nakane, i. (2012). 9 silence. the handbook of intercultural discourse and communication, 29, 158. oxford, r. (2001). ‘language learning styles and strategies’, in m. celce-murcia m (ed), teaching english as a second or foreign language. boston, ma: heinle and heinle, pp. 359-66. saville-troike, m. (1987). ‘bilingual discourse: communication without a common language’. linguistics, 25, 81-106. saville-troike, m. (1988). ‘private speech: evidence for language learning strategies during the ‘silent’ period’, journal of child language, 15(3), 567-90. stevenson, h. w., parker t., wilkinson, a., hegion, a., and fish, e. (1976). ‘predictive value of teacher ratings with young children’. journal of educational psychology, 68, 507-17. stickler, u., batstone, c., duensing, a., and heins, b. (2007) distant classmates: speech silence in online and telephone language tutorials. european journal of open, distance and e-learning 10 (2), accessed 19 november 2018. http://www.eurodl.org/?p=archives&year=2007&halfyear=2&..&article=277 vassilopoulos, s., and konstantinidis, g. (2012) teacher use of silence in elementary education. journal of teaching and learning 8(1), 91-105. vygotsky, l.s. (1986). ‘thought and language’, in a. kozulin (ed). cambridge, massachusetts: the mit press. wilkinson, l., and olliver-gray, y. (2006) the significance of silence: differences in meaning, learning styles, and teaching strategies in cross-cultural settings. psychologia 49(2), 74-88. winegar, l. (1997). ‘can internalization be more than a magical phrase? notes toward the constructive negotiation of this process’, in c. lightfoot and b. cox (eds), sociogenetic perspectives on internalization. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. zembylas, m. (2008). ‘the sound of silence in educational pedagogy,’ educational theory, 54(2), 193-210. zembylas, m. and vrasidas, c. (2007). ‘listening for silence in text-based, online encounters’, distant education, 28(1), 5-24. zembylas, m., and michaelides, p. (2004) the sound of silence in pedagogy. educational theory 54(2), 193-210. appendix: transcript from the video clip the following script, which was documented by the author, is for the teacher to use as a way of keeping track what is said in the movie, if you would lie to try out the activity recommended in this article in your classroom. the section ‘using silence as a discussion topic’ in the article, including items a, b, c and d, can be printed out as handouts for your students to use. if you have feedback from the implementation, please email it to <dat.bao@monash.edu> for further conversation. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ bao 11 dialogue from the last scene of zatoichi challenged (1967) 座頭市血煙り街道 zatōichi chikemurikaidō – 17th episode of 26 akatsuka: ichi ichi: master akatsuka. is there something i can do for you? akatsuka: i want you to hand shokichi over to me ichi: i beg your pardon? akatsuka: just hand him over ichi: what’s this about, all of a sudden? (turning to shokichi) shokichi, do you have some history with this samurai? shokichi: (silent) no, i’ve never seen him before ichi: what’s your business with shokichi, master akatsuka? akatsuka: (silent) ichi: if you don’t tell me that, how do you expect me to comply? akatsuka: i’m going to kill him. ichi: (silent) have you gone mad? akatsuka: i’m on official government business. when i cut down torikoshi, that, too, was official business. i would have killed gonzo as well, but you saved me the trouble. perhaps now you can understand my position. ichi: i can understand why you go after gonzo and the corrupt officals, but this man’s only crime was being forced by gonzo to akatsuka: forced or not, he’s guilty of creating designs for the forbidden items. it was his misfortune to have been born with such a gift. ichi: i still do’t understand why drawing a few pictures should akatsuka: my orders are to destroy all traces of the plot, whether man or object, to prevent it from becoming a scandal. ichi: master akatsuka, though they only met today, shokochi is that boy’s father. this is their first chance to live happy as a family. please just look the other way and let them go. please have mercy on them. akatsuka: the law has no mercy. if you refuse to turn him over, i will have to kill you as well. omitsu: (down on her knees bowing) please let shokichi go. for the sake of the child, i beg you. akatsuka: stand in my way and i won’t hesitate to kill even a woman or child. shikochi: wait! master ichi, i’ll accept this as my fate. please look after ryota and omitsu. ichi: (throwing shikochi to the ground) shikochi stay with me. akatsuka: ichi! 12 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 ichi: you samurai are so full of yourselves. so long as you have orders, you don’t care what you do to people. akatsuka: (angrily) step aside. ichi: (pause) you have to take shokichi (pause) over my dead body. so long as you’ve got orders, you don’t care what you do to people. akatsuka: (more angrily) step aside. ichi: (long pause) (slowly with emphasis) you have to take shokichi over my deadbody. akatsuka: (with emphasis) i’m warning you. ichi: (to the family) don’t let ryota see this. (fighting scene) a servant (running in from a distance): master akatsuka! akatsuka: that’s shikochi! kill him! (ichi killed the man) (ichi and akatsuka wrestled, then stopped in long silence) akatsuka: ichi (long pause), you win. (long silence – akatsuka put his sword back into his sheath/scabbard and walked away. tension eases; mood changes) end of scene sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 3, no. 1, 2020, pp. 26-40 e-issn: 2621-6485 interweaving conceptual and substantial problems of writing instruction: socio reflective on exploring hortatory and analytical exposition 1wiwiek afifah, 2anida sarudin 1graduate school of yogyakarta state university, indonesia 2universiti pendidikan sultan idris, malaysia wiwiekafifah.2018@student.uny.ac.id abstract this paper explores interweaving conceptual and substantial problems of teaching writing skills for analytical and hortatory exposition texts. under the narrative inquiry, five english teachers’ personal life experiences were analyzed. having been analyzed, the findings reveal: (1) students were still weak in understanding the concept of the two texts (social function, generic structure, and lexicogrammatical features of the text). (2) students’ confusion to distinguish the two genres is supported by the condition that they do not learn the genres in their primary language. (3) the students are not accustomed to expressing their arguments whereas in analytical and hortatory texts the main points are presenting sequences of arguments in the body of the text. (4) students have low motivation to read therefore it is hard for them to propose the suggestion and make reiteration in the end of hortatory and analytical exposition texts, and (5) lexicogrammatical features or the grammar that are commonly used in those texts are complex for the students in that level. keywords: analytical, hortatory exposition, writing, instruction how to cite: afifah, w., & sarudin, a. (2020). interweaving conceptual and substantial problems of writing instruction: socio reflective on exploring hortatory and analytical exposition. english language teaching educational journal, 3(1), 26-40. introduction the the issues of writing instruction reported by two international giant companies: taylor and francis online and sage journal reach more than 530.796 articles. these obvious facts show that writing has attracted many researchers to investigate. it is then assumed that writing provides not only problems but also interesting challenges. however, in a local context such as in indonesia, the issue of writing mainly for english as a foreign language exposes not only conceptual but also substantial problems. this skill is offering a total confusion that automatically attracts a number of scholars to endeavor and cleave the hindrances. the uncovering problems faced by teachers are assumed to be the primary factors supporting the failure of writing instruction. additionally, those facts become worse when the mindset that writing is difficult when compared with another. relating to that case, richards & renandya (2003) state that writing covers a highly complex skill. furthermore, they express that target language authors have to pay attention to higher level skills encompassing planning and organizing as well as the level of skills for spelling, punctuation, word choice, and so forth. furthermore, rahmatunisa (2015) found that there are some points supporting the problems in teaching and learning of english writing as a foreign language in indonesia: linguistics, cognitive, and psychological problems. a piece of information has also been found by the researchers during the observation in march 2018. through participatory observation in the preliminary research, three problems were found: (1) principal learning experience, (2) instructional materials, and (3) students’ selfmailto:wiwiekafifah.2018@student.uny.ac.id eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ afifah and sarudin 27 concept in writing. the principal learning experience mostly applied in the classroom did not match to the learners’ today condition. in addition, the analytical and hortatory exposition texts also created problems. as a matter of fact, it is true that learning writing is not always easy although students have learnt english for many years on their previous level. adding to the argument, kroll (1990) states that teaching efl is complex and needs an ongoing process to become a good author. writing a text in target language needs appropriate strategy. teachers are not only conceptually ready with the writing but also be able to encounter all the practical problems faced by the learners. relating to analytical and hortatory exposition, those genres are recommended to learn by the students in senior high school. however, they still find it difficult to master. teaching and learning how to write those genres are not trivial. analytical exposition texts are characterized by thesis, arguments, and reiteration while hortatory exposition texts are started by thesis, arguments, and closed by recommendation. since their differences are not obvious, many students complain of their confusion when learning them. dealing with the problems, the researchers observed that students were still weak in comprehending those texts' concepts. they got trouble distinguishing their differences such as their social functions, the generic structures, and the language features which are commonly used in these texts. therefore, the interweaving between the concept of hortatory and analytical text make the learners feel confused. realizing that phenomenon, this study aims to systematically explore the problems of teaching hortatory and analytical exposition texts based on a socio-reflective. the socioreflective refers to the belief that the process of learning construction is built by a social process (yancey, 2015). in this study, reflective refers to the thinking process based on the student’s account, perception, inquiry and also judgment through the sequences of interaction (between teachers and students) to support the process of making meaning through writing activities. under the narrative inquiry, the stories of five teachers (teaching in public and private of senior high schools) are used as the primary information. general concept of writing writing can be understood as the attempt to communicate, plan, think, imagine, remember, collect and access information, or store ideas in memory (moore-hart, 2010). by doing writing, an author will represent and reclaim their experiences through their writing for the readers. the writing activity will be easier and naturally when students start to write by drawing and writing. even, writing will emerge more easily when the students will write their experiences. additionally, students will become more interested in the writing when they are facilitated to write centered around themselves. here is the visualization of the circle of ideas in writing activities. figure 1. the circle of ideas 28 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 richards & renandya (2003) highlight that generating and organizing ideas refers to translating them into a readable text. those are the most obvious factors supporting writing to become a difficult skill for target language learners. moreover, the skills involved in writing is very complex. regarding the complexity of writing skill, harris (1969) reminds that at least there are five components in the writing process: 1) content: refers to the substance of the writing or it can be the idea expressed, 2) form: refers to the organization of the content, 3) grammar: roles as the guidance to control the development of grammar form and pattern. 4) style: refers to the choice of the structure and lexical items to give a particular tone or flavor to the writing itself. 5) mechanics: refers to the use of graphic conventions of the language. the five components proposed by harris at least should be taken into account when writing. then for teachers, they should take a role in translating the writing principles into practice. the practice to produce optimal learning benefits, they should constantly record, consider, and analyze what they have done in the classroom then use their reflective experiences as a basis for improving their instructional practice (richards & renandya, 2003). based on the theories recommended by some scholars, it is obvious that in teaching writing, teachers should pay attention to those conceptual aspects. dealing with the issue, oshima and hogue (1991) state that writing is a process. raimes (2003) also explains that the process is proven by the effort and a commitment to think about writing content, fluency, personal voice, and revising. when referring to the view of process approach, that proposes and emphasizes on how a piece of writing is constructed. this notion refuses that it is not necessary to give a great attention only to the writing as a product. the principles of conceptual process approach always pay attention to the product but at an appropriate stage in the process. regarding writing activities, raimes (2003) proposes some steps in planning the course: 1) ascertaining goals and institutional constraints, 2) deciding on theoretical principles, 3) planning content, 4) weighing the elements, 5) drawing up syllabus, 6) selecting materials, 7) preparing activities and roles, 8) choosing types and methods feedback, 9) evaluating the course, and 10) reflecting the teacher’s experiences. those ten steps should be pondered by teachers when they teach writing skills. then when they are able to reflect these principles in their writing class, the concept of writing as a product as well as a process will appear in balance. along with raime’s postulate, oshima & hogue (1991) explain that writing is a process, not a product. it can be understood that writing as a composition is always possible to review and revise, then review again. another postulate is proposed by moore-hart (2010) that writing involves thinking, feeling, and communicating as well as including prewriting, drafting, revision, and editing. here are the sequence activities encompassed in those stages. figure 2. the sequences of writing activities in line with the notion that writing is a process, seow (2003) explains that writing is broadly seen as comprising four main stages: planning, drafting, revising, and ending. the process of writing incorporates the four basic stages and the three other stages externally eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ afifah and sarudin 29 that are teachers, sharing, and evaluating as the post-writing. meanwhile brown (2007) convinces that the process relates to the activities such as association, storing a meaning and memorizing, transferring, generalization, and interference. if the word process refers to those terms, as explained by brown, so all human life when involving language learning will have experienced the process stage. process is human’s characteristic. genre-based approach analytical and hortatory texts are part of genre-based (wang, 2009). learning and understanding those kinds of texts, students should understand the text characteristics such as its social function, generic structure, and its linguistics feature (hyland, 2004). additionally, teachers should help learners in building the knowledge thus they can understand the concept of the text (alyousef, 2006). one of the principles to master these texts is the ability to choose the issue. thus, the learners will be able to arrange their argument in a good order (ali, 2016). in addition, they should have the ability to think critically and to propose the best solution for the issue taken by them (stapleton, 2001). organizing their thoughts and ideas as the generic structure of the text as well arrange them in a logical sense then followed by evaluating the writing product is an important step to consider in writing activities. before teaching how to write an analytical and hortatory exposition, students should be taught the concept of those texts (alfatia and al-hafizh, 2013) because their social functions are slightly different. when teaching these texts, teachers should explain their differences and give some examples related to the texts. furthermore, the generic structure of the text for analytical encompasses: thesis, arguments, reiteration/summing up, then for hortatory n encompasses: thesis, arguments and recommendation. their differences are small (indrowaty et al., 2018). the linguistics features used in those texts focus on generic human and non-human participants, use of modality and modulation, few temporal conjunctive relations, reasoning expressed as verbs and nouns, use of material, relation and mental process, and the use of simple present tense (henry and roseberry 1996). relevant of previous research in fact, the problems of teaching writing skills for analytical and hortatory exposition do not only happen in indonesia. it is not merely for indonesian students who face this problem but some overseas students also get the same difficulties. as bilal et al. (2013) reported in their research that the problems of writing skill in sargodha students commonly cover the influence of l1 on l2 learning, effects of multicultural, multilingual and psychological factors, and effects of grammar teaching on english writing skills. since a different language gives a different language concept, teaching of english writing as a foreign language is also influenced by those factors. then multicultural and multilingual background also give great effects toward the learning process. consequently, the raised problems transpire in writing processes need serious attention. dealing with this issue, hyland (2004) states that the entire teaching process must be compatible with social set up and cultural background, which they termed as ‘situated cognition. in addition, al.gomoul (2011) also stated that there are two activities needed to be considered in teaching writing dealing with relating to the social aspect building the context to establish a balance of fluency and accuracy and integrating the knowledge of the language skills. having conceptually and practically exploring the issue of writing of analytical and hortatory exposition, the researchers present the frame of thought. it is aimed to give a visualization of the discussion. this framework is also expected to control the description of the notion of this study. 30 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 figure 3. the frame of thought research method narrative inquiry has been implemented in this study to explore these identified problems. with the enquiry model of narrative, it has been embraced to understand the participants’ experiences in facing the problem of teaching hortatory and analytical exposition. as the study investigated the teachers in making interaction and relationships with their students, narrative inquiry was assumed to be the appropriate use as a research method to apply. it is because with narrative inquiry, the researcher will explore and expose how teachers handle the entire problems in their writing classroom (clandinin and connelly, 1995, 2000). with narrative inquiry, teachers can make a reflection of the complexity of life and experience through interaction from their personal and social situation, as well as persist their past, present and future condition they have experienced. with the meaning of conscious reflection, then teachers can improve their practical knowledge. additionally, narrative inquiry can help teachers not only explore the meaning of all of them but also structuring the power in their teaching experiences (bruner, 2000). since this research is positioned within a narrative understanding, thus participants involved in this research were teachers having experiences in teaching exposition and hortatory exposition writing. in addition, those who were willing to share their experiences in handling the problems. as it is assumed that different teachers have different stories to tell, therefore, this research only focused on how they traced the problems in teaching writing and how proposed the recommendation in their teaching practices. data collection needed in this study were interviews, observations and gathering the students’ writing. having collected the data needed, then the researcher compared patterns/themes of the problems during teaching analytical exposition and hortatory writing. the next step then interpreting them to make meaning from the pattern/themes based on the socio reflective approach. the data analysis is not a step by step procedure, but it was a simultaneous activity done during the initial analysis begun during the first interview or observation. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ afifah and sarudin 31 findings having read the stories from the participants; the findings are presented in the following parts. they are divided into two groups: conceptual and practical problems. the former deals with problems related to the text such as its social function, its generic structure, its linguistic features of the text, and the learning principles in teaching genrebased. the latter deals with substantial problems happening during the teaching process. those findings are presented and completed by direct quotations. conceptual problems in teaching hortatory and analytical exposition texts the fist finding is about the conceptual problem derived from the texts. the students still get confusion and difficulties in identifying the purpose of these two texts. since the texts have different generic structures and linguistics features, students get difficulties to identify. this finding can be traced from the following teacher’s story quotations. substantial problems in teaching hortatory and analytical exposition texts the second finding deals with vocabulary, grammar of the target language and expressing as well as ordering the argument. not being accustomed in expressing their arguments, students got difficulties in arranging their argument in analytical and hortatory 32 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 texts. furthermore, since students have limited general knowledge, it makes hard to propose the suggestion and reiteration in the end of hortatory and analytical exposition texts. since teaching and learning english have a close connection to the social context, then the students’ perception about seeing the text also influences their success in mastering these texts. here is the empirical evidence gained from the teachers’ narrative inquiry from yogyakarta public and private senior high schools teaching in social classes. the teachers also admitted that most of the students spend only limited time in reading. even, they recognized that even their students were poor in writing a paragraph. this can be traced from the following stories. as students have a low level of reading habit, they find learning the two texts is difficult. as consequently, the expression of the ideas and arguments are also awkward. it is a fact that writing both for analytical and hortatory texts needs not only ideas but also students’ knowledge. without having a good habit of reading, it will be difficult to express their argument as these texts demand them to explore and compare their reasons. another eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ afifah and sarudin 33 fact is the cultural gap between bahasa indonesia and english. it is strange for indonesian students to learn hortatory and analytical exposition since they only learn exposition text in bahasa indonesia. this difference brings other problems for students to put their ideas into a good order. moreover, before they are able to write both for analytical and hortatory exposition, they should master the concept of the text such as the purpose of the text, the generic structure, and the grammar that must be used when writing the text. teaching hortatory and analytical exposition texts are complicated for indonesian students. the students are still reluctant to convey their opinion. they are not sure of their own argument. the low level of confidence also supports the problem. it creates the process of practice analytical and hortatory become blocked. since the main point of teaching writing is helping the students express their idea, thus when they do not have ideas, the writing will never happen. in analytical and hortatory exposition, the main focus is how the students arrange their argument in the text and how they can propose the suggestion to the readers. the most prominent point in writing these text types, the students must strive themselves to read as much as possible to build their understanding and enrich their knowledge. the cultural factor also contributes to the difficulties of writing analytical and hortatory exposition. since the students have known that there is no separation in exposition when they learn bahasa indonesia, they need a longer time to understand those texts. the students must build their adaptation in comprehending the two different texts and it is not a simple thing for them. fortunately, based on the teacher’s story, there are some critical students who are curious to know much about the differences between the concept of exposition in bahasa indonesia and english. in this context, the teacher must be able to explain the content of the materials based on the students’ level of understanding. it is strange for indonesian students to learn hortatory and analytical exposition texts. it is due to the fact that students only learn exposition text in their primary language, bahasa indonesia. this difference brings other problems for students to put their ideas into a good order. moreover, before they are able to write both for analytical and hortatory exposition, they must understand the purpose of the text, the generic structure, and the grammar that must be used when writing the text. for indonesian teachers, teaching hortatory and analytical exposition for writing skills is complicated. it is because the students are reluctant to convey their opinion. it seems that they are not sure of their own argument and feel that they do not have something to say about the issues provided by the teachers in the classroom. on the other hand, some 34 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 teachers also recognized that the issues taken for the materials relate to the learners’ life. here is the quotation from the interview discussion adjusting conceptual problems based on the social context in general, base and the socio-perspective, the problems of learning and teaching hortatory and analytical text are caused by a content and a context of the culture. socioperspective in this discussion refers to the belief that problems found through the teachers’ inquiry are related to the social context. this idea is supported by stern (1991) that essentially, the process of teaching language and society cannot be separated as language and society are closely linked. the emerging problems are also assumed to be influenced by the social factors such as the aspects of the teacher and students’ social life background, the role of language in the society, and how students use the language in their life. in addition, content in the perspective of socio-perspective refers to the language or the text learnt by the students. hortatory and analytical texts are the product of genre pedagogies which represent their culture. according to genre-based approach, every text naturally encompasses its social function, generic structure, and lexico grammatical features. the assumption that writing will be more acceptable if students are aware of what the target culture’s mean are acceptable according to the belief. however, unfortunately many teachers teach those texts without contextualizing them to the cultural context. in connection to the theoretical-based, the empirical findings having a connection and influence each other are also influenced by the context where teachers and students build the context. the process of learning writing for analytical and hortatory exposition seems complicated because of the following reasons. first, it is because the students are not accustomed to expressing their arguments. this reflects the students’ habit and the context that has brought them. second, since the students have a low motivation to read any books they will never have sufficient information to share in their writing. this reason belongs to the students’ mindset that is also greatly influenced by the context where they live. this is obvious that teaching writing skill of analytical and hortatory exposition is difficult as the context where the teaching and learning happen does not support. from the social perspective, teaching writing should be initiated by building a context. with this effort, the teachers will be naturally involved and easily give a model to the students. being involved in the context, they can encourage the students to have a good constructive habit such as reading some information independently in order to feel curious to get new knowledge. the teachers must motivate the students to read then write what they have understood about the topic. teachers can help the students to write both for analytical and hortatory exposition texts by doing that strategy. it means that teachers will not only help the students in developing their linguistic competence but also communicative competence. add to this, teachers can motivate them to have writing habit, adopting positive values from culture provided by the text learned by them and finally to think critically. since teaching writing is aimed to help the students to produce a good text so students must be supported to write again and again as well as reading as much as possible. in line with this argument, bilal et al. (2013) also state that developing writing skills is a slow and gradual process with the way how they think. either conceptual or substantial problems which have emerged are caused by the cultural bias. the fact that most of students get a bit confused to distinguish the two genres eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ afifah and sarudin 35 is supported by the condition that they do not learn the genres in their native language. in addition, the students are not accustomed to express their arguments. in spite of the fact that in analytical and hortatory texts, the main points are presenting sequences of arguments in the body of the text. a complex cultural bias happens in this case as two different cultures collide. the culture represented by the text and the culture owed by the students. dealing with this phenomenon, moore (2003) called it as a culture-based difference. to sum up, the culture-based difference is the heart which creates that problem. the fact that students have low motivation on reading and on the other hand, the texts are the representation of the higher level of cultural society having a higher literature with a critical thinking has brought another problem. therefore, if the student finds it hard to propose the suggestion and make reiteration in the end of hortatory and analytical exposition texts, that is normal. it is due to the condition that students never have been trained in their real life with the context they find in the target texts. therefore, in teaching these two texts, teachers should touch the cultural aspect from the students’ sides. after this point can be handled then another problem such as lexicogrammatical features and vocabularies that are commonly used in those texts can be handled. the failures of teaching hortatory and analytical texts might happen, if the teachers do not touch the culture either derived from students or from the text. teachers should bring the two cultures in teaching and learning processes as the culture itself is represented in the text. from the perspective, stern (1991) as inspired by malinowski, explained that in language learning, context should be contextualized in student’s life where they lived. theoretically speaking, when culture is inserted into the learning process, it will be related to how the students use the language in their life, how they use the language in the interaction with their environment, and how students build their existence to the society with the text they have learned. based on the field note of the teachers’ story, writing hortatory and analytical exposition are regarded as the troublesome skill for some teachers and students. some existing researches which attempt to reveal wide range strategies in overcoming their obstacles in teaching writing have shown that writing skill demands a high effort both from teachers and students when they will do writing. this fact is also supported by williams, stathis, and gotsch’s (2008) finding that people are programmed to talk before they learn to read and write, and this holds true in second language teaching. the case is also supported by the real condition in our daily life that people spend much more time interacting orally with language rather than using language in its written form. brown (2004) also highlights that every aspect of everyday life for ‘common’ people was carried out orally. brown (2004) states that it is also fully understandable the difficulty of learning to write in any language, even in the native language. thus for teachers teaching writing should help the student to write. then when dealing with writing at least there are two things to be involved: linguistics aspects and communicative competence (bilal, et. all, 2013) and considering the cultural aspects. teaching of writing skill as a foreign language even bestows a great burden for the language learners. it is obvious that writing in the first language will be very different from the target language. it is in line with silva’s argument (1993) as cited by bilal, et. all, (2013) that learning a second language is usually different from the first language strategically, rhetorically and linguistically. add to this, she points out that a written assignment created by the second language learners was syntactically and semantically loose. regarding the previous arguments, some researchers such as hyland (2003), anees & raaxia (2007) in bilal, et. all, (2013) state that the differences between l1 and l2 also affect the learners' thinking ability supported by social and psychological factors. for social factors, it encompasses social status, family background whereas psychological factor covers motivational level and age. 36 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 investigating the substantial problems from the socio-reflective language is the essential factor in human to support their social life (stern, 1991). when learning the text, the linguistic features are automatically included in that text. however, students still find some problems in using grammar in that target language. to respond this problem, teachers should adopt the sociolinguistics perspective and psycholinguistic as suggested by some scholars such as from malinovsky and schumann as cited by stern (1991). by applying that theories, at least teachers will be able to adjust the context from the two cultures, conceptualizing the learning materials and principle learning during the teaching process. moreover, teachers will consider how the process of their students in acquiring and learning the new texts for them. by considering the cultural differences, teachers can design the language learning based on the classroom condition including the cultural background of the students. stern (1991) in this issue suggested to bring learning as a training rather than as a real communication or as an introduction of the real new foreign culture. in line to this, clark (2003) in bilal et al. (2013) who points out that learner must be taught a writing process can be adjusted as the process of building and forming and developing mental association with acquiring new culture through the existence of the text. from this point, it can be understood that in order to have and get new knowledge of the text and having a good writing ability including exploring and proposing the ideas as well as linguistic competences, students must invest a great time to learn and to immerse in the target culture without ignoring their culture. with this strategy, practicing the grammar and arranging their ideas in a good order can be easily done. naturally, learners will be able to select the appropriate words then put them in their appropriate position in the sentence. it is because their metal has been set based on the target culture. socio reflective in term of teachers’ teaching strategies in teaching hortatory and analytical exposition, teachers should implement a genrebased approach: building knowledge of the field, modelling of text, joint construction of text, and independent construction of text. however, teacher can integrate and considering the two social aspects such as culture represented from the text and students’ culture. teachers can take some issues relate to the students and school environment. additionally, in the first phase, teachers can stimulate some social aspects. for instance, like what bowkett’s (2009) suggestion, there are some activities that can support the habit of doing writing taken from some famous authors. bringing some public figures from the two culture such as the figure of ernest hemingway-sharpened pencils to get him in the mood to write, marcel proust-kept ripe apples on his desk. then the sweet smell of the apples triggered the creativity flow, anchors can be kinesthetic, olfactory (linked to smell), visual, auditory-or a blended these. those kinds of activities can be used by the teachers to motivate the students in order they will love learning to write. then for further learning and teaching activities in the classroom context, teachers can start the activities by doing prewriting to elicit the students’ idea in the phase of join construction of text. it is a must for teachers to build a friendly cultural atmosphere in the teaching process since writing activities deal with organizing ideas into readable text and a complex requirement of linguistic inputs. in addition, designing an interest based on the students’ social context is also necessary to do. by doing so, the listed problems in english writing classrooms will be successfully handled. it cannot be denied that teaching language means teaching how to shape the context of the lesson (kramsch, 1993). a student as an individual will be directly involved in the eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ afifah and sarudin 37 context and take an active participation. during the teaching process, the goal of the learning will be a fetus which controls the norm of interaction, learning activities, modalities and learning contents used as the primary resources. considering kramsch’s idea, dealing with the english writing skill, teachers will never be the single player roles and judge as well as the critical evaluator of the student's finished product. the students’ work will never be returned to students with some mistakes indicated or corrected. the legendary red pen which has always been a tool of the teacher’s trade as mcdonough & shaw (2003) will never happen. yet, writing will be the holistic teaching and learning process where teachers and students are learning together to adjust the target culture. the process of evaluating the students’ works will become the long and dynamic process to know each student's level of achieving the learning targets. the notion that writing will never happen when students have never been aware of the target culture and their own culture give strong impact in this teaching process. in order to help the learners to understand the culture and get ease to find the idea to develop, teachers can implement the principle of teaching offered by some approaches from the sociolinguistic perspective. teachers can relate the issues based on the student’s social background. in addition, teachers can pay attention to the class characteristics, the culture in the classroom. teachers can stimulate students’ ideas by relating the issues with the currents phenomena in their students’ life. hortatory and analytical exposition texts can be integrated by exploring the issues happening in the local context. however, it is not easy to find those texts used as modelling in the teaching process. in this case, teachers are required to create their own text to be used as the modelling text to their students. regarding the previous explanation, thus teaching hortatory and analytical exposition texts based on the genre-based is tricky. the students are trained to understand not only the typical text type and its characteristics but also the historical reason behind that fact. however, the texts are not easy to be found in their real life. on the other hand, students are demanded to understand and to do next level joint construction of text and do the independent construction of the text. therefore, students need a longer time to know and to understand the text. in addition, when they have finished writing their texts, peer writing or collaborative writing should also be conducted because those activities will stimulate the students to learn more and work together. furthermore, they can get a self-reflection. this idea is anchored to the fact that writing is a valuable skill, and by doing this, it will reinforce the other language skills. even it can help students to think critically. in line to the idea, hess (2001) explains that through writing, students will learn and improve other skills such as grammatical and vocabulary. through writing, teachers can help learners to internalize the cultural values they have learned from the texts and stimulate the learners’ way of thinking. by integrating the socio perspective, teaching writing of hortatory and analytical texts can enlarge the writing target. in addition, this can support the shifting from the preceding fidgetiness such as gilstrap (1991) who reported that more than 84% of the writing done in the secondary schools was extremely narrow. it is limited in audience to the audience, to the teacher as examiner, with the purpose to inform or report. in essence, most writing was for tests and reports or as transactional. he further explains that based on the research conducted, it is proven that in teaching writing, it is necessary for a teacher to make sure who the audiences of the writing are for. among the problems told by the teachers’ stories, an assessment was not touched by them in their field notes. on the other hand, it brings a crucial role in supporting teaching writing. theoretically speaking, the assessment should be taken into consideration. gilstrap (1991) proposed some points to be involved in the writing assessment such as the final product orientation and emphasizing on what and who is writing for. in line to that 38 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 postulate, actually writing assessment covers complex aspects such as things related to psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and pragmatics. those factors must be taken into account for the assessment. then to cover those things, in teaching hortatory and analytical exposition, teachers must support the awareness of doing writing activities, actively giving feedback, designing a meaningful writing assignment, building a student’s social context, as well as providing input or ideas before students start writing. conclusion having systematically explored the problem of teaching hortatory and analytical exposition texts based on a socio-reflective, the problems are grouped into two. a problem that relates to the text and to the substantial aspect of teaching and learning. having explored the finding based on the social phenomenon, content, and context cannot be discarded from the classroom environment. context refers to the things outside the text and content refers to the things inside the text. from the five stories gained from the five teachers, it can be understood that either teachers and students face the same problems. teaching and learning hortatory and analytical exposition texts is not easy. from the text itself, students get some difficulties in understanding the concept of the two texts (social function, generic structure, and lexicogrammatical features of the text). students’ confusion to distinguish the two genres is supported by the condition that they do not learn the genres in their primary language. therefore, it is about a cultural clash. in addition, another cultural clash is students are not accustomed to expressing their arguments. on the other hand, in analytical and hortatory texts, the main points are presenting sequences of arguments in the body of the text. the condition becomes worse when students have low motivation to read. consequently, it is hard for them to propose the suggestion and make the reiteration in the end of the texts. the last problem which is very common is dealing with lexicogrammatical features used in the text. realizing the interweaving conceptual and substantial problems faced by students, teachers are required to teach writing culturally and systematically. it can be started by presenting some cases related to the students’ social life then ask them to list some issues relating to the texts. when the students have known the purpose of the text, they will imagine and choose a topic that is appropriate to the function of the text. for the early steps, teachers might present some topics such as the issues that close to the students’ life. references alfatia, v., & al-hafizh, m. 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(eds) teaching reflective learning in higher education. springer, cham http://www.teacherwritingcenter.org/ english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 87-98 10.12928/eltej.v4i2.3964 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards online instruction throughout the covid-19 outbreak mustafa civelek a 1, işılay toplu b 2, levent uzun *c 3 a,b institute of education sciences, m.a. program in elt, bursa uludag university, turkey c english language teaching department, faculty of education bursa uludag university, turkey 1mustafacivelek179@gmail.com, 2isilaytoplu6@gmail.com, *3 ulevent@uludag.edu.tr * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 13 april 2021 revised 29 june 2021 accepted 21 august 2021 the purpose of the present study is to shed light on the attitudes of turkish efl teachers towards online instruction (oi), the impact of training on their attitudes, the obstacles they encounter, and the strategies to deliver oi more successfully throughout the covid-19 outbreak. the participants were 70 efl teachers (52 female, 18 male). the data was collected through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. the data were analyzed by using spss 26. descriptive statistics of each item was calculated and an independent sample t-test was conducted to answer the research questions. for the analysis of the interview data, the responses of the participants were transcribed and the recurring themes were identified. the results revealed that the attitudes of turkish efl teachers, who experienced online instruction during the covid-19 outbreak, are not as positive as expected regarding some of the results of the related research in the literature. the interview findings revealed that efl teachers do not feel capable of delivering online instruction effectively since they do not have adequate knowledge and necessary skills to do that. in view of the findings, it’s suggested that online instruction methodology should be integrated into teacher training programs and teachers should receive an in-service training about the related subject. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords online instruction attitudes efl obstacles perceptions how to cite: civelek, m., toplu, i., and uzun, l. (2021). turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards online instruction throughout the covid-19 outbreak. english language teaching educational journal, 4(2), 87-98 1. introduction in recent years, there has been growing recognition of the significance of distance education (de) with the advancement in technology. keegan (2002) defined de as “teaching and learning in which learning normally occurs in a different place from teaching” (p. 20). every teacher has more or less knowledge of implementing technology in her face-to-face classrooms. however, the distance educational contexts (dec) differ from the face-to-face environments in various ways such as interactional patterns, materials, methodologies, and techniques to be employed. dec can be divided into two categories: synchronous distance educational context (sdec) and asynchronous distance educational context (asdec). sdec refers to the virtual educational environments in which learners and teachers come together and become active participants of interaction. yet, learners and teachers are not required to be active participants in the learning and teaching process at the same time in asdec. instead, learners communicate with their teacher through asynchronous computermediated communication tools or are required to watch the recorded videos. http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:1mustafacivelek179@gmail.com,%202isilaytoplu6@gmail.com, mailto:ulevent@uludag.edu.tr http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i2.3964&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4304-4252 88 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 87-98 civelek, m., et.al (turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards online instruction) the development in information and communication technologies (ict) has attracted great attention of scholars in the field of language teaching and this led to the nascence of sub-fields such as computer-assisted language learning (call) and mobile-assisted language learning (mall). call and mall technologies provide both teachers and learners with online instructional tools to support the learning process in decs such as computer-mediated communication tools, virtual meeting environments, software, websites, and instant messaging tools. much research has been conducted to investigate the impact of online instruction (oi) on efl learners’ outcomes in various language areas (eslami et al., 2015; yen et al., 2015; altay & altay, 2017). the findings of these studies revealed that oi is quite valuable for language teaching. oi has been optional for language learners and teachers for a long time. however, it has become compulsory in almost all educational contexts after the covid-19 outbreak. like all the countries in the world, turkey is also affected by the outburst of the pandemic. after the announcement of the first pandemic case in turkey in march 2020, the turkish national ministry of education declared the change from face-to-face instruction to de at all levels from primary schools to graduate courses. in a short period, the turkish national ministry of education established three tv channels for educational purposes not to hinder the learning process of students and asked teachers to conduct online sessions with their students in virtual meeting environments such as zoom, skype, google meet, team link, and microsoft teams. this sudden shift from traditional classrooms to virtual learning environments helps learners maintain their language learning process. in addition to this, it has been noted that oi has supplied language learners with a variety of potentialities such as cooperating with their peers, enhancing their critical thinking skills, providing opportunities for innovative tasks, and increasing awareness about life-long learning in digital platforms (hazaymeh, 2021). moreover, teachers unintentionally replace traditional materials they use with more innovative multisensory materials. such materials are reported to contribute to learners’ language skills by motivating them, and making learning more concrete and fun (çelik-kormaz & karatepe, 2018; 2021). along with all these potentialities, this shift has brought about notable challenges for both language learners and teachers (hakim, 2020; khatoony & nezhadmehr, 2020; mathew et al., 2019; nenakhova, 2021). it would not be an exaggeration to claim that such obstacles may put too much stress on teachers, which is likely to impact their instructional practices and views regarding oi in a negative way. even though several studies had investigated the attitudes of efl teachers towards oi (osika, johnson & butea, 2009; dashtestani, 2014), they were mostly carried out with teachers who had little or no oi experience. the studies regarding the views of efl teachers about oi throughout the covid19 pandemic are scarce (housseine & rabha, 2020; nugroho & mutiaraningrum, 2020). due to the increasing significance of oi over the last two years, it has become compulsory for researchers to question efl teachers’ views and experiences in terms of oi. yet, such studies, to the authors’ knowledge, have not been conducted in turkish educational context. the studies conducted in the other parts of the world during the outbreak recommended covering methodologies and techniques regarding the implementation of oi in teacher training programs to cope with the anticipated challenges (khatoony & nezhadmehr, 2020; nugroho et al., 2021). thus, this paper intends to contribute to the growing body of literature by investigating how the turkish efl teachers with training on oi differ from the ones having no training in terms of their attitudes to this end. additionally, the present paper aims at shedding light on the obstacles the participants encounter during the covid-19 outbreak and their opinions about the strategies to deliver more successful oi. the call technologies enable language teachers to employ various tools to enhance the language learning process of their learners. yet, it is a challenging task for language teachers to use such tools in their teaching practices for the reason that they do not have adequate skills and knowledge to this end. in turkish efl teacher training programmes, there is a course named “education technologies” which focuses on the integration of technology for language instruction (www.yok.gov.tr). uzun (2016) argued that other courses offered in teacher training programmes in turkey fail to foster prospective teachers’ skills regarding technology use for instructional purposes. seeing this, is one course enough to equip prospective teachers with the necessary knowledge and skills to employ call technologies effectively for both face-to-face classrooms and decs? rizvi, rienties, and khoja (2019) emphasized that the number of people willing to become online learners is increasing. however, oi has been considered as a supplementary practice in respect to the issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 89 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 87-98 civelek, m., et.al (turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards online instruction) blended-classroom approach in english language teaching for a long time. surprisingly, it has become an inevitable part of every language teachers’ life because of the covid-19 outbreak. in such situations, oi can be useful to maintain language teaching and learning regardless of space and time. sun (2014) emphasized that it is uncommon to find research shedding light on fully online learning. yet, fully oi has drastically attracted great attention of researchers in the field with the outburst of the covid-19 pandemic. a significant number of studies about oi have brought attention to the opinions of efl teachers since it has been noted that teachers’ beliefs play a vital role in their instructional practices (carter & doyle, 1995). long before the pandemic, osika, johnson, and butea (2009) carried out a case study at chicago university to investigate the factors affecting faculty instructors’ decisions of whether or not to implement oi. they reported that perceptions of oi, the instructors’ past experiences regarding online technologies, and particular experiences at the university were core factors influencing instructors’ choice in terms of oi. the findings indicated that nearly half of the instructors believed that oi was not as effective as traditional classes. the reasons behind these instructors’ negative beliefs about online classes were the learners’ inability to use online tools and technological problems. on the other hand, flexibility and success with previously used technologies were among the factors that motivated the teachers to deliver oi. similarly, belanger and jordan (2000) also advocated that distance learning increases flexibility. in another research, dashtestani (2014) unravelled the attitudes of efl teachers towards oi, the possible obstacles of oi, and efl teachers’ perceptions about the strategies to include more oi in iran. in view of the analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data, it was reported that although efl teachers mostly held positive attitudes towards oi, they preferred blended instruction over fully oi. they also expressed some challenges that language teachers might encounter while delivering oi such as lack of online resources and facilities, learners’ negative attitudes towards oi, and efl teachers’ inadequate knowledge in terms of oi. they also suggested that authorities should take all necessary steps to improve the quality of oi since it was an inevitable component of the educational contexts of the near future. in addition, atmojo and nugroho (2020) underscored the significance of teacher training for technology integration to deliver effective oi. since teachers are mostly the main source of information in educational contexts where english is taught and learned as a foreign language, their beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge play a vital role in the way they implement oi. learners’ attitudes towards oi have also been a topic of interest in the field. for example, erarslan and zehir-topkaya (2017) examined both the opinions of efl learners about oi and their outcomes through an online english course. their findings indicated that the learners adopted partly positive attitudes towards oi. some of them positioned oi as an optional-extra in their language learning process. additionally, the learners’ exam results documented that their online exam results were relatively low when compared to face-to-face classes. considering the findings of this research, it can be concluded that the attitudes of learners are as important as teachers’ attitudes to achieve successful outcomes in oi. more recent research regarding oi has drawn attention to efl teachers’ and learners’ views, their practices, and the challenges they encounter throughout the covid-19 outbreak in this regard. for illustration, housseine and rabha (2020) conducted a study to investigate the attitudes of efl teachers towards de and the challenges they experience during the covid-19 outbreak in morocco. it was seen in the research that 98% of the teachers delivered online sessions by employing various instant messaging or virtual meeting tools such as whatsapp, facebook, google classroom, and zoom, etc. the results indicated that most of the participants held positive attitudes towards oi; however, they also reported a variety of challenges they experienced during their online sessions such as technical issues, managerial issues, lack of student interest and interaction, and unsatisfactory knowledge of teachers. in the light of the findings, it can be concluded that there is still a lot to be improved for more effective oi to take place. similarly, nugroho and mutiaraningrum (2020) conducted a case study to explore non-native efl instructors’ beliefs about digital learning and their instructional practices during covid-19 pandemic at a public university in indonesia. the participants were selected based on 2 criteria: (1) having at least three years of experience, and (2) integrating digital tools in their teaching practices. their findings revealed that the instructors were aware of the significance of digital learning. yet, they reported some personal and contextual challenges which prevented them from carrying out their 90 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 87-98 civelek, m., et.al (turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards online instruction) beliefs. some of these challenges were poor internet connection, lack of time and resources to prepare the most efficient materials for distance learning, teachers’ lack of training regarding oi and teaching efficacy. the researchers suggested that the professional development of teachers is required to be enhanced through training on technology integration to increase the quality of oi. additionally, khatoony and nezhadmehr (2020) aimed to find out the effectiveness of oi and the challenges that graduate and undergraduate iranian efl teachers came across during covid-19 pandemic. the study revealed that although the teachers adopted positive views on the integration of technology, they had some challenges such as the lack of suitable materials, students’ demotivation, and inadequate support for language institutions. it was also pointed out that various technologies could be rewarding to miniaturize the distance between instructors and learners in such situations like pandemics. likewise, atmojo and nugroho (2020) investigated the challenges of oi during the covid-19 outbreak in their study. they reported that the problems were related to the teachers, students, and parents. one of the reasons was financial factor. the parents could not afford a smartphone or they did not have an internet connection in their homes. moreover, the learners were not equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to use digital devices and they could not comprehend the instructions. not only students but also teachers had difficulty in implementing online classes because of inadequate experience and preparation. another challenge mentioned in the study is the inadequacy of time allocated to the teachers. it was concluded in the study that oi is not regarded as successful due to the lack of preparation and planning. in another study (lassoued et al.,2020), the challenges for succeeding in quality in oi are categorized as personal, pedagogical, technical, and financial. apart from the research mentioned previously in this section, the studies regarding oi during the pandemic also focused on the views of efl learners, their learning experiences, and obstacles they come across (for example; allo, 2020; almusharraf & khahro, 2020; octoberlina & muslimin, 2020; pasaribu & dewi, 2021). pasaribu and dewi (2021) highlighted the significance of oi to improve learners’ engagement and autonomy. allo (2020) demonstrated that efl learners perceive oi helpful during the covid-19 outbreak. yet, it has been noted that they encountered some obstacles throughout their online learning experiences such as lack of experience regarding e-learning, physical issues, and heavy internet connection (octaberlina & muslimin, 2020). this paper aims to investigate the attitudes of efl teachers towards oi, the obstacles they encounter during their instructional practices, and the strategies to include oi more effectively. as different from the studies conducted before, this paper examines the impact of training on teachers’ attitudes regarding oi since many researchers recommended teacher training as a solution to cope with the issues in this respect (dashtestani, 2014; aliyyah et al., 2020; atmojo & nugroho,2020; khatoony & nezhadmehr, 2020; nugroho & mutiaraningrum, 2020). the present study aims to reveal the answers to the following questions; (1) what are the attitudes of turkish efl teachers, who had the experience of de throughout the covid-19 outbreak, towards oi? (2) is there a significant difference between the attitudes of turkish efl teachers who had learned about implementing oi during their academic studies and the ones who hadn’t? (3) what are the opinions of turkish efl teachers, who had the experience of de throughout the covid-19 outbreak, on the obstacles of oi? (4) what are the perceptions of turkish efl teachers, who had the experience of de throughout the covid-19 outbreak, on the strategies that should be employed for the integration of oi in turkey? 2. method this study was based on a mixed-method design that was defined as “the collection, analysis, and integration of quantitative and qualitative data in a single or multiphase study” (hanson et al., 2005, p. 224). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 91 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 87-98 civelek, m., et.al (turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards online instruction) 2.1 participants the participants of this study were 70 turkish efl teachers (52 female, 18 male) teaching different age groups (see table 1). the participants’ teaching experience varied from 1 to 26 years which meant the study involved both novice and experienced efl teachers. their ages ranged from 22 to 50. all of the participants received formal education at ba level (at least) to teach english. however, 57.1 % of the participants have not received education on the use of educational technologies for oi during their academic studies. table 1. demographic information about participants workplace female male primary school 11 3 middle school 14 6 high school 19 6 university 6 2 freelance 2 1 total 52 18 2.2 instruments and data collection procedure 2.2.1 questionnaire the questionnaire developed by dashtestani (2014) was adapted and employed for data collection. dashtestani’s study was conducted with efl teachers with little or no oi experience, thus employing this questionnaire enabled the researchers to compare the results of efl teachers who had little or no oi experience and the ones who had. few changes were made to the questionnaire statements to make it more useful to investigate the perspectives of turkish efl teachers who had the experience of oi throughout the covid-19 outbreak. the changes included the wording of the questionnaire, and the deletion of two items to make the data collection tool served the purpose of the study. the final version of the questionnaire consisted of 32 items. the questionnaire included three subscales: (1) attitudes of efl teachers towards oi, (2) obstacles of oi, and (3) strategies to include oi in efl teaching. the modified version of the questionnaire was given to two experts in order to establish content validity. furthermore, it was piloted with 15 efl teachers who were not the actual participants of the current study so as to evaluate the clarity of the items. the first sub-scale provided the researchers with the answers of research questions 1 and 2; the second one to research question 3; and the third one to research question 4. the questionnaire was presented in google forms format and the url was shared with the participants via whatsapp and they were kindly asked to fill out the questionnaire and share it with their colleagues. snowball sampling was employed as the sampling strategy. snowball sampling is efficient at times when it is difficult to access participants (cohen et al., 2007). the data was collected during the covid-19 outbreak so it was difficult to employ other data collection strategies. 2.2.2 interview protocol after the analysis of the questionnaire data, 10 participants who mostly demonstrated negative attitudes towards oi were invited to take part in the interview protocol. since efl teachers showed highly positive opinions about oi in the previous study (dashtestani, 2014), “a semi-structured interview” (cohen et al., 2007, p.361) was employed to explore the reasons behind the participants’ negative attitudes towards oi. the following open-ended questions were addressed to the interviewees in turkish; (1) why do you think oi is not as effective as face-to-face instruction in efl courses? (2) what are the challenges of oi you experience in your lessons? 92 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 87-98 civelek, m., et.al (turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards online instruction) (3) do you think you have adequate skills to implement oi? (4) what can be done to include oi more effectively in efl courses in turkey? 2.3 data analysis the questionnaire data were analysed by using spss 26. the cronbach’s alpha values of each sub-scale were calculated and they were found to be reliable. the cronbach’s alpha values of each scale is presented in table 2. table 2. sub-scales and their cronbach’s alpha scores scale number of items cronbach’s alpha score attitudes of efl teachers towards oi 16 0.88 obstacles of oi in efl 11 0.84 strategies to include oi in efl 5 0.71 in order to answer research questions 1, 3, and 4, descriptive statistics were calculated and presented in tables. to find out whether there is a significant difference between the teachers who had been taught about educational technologies to be employed for oi and the ones who hadn’t, an independent sample t-test, which is a parametric test, was conducted since the normality test results revealed that skewness and kurtosis values were between +1.5 and -1.5 which means the data was normally distributed (tabachnick & fidell, 2013). for the analysis of the interview data, content analysis was employed. the responses of the participants were transcribed and recurring themes were identified. the findings were presented in a table in which each interviewee was given a number rather than their names for anonymity considerations. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 findings research question 1 was constructed to investigate the attitudes of turkish efl teachers, who experienced oi during the covid-19 outbreak, towards oi. to this end, the descriptive statistics of the participants’ responses to the questionnaire items were presented in table 3. the results presented in table 3 revealed that turkish efl teachers, who experienced oi throughout the covid-19 outbreak, showed positive attitudes towards oi in terms of the use of multimedia, availability of various materials, its impact on learners’ and teachers’ computer competence, and cost-effectiveness. however, they maintained undecided or demonstrated negative attitudes towards other aspects of oi. while the use of multimedia in oi received the highest score in the questionnaire (m= 4.55), the participants significantly disagreed that oi provides equal opportunities for all learners (m= 2.30). to get in-depth information about the reasons why efl teachers had negative attitudes towards oi, 4 open-ended questions were asked to 10 participants. the interview findings supported the questionnaire results as seen in table 4. research question 2 aimed at revealing whether there is a significant difference between the attitudes of turkish efl teachers, who had been taught about educational technologies to be employed in oi and the ones who hadn’t. to this end, an independent sample t-test was conducted. the t-test results demonstrated a significant difference (p = .002 < 0.05, cohen’s d= 0.44) . furthermore, the ttest result indicated that the participants who had been taught about the educational technologies (m= 3.51) hold more positive attitudes towards oi than the ones who hadn’t (m=3.01) as seen in table 5. to answer research question 3 regarding the obstacles that teachers experienced during oi throughout the covid-19 pandemic, the descriptive statistics data of the questionnaire items regarding the obstacles of oi are presented in table 6. the findings demonstrated in table 6 revealed that each questionnaire statement, which was presented in the subscale regarding obstacles of oi, was recognised as an obstacle more or less by turkish efl teachers. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 93 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 87-98 civelek, m., et.al (turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards online instruction) table 3. turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards oi scale percent (%) mean sd disagree undecided agree students become more autonomous in online efl courses 27.1 35.7 37.2 3.14 1.20 online efl courses enhance students’ motivation 55.7 25.7 18.6 2.51 1.17 online efl courses are time-efficient 28.6 25.7 45.7 3.35 1.09 authentic materials are used in online efl courses 20.0 35.7 44.3 3.38 1.17 learners can communicate internationally in online efl courses 24.3 31.4 44.3 3.31 1.24 online efl courses are based on learner-centred approaches to teaching 38.6 30.0 31.4 2.92 1.14 online efl courses are easily accessible to students 42.8 12.9 44.3 2.97 1.34 multimedia can be used in online efl courses 1.4 7.1 91.5 4.55 0.69 various types of materials can be used in online efl courses 8.6 17.1 74.3 4.08 0.97 online efl courses are cost-effective 12.8 24.3 62.9 3.72 1.12 online efl courses promote students’ and teachers’ computer competence 4.3 12.9 87.2 4.25 0.89 online efl courses provide equal opportunities for learners to learn english 61.4 18.6 20.0 2.30 1.27 online efl courses promote collaboration among students 55.7 28.6 15.7 2.44 1.07 expansive feedback can be provided for students in online efl courses 24.3 28.6 37.1 3.08 1.11 online efl courses are easy to be implemented 30.0 28.6 41.4 3.17 1.14 online efl courses are more interactive than traditional courses 58.6 18.6 22.8 2.45 1.33 table 4. reasons of participants for their negative attitudes towards oi reason for negative attitudes towards oi participants i don’t have adequate knowledge and skills about educational technologies p1, p2, p3, p4, p5, p7 students are not eager to participate in online sessions p1, p2, p4, p7, p9 it’s difficult to check whether students understand the lesson content p1, p2, p4 i can’t make sure whether all the students listen to me p2, p4, p8, p9 it is difficult to attract learners’ attention in online sessions p2, p3, p4, p10 it is difficult to teach lower-level learners online. p1, p4, p5 it is mostly “teacher to whole class” interaction in oi p1, p2, p3, p9 each student doesn’t have access to the necessary equipment to participate in online sessions p1, p6, p7, p9 virtual meeting applications i use for oi lack some features of face-to-face classrooms p3, p5, p8, p9, p10 students do not have the necessary skills for oi. p2, p6 94 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 87-98 civelek, m., et.al (turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards online instruction) table 5. independent samples t-test results groups n x ̄ sd t p 1st group 30 3,51 0.77 3.15 .002 2nd group 40 3,01 0.54 table 6. obstacles of oi scale percent (%) mean sd disagree undecided agree there is a lack of online facilities in efl courses 28.5 27.1 44.2 3.21 1.24 students lack the necessary internet-based skills to participate in online elt courses 27.1 37.1 35.7 3.24 1.18 there are cultural resistances to the implementation of online efl teaching 30.0 24.3 45.7 3.25 1.20 there is a lack of interaction in online efl courses 22.9 18.6 58.6 3.55 1.28 students do not have positive attitudes towards online efl courses 28.5 18.6 52.9 3.47 1.17 online efl courses are just appropriate for autonomous students 25.7 21.4 52.9 3.47 1.20 there is not much teacher supervision over students in online efl courses 30.3 25.7 50.0 3.37 1.28 online efl courses are not responsive to students’ needs 31.5 31.4 37.1 3.17 1.12 online efl teaching is costly to be implemented in tefl contexts 27.2 44.3 28.6 3.04 0.90 online efl courses place a lot of demands on efl teachers 12.9 27.1 60.0 3.70 1.05 online efl courses are not motivating for students 25.7 24.3 50.0 3.41 1.24 regarding research question 4 asking the perspectives of efl teachers about strategies to integrate oi, the descriptive statistics of the related subscale were calculated and presented in table 7. as the numbers in table 7 indicate, efl teachers had positive perceptions about the oi integration strategies such as improving online facilities in efl courses, providing both students and teachers with training on the use of educational technologies, combining face-to-face efl courses with online ones, training efl teachers on online efl teaching methodologies. however, they strongly rejected the idea of replacing face-to-face efl courses with online ones. table 7. strategies to integrate oi in efl courses scale percent (%) mean sd disagree undecided agree computer-based and online facilities should be improved in efl courses 4.3 5.7 90.0 4.45 0.84 students and teachers should receive training on online computer literacy skills 5.7 4.3 90.0 4.48 0.88 online efl courses should be combined with face-to-face efl courses 8.6 15.7 75.7 4.11 1.13 efl teachers should receive training on online efl teaching methodologies 5.8 7.1 87.1 4.48 0.95 online efl courses should replace the traditional efl courses 64.3 22.9 12.8 2.15 1.22 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 95 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 87-98 civelek, m., et.al (turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards online instruction) 3.2 discussion this paper is an attempt to investigate the attitudes of turkish efl teachers towards oi, the challenges they encounter, and their perceptions about the strategies to implement oi in efl courses during the covid-19 outbreak. firstly, the study aimed to explore the attitudes of turkish efl teachers towards oi. the interview and questionnaire indicated that even though turkish efl teachers have positive attitudes towards oi, they are not found to be as positive as the ones demonstrated in the study of dashtestani (2014). however, the findings of this study are in line with some other studies (aliyyah et al., 2020; atmojo & nugroho, 2020; nugroho & mutiaraningrum, 2020). that is, the studies conducted with the inexperienced teachers regarding oi revealed more positive attitudes than the ones conducted with efl teachers with oi experience during the covid-19 outbreak. therefore, the reason behind the differences among the findings of the related studies may be the period in which they were conducted. the quantitative results also revealed that efl teachers disagree that oi provides equal opportunities for each student. secondly, the study questioned whether there is a statistically significant difference between the attitudes of efl teachers who were trained about oi and the ones who weren’t. the results revealed that training had a positive impact on the participants’ attitudes towards oi. the significance of teacher training on effective oi has been argued in the previous research, and it was recommended for teacher training programs to revisit their curriculums to equip teacher candidates with necessary knowledge and skills for more effective oi (dashtestani, 2014; atmojo &nugroho, 2020; lassoued et al.,2020; nugroho & mutiaraningrum, 2020). the findings of this study supported these recommendations with an analytic ground. the qualitative findings provided rich information about the reasons behind efl teachers’ negative attitudes towards oi. teachers’ inadequate knowledge and skills, lack of facilities in virtual meeting programs, demotivation, and lack of interaction and collaboration among students are the most frequently expressed reasons by the participants and these challenges were reported in the previous research (atmojo & nugroho, 2020; khatoony& nezhadmehr, 2020; aliyyah et al., 2020; housseine & rabha, 2020). considering the third research question, the obstacles of oi have been investigated. the quantitative results were in support of the above mentioned qualitative ones. sepulveda-escobar and morrison (2020) also emphasized the lack of interaction in oi. as opposed to these studies, khatoony and nezhadmehr (2020) reported that oi increases the interaction between students and their teacher. however, the demotivation of the students is stated as a negative side of oi in some studies (khatoony and nezhadmehr, 2020; housseine & rabha, 2020). the fourth research question asked teachers’ perceptions of strategies to include oi more effectively in efl courses. the results revealed that they strongly disagree with the replacement of face to face classes with oi. similarly, it was seen in osika, johnson, and butea’s (2009) study that most of the teachers believe that online courses are not equivalent to traditional classrooms. however, efl teachers in the study strongly support the incorporation of the training regarding oi into teacher training programs to implement oi more effectively. 4. conclusion with the outburst of the covid-19 pandemic, teachers are required to replace their face-to-face lessons with online lessons unpredictably. in the literature review, it is emphasized that the attitudes of efl teachers towards oi have a vital role for successful oi to take place. the present study provides rich information about turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards oi, the challenges they experience, and their perceptions about the strategies to integrate oi in efl courses more successfully. the findings revealed that turkish efl teachers do not have positive attitudes towards the implementation of oi for most of the aspects of oi. the most common reasons behind their negative attitudes can be listed as (1) teachers’ inadequate knowledge and skills about educational technologies, (2) lack of students’ motivation to participate in online sessions, (3) the shortcomings of virtual meeting applications, (4) lack of interaction in online sessions, and (5) some students’ inadequate access to necessary equipment for successful online learning to take place. the findings also indicated that the efl teachers, who had been taught about the educational technologies to be employed in oi, have more positive attitudes towards oi. 96 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 87-98 civelek, m., et.al (turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards online instruction) it can be concluded that most of the efl teachers in turkey do not have adequate knowledge and necessary skills to conduct online lessons. therefore, it is suggested that oi methodologies should be integrated into teacher training programs and current teachers should receive an in-service training on oi. most of the challenges and the reasons behind teachers’ negative attitudes towards oi can simply be overcome when they have the necessary knowledge and skills in this regard. limitations and suggestions for further research one limitation of this paper is that the number of participants in the two groups was not equal to each other. the number of participants who received training on the use of educational technologies for oi during their academic studies was less than the ones who didn’t. even though a significant difference was found between the attitudes of the two groups towards oi, the effect size was found to be low. if the number of participants had been equal in each group, the test could have provided more generalizable results, maybe with a higher effect size. therefore, more studies should be conducted to investigate the impact of teacher training for oi methodologies on the attitudes 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(2016). the educational and technical courses in the elt program in turkey: do they contribute to ict skills? cogent education, 3(1), 1141454. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2016.1141454 https://doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v22.20142 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2014.09.008 http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.9n.5p.33 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.52.2.224 https://doi.org/10.29333/iji.2021.14329a http://dx.doi.org/10.36892/ijlls.v2i3.326 http://dx.doi.org/10.37134/ajelp.vol8.sp.1.2020 https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10090232 https://doi.org/10.29408/veles%20journal.v5i1.3258 https://doi.org/10.30659/e.5.2.304-321 https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v9n6p1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.04.001 https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1820981 https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2014.891428 https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2016.1141454 98 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 87-98 civelek, m., et.al (turkish efl teachers’ attitudes towards online instruction) yen, y. c., hou, h. t., & chang, k. e. (2015). applying role-playing strategy to enhance learners’ writing and speaking skills in efl courses using facebook and skype as learning tools: a case study in taiwan. computer assisted language learning, 28(5), 383-406. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2013.839568 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2013.839568 microsoft word 3 ahmad budairi.docx english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 180-190 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.7650 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id intertextuality as semiotic mediation for youth’s enactment of agency and identity in everyday digital literacy practices ahmad budairi jl. kapas no.9, semaki, kec. umbulharjo, kota yogyakarta, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55166 budairi@pbi.uad.ac.id a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 20 september 2022 revised 26 october 2022 accepted 25 november 2022 the purpose of this research is to investigate the practice of intertextuality of farah (pseudonym) a 20-year-old female university student who engaged in a variety of culturally shaped digital literacy practices. in particular, it seeks to elucidate how farah’s practice of intertextuality serves as a semiotic mediation for her exercise and enactment of agency and identity during her everyday literacy practice on instagram. this research was framed as a case study design with a connective ethnography approach specifically suited to the online environment and digital communication where the researcher’s physical presence as an observer is no longer required. data were collected by means of digital media and technology such as whatsapp message service, informal phone interviews, and online observation. the collected data comprised online snapshots of quote bots, pictures, drawings and comments that farah produced and shared as part of her everyday digital literacy practice. the data analysis entailed examination of farah’s practice of intertextuality through the lens of sociocultural perspective on text production and interpretation. the findings revealed that farah’s use of quote bots and doodles posted on instagram involved the act of borrowing texts from other sources as well as mixing english with indonesian language. farah’s practice of intertextuality was pre-mediated, calculated and purposeful, allowing her to engage in digital authorship involving creativity, improvisation and consciousness as ingredients of agency. in the same vein, farah’s practice of intertextuality allowed her to author the self as a contemplative religious individual. the research concluded with an appeal to policy makers and educational practitioners to respond to the learners’ changing learning landscape by re-defining the way we view learners/students, from merely a recipient of knowledge to an individual who has agency, identity and funds of knowledge that have to be acknowledged and appreciated in any process of curriculum design and its implementation on a daily basis. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords digital literacy practice intertextuality agency identity how to cite: budairi, a. (2022). intertextuality as a semiotic mediation for youth’s enactment of agency and identity in everyday digital literacy practice. english language teaching educational journal, 5 (3), 180-190. 1. introduction this study investigates a particular discursive practice on social media known as intertextuality. it explores how such type of text production as part of digital literacy practice serves as semiotic mediation for agency and l2 identity construction of a 20-year-old female university student learning to practice and develop english skills. the idea for this research originates in the fact that digital communication mediated through a variety of social media has become a commonplace practice among young people. it allows them to engage in a variety of culturally shaped everyday digital literacy practices such as posting a comment on twitter, writing a status on instagram, and 181 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 180-190 budairi, a. (intertextuality as a semiotic mediation for youth’s enactment.....) participating in an online discussion. these are few examples of digital literacy practices that have figured into everyday life of young people today (buckingham & willet, 2006). this new reality has raised some questions as to what it means for young people to engage in literacy practice in digital era, how digital communication disrupts the traditional view of literacy, from merely technical to socio cultural, and what implications digital space brings to learning as traditionally conceptualized. while digital technology and media has benefited youth in many respects, it has also been argued that the ‘fast come and go’ nature of digital media deprives youth of the necessity to develop literacy skills normally required to engage in academic discourse, resulting in what is termed as ‘low literacy’ (bauerline, 2008). the public debate around the impact of digital media on youth literacy development signifies the need to re-conceptualize literacy in ways that capture the changing landscape of learning context. the traditional view of literacy can no longer suffice to elucidate the different ways literacy takes place in digital space. in the field of second language acquisition (sla), a similar question might be asked as to what constitutes communication in english, and what is deemed legitimate or illegitimate in regard to the use of english on digital platforms involving the production and dissemination of text (jewitt, 2020). by the same token, digital literacy practices allow young people to gain knowledge and skills in ways that differ considerably from traditional classroom-based instruction. literacy practice taking place beyond classroom has been well documented in many ethnographic studies focusing on youth everyday literacy practice. a substantial number of research studies have revealed how youth takes advantage of out-of-school learning affordances as a spin-off from everyday social interaction in a much more natural and liberating ambience (kress, 1997; ito et al., 2010; hull & schultz, 2002; gee, 2003, 2008). a case study conducted by lam (2009) of a teenager engaging in writing on the internet revealed some interesting facts about digital literacy practice. the teenager, a chinese immigrant named almond who emigrated from hk to usa at the age of 12, had gone through hard times in his early years as he had to cope with difficulties in learning english in esl classroom. he reveals a sense of his marginalized position in society and a perception that his inability to speak english like a native speaker will hinder his prospects in life. english both signifies and constitutes his feeling of not belonging. however, after attending an introductory class on email and browsing for information, he continued to look up different websites for tutorial on how to make personal homepages and engage in online chats. since then, his digital literacy practice had expanded to include making personal homepages where he made use of multimodalities, compiling on-line chat mates from around the world as well as starting to write regularly to a few email pen pals. the aforementioned studies speak volumes of the different nature of out of school literacy as compared to traditional classroom instruction. in most cases, such literacy allows for meaningful interaction and participation in a community of practice that grows naturally in the absence of authoritative figures and formal instruction. the goal of literacy shifts from attaining knowledge through instruction as commonly conceived in school to ‘sustained participation in the social and cultural practice’ (new london group, 1996). consequently, literacy as social practice encompasses a range of social purposes, social identities and power relations. in the context of second language acquisition, it is worth investigating how language learners’ participation in digital literacy practices are built around both social purposes and learning. as english has become the most prevalent language of online platforms, l2 learners may take advantage by participating in an online community which allows them to establish social interaction while learning to develop their english skills. indonesia ranks fifth globally in terms of the number of internet users (internet world stats, 2018) and third after saudi arabia and india in annual growth of social media users (smart insights, 2018). this emerging digital landscape has compelled us to raise a question as to how young people, especially in indonesia, incorporate digital media technology into their everyday lives to mediate their social interaction. similarly, against the long binary categorization of l2 learners as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘proficient’ and ‘deficient’, that has caused frenzy among students in many educational contexts in indonesia, it stands to reason that students in indonesia might be able to make use of affordances outside of academic context in ways that strengthen their identity as l2 learners and contribute to their literacy development. hence, this research study seeks to investigate l2 learner’s practice of intertextuality during participation in digital literacy practices in ways that serve as a semiotic mediation for the enactment of agency and construction of l2 identity. more specifically, this research aimed to achieve the following objectives: 1) to identify the participant’s everyday literacy practices on instagram, 2) to describe the participant’ practice of manifest intertextuality and issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 182 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 180-190 budairi, a. (intertextuality as a semiotic mediation for youth’s enactment.....) interdiscursivity, and 3) to examine the link between the practice of intertextuality, agency and l2 identity 1.1. intertextuality and literacy practice intertextuality is one of the many forms of literacy practice that has been known to characterize young people’s engagement in digitally mediated literacy practice. the term refers to the interconnectedness between a text and other texts as a foundation for the production and interpretation of texts (bazerman, 2010; emerson & holquist, 1986; kristeva, 1986). intertextuality holds significance in helping us understand the purpose and meaning of any given literacy practice. as echoed by bakhtin (1981), any given utterance is always populated with intention and emotionalvolitional tone of the speaker; it always has dialogic orientation. there are two different types of intertextualities: ‘manifest intertextuality’ and ‘interdiscursivity’. as pointed out by fairclough (1992), ‘manifest intertextuality’ refers to parts of text which can be traced to an actual source in another text. this type of intertextuality is marked by direct quotation or hypertexts. ‘interdiscursivity’, on the other hand, involves patterns of language use, genres, discourses, and styles in the production and interpretation of text that do not explicitly reveals the interconnectedness between different texts. in this research, both forms of intertextuality were understood as representing youth’s creativity in using language while allowing them to project a sense of the self in an online community. 1.2. semiotic mediation vygotsky (1978) was primarily interested in the process of “semiotic mediation” and the development of voluntary control over human behavior, through higher mental functioning mediated by social and cultural devices. culturally and socially constructed signs and tools— according to vygotsky—provide people with the means to alter their behavior, their social environment, and their cognitive, emotional, and psychological development. these cultural devices are part of systems of meaning that are collectively formed and sociohistorical in nature. holland, lachicotte, skinner & chain (1998) propose that these devices can be seen as tools for agency: vygotsky’s exposition of semiotic mediation as a means to agency gives us a good vantage on the social and historical creation of identities as means to self-activity. ‘heuristic development’ clearly directs attention away from the extremes of cultural determination on the one hand and situational totalitarianism on the other (vygotsky, 1978). vygotsky suggested that individuals use socially-created symbols and symbol systems as cultural tools to mediate our interactions with others and our social surroundings (souza-lima & emihovich, 1995; vygotsky, 1978, 1987; wertsch, 1991). cultural tools, such as words, forms of speech, forms of literacy, art, and scientific concepts, are socially specific in their making an meaning; they are social in origin and carry with them a historical legacy of meaning. cultural tools are external “objects” gained through social interaction and structured by their history of previous use. semiotic mediation via cultural tools is generative. from our social interactions with others within a particular sociohistorical environment, we take up tools and then use them to assign meaning to stimuli. we use tools to make meaning and to communicate meaning to others and ourselves as we negotiate our way through our social worlds. 2. method to allow for a close investigation of the participants’ particular aspects of everyday life and cultural practices, this research project adopted a case study design with ethnographic perspective. traditionally, ethnographic research is an interpretive process that typically involves a combination of methods, most commonly participant observation and interviews, with the purpose of understanding how people make sense of particular practices, behaviors and activities in everyday settings (watson-gegeo, 1988). it may also involve staying in a physical location for a substantial period of time to engage in and understand the culture under study (leander, 2008). however, as the notion of culture has shifted, from a bounded structure in a physical location to culture as a process (cazden, 2000), ethnographic studies of culture need not be confined to a singular location. rather, ethnography can be expanded to the investigation of cultural practices across multiple spaces or places. hence, the ethnographic approach adopted for this research can be best described as connective ethnography. this method assumes that people routinely build connections between online practices 183 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 180-190 budairi, a. (intertextuality as a semiotic mediation for youth’s enactment.....) and offline practices (leander, 2008), thus blurring the boundaries between online/offline, virtual/real, and cyberspace/physical space. 2.1. research participants the participants for this study were selected using a purposive sampling. this technique was chosen as it was considered useful for the identification and selection of information-rich cases for the most effective use of limited resources (patton, 2002). i purposefully selected second-semester university students of non-english major from the faculty of pharmacy. all of the participants had previously learned english in secondary and high schools for a total of 6 years. during their first semester, they were also enrolled in a compulsory general english course (a 2-credit point unit). as many as twenty students expressed interest by signing a letter of consent to participate with a shared understanding that they would be required to report their everyday literacy practices on digital platforms. however, as the data collection unfolded, the number of participants was narrowed down to six who were selected as focal participants. out of these six participants, there was one particular case of farah (pseudonym) that was further investigated as she proactively shared her digital literacy practices which contain most instances of intertextuality. 2.2. data collection tools this research employs a number of data collection tools such as informal semi-structured interview, whatsapp message service, and online observation. 1) informal semi-structured interview the semi-structured interview was conducted to gain in-depth understanding of how the participants perceive, think and feel about their engagement in everyday literacy practices mediated by and through english language. the semi-structured interview format enabled me to ask open-ended questions with little control over the participants’ responses (mcmillan & schumacher, 2010). the questions i asked centered around the purposes underlying each literacy event that the participants engaged in 2) whatsapp message service the use of whatsapp message service proved to be extremely useful in my research both during and post data collection process. it was through whatsapp message service that the participants shared snapshots of their online activities on instagram. out of the six focal participants, farah was selected to be a case study as she was the one who consistently responded to my questions and requests over a period of one month and a half. also, she was most willing to share snapshots of her digital literacy practices that represent the practice of intertextuality. as a result, she shared the most number of digital snapshots showing her practice of intertextuality, providing me with sufficient data from which the need to focus on intertextuality emerged. 3) online observation the online observation was aimed at further corroborating the data collected through whatsapp message service and interviews. it was particularly useful to capture the entirety of the situated nature of farah’s practice of intertextuality. during the data collection process, i asked for farah’s permission to accept my request to follow her instagram since she made it private. she voluntarily provided access to her instagram which allowed me to observe her activities both in the past and at the time i was doing this research. i was able to have a better picture of a variety of contents that farah had shared. this helped me in my understanding of farah’s interests, passion, dreams and life goals, which i consider essential in looking at her literacy practice at more depth. 2.3. data analysis in this research project, literacy events were used as a unit of analysis. literacy events are typically observable moments shaped by literacy practices (barton et al., 2000). barton (1998, 2007) defines literacy events as moments when a person or people try “to comprehend or produce graphic signs” (p. 36). heath (1982, 1983, 2008) has provided a definition of a literacy event to include “talk” around a piece of writing and/or situations in which literacy plays a central role. literacy events are viewed as a communicative exchange that regards acts of literacy (reading, writing, and/or speaking) as the primary focus (barton, 2007; barton & hamilton, 1998; heath, 1983). the data were analyzed in two phases. first, the collected data in the form of quote bots, drawings and words were analyzed using fairclough’s (1992) theory of intertextuality to identify instances of issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 184 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 180-190 budairi, a. (intertextuality as a semiotic mediation for youth’s enactment.....) intertextuality. second, they were subsequently re-contextualized into the lens of bakhtin’s (1981, 1986) notion of utterances and vygotsky’s semiotic mediation to make sense of farah’s practice of intertextuality at more depth to establish the link between intertextuality, agency and identity. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. introducing farah farah was born in padang, west sumatra. unlike sari and hanafi, she just turned 18 when i first met her as a research participant. her parents are both highly educated, the father being a university lecturer and the mother working as a hrd manager in a company dealing with heavy equipment. farah has one younger brother who was studying in his final year of high school. as written in the student background sheet, farah’s interests include art (dancing, drawing, theater) journalism, scouting, and “i like joining some organization such as osis, bem” as she put it. farah was in essence also multilingual. at home she speaks mostly in padang dialect, while outside she keeps switching from indonesian to padang and vice versa depending on whom she interacts with. in addition to these two languages, farah can read arabic as required to recite the holy scripture al quran interestingly, when asked if she could understand the meanings, she said that sometimes she was at a loss. but, fortunately, she likes to go online to search for information about each surah or verses through google. she said “yes i like reading on the internet sir. because it is fast and practical. all information about al quran is there the meaning and background also available” (second interview, september, 2019). she also explained that having lived in yogya for almost 2 years, she has acquired some javanese language vocabulary. what is most striking about farah is that she grew up loving english. she was first introduced to english when she was in the third grade of elementary school. she fondly reminisced those moments when she was for the first time taught how to say numbers and to name objects in english. she thought it was ‘keren’ (cool) as she put it. even at the age of 9, she had already imagined it would be ‘cool’ to use english in everyday conversation. her early years of schooling were also characterized by her love for english, such as taking private english lessons, going to an english village in kediri on school holidays, and participating in different english competitions. based on data analysis, i discovered that farah’s digital literacy practices encompass different literacy events that serve as a space for her to mark her authorship on instagram. some of the literacy events she engaged in include the practice of intertextuality in which she borrowed others’ words to be infused with her own intentions, styles, and accents. as bakhtin (1984) argues, linguistic forms have already been used in a variety of settings. the user of language has to make them his/her own, to populate them with his/her own intentions and accent. the findings show that farah’s practice of intertextuality serves as a semiotic mediation to enact her agency during her participation in everyday digital literacy practice. they are presented in two different sections below. 3.2. farah’s practice of manifest intertextuality the findings showed that during participation in everyday literacy practices mediated through different online social media, farah engaged in intertextuality in which she produced a particular text that can be traced back to a particular source via online tracing. in one of the posts on her instagram, farah was seen to post several captions that feature quote bots or wise sayings as can be seen in figure 1. interestingly, she combined several captions into one frame featuring texts of contemplative nature. fig. 1. farah’s contemplative captions on instagram 185 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 180-190 budairi, a. (intertextuality as a semiotic mediation for youth’s enactment.....) farah’s use of captions serve as a medium to project the self in a particular way that establishes her identity as a contemplative religious individual among her online friends on instagram. in the first instance, she posted the text which read “never explain yourself to anyone because the one who likes you would not need it and the one who dislikes you wouldn’t believe it.” this text is contemplative in the sense that it shows her character to reflect upon such seemingly mundane life experience and turn it into something transcendental. in the rest of the captions, farah’s inclination to contemplate is anchored in her affiliation with islam as her faith and her understanding of islamic teachings. for example, in the caption which reads “sujood a love story no one will understand except those who pray,” he is drawing upon the notion of ‘sujood’ in which muslim prostrate to god by bringing down the knee, forehead, and both hands and all toes to the ground in the direction of the kaaba at mecca to praise and glorify allah. she apparently appeals to her instagram followers to ponder upon the meaning of ‘sujood’ while simultaneously suggesting that only those who pray would ultimately be able to develop intimate relationship with god through the act of ‘sujood’. the invitation to engage in transcendental thinking is also apparent in the caption which read “the beauty of islam is that it’s never too late to ask allah for forgiveness but we also have to remember you never know when you will die.” here, she displays her contemplative nature by inviting her instagram followers to refrain from the feeling of despondency and to seek forgiveness from god in the soonest manner possible before it is too late in another snapshot of her literacy practice that she shared with me on whatsapp message service, farah produced doodles that she drew and posted on her personal blog which was also linked to her instagram story as seen in figure 2. fig. 2. farah’s creation of doodles as can be seen from figure 2, a common thread running through farah’s everyday literacy practices is the utilization of captions and doodles as mediational tools for her participation in different literacy events on social media such as instagram and twitter. as evidenced through the above snapshots, farah’s caption and doodles consist of different elements such as words, drawings, handwritings, and photos. however, upon further investigation through whatsapp chats, farah acknowledged that most of the wise words/motivational messages and religious quotes were not fully her own but were taken from other sources like pinterest, a virtual bulletin or cork board that allows users to find and curate images and videos. farah wrote: “and those are my writings when i was in mr.bob kampung inggris pare and my insta 80% of my posts r english quotes.” (whatsapps chat, september 2019). hence, it is understandable that her instagram and twitter were charged with the expression or ideas that she might have encountered before. in this sense, farah has demonstrated the practice of intertextuality that serves as a semiotic mediation for her enactment of agency and identity. 3.3. farah’s practice of interdiscursivity as described in the previous section, the practice of interdiscursivity entails the production and interpretation of text that came or originated from another text, which were not explicitly signaled in issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 186 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 180-190 budairi, a. (intertextuality as a semiotic mediation for youth’s enactment.....) the forms of quotation, paraphrase or copying but was related in a more abstract way to social conventions (i.e. patterns or template of language use), genres, discourses, and styles (fairclough, 1992). this can also include a mixing of elements, visuals and languages that have become commonly known. the snapshot in figure 3 shows how farah felt about relinquishing her role as a member of student executive body fig. 3. farah’s goodbye post on instagram the post was addressed to her fellow friends who also had to part with the organization as their terms of office came to an end. farah appears to feel so overwhelmed by such occasion that she wrote “i am not really sure how much i really love it. i love dara juang family until it hurts me to be demisioner (s) with them.” this remark echoes her feeling of sadness, and strong emotional attachment to the community of friends with whom she had worked together through the ebbs and flows so as to develop a strong bond as a family, which she dubbed ‘dara juang family.’ as seen in figure 3, it is apparent that farah mixes english and bahasa indonesia to bring a particular effect to what she is trying to express. within such a relatively short writing, farah deliberately oscillates between english and bahasa indonesia to produce a coherent text in ways that establishes her authorial presence among her instagram followers. through such a mixing, farah demonstrates the practice of interdiscursivity involving cross border, simultaneous use of two languages. in this sense, farah demonstrates improvisation and creativity in her ability to orchestrate others’ voices and turn them toward her own discourse. in bakhtinian perspective of language, the quote bots, caption and doodles represent others’ voices which have been appropriated into internally persuasive discourses. they have become half her own and half others (bakhtin, 1986). 3.4. looking at intertextuality as semiotic mediation for agency and identity from vygotskian’s (1974) theory of human consciousness development, farah’s agency can be analyzed in terms of semiotic mediation involving the use of cultural tools. cultural tools are external objects gained through social interaction and structured by their history of previous use. words, forms of speech, forms of literacy, art, and scientific concepts, are cultural tools which are socially specific in their meaning making; they are social in origin and carry with them a historical legacy of meaning. as farah acknowledged, her captions and religious quotes were taken from pinterest, a social media where users could share images associated with their particular experience, projects, goods and services and discover new interests by browsing images others have posted. as a social network, users can interact with each other through liking, commenting, and re-saving each other’s stuff. we could see here that farah’s quotes and captions had been subjectively experienced and assigned different meanings as they were circulating in social media over time. this shows that the quote bots and captions used by farah are part of systems of meaning that are collectively formed and socio-historical 187 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 180-190 budairi, a. (intertextuality as a semiotic mediation for youth’s enactment.....) in nature. farah’s agency manifested in the way she used these cultural tools to improvise during interactions with people and to gain control over her inner and expressive behavior. farah’s creation of doodles, for example, could be understood as her expression of agency to navigate through her boredom and engage in authorship involving appropriation of the words of others. as vygotsky (1974) notes, just as humans altered the physical environment with tools, we can also modify the social environment and our mental states with symbols. in a similar vein, farah’s development of consciousness was socio-culturally constructed; it is as a product of social interaction involving religious quotes as a form of cultural tools. however, caution must be taken so as not to reduce or attribute such development solely to sociocultural interactions. rather, the sociocultural interactions contribute to the formation of an individual consciousness but do not supplant it. for example, in the literacy act of posting religious captions on her instagram, farah essentially demonstrated agency when she consciously used such cultural tools to provoke the engagement of thought, emotion, and imagination on the part of her instagram community. hence, farah’s agency is both subjectively enacted and socio-culturally and historically shaped through doodles and quote bots as semiotic mediational tools. and this is precisely what agency holds in vygotskian sociocultural perspectives. farah’s identity as the contemplative/religious was mediated through her posting of captions on instagram (self as author) featuring religious quotes from the holy book. her identity as the inquisitive/knowledge seeker was mediated through the choice of reading texts featuring unique information and knowledge. her identity could be understood as emerging out of the way she described her experience to me as a researcher (self as author) and the impression that i had of her (the impression that she gave off) as a researcher. one distinctive feature of farah identity entails the use of doodles as a semiotic mediation (vygotsky, 1974) to help her navigate through her boredom. in bakhtinian terms, farah’s identity was heavily permeated with language, highlighting the role of language in one’s development of consciousness. the different examples above illustrate farah’s practice of borrowing texts from other sources both as a direct quotation and implicit use of borrowed words. although it is obvious that the quotes are not their own, they most often were able to use them in an appropriate manner to suit the context of the interaction and to the rest of the text. such practice of intertextuality reflects the participants’ creativity and improvisation in coping with their situation and constraints as english learners. 4. conclusion this research has shown how a 20-year-old university student, farah, engaged in the production and interpretation of text known as intertextuality in digital space and how such practice serves as a semiotic mediation for her enactment of agency and identity as l2 learner. intertextuality has been shown to play a major role in enabling farah to mark her authorship in a digital community of friends and strangers in ways that satisfy her need for self-expression and social relations and cohesion. through instagram posts, farah was able to show creativity in authoring the self by borrowing texts, mixing languages and synthesizing symbols, drawings, and captions, highlighting her agency in everyday digital literacy practices. on a similar note, her practice of intertextuality also allows her to enact her multiple identities during her participations in culturally shaped digital literacy practices. farah’s acknowledgment of feeling liberated in writing and using english and bahasa indonesia echoes the nature of out-of-class literacy practice that is more empowering, engaging and liberating to a great extent. the findings from this research have provided some insights into the changing landscape of literacy practice in the wake of digital communication and media proliferation. literacy can no longer be conceived as merely acquisition of discrete technical skills but also include sociocultural aspects embedded in learning. teachers and educational practitioners need to develop awareness of learners’ changing learning landscape where technology and digital media have become an indispensable part of learners’ everyday life. to respond to this changing landscape would partly mean to change the way we view learners/students, from merely a recipient of knowledge to an individual who has agency, identity and ‘funds of knowledge’ that has to be acknowledged and appreciated in any process of curriculum design and its implementation on a daily basis. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 188 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 180-190 budairi, a. 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(1991). voices of the mind. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5914 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components in forming technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack) leimin shia,1 , lili jiangb,2 a university of wollongong, wollongong campus, northfields ave, wollongong nsw 2522, australia b shanghai lixin university of accounting and finance, 2800 wenxiang rd. songjiang, shanghai 201600, china 1 lshi@uow.edu.au *; 2 jll021@126.com * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 27 march 2022 revised 28 april 2022 accepted 29 april 2022 technology is widely involved across the learning environment including its integration into teaching english as a foreign language (efl); however, few studies have explored efl teachers’ perceptions of technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack). this study investigates how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate knowledge of content (ck), pedagogy (pk), and technology (tk), the interplay of these with each other (tpack), and the underlying influential factors for tpack construction. the data were gathered in china from an online survey (n = 64) comprising 35 items on the tpack components, and self-evaluation by nine survey participants of their tpack in follow-up interviews. wechat, the most popular social media app in china, was utilised as the data collection tool. the survey reveals teachers’ strong beliefs in the value of pk, ck and pck and their positive beliefs about technological applications in efl instruction. consistent with these results, interviewees’ self-evaluation of tpack demonstrates that they felt a high level of confidence in ck, pk and pck but relatively less confidence when technology was integrated despite commonly applying technology to instruction. influential factors include: 1) contextual factors; 2) knowledge of students; 3) demographic background; and 4) availability of quality training. decision-makers’ financial support and policy-making, technological training in the integration of ck and/or pk, and a collaborative learning strategy are recommended. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords efl knowledge perception pedagogy technology tpack how to cite: shi, l., & jiang, l. (2022). how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components in forming technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack). english language teaching educational journal, 5(1), 1-15. 1. introduction an increasing number of institutions throughout the world are applying technology to education, and the use of technology in language teaching and learning has also received significant attention (e.g., banditvilai, 2016; ekrem & recep 2014; hong, 2010; liu, liu, yu, li, & wen, 2014). starting in early 2020, the covid-19 pandemic has been a catalyst that largely boosted the application of technology and research on teaching with the technology. the applications of technology in education involve teachers’ instructional practices and knowledge of technological tools (willermark, 2018). therefore, language teachers need to be equipped with technological knowledge as a pedagogical tool and an essential component of their knowledge base to represent content knowledge of the target 10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5914 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5914&domain=pdf mailto:lshi@uow.edu.au mailto:jll021@126.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7167-1210 2 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 shi, l. & jiang, l. (how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components …..) language and enhance students’ learning. they not only need to evaluate the technology in many forms but also to understand “what” the technology can do and “why”, to assist their teaching (dalal, archambault, & shelton, 2021; wei & gao, 2016). however, little is known about how (language) teachers’ tech-involved instruction outcomes are related to their beliefs about the fundamental knowledge components of content, pedagogy and technology, and the interplay between these. in china, teaching with technology is a requirement for teaching english as a foreign language (efl) mandated in the current national college english curriculum requirements (cecr) issued by the ministry of education of the people’s republic of china in 2007. the cecr states, the new efl teaching model “should … give play to the advantage of traditional classroom teaching while fully employing modern information technology … changes in the teaching model by no means call for changes in teaching methods and approaches only, but, more important, consist of changes in teaching philosophy and practice …”. under this guidance, university efl teachers are required to accept, obtain and integrate technological knowledge with their traditional classroom teaching strategies. the term, technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack) (mishra & koehler, 2006), was proposed as an extension of pedagogical content knowledge (pck) presented in shulman’s (1987) model, presenting the essential knowledge that teachers must possess to succeed in teaching with technology. of schulman’s seven components of the teachers’ knowledge base, the most important are: knowledge of subject matter content (ck); pedagogy (pk the ability to employ strategies to improve student learning such as classroom management); and pck (the ability to use pk to deliver ck). successful technological applications require an understanding of how technology is related to pedagogy and content (koehler & mishra, 2005) and the tpack framework (fig. 1) illustrates how teachers’ appropriate combination of technologies with instructional strategies can effectively support their delivery of ck to their students. in addition to the existing components of pk, ck and pck (shulman, 1987), the four new knowledge areas of tk, tck, tpk and tpack are defined based on prior studies (mishra & koehler, 2006) as follows: fig. 1. the framework of tpack (source: http://tpack.org/). reproduced by permission of the publisher, 2012 by tpack.org technological knowledge (tk): the awareness of digital tools, and how these tools can be used in learning environments; technological pedagogical knowledge (tpk): teachers’ understanding of technology and its application to pedagogical strategies; technological content knowledge (tck): teachers’ capability to use technology to represent subject matter; and tpack: the integration of pck, tpk and tck. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 3 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 shi, l. & jiang, l. (how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components …..) while tpk and tck are conceptualized as teachers’ understanding of and capability in employing appropriate technologies to enhance pedagogical strategies and to represent ck, the complex form of tpack is the thoughtful use of tk, representing “a class of knowledge that is central to teachers’ work with technology” (mishra & koehler 2006, p. 1029). this is contextualized knowledge integrating tk and pk on specific ck (archambault & crippen, 2009); which thus emphasizes teachers’ understanding of how to present ck through the effective use of technology with appropriate strategies in their contexts. the tpack framework provides a theoretical lens through which teachers’ tpack and capability of enhancing student learning with technology can be evaluated, and thus has drawn much research attention. while there have been increasing applications of technology in teaching practices and research on tpack (e.g., archambault & crippen, 2009; chai, chin, koh, & tan, 2013; dalal et al., 2021; lin, tsai, chai, & lee, 2013; mishra & koehler, 2006; sahin, 2011; schmidt et al., 2009; wei & gao, 2016), studies regarding efl teachers’ perceptions about the value of the seven tpack components and their relationships with teachers’ tpack outcomes are rare. most of the existing studies are quantitative surveys assessing teachers’ tpack; but few are in-depth investigations about how efl teachers perceive and construct tpack and the underlying influential factors. this is also true in china, even though the cecr (2007) advocates the requirements of “changes in teaching philosophy” and integration of technology into traditional instruction. however, teachers are less likely to implement innovations when mismatches exist between the main principles underlying the curriculum and teachers’ beliefs, which may become the most crucial obstacles to implementing educational innovations (shi, delahunty, & gao, 2019). “what teachers know, believe and think” is defined as ‘teacher cognition’ (borg 2003, p.81), which is also referred to using a wide range of concepts including knowledge, attitude, beliefs, conceptions, perceptions and understanding (e.g., baker, 2014; borg, 2003). what teachers believe “shapes what teachers do” (borg 2003, p. 95). the application of technology in teaching practice is also largely influenced by teachers’ beliefs about its value (de paepe, zhu, & depryck, 2018; ertmer, ottenbreit-leftwich, sadik, sendurur, & sendurur, 2012; lehtinen, nieminen, & viiri, 2016). accordingly, efl teachers’ beliefs in tpack and its components for enhancing efl teaching and learning strongly influence their motivation for learning and using technology as well as the development and performance of their tpack. this study explores chinese efl teachers’ beliefs regarding the value of the tpack knowledge components and their self-evaluation of their performance in these knowledge areas. after a review of relevant literature, it describes qualitative survey findings on teachers’ perceptions, before discussing more in-depth information about efl teachers’ beliefs and their self-evaluation of their tpack outcomes as presented in interviews. the self-evaluation results are compared, then viewed alongside teachers’ perceptions of the value of tpack components. underlying factors affecting efl teachers’ tpack outcomes are also discussed, to provide professional development suggestions for achieving tech-enhanced efl instruction. researchers have applied the tpack framework to develop survey instruments to evaluate the tpack profiles of both preand inservice teachers across disciplines. sahin’s (2011) survey of preservice teachers studying english language education in turkish demonstrates that the survey instrument is a valid and reliable tool for examining teachers’ tpack. the instrument included seven subscales and 47 items related to the seven essential components of the tpack framework. similarly, archambault and crippen (2009) developed a survey instrument including 24 items to examine online teachers serving in k-12 schools in the united states regardless of their disciplines. it found that teachers felt very confident about conveying the ck through various strategies which drew upon their pk. in contrast, teachers became less confident when technology was involved. the relationship of teachers’ tk with their knowledge of content and pedagogy was minimal. schmidt and colleagues’ (2009) influential evaluation instrument comprises 58 items to allow preservice teachers majoring in early childhood education to self-assess the development and application of tpack. this instrument was adopted in a survey (lin et al., 2013) on preand inservice singaporean science teachers. this examination revealed significant and positive correlations of teachers’ synthesized knowledge (of technology, content, and pedagogy) with all other tpack knowledge components. it also found that teachers’ perceptions of tpack are influenced by their demographic factors such as teaching experience, gender and age. schmidt et al’s instrument was also 4 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 shi, l. & jiang, l. (how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components …..) utilized in one of the few studies on efl teachers’ tpack in turkey (ekrem & recep, 2014), revealing pre-service efl teachers’ positive beliefs in all tpack components and identifying the impact of gender on teachers’ different knowledge performances. all pre-service efl teachers were found to have used the internet regularly, but their tk mean score was the lowest, whereas tpk was the highest among the seven mean scores of the tpack factors. xiang and ning’s (2014) evaluation in china was adapted from both schmidt et al.’s (2009) and archambault and crippen’s (2009) instruments, based on their consideration of the discipline (mathematics) of their pre-service teacher participants. the chinese preservice mathematics teachers were found to be most competent in ck but least competent in tpack, being more familiar with traditional (non-tech-related) ways of instruction. schmidt et al.’s (2009) survey instrument has also had a significant impact on another study on tpack in singapore in which chai et al. (2013) modified this instrument to investigate the profile of 349 primary and secondary school teachers’ tpack with the supporting evidence of teachers’ pedagogical beliefs. as for the preservice mathematics teachers in xiang and ning’s (2014) study, the participants, in-service chinese language teachers, rated themselves as most competent in ck but least competent in tpack. the findings from an open-ended question further supported the teachers’ self-rated profile, demonstrating that teachers’ tpack requires teachers’ constructivist pedagogical beliefs more than traditional beliefs. another study on efl teachers’ tpack was mixed-method research in taiwan (liu & kleinsasser, 2015), focusing on the development of the tpack of six vocational high school efl teachers who participated in a yearlong professional development program on technology. the study demonstrates the development of these efl teachers’ tpack and self-efficacy of technological applications in instruction. it also recognizes the importance of administration support, partnership with universities, and peer collaboration as positive influential factors that facilitated teachers’ implementation of technology. despite the significant research attention to tpack across the educational field, existing studies are commonly based on self-evaluation (willermark, 2018); however, teachers, who are the key factor in the success of technological reform, have varied beliefs in and/or ways of applying technology to instruction. meanwhile, most studies (e.g., archambault & crippen, 2009; sahin, 2011; schmidt et al., 2009) are questionnaire surveys on teachers’ perceptions of tpack (chai et al., 2013); however, more reliable data and accurate measurements of teachers’ competency can be achieved from interviews with teachers (ekrem & recep, 2014). likewise, available studies focusing on teachers’ perceptions of computer technology mainly look at its relationship with teachers’ implementation of technology in classroom practice (wozney, venkatesh, & abrami, 2006). hence. there is a “lack of studies about the relationship between teachers’ tpack and teachers’ beliefs” (chai et al. 2013, p. 657); and even more limited is research on efl teachers’ perceptions of tpack. thus, to address a gap in the literature, the present study investigated efl teachers’ perceptions of tpack through both surveys and interviews. this is significant because 1) existing studies on tpack are mostly questionnaire assessments; 2) there is no existing research on how teachers’ beliefs regarding the value of tpack components are related to their tpack outcomes; and 3) the literature about efl teachers’ tpack is limited. three research questions (rq) guided the study: 1) how do efl teachers perceive the knowledge components of content, pedagogy, and technology in teaching? 2) how do efl teachers perceive the integration between the knowledge components of content, pedagogy, and technology in teaching? 3) what are the possible factors affecting the development of efl teachers’ tpack? 2. method data collection methods comprised an online survey and interview. the surveys explored how teachers value each tpack component, from the premise that what teachers believe directly impacts what they do in teaching practice (borg, 2003). successful integration of technology depends on teachers’ acceptance of technology as a useful tool in supporting their students’ learning outcomes issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 5 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 shi, l. & jiang, l. (how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components …..) (liu et al., 2014; wozney et al., 2006). in addition, an insight into efl teachers’ perceptions is obtained from teachers’ self-evaluation statements about their tpack performance in follow-up interviews. emergent themes with regard to individual interviewees’ knowledge of content, pedagogy and technology, and the interactions between these knowledge areas were compared to reveal possible links across the participants and the underlying factors related to their tpack performance. relevant suggestions are provided to motivate and support efl teachers’ professional development in tpack and tech-enhanced efl teaching. 2.1. participants a total of 64 efl teachers, serving at 25 universities across china, completed the online questionnaire in december 2019. with ethics approval from the lead author’s university, the second author sent an initial survey invitation and the questionnaire to her personal contacts. for snowball sampling, all teachers were encouraged to forward the questionnaire to invite their colleagues’ participation. the participants’ mean age was 36, and the percentages of young (less than 35), medium-aged (35 to 50), and older teachers (over 50) are 54.6%, 35.9%, and 9.5% respectively. the gender ratio of females and males is 64.06% to 35.94%. regarding participants’ university efl teaching experience, they were considered as novice (1-5 years, 30.1%), experienced (5-15 years, 39.2%), and veteran (over 15 years, 30.7%). in january 2020, nine survey participants also participated in a follow-up, semi-structured interview, and their demographic information is summarized in table 1. as shown, all participants are veteran teachers with 17 to 26 years’ teaching experience and were teaching efl courses to develop students’ overall english competence (college/academic english) and for specific purposes (t2 and t6). table 1. teacher interviewees’ background teacher codes age gender education background (m.a. in) years of efl teaching subject of teaching t1 45 female applied linguistics 19 academic english t2 46 male english 19 fundamental medical english & academic english t3 40 male pragmatics 17 college english t4 46 female international relationship 20 college english t5 45 female english & literature for applied linguistics 22 college english t6 44 female english & literature 23 college english & police college english t7 53 female applied linguistics 26 academic english t8 48 female english teaching 24 academic english t9 44 female education 22 college english 2.2. instrument tseng’s (2014) instrument, which is developed based on mishra and koehler’s (2006) tpack framework, was adapted for both the survey and interview and used as an analytical tool to frame efl teachers’ perceptions of the knowledge component in tpack construction. acknowledging the value of students’ views, tseng (2014) introduced an instrument to examine efl teachers’ tpack from students’ perspectives in taiwan. based on the seven knowledge components in the tpack framework, the researcher designed five items for each component to ask for students’ comments on their teachers at a five-level scale. the instrument was demonstrated to be a valid and reliable tool for measuring students’ perceptions of their efl teachers’ tpack. this instrument was chosen because teachers’ experiences of using technology are different depending on the areas of teaching content (schmidt et al., 2009). the present study shares similarities with tseng’s study in both the discipline (efl) and the learners’ first language (chinese). tseng’s scale consists of 35 statements on efl teachers’ tpack, including 5 items for each of the seven tpack components (mishra & koehler, 2006) to ask for students’ opinions of their efl teachers’ tpack performance on a five-level scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). 6 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 shi, l. & jiang, l. (how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components …..) relevant modifications were made to the statements to meet the focus of this study on efl teachers’ perceptions instead of students’ perspectives. the survey provided an overall picture of chinese in-service efl teachers’ views about tpack components, responding to rq1 and rq2. semi-structured interviews collect in-depth information about teachers’ perceptions and selfevaluation of tpack performance (rq1 and rq2) and the underlying influential factors (rq3). the employment of the qualitative method can explore teachers’ perceptions and implementation of tpack in depth (archambault & crippen, 2009). thirteen guiding questions (see appendix) were designed based on tseng’s (2014) instrument, covering the seven tpack factors. all interviews were about 30-minutes long and in english by interviewees’ choice, and audio-recorded with consent. the first author’s transcriptions of the recordings were confirmed as an accurate account by the interviewees. wechat, the most popular social media app in china, was employed as the data collection tool. prospective participants received the survey questionnaire file as a wechat text message and could complete and submit the questionnaire on wechat directly. survey participants who were willing to participate in a follow-up interview were contacted and then interviewed by the first author through wechat audio calls. 2.3. data analysis descriptive measures were utilized in the survey to explore the degrees to which efl teachers perceived the importance of 35 tpack items. due to the small number of respondents (n = 64), the survey findings are discussed as a supporting data source complementing the interview findings. reported results include mean (m) scores and standard deviations (sd) of the seven tpack components, and the top and bottom five ms out of the 35 items. when analysing interview data, the guest’s (2012) thematic analysis method was applied. the analyses firstly focus on individual cases to find the evidence of teachers’ knowledge of content, pedagogy and technology, the interactions between them, and the factors related to their tpack performance. then, the findings are compared across the cases. finally, efl teachers’ beliefs regarding the value of each tpack component (survey findings) and its relationship with veteran teachers’ self-evaluation results of their tpack outcome, and the underlying factors impacting teachers’ tpack outcomes (interview findings), are discussed. 3. findings survey results indicate that efl teachers considered all seven tpack components (ck, pk, tk, pck, tck, tpk, and tpack) important in their efl teaching, but at varying levels. different interplays between the basic knowledge components of content, pedagogy and technology were apparent. 3.1. all tpack components are important but at different levels efl teachers’ overall positive belief in the seven tpack components can be identified from their mean and sd scores. fig. 2 shows that the mean scores of all seven components are over 4.00, evidencing efl teachers’ overall positive belief in the importance of all tpack components. the high mean scores of tpk, tck and tpack also indicate that teachers’ technical applications were based on their consideration of both pedagogy and content. among these scores, the mean scores of pk (m=4.6) and ck (m=4.53) are the top two highest and tk (m = 4.09) is the lowest, suggesting that pk and ck were believed to be the most important, whereas tk was the least important of all seven tpack components. on the other hand, the sd results in fi. 3 indicate that, while teachers were in high agreement about the role of pk (sd=.034) in contributing to successful efl teaching, differences in their views about tk were significant (sd=.388). teachers’ attitudes towards techsupported teaching appeared to be related to their age as evinced from the mean scores of younger teachers (m=4.16), medium-aged (m=4.10), and older teachers (m=3.70). no clear evidence was found to relate these attitudes to other demographic factors such as gender or teaching experience. in the meantime, the small sd range of the other five tpack components (from .101 to .144) indicates that teachers were generally in agreement about their functions in achieving successful efl instruction. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 7 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 shi, l. & jiang, l. (how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components …..) because pk and ck were much more valued than tk, it is not surprising that their interplay pck (m=4.44) was considered as the third important tpack component; by contrast, tpk (m=4.31) and tck (m=4.23) were the two least important, following tk. thus, teachers’ relatively weak belief about the importance of tk was the key source negatively impacting their beliefs regarding the other tk-integrated tpack factors, namely, tck and tpk and, ultimately, tpack. fig. 2. mean of seven tpack factors fig. 3. sd of seven tpack factors table 2 and table 3 present the five items with ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ mean scores respectively. the top five items comprise two ck and three pk items. they include having ck of good pronunciation and sufficient grammar knowledge, and pk of understanding students’ learning difficulties, being able to choose various teaching strategies with flexibility to adhere to student’s needs. in other words, finding appropriate strategies (pk) to deliver comprehensible ck to students is the priority of survey respondents, which also reflects their strong beliefs in pck. table 2. top five items items tpack components n means sd efl teachers should have good pronunciation. ck 64 4.66 0.570 efl teachers should have sufficient knowledge of english grammar. ck 64 4.64 0.574 efl teachers should understand students’ learning difficulties. pk 64 4.63 0.519 efl teachers should adjust the ways he/she teaches according to student performance and feedback. pk 64 4.63 0.642 efl teachers should use a variety of teaching strategies in class (e.g., explanation, raising questions, and group work). pk 64 4.6 0.657 teachers’ least concerns are related to tk, tck and tpk (table 3). specifically, tk of computer hardware and of software technical problems was believed to be the two items of least importance. teachers’ minimal attention to solving hardware problems aligns with ekrem and recep’s (2014) research. similarly, little attention was given to the application of digitalized materials to teach vocabulary or grammar (tck), or to the use of technological strategies to enhance explanations and interactions with students (tpk). 8 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 shi, l. & jiang, l. (how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components …..) table 3. bottom five items items tpack components n means sd efl teachers should use digitalized teaching materials with which their students can learn vocabulary better. tck 64 4.09 0.938 efl teachers should know about basic computer hardware (e.g., ram, network cable, and projector). tk 64 4.092 0.921 efl teachers should use digitalized teaching materials with which their students can learn grammar better. tck 64 4.17 0.951 efl teachers should use technologies to explain clearly. tpk 64 4.17 0.846 efl teachers should use technologies to interact more with students. tpk 64 4.19 0.852 efl teachers should know how to deal with technical problems related to software (e.g., installing drivers, setting up internet connection, and sharing files in the cloud). tk 64 4.19 0.921 interview findings provide in-depth information about efl teachers’ self-evaluation of their tpack components and the factors affecting tpack development. emerged interview themes demonstrated efl teachers’ high confidence in their ck, pk and pck, the apparent interaction of their tk with ck (tck) and pk (tpk), and tpack as the overall knowledge of presenting ck with tk. 3.2. high confidence in ck, pk and pck interview participants showed strong confidence in their knowledge of content and pedagogy, and capability for employing suitable strategies to deliver comprehensible content knowledge to their students. ‘task-based’ and ‘student-centered’ were teachers’ favorite approaches. according to t7, ‘student-centered’ teaching is “the most important strategy”, and she would “try to improve the teaching efficiency by organizing more activities”. t5 and t8 often promoted students’ active participation by designing lots of learning activities, such as peer discussions, group presentations and debates, to practice the new ck regardless of a large class size (50 to 100 students) situation. both t1 and t5 explained, “learning a language is through using it”. in addition, motivation was perceived as an important vehicle that drives students’ positive attitudes toward achieving successful language learning (banditvilai, 2016). the interviewees made great efforts to achieve “fun” (t1) and “motivation” (t3, t5, and t6) in their classes. t5 asserted: “it’s important to motivate students to speak, to write, to debate, to use the language…to encourage their teamwork, cooperate and communicate to their peers”. in other words, in these veteran efl teachers’ pk, all pedagogical choices should be based on their knowledge of students; and motivating students’ active participation and target language use is the priority. all teachers revealed a high level of confidence in making strategic choices for their students, which is inseparable from their long-term teaching experience as veteran teachers. teachers’ pedagogical designs were often oriented toward the teaching content or topics. as stated, the teachers “design activities depending on the topic and have students involved” (t1), and arrange students “to ask each other questions related to the text content” (t9). such interplay between pk and ck was based on teachers’ knowledge of their students. student-centered activities such as group discussions were used to motivate students’ collaborative use of the target language “if the content is easy for them to understand” (t2); while traditional teacher-centered approach (t2) and translation strategies (t3) were applied when the teaching content was too challenging/complicated to encourage students’ language use. the statements above reflect the teachers’ strong confidence in their pk, ck and pck, as a result of their proficiency in these knowledge components and the knowledge of students. 3.3. evidenced interplay of tk with ck (tck) and pk (tpk) interview results also evinced teachers’ tpack: employment of technology as a tool (tk) to complement, convey and explain (tpk) content knowledge (tck), and to encourage students’ engagement (tpk/tpack). the technology was an essential tool in all interviewees’ teaching preparation and delivery. however, when asked about their confidence in tk, while four teachers (t2, t5, t6 and t8) described their tk as “above average” the other five lacked such confidence. all teachers’ general technological applications included word processing, powerpoint (ppt), video issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 9 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 shi, l. & jiang, l. (how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components …..) player software, social media apps, and internet search. seven of the interviewees frequently searched online resources (e.g., the baidu website) to enrich teaching materials, reflecting the interplay of tk with ck. for example, t4 used online resources and introduced her students to some background information when teaching about valentine’s day. furthermore, all teaching venues were multimedia rooms, or at least had standard audio-video equipment including overhead projector, screen, projection, and desktop computer (and laptop input). ppt slides (and video player software and word documents) were mostly prepared as pedagogical tools to display (tck) and explain the main teaching content (tpack) and establish activities (tpk), replacing the traditional method of blackboard use (t1 and t4) and “stimulating students’ interests” by showing audio and video resources (tpk) (t4). besides, the wechat app was used by all teachers as an important platform for enhancing teacherstudent (t-s) and student-student informal interactions outside the class. all teachers created wechat groups for each class to send students notices, tasks and resources et cetera (tpk). the adoption of wechat compensated for the lack of interaction in formal classes because of the situation of largesized classes. enhanced t-s communication can positively motivate students and influence their learning attitude (banditvilai, 2016). the efl teachers also benefitted from their regular use of wechat in motivating their students (tpk). the efl teachers’ responses regarding their use of technology reveal that, while technology was widely implemented to support their instruction, their technological applications were generally at a basic level. the interplay of tk with their pk (e.g., using technological equipment for instruction, to stimulate students’ interest, and motivating students; using wechat to enhance communications) and ck (e.g., finding online resources to enhance teaching materials) was apparent, reflecting teachers’ tpack. however, except for the use of digital equipment at the teaching venues and the limited software purchased by the schools, the manner of technological application appeared basic, but expressive and informative (wozney et al., 2006). for example, the internet was used to find online materials, and ppt was used for displaying content. no communication tool (e.g., email, conferencing) was used except for wechat; and no tool was for recreation (e.g., games), instruction (e.g., practice), or expansion (e.g., brainstorming). 3.4. factors affecting efl teachers’ technological applications and tpack development the interview results suggest several factors significantly affecting efl teachers’ technological application and tpack development. the first is related to contextual factors. the availability of technological equipment at teaching venues directly influenced teachers’ application of technology and the interplay of teachers’ tk with pk and ck. t2 stated, “if we want to carry out lots of student-centered activities, we need more access than standard equipment. for example, if there are two presenters, we can show different contexts. we can switch the content on the boards”. t2’s employment of student-centered activities was techsupported and was largely dependent on the available technological equipment. ‘inadequate equipment’ was pointed out as a barrier preventing his application of technology to enhance his strategy (tpk). however, t7 raised an issue of data access: “i try to find something interesting online at home. we have to pay a lot if we exceed 50 mg data allowance at the university”. the restriction of data usage surely limited t7’s and her colleagues’ technological application (tk), whether this was in the integration with pk, ck, or both. decision-makers can be another influential contextual source. t6 talked about technological applications as both an efl teacher and the head of school: if the current application is not useful, maybe i would search other technologies or strategies. sometimes such application of technologies is driven by the university. we’re required to have this kind of online course. it’s becoming a must... some of the efl teaching platform provided by the publishing house is rather sophisticated... but first i need to get the approval… get the financial support. if it is approved, there should be this kind of training for all the teachers in my department. (t6) as an efl teacher, t6 considered that technological innovation “is becoming a must” and felt the need to receive professional training in technology. her professional concerns were about the effectiveness of technologies in assisting efl teaching, and her judgments were about the result of interactions between her knowledge of the new technology and accumulated pck. as the head of 10 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 shi, l. & jiang, l. (how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components …..) school, t6 applied for (financial) approval for a new technological application and planned to have teachers trained accordingly. her statements demonstrate the important role of decision-makers as the driving force for enhancing tech-supported instruction and teachers’ tpack construction the crucial factor to guarantee the effectiveness of innovation (leithwood, day, sammons, harris, & hopkins, 2006). archambault and crippen (2009) assert that the integration of technological knowledge in forming tpack is contextualized and inseparable from the environment. it is within specific contexts that such development happens through the interaction between teachers’ ck, pk and tk (mishra & koehler, 2006). in the present study, whether regarding the availability of technology equipment (t2), the issue of data usage (t7) at the teaching venues, or decision-makers’ requirement for enhancing teaching with technology, their support for purchasing new technological tools and their offering of teacher training in new technology (t6), all demonstrated the crucial role of context in developing teachers’ tpack and achieving technological innovation. the second influential factor is linked to teachers’ knowledge of their students. t3 stated, “if students’ english proficiency level is low, i use ppts to make myself understood better. otherwise, they can have a good discussion in class”. it is clear that t3’s strategical decisions were based on the integration of his tk with both his pk and knowledge of his students’ english proficiency levels. technology implementations are likely to happen when teachers, such as t3, believe that technology can be a beneficial pedagogical tool to support students’ learning of ck. similarly, teachers would apply technology if it is evaluated as helpful to foster their students’ engagement (e.g., t5, t7, and t8) and their understanding of ck (e.g., t1, t2, and t9). this finding supports ertmer et al. (2012) and saudelli and ciampa (2014) who argue that teachers’ positive beliefs and attitudes towards technology in student learning have the biggest impact on teachers’ success in technology integration practice. it also aligns with nezvalová (2011) who asserts that the knowledge of students is more significant than pk. even when technology is integrated into pedagogy, as demonstrated by the interviewees, teachers’ knowledge of their students still has a powerful influence on any instructional decision. thirdly, teachers’ knowledge base accumulated from their learning and teaching experience has a significant impact on efl teachers’ use of technology and tpack construction. as discussed earlier, teachers’ technological decisions were oriented by “the target of teaching” (t1, t4, and t9), according to “the tasks” (t4) or “what materials or what kind of information to convey” (t8). for example, t5 appreciated the online system 批改网 (an online service system for automatically correcting english composition based on cloud computing) because “it makes it easy for us to share our students’ papers and administrate students’ writing portfolio”. t5, as well as other teachers, interpreted and evaluated any new knowledge when learning it such as a technology. teachers’ cognition “shapes what teachers do but is in turn shaped by the experiences teachers accumulate” (borg 2003, p. 95). the efl teachers’ evaluation results above are connected to teachers’ ck, pk and pck. the outcomes of their innovative technological pedagogy are mediated by teachers’ experience and the knowledge accumulated and thus agree with saudelli and ciampa’s finding (2014). fourthly, teachers’ demographic background, such as age and the years of teaching experience, could also impact the degree to which technology is utilized. t7 asserted, “i have enough teaching materials. i don’t have the desire to apply more technology since i’m about to retire”. t7’s reluctance to seek additional digital resources or learn new technology would surely become a barrier for developing her tk and other tk-integrated knowledge, because motivation plays a crucial role in enhancing the autonomy to develop tk (banditvilai, 2016). as a veteran teacher, t7 was confident she already had rich materials. her reluctance was also directly linked to the approach of her retirement in two years. her attitude toward technology became the strongest barrier preventing her from utilising the technology which supports the other research findings (ertmer, 2012; liu et al., 2014). lastly, lacking quality training in technology was the factor that significantly influenced the development of efl teachers’ tpack. few teachers had received quality formal training in technology, and available training was mostly offered by publishers or software providers as one-shot workshops for marketing purposes (e.g., t2, t4, and t7), lacking attention to how to apply the technology as an effective pedagogical tool to represent content knowledge. only t6 and t8 reported their recent reception of professional training in technology. t6 agreed that training opportunities were not open to everyone in her school and that access to these was on a competitive basis. by contrast, issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 11 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 shi, l. & jiang, l. (how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components …..) t8 and her colleagues were the lucky ones who could access regular, unrestricted training in technology, offered by the school of computer science in their university. for the other seven interviewees, ‘informal learning’ was found to be the predominant way for them to develop their tk for their teaching needs, with the most popular ways being self-learning through use (t1, t3, and t9), and learning from available people via teachers’ own learning networks, such as colleagues (e.g., t4, t5, and t7), family members (e.g., t4 and t7) and students (e.g., t5 and t7). the lack of professional training in technology was likely to negatively influence these efl teachers’ attitudes toward technology, and their confidence in developing tk and teaching with technology. as hong (2010) argues, computer-assisted language teacher education programs have noticeable benefits in building up teachers’ positive attitudes towards technology and developing their confidence in technology competency; and the influencing factors contributing to language teachers’ integration of technology into their teaching practices can be categorized as “teacher education, teachers’ individual factors, and contextual factors”, with teacher education, among these, being the most “salient” (p.60). the ways that most interviewees sought to develop their tk reflect teachers’ constructivistoriented beliefs. according to loughran (2013), pedagogy in constructivist learning is “both generative and informing as a consequence of an active and ongoing process” and is enhanced through noticing (p. 122). the interviewees’ approaches to tk development mirror these key principles of constructivist learning in noticing the value of new technologies, learning by doing, regulating one’s own learning, building individual meaning in a situation or experience, and learning with and from others. this aligns with the findings in xiang and ning’s (2014) study that tpack construction requires more of teachers’ constructivist pedagogical beliefs than of traditional ones. similarly, infusing technology innovation into content instruction (tck) was often a personal adventure for these efl teachers, which included dealing with an explosion in the availability of resources. as language teachers, they need to ensure the full integration of online materials with the subject (banditvilai, 2016). efl teachers also need to think about whether technology can be a useful pedagogical tool with suitable methods and activities, including for students’ independent study outside classes. this time-consuming process is likely discouraging for efl teachers (such as the participants in the present study), since many of them already have very heavy workloads (e.g., t5 and t7), negatively influencing the development of teachers’ technological knowledge and tpack. 4. discussion the survey respondents highly valued pk, ck and pck in achieving successful efl teaching but considered tk as the least important of all the seven tpack components, as did the interviewees, who showed much more confidence in these three knowledge areas. this concurs with previous survey findings (alqurashi, gokbel, & carbonara, 2017; archambault & crippen, 2009; ekrem & recep, 2014) that teachers have high confidence in pk and ck but less in tk. this finding also aligns with xiang and ning’s (2014) finding that teachers are most competent in ck and familiar with traditional teaching modes without technological applications. these, and the findings of the present study appear to demonstrate that (both preand inservice) teachers generally agree with each other in viewing and developing pk, ck and pck as the key knowledge components for achieving successful teaching in any discipline, even though in the digital era. this demonstrates that developing teachers’ tpack is “a multigenerational process” (mishra & koehler 2006, p. 1043). in general, teachers’ manner of using technological applications was expressive and informative but basic, lacking application purposes for communication, recreation, instruction and expansion. therefore, the interplay of their tk with ck (tck) and pk (tpk), and tpack performance, although evident, was not significant, as evident in the results across both the survey and interview data. the survey respondents considered tk and other tk-integrated knowledge components (e.g., tck and tpk) as being less important. similarly, although all interviewees commonly adopted digital tools to assist their efl teaching, no one described his/her technology competence as ‘confident’, but instead as “above average” (four teachers) or “unconfident” (five teachers). this limitation in tpack development is probably interrelated to teachers’ insufficient confidence in technological applications, which is “the necessary first step” to expand language teachers’ tpk and use of technology as a pedagogical tool to enhance classroom teaching (hong 2010, p. 56). this constraint on tpack development also echoes archambault and crippen’s (2009) findings on the minimum relationship 12 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 shi, l. & jiang, l. (how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components …..) between teachers’ tk with pk and ck, and on teachers’ lack of confidence when teaching with technology. factors revealed to be contributing to interviewees’ tpack performance include both external and internal ones. the external factors were contextualized, such as the availability of technology equipment (t2) and internet accessibility (t7) at teaching venues, and decision-makers’ beliefs, requirements and financial support to purchase updated digital tools and provide professional training (t6); or they were related to teachers’ own learning networks for accessing support for technology (e.g., t4, t5 and t7). the importance of context is apparent throughout (loughran, 2013). internal factors were shown to be mainly linked to teachers’ knowledge of students, teachers’ demographic background (e.g., age, which was also evidenced in the survey), and teachers’ constructivist-oriented beliefs, aligning with previous findings (xiang & ning, 2014). these findings support sansom’s (2020) argument that teacher change is dependent on each teacher, on each innovation, and in each context. the development of teachers’ tech-integrated ability can be limited by the technology resource constraints in their teaching contexts or by their students’ readiness (dalal et al., 2021). similarly, according to mishra and koehler’s (2006) “context bound” notion of tpack construction, applying technology in the classroom relies on certain factors, such as the availability of digital resources and student background. therefore, teachers’ knowledge of students has a significant impact on tpack construction and should be attended to as a key knowledge component in achieving successful teaching with technology. nezvalová (2011) argues that, in developing pck, the knowledge of students is even more significant than pk: any embedded attribute of pck (e.g., context, assessment, pedagogy) can be applied if a teacher has developed a solid knowledge of his/her students. the development of teachers’ pk and ck must occur in the contexts of students and the learning environment (dalal, 2021). in accordance with this consideration, the process of integrating tk with pck to develop (efl) teachers’ tpack and enhance technological innovation is both contextualized and dependent on teachers’ knowledge of students. 5. conclusion this study explored efl teachers’ perceptions of the knowledge components (pk, ck, tk, pck, tck, tpk, and tpack) in forming their own tpack as well as their self-assessment of tpack. the interviewees’ self-evaluation results on their tpack competency were found to be generally consistent with the role of each tpack component that was perceived by survey respondents, even though the interviewees were all veteran teachers and their demographic backgrounds were not as various as the survey participants. it is argued that the change process for experienced teachers may be “more complex, more varied and less certain” (sansom 2020, p. 467) because teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning and their teaching experience influence each other (shi et al., 2019). the present study has a limitation in that its interview participants were veteran teachers only, and also that the number of survey participants was too small to confidently generalize. however, since the survey participants’ beliefs about the value of each tpack component were in line with veteran teachers’ (interviewees) selfevaluation results of their tpack performance, this demonstrates the power of teacher cognition in shaping their practices (borg, 2003) and, ultimately, their tpack outcomes. this may imply that: 1) efl teachers, regardless of their teaching experience, value ck, pk and pck as the key knowledge components in achieving successful efl teaching; 2) this strong belief drives their efforts to develop these knowledge areas, and their confidence in these areas is more developed with accumulated experience (such as for the interviewees); and 3) tk and the knowledge areas integrating with tk (tck, tpk, and tpack) are considered as less important, and accordingly, efl teachers are relatively less confident in these areas. this evidences that teachers’ positive beliefs about technology as a useful pedagogical tool in supporting students’ learning development are the basis of succeeding in any tech-assisted instruction (ertmer, 2012; liu et al. 2014; wozney et al., 2006). enabling teachers to accept and obtain tk and to gain confidence to integrate it into their classroom teaching is “the unlimited goal” of teacher education in computer-assisted language learning (hong 2010, p.53). this study has implications for future research on teachers’ tpack and technological innovation in education. firstly, certain policies can be made at the university/school levels to motivate technology-enhanced teaching (to accommodate the national cecr innovation goal). secondly, issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 13 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-15 shi, l. & jiang, l. (how efl teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components …..) adequate financial support should be assigned to upgrade the technological equipment at teaching venues and to provide professional training in new technologies. the effectiveness of technological training in developing teachers’ tpack is apparent (e.g., dalal, archambault, & shelton, 2021; hong, 2010; liu & kleinsasser, 2015). thirdly, technological training should be integrated with ck and/or pk. unless equipped with a well-developed knowledge of computer-assisted language learning, language teachers find it difficult to make a difference through infusing technology into their classroom teaching (hong, 2010). training with educative examples could encourage teachers to explore the possibilities of new technology in their teaching; and teachers who learn about technology with the integration of ck may be more likely to apply this to support content learning, in comparison with learning it as a skill only (hughes, 2005). in addition, the learning/training in technology and development of tpack is continuing; and in this process, collaborative learning can be a useful way to learn technology and to develop tpack (hughes, 2005; liu & kleinsasser, 2015; liu et al., 2014). acknowledgment we would like to express our sincere gratitude to all participants. without you, it would have been impossible to complete this research. declarations author contribution : leimin shi was responsible for the entire research project. she also led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the second author. lili jiang participated in the data collection, transcription and analysis. she also revised the manuscript. both authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research did not receive any funding. conflict of interest : both authors declare that they have no competing interests. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references alqurashi, e., gokbel, e. n., & carbonara, d. 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(2006). implementing computer technologies: teachers’ perceptions and practices. journal of technology and teacher education, 14(1), 173-207. xiang, k., & ning, l. (2014). evaluating chinese pre-service mathematics teachers’ knowledge of integrating technology in teaching. journal of mathematics education, 7(1), 48-58. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2018.1511455 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2014.941369 https://doi.org/10.9790/3021-06410104 https://doi.org/10.1177/0735633117713114 english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 3, 2018, pp. 115-133 e-issn: 2621-6485 pedagogic code-switching: a case study of the language practices of filipino teachers in english language classrooms benjamin baguio mangila school of teacher education, j.h. cerilles stage college, philippine benman1586@gmail.com abstract this study was conducted to primarily investigate the language practices of two bilingual filipino teachers in english language classrooms. it made use of the qualitative case study guided by hymes’ methodological approach of the ethnography of communication. the findings of this study revealed that teachers made use of code-switching in teaching and they code-switched for several pedagogic purposes. in sentential-level analysis, the results showed that several codeswitching acts were made by teachers in classroom discourse. intra-sentential, inter-sentential, and intra-word code-switch types were most commonly used by teachers while extra-sentential code-switch was not used in their classroom discourses. in pedagogic-functional level analysis, the results revealed that the teachers frequently used code-switching mostly for instructional or content acquisition. the findings also showed that teachers sometimes code-switched for reformulation and facilitation but they rarely code-switched for language acquisition and habitual purposes. this study recommended that a similar study be conducted to gather sufficient data on class interactions through utilizing intensive classroom observations to deepen investigation on teachers’ language practices. furthermore, it also recommended that other methods like interviews could also be done to gather teachers’ viewpoints about when and why they codeswitch and their attitudes toward their use of code-switching in second language classrooms. keywords: code-switching, language practices, pedagogic functions, english language classrooms how to cite: mangila, b.b. (2018). pedagogic code-switching: a case study of the language practices of filipino teachers in english language classrooms. english language teaching educational journal, 1(3), 115-133. introduction the philippines is a southeast asian country with more than 170 different languages (nolasco, 2008); having most of its citizens speaking three or more languages (lewis, simons, & fennig, 2013). such linguistic landscape is definitely favorable to bilingualism and multilingualism, and most filipinos are believed to speak two or more languages equally well (martin, 2014). bilingualism, according to li wei (as cited in martin, 2014), goes beyond the traditional notion of possessing mailto:benman1586@gmail.com 116 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 two languages; it can also be taken to include the many people in the world who have varying degrees of proficiency in and interchangeably use three, four or even more languages. among the languages which dominate philippine society is english, which for the educated class may be regarded as functionally native (kachru, 2005). however, it has been observed that among those who speak english in the country, code switching is common. code switching is defined as “the alternation of two languages within a single discourse, sentence, or constituent” (jamshidi & navehebraim, 2013). thompson (2003) frequently observes this phenomenon in television advertisements, public interviews, radio shows, basketball commentaries, and other media sites and later describes the prevalent use of tagalog and english code switching as “taglish.” bolton (2003) also argues that this preponderance of “taglish” in manila and in other provinces makes code switching ‘the unmarked code of choice’. several studies on code switching in the philippines have revealed that this linguistic phenomenon is practiced by various groups, with different purposes, and in various domains. these studies include azores’ study on english and tagalog elements in a biweekly newspaper; bautista’s study on code switching on radio drama, broadcast, and email messages; pascasio’s study on code switching in business; chanco, francisco, and talamisan’s study on television hosts’ widespread use of code switching; and dayag’s analysis on print advertisements (as cited in martin, 2014). code switching is definitely being utilized in various domains of philippine society. in philippine classroom discourse, code switching which is also known as pedagogic code switching or classroom code switching, has become a tricky issue because filipino teachers are expected to only use english in teaching content courses like mathematics and science, in addition to english as prescribed by the bilingual education policy (martin, 2014). pedagogic code-switching, as defined by norrish (2007), is a switch between two or more linguistic codes to facilitate the acquisition and/or comprehension of a concept or metalinguistic element in the continual progression of the structured or unstructured learning event. classroom code-switching, as defined by lin (2008), specifically refers to the alternating use of more than one linguistic code in the classroom by any of the classroom participants such as teachers, students, teacher aide, etc. still, filipino researchers have documented the prevalent use of code switching in education, having positive contributions to learning outcomes. borlongan (2009) found that most english language teachers code switched frequently, violating the ‘english only’ policy in english-dominated classrooms. moreover, asuncion (2010) found that switching to the mother tongue was the most frequently used strategy and argued that code switching should not be considered as eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ benjamin 117 wrong or illegitimate as it somehow helps learners become communicatively competent bilingual members in the society. code switching is not only the preferred mode of teaching in philippine classrooms; it has also been found to have functional dimensions. limoso (2002) reveals that code switching serves a number of educational objectives in a literature classroom as well as facilitates cooperation and understanding. martin (2006) supports the claim that code switching promotes the educational goals of delivering content knowledge. greggio and gil (2007) stress that code switching can be a useful tool in assisting english language teaching and learning. bullock and toribio (2009) also claim that code switching fills linguistic gaps, express ethnic identity, and achieve particular discursive aims. although several studies have been conducted on code switching in philippine classrooms, specifically on the use of “taglish” in the classroom, it has been found that very few or minimal studies have been undertaken on the widespread use of code switching in bisaya or cebuano, another philippine language, and english, known as “bislish or ceblish”, in the classroom. for instance, the study of abastillas (2015) only determined the divergence in cebuano and english code switching practices in cebuano speech communities in central philippines while paculanang’s (2017) study only described the cebuano pre-service teachers’ speech anxieties when they made use of code switching as a strategy in order to accommodate less proficient students in their classrooms. thus, this study is significant as it contributes to the existing literature about code switching, particularly the use of “bislish or ceblish”, in english language classrooms. furthermore, this study does not only make us aware of the teachers’ code switching patterns but it also deepens our understanding on the importance of code switching as a linguistic tool or scaffolding device in language teaching and learning. as bilingualism and multilingualism become common phenomena, it is important to understand patterns of language mixing and why they occur in the classrooms. does a teacher code-switch in the classroom to communicate meaning, to learn new vocabulary, or to facilitate pupils’ better understanding? this is the primary question that propels an investigation in this study. statement of the problem this qualitative research was conducted to investigate the language practices of two filipino high school teachers during instruction in english language classrooms. specifically, this study aimed to determine the types of code-switching commonly utilized by teachers in teaching as well as the pedagogical functions performed by these code-switching acts during classroom discourses. theoretical framework the primary theoretical framework considered in this study is hymes’ ethnography of communication (saville-troike, 2003). it was chosen over other 118 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 theoretical frameworks for its marriage of etic and emic views of language and community practice, and because it enriches linguistic analysis through the development of models and theories of language in social interaction and through the use of background knowledge and description. the ethnography of communication allows language to be examined in a specific context, that is, the classroom. thus, members of the class are the speech community; the speech situation is the lesson; and the speech event is the communication of particular lesson objectives, tasks, or activities enacted by the teacher through communication and response with the students. hymes (as cited in saville-troike, 2003) emphasizes that language cannot be separated from "how" and "why" it is used. thus, in examining the teachers' use of language in instructional practice, the overarching assumption being made (the "why") is that language is used for content-area instruction. the "how"— the use of codes in practice and the norms that govern each teacher's linguistic choice—is what was investigated in this study. the focus for this ethnography is both, to use savilletroike's (2003) words, "particularistic and generalizing". thus, it provides not only a description and interpretation of the communicative behavior of two bilingual content-area high school teachers in specific settings, that is, their classrooms, but also a framework for using codes as a scaffolding device. in the classroom context, code-switching appears to be used both by students and teachers (borlongan, 2009). on one hand, teachers seem to effectively employ code-switching in their efl curriculum as a tool in various language learning activities (kasperczyk, 2005). a code-switching activity in pairs, for example, assists students in elucidating misunderstandings using their target language. when a partner code-switches during their discussion, the other partner speaks in their native language exemplifying the notion. in this type of an exercise, students are engaged in practicing and explaining concepts to each other (kasperczyk, 2005). on the other hand, code-switching may also be used by teachers during teaching to introduce the meaning of concept words when introducing a new unit (kasperczyk, 2005). in this context, a student has to work on listening and comprehension in his/her target language. these are examples of code-switching being consciously employed as a teaching strategy. however, teachers’ use of code-switching is generally performed subconsciously (mattson & burenhult, 1999). therefore, teachers might not always be aware of the functions and outcomes of the codeswitching process (sert, 2005). this behavior seems to be automatic during their inclass speech and according to qing (2010), it is inevitable. nevertheless, either conscious or subconscious, inevitable or not, code-switching necessarily serves some basic functions that may be beneficial in language learning environments (qing, 2010). eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ benjamin 119 there were two levels of analysis considered by the researcher in this study. in the sentence-level analysis, the researcher classified the teachers’ code-switching patterns as to their structural types: 1) inter-sentential code-switching which takes place between sentences, i.e. the switch occurs at a clause or sentence boundary where each clause or sentence is in a different language; 2) intra-sentential code switching, in which the shift is done in the middle of a sentence, with no interruptions, hesitations or pauses indicating a shift; 3) intra-word code-switching which occurs within a word itself like at a morpheme boundary; and 4) extrasentential code-switching (tag) which involves inserting a tag in one language to an utterance which is otherwise in another language. in the pedagogic-functional level analysis, the researcher considered the five conceptualized categories which emerged as dominant and were expanded from merrit, cleghorn, abagi and bunyi's four types of classroom-based code-switching and guthrie's (1982) coding, which was an adaptation of dore's (1977) conversational acts. the five types of pedagogic code-switching functions considered in this study include: 1) instructional for content acquisition which is coded when the switch takes place during the content instructional learning events and occurs without repetition or disruption of the content material; 2) reformulation is an instructional strategy whereby the teacher either checks for comprehension by concurrently translating a text or speech, or initiates student translation; 3) instructional for language acquisition takes place when content instruction is supplemented or suspended for linguistic reasons; 4) coding for facilitation occurs when the switch takes place during the teacher's discourse where the teacher's role switches from content or language instructor to a facilitator; and 5) coding for habitual switching includes idiosyncratic lexicon, discourse markers, and international participles prevalent in each of the teachers' speech patterns. research method research design this study made use of the qualitative case study method which was guided by hymes’ methodological approach of the ethnography of communication. in this approach, hymes (as cited in saville-troike, 2003) emphasizes that language, particularly its linguistic form, cannot be separated from how and why it is used. thus, to understand a language and its patterns of use, one must consider it within its contextualization of practice – or rather the social and cultural contextualization in which it is embedded in a speech community. duranti (2001) cites three building blocks of hymes's approach: (1) ethnographic methods of inquiry; (2) the communicative event as the unit of analysis; as well as (3) the introduction of a framework for identifying the event. ethnographic methods of inquiry, including participant observation, are thus methodological tools in understanding the contextualization of a communicative event. communicative events can be defined as "a unified set of components throughout, beginning with the same general topic, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/morpheme 120 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 and involving the same participants, generally using the same tone or key and the same rules for interaction, in the same setting" (hymes, as cited in saville-troike, 2003). research setting this study was conducted in the high school department of the josefina h. cerilles state college-dumingag campus, dumingag, zamboanga del sur, philippines during the school year 2016-2017. two secondary classrooms were selected by the researcher as sites in this study. the first classroom was occupied by grade 7 students while the second classroom was occupied by grade 9 students. both classrooms were concrete but slightly old as they were constructed few decades ago. although the students in these classrooms were culturally and linguistically diverse, all of them could speak and understand cebuano/bisaya while a few of them could speak other languages like subanen, ilonggo, ilokano, among others. respondents of the study the respondents involved in this study were the two (2) filipino teachers who were teaching the english subject in the high school department of j.h. cerilles state college-dumingag campus, dumingag, zamboanga del sur, philippines. these teachers were purposely selected based on the following criteria: 1) their area of specialization was english; and 2) had been teaching high school students. ethical considerations to ensure compliance with existing ethical standards in conducting research, informed consent was accomplished first by the respondents involved in this study. before accomplishing the consent form, the researcher explained thoroughly to the respondents their rights, including their participation and its termination when they feel the process becomes biased or unfavorable on their part. furthermore, specific codes were also assigned to each of the respondents instead of using their real names to ensure their privacy as individuals. data collection the researcher set an appointment first with the respondents to finally agree on the specifics of the classroom observations to be conducted. after the consensus was reached, the researcher then conducted recorded classroom observations in order to properly document the conversations made between teachers and students during their classes as well as the code-switching acts that were made by teachers while teaching. after the said classroom observations, the researcher then carefully transcribed the recorded conversations and reviewed them to confirm that no parts of conversations were missing. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ benjamin 121 data analysis after the transcriptions of the recorded classroom discourses were made, the researcher took some excerpts which contained code-switching patterns and then made use of content analysis as a method in analyzing and classifying the codeswitching patterns as to intra-sentential, inter-sentential, intra-word, and extrasentential. meanwhile, to ascertain the pedagogic functions of the teacher’s codeswitching patterns, the coding used by the researcher was based on guthrie's (1982) coding on conversational acts as well as merrit, cleghorn, abagi and bunyi's (1992) types of classroom based code-switching. however, the actual decision-making process that was used by the researcher to determine each instance of the categories was derived from gumperz (1982) and levinson's (2003) description of conversational inference. findings and discussion teachers’ code switching acts and their pedagogic functions an in-depth analysis was made by the researcher on the transcripts of the inclass observations conducted to determine the types as well as the pedagogic functions of the teachers’ code-switching acts made in the classroom. based on the analysis made, it is clearly revealed that both english teachers code-switched in teaching and they code-switched because of several pedagogic purposes. the following discussions made on the excerpts taken from the transcripts of the classroom observations present the types of the teachers’ code-switching acts and their pedagogic functions. excerpt 1 teacher 1: yes, teenagers nowadays. now, what does the poem imply? what do you understand about the poem? what is the general thought of the poem? unsay inyong nasabtan sa tula? [what do you understand in the poem?] unsa siya? [what is it?] unsay kahulugan sa [what is the meaning of the] rose in the poem? the first excerpt presented above clearly shows several code-switching acts committed by the first english teacher while teaching the students. in this case, both the inter-sentential and intra-sentential code-switch types were made by the teacher when she was repeatedly asking her students about what they really understand in the poem she had earlier presented. inter-sentential code-switch, for instance, was committed by the teacher for two times during her classroom discourse as indicated by the two sentences written in red. meanwhile, intra-sentential code-switch was 122 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 committed only once by the teacher while teaching the class as shown by the phrase written in blue. the given excerpt also shows that reformulation is the pedagogic function performed by the code-switching acts committed by the teacher during the class discourse. reformulation was performed by the teacher’s code-switching acts in this example because the teacher made concurrent translations of the questions she had previously asked in english after she had noticed that no feedback was given by the students after asking those questions to them. here, the teacher decided to codeswitch and made use of reformulation as her strategy so that she could effectively check her students’ understanding on the given poem as well as make the lesson more comprehensible to her students. the foregoing finding supports one of the findings made by le van canh’s (2011) study which reveals that teachers tended to use english first and then translate the message into vietnamese as they believed that such code switching is needed to help less proficient students to understand a particular lesson. excerpt 2 teacher 1: yes, the poem here implies that we must gather or take the opportunities nga gi-offer sa ato [that are offered to us]. while we’re young, we should take those opportunities. kay kun tigulang nata [if we are already old], we cannot take those opportunities. unsay kinaiya sa tigulang? [what are the characteristics of the old?] dali na ka magkasakit. [you easily get sick] if ang [the] opportunity kay giingnan ka nga [you were told that] you have to go to america karon dayon, [right now] would you take the opportunity? would you take that? the second excerpt shows that the teacher also committed several codeswitching acts as she was having the classroom discourse. in this excerpt, for instance, three code-switch types were used by the teacher when she was telling to the students about what the poem implies in general. first, inter-sentential codeswitch was made by the teacher for two times while teaching as indicated by the two sentences written in red. second, intra-sentential code-switch was committed for three times as shown in some words and phrases written in blue. finally, intra-word code-switch (a switch made within a word) was used only once by the teacher as indicated by the single word written in green. the given excerpt reveals that instructional for content acquisition is the pedagogic function performed by the code-switching acts made by the teacher during eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ benjamin 123 the instruction. instructional for content acquisition was the function performed by the teacher’s code-switching acts in this case because the teacher simultaneously used two languages, english and bisaya, in explaining thoroughly about what the poem generally implies as well as in providing practical and familiar situations to the students so that they could understand better the lesson being taught. helping her students to easily acquire the content of the lesson was the primary purpose of the teacher on why she made use of code-switching while teaching the whole class. furthermore, the preceding result strongly supports one of the findings of kieu hang kim anh (2010) that teachers often used the vietnamese language in teaching concepts in the english subject through providing more examples and reinforcements in order to help students easily understand the concepts being taught to them. excerpt 3 teacher 1: we should take it because pananglitan, [for example] dli na siya mausab, [it would not happen again] as what the saying says, “opportunity knocks once.” dili na na siya mobalik or mo-knock nimo. [it would not come again, or knock at you] naa pay laing maabot [others still come] but kato nga [that] opportunity nga gi-offer sa imoha dili nato siya mobalik. [that was offered to you, it would no longer come back] just like the other excerpts presented, this excerpt also shows several codeswitching acts committed by the teacher within the same utterance while having her classroom discourse. as clearly shown, three code-switches were also made by the teacher as she was having the class. intra-sentential code-switch was the most frequently used by the teacher as it occurred three times in the same utterance as indicated by the words and phrases written in blue. inter-sentential code-switch, on the other hand, was also frequently used as it occurred two times in the given utterance as shown by the two independent clauses written in red. intra-word codeswitch was often used by the teacher as it appeared twice as indicated by the two words written in green. in this given excerpt, it clearly shows that instructional for content acquisition is also the pedagogic function which was performed by the codeswitching acts that were made by the teacher while teaching the students. this pedagogic function was used in this extract because the teacher also made frequent and simultaneous switches between the two languages, english and bisaya, in explaining thoroughly the content of the lesson to the students. furthermore, the teacher made use of these code-switches because she really wanted to help her students understand better the lesson. moreover, the given result supports the finding of another study conducted by liu, ahn, baek, and han (2004) that high school 124 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 teachers used korean more frequently than english particularly in giving background information as well as highlighting important information to aid students in understanding the lesson being taught. excerpt 4 teacher 1: okay, because she misses her father. so, there is an opportunity like that. nag-sorry iyang papa sa iyaha. [her father said sorry to her] we should not reject that. dapat atong gi-accept to siya. [we should have accepted that] mofeel ta ug [we feel] guilty kay nangayo na ug pasaylo iya papa. [because her father had already asked forgiveness] dayon, dili nato pasayloon. [then, we would not forgive] dapat pasayloon kay ginikanan man nato siya. [we should forgive him because he is our parent] kun wala pud ato mga ginikanan, wala pud ta. [if our parents are not there, then we will not also be here] similar to other previous examples, the fourth excerpt shows that the teacher had committed several code-switching acts while teaching her students. as presented, three code-switch types were used by the teacher as she was explaining to the students about the importance of grabbing the opportunities that come to one’s life. in this excerpt, intra-sentential code-switch appeared three times as indicated by the phrases written in blue. meanwhile, inter-sentential code-switch also occurred for three times as shown by the three sentences written in red. intra-word code-switch also appeared three times as clearly indicated by the three words written in green. moreover, the given excerpt shows that instructional for content acquisition is the pedagogic function performed by the code-switching acts made by the teacher during instruction. this pedagogic function was identified in this case because the teacher made simultaneous code-switches from english to bisaya in explaining thoroughly to the students the lesson about the importance of taking the opportunities in life and forgiving other people. the use of code-switching in this situation was made by the teacher because she aimed to promote students’ understanding of the lesson being taught. the foregoing result supports one of the major findings of susanti’s (2010) case study that teachers often code switched during classroom instructions to emphasize as well as clarify some important points to help students effectively understand the lesson or topic they are teaching. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ benjamin 125 excerpt 5 teacher 1: if someone offers or gives you an opportunity, bisag unsaunsa, [whatever it is] basta kaayohan lang, [only for our welfare] dapat i-grab to nimo nga [we should grab that] opportunity. the fifth excerpt presented above shows that the teacher had committed few code-switching acts within the same utterance. in this case, two code-switch types were made by the teacher when she was telling to her students about the importance of grabbing only the good opportunities that come to one’s life. intra-sentential code-switch, for instance, occurred many times as indicated by phrases written in blue as it was observed that the teacher made frequent shifts on her use of the two languages, english and bisaya, while talking. meanwhile, intra-word code-switch only appeared once as it was rarely used by the teacher in teaching as shown by the word written in green. similar to other excerpts provided, instructional for content acquisition is also the pedagogic function performed by the code-switching acts committed by the teacher in this case. in this example, the teacher made simultaneous switches from english to bisaya in sharing her personal viewpoints about grabbing some opportunities that would come to one’s life. this example also reveals that the teacher used code-switching as her teaching strategy because she believed that the use of a more familiar language in teaching would contribute to students’ better understanding of the lesson. furthermore, the given result supports another finding disclosed by then and ting (2011) that malaysian teachers frequently used code switching, particularly the malay language, in explaining the content in order to ensure students’ comprehension. excerpt 6 teacher 1: the worm symbolizes problems. this line tells that if naa tay problema, [have problem] i-take nato ang problema, [we should take the problem] then dili ta mag-control sa problema, mao nay modaot sa atoa. [if we cannot control this problem, then it will destroy us] kindly read the last line. the sixth excerpt presented above also shows several code-switching acts committed by the teacher while teaching a particular lesson to the class. two codeswitch types, intra-sentential and intra-word, were made by the teacher when she was explaining to the students what do worms symbolize in the given poem. in the given excerpt, intra-sentential code-switch appeared many times as indicated by 126 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 some phrases written in blue. meanwhile, intra-word code-switch type was committed by the teacher for two times as shown by the words written in green. in this excerpt, instructional for content acquisition is also the pedagogic function performed by the code-switching acts made by the teacher while discussing the lesson. this pedagogic function was used in this classroom situation because the teacher made frequent and simultaneous code-switches between two languages, english and bisaya, in emphasizing a particular part of the lesson to her class. in this example, the teacher also made use of code-switching as her instructional strategy to ensure that the students would better understand the lesson being taught. moreover, the foregoing result confirms one of the findings made by martin (2014) in her study that filipino high school teachers often make conscious efforts to effectively connect to their students using the language the students are most comfortable with. excerpt 7 teacher 1: i will give these materials to you. be fast in making your haiku. kung sayo mo mahuman, sayo ta manguli. [if you end early, then we can go home early] all right, kindly start now. the seventh excerpt presented above contains only one code-switching act made by the teacher while having her discourse in the classroom. in this excerpt, inter-sentential code-switch was only committed by the teacher when she was telling her students to accomplish immediately the given activity so that she could dismiss the class early. the given excerpt shows that facilitation is the other pedagogic function performed by the code-switching act made by the teacher while teaching the class. facilitation is the function performed by the teacher’s code-switching act because in this excerpt, the role of the teacher switches from being of a content or a language instructor to that of being a facilitator in the classroom. in this case, the teacher had decided to make use of code-switching during the classroom discourse as it was part of the classroom routines and management where instructions or directives were given by the teacher to the students in a more familiar language like bisaya instead of the english language in order to facilitate the students’ active participation in the class. the foregoing finding also strongly supports another major finding of martin (2014) that filipino teachers often used code switching to ensure students’ active participation not only during the class discussions but also in accomplishing certain activities in the classroom. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ benjamin 127 excerpt 8 teacher 2: okay! yes, it’s sabong sa manok. [cock fight] all right! do you want to know the story behind this picture? the eight excerpt presented above shows the code-switching act made by the second english teacher while teaching her students. in this excerpt, intra-sentential code-switch was used by the teacher when she was reinforcing the answer given by the student on the question she had previously asked about what they think regarding the event shown by the picture posted on the board. just like the other excerpts previously given, instructional for content acquisition is also the pedagogic function performed by the code-switching act made by the teacher while teaching. in this case, the teacher was observed to simultaneously switch codes during her classroom discourse to help her students make connections between what is presented in the motivation and the lesson to be learned. the teacher also used code-switching as an instructional strategy in reinforcing her student’s answer to the question as this is seen useful not only in arousing the students’ interests but also in ensuring their understanding of the lesson. moreover, the preceding finding confirms another finding made by ahmad and jussof (2009) that teachers code switch to encourage response from the students as well as to support language learning. excerpt 9 teacher 2: what is the author’s purpose in writing the story? what do you think is the author’s purpose in writing it? unsa may tumong nga gisulat ang istorya? [what is the purpose of writing the story?] the ninth excerpt presented above shows the other code-switching act committed by the second english teacher during her classroom discourse. intersentential code-switch was made by the teacher in this excerpt when she was repeatedly asking the students about the purpose of the author, francisco soc rodrigo, in writing the story “sa pula, sa puti”. in this excerpt, the teacher was observed asking the same question in english for two times but she didn’t receive any feedback from the students. later, she shifted to bisaya when asking the same question for the third time so that she could elicit the desired response from her students. moreover, the given excerpt shows that reformulation is the pedagogic function performed by the code-switching act made by the teacher. reformulation was specifically used in this case because the teacher made a concurrent translation of the question she had previously asked in english. in this case, reformulation 128 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 became the teacher’s instructional strategy after she noticed that no feedback was given by the students after asking the same question twice in english. the teacher’s aim of using reformulation as an instructional strategy during the class discussion was not only to gain the desired feedback from the students but also to check their understanding of the given poem. the foregoing result also supports another major finding made by susanti (2010) that teachers used code switching most frequently in their classroom teaching for reiteration in order to aid students’ understanding of the lesson. excerpt 10 teacher 2: yes, the author’s purpose in writing the story is that he wants to tell nga ang sugal dili maayo [that gambling is not good] and it does not help our living to be better. now, what if kulas won the fight when he cheated and bet on his opponent’s cock? what do you think would happen? would he stop to gamble if he had won the fight? the last excerpt presented above shows the other code-switching act made by the english teacher while teaching. in this excerpt, intra-sentential code-switch was used by the teacher when she agreed to the answer given by the student and then shared to the whole class about the real purpose of the author in writing the story. it could be observed that the teacher started her statement first in english but then codeswitched when she emphasized the answer previously given by the student. the given excerpt also shows that instructional for content acquisition is the pedagogic function performed by the code-switching act committed by the teacher while having the classroom discourse. this function was used in this case because the teacher simultaneously code-switched from english to bisaya when she was emphasizing to the students a particular content of the lesson. this code-switching act was intently done by the teacher not only to reinforce the student’s answer but also to help the students easily comprehend the lesson being taught. furthermore, the given result supports one of the claims of coulmas (2005) that code switching is used by teachers in providing some explanations in order to help their students learn effectively. conclusion code-switching is a common language practice of both english teachers during classroom instructions and they make use of code-switching as an instructional strategy for several pedagogic purposes. in the sentential-level analysis, several code-switching acts are made by the first english teacher within the same eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ benjamin 129 utterance while the second teacher rarely code-switches during her discourse in the classroom. intra-sentential, inter-sentential, and intra-word code-switch types are commonly used by the teachers while extra-sentential (tag) code-switch is not used by both english teachers. in the pedagogic-functional level analysis, teachers frequently use code-switching during the classroom discourses mostly for instructional for content acquisition which is similar to the findings revealed by the previous studies of liu, ahn, baek, and han (2004), ahmad and jussof (2009), kieu hang kim anh (2010), susanti (2010), then and ting (2011), and martin (2014). the foregoing result clearly indicates that teachers usually act as a linguistic bridge between the lessons to be taught and learned and their english language learners. teachers sometimes use code-switching in teaching for reformulation and facilitation but they rarely use code-switching for language acquisition and habitual purposes. furthermore, code-switching is used by teachers not only as a communicative device (adendorf, 1996; myers-scotton, 1995) and an instrument to enhance discourse such as emphasizing a point (gal, 1979) and mitigating a message (koziol, 2000), but also, most importantly, as a scaffolding device that effectively facilitates and optimizes students’ learning in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms (lin, 2008). recommendations this study recommends that a similar study be conducted to collect sufficient data on class interactions through utilizing intensive classroom observations to deepen the investigation on the language practices of the english teachers during the classroom discourses. moreover, it also recommends that other methods like surveys and interviews with the teachers can also be undertaken to gather their viewpoints about when and why they code-switch during instruction as well as their attitudes toward their use of code-switching in the second language classrooms. references abastillas, g. 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(2003). filipino english and taglish: language switching from multiple perspectives. amsterdam: john benjamins. microsoft word 4 shube, b. d. & hanshu, a. h..docx english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 191-202 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.6879 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id teachers’ knowledge: teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge in vocabulary instruction bekele daba shube a, 1,*, alemu hailu hanshu b, 2 a, b nbh1, 4killo king george vi st, addis ababa, etiopia 1 bekeledaba45@gmail.com*, 2 alemuhailu2011@gmail.com a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 20 september 2022 revised 28 october 2022 accepted 26 november 2022 the study investigated efl teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge in vocabulary instruction at the secondary school level in addis ababa, ethiopia. to fulfill this purpose, an explanatory research design and mixed data analysis methods were employed. the study involved thirty-six english teachers from three representative secondary schools. data was collected from the participant teachers through a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. the findings show that participants in the study generally have positive perceptions about vocabulary teaching and learning. according to the participants’ perspectives, vocabulary is central to language and it is important to language learners in their language learning. this thought was affirmed by participants in both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the study. the finding also revealed teachers’ sources of knowledge in vocabulary instruction. these knowledge sources include teachers’ teaching experience, their disciplinary background, apprenticeship of observation, and others. the discussion of these findings suggests implications for practices and recommendations for future research to improve vocabulary instruction in secondary schools. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords perceptions sources of knowledge teachers’ knowledge vocabulary instruction how to cite: shube, b. d. & hanshu, a. h. (2022). teachers’ knowledge: teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge in vocabulary instruction. english language teaching educational journal, 5 (3), 191202. 1. introduction teachers’ knowledge and how they implement their knowledge is central to the process of teaching and learning (van leeuwen, hornstra, & flunger, 2023). teachers’ knowledge refers to the total knowledge and insights underlying teachers’ actions in practice. according to borg (1999), teachers’ knowledge implies "the beliefs, knowledge theories, assumptions, and attitudes that teachers hold about all aspects of their work" (p. 9). research in teacher cognition also demonstrates that teachers’ knowledge is an important element that has the potential to provide insights into teachers’ innate ability to make images and interpretations about what they are teaching, who they are teaching, and the context in which teaching takes place (carter, 1990; freeman, 2002; meisani, 2023). the investigation into teachers’ knowledge in terms of ‘what’ teachers know about what they do in the classroom has become a core interest in typical educational research since the mid-1970s. at this time, the significance of teacher cognition inquiry has increased and the center of attention in l2 research education has immensely changed from studying teachers' observable behaviors to studying teachers’ knowledge and beliefs (meijer, verloop, & beijaard, 1999; soifah & pratolo, 2020). in the early 1990s, research in language education also shifted to focus on the cognitive aspects of teaching, and attention was seriously paid to the central role of teachers’ knowledge in helping to 192 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 191-202 shube, b. d. & hanshu, a. h. (teachers’ knowledge: teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge.....) improve language teaching (prabhu, 1990). within the efl context as well, there has recently been an increasing interest in research on teachers’ knowledge in the field of english language teaching. to this end, shulman (1987) argued that teachers’ knowledge is essential for effective language teaching. here, what deserves special attention is "the influence of teachers’ mental lives or the hidden side of teaching" on their instructional decisions (freeman, 2002). in the same way, researchers have viewed vocabulary as an important part of a language on which teachers’ knowledge of research is required to be made. borg (2003) points out that l2 teachers’ knowledge needs more focused research on different curricular aspects of language teaching, particularly those unstudied areas such as the teaching of vocabulary, speaking, and listening. thus, referring to the studies on l2 teachers’ knowledge in various curricular areas, the researcher investigated perceptions and sources of efl teachers’ knowledge in vocabulary instruction at the secondary school level in addis ababa, ethiopia. 1.1. statement of the research problem teachers play an important role in students’ vocabulary development as they prepare learners for strategies that increase their vocabulary knowledge (windiarti et.al., 2019). however, borg (2009) indicates that vocabulary as an area of study has been sidelined from a teacher's knowledge perspective, and there is insufficient understanding of this curricular area of second language teaching. the researcher also agrees with borg’s idea that studies of vocabulary teaching, which aim to investigate teachers’ knowledge of vocabulary teaching and how these affect classroom practices, are rare in our context, and he believes that more research needs to be done on teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge in efl classes. although worldwide there is a large body of literature documenting research findings about teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge with regard to different curricular areas (van driel, beijaard and verloop, 2001; tsui, 2003; borg, 2004; arıoğul, 2007; gao, 2007) it seems less attention has been paid to such kinds of research in our context. as a result, the development of teachers teaching english in general and vocabulary instruction in particular remains unchanged. therefore, this study filled the gap by exploring teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge in vocabulary instruction in an efl secondary school context in addis ababa, ethiopia. based on the preceding analysis, this study thus attempted to answer the following basic research questions: 1.2. research questions i. what perceptions do secondary school efl teachers have about their knowledge and practice in vocabulary instruction? ii. how do secondary school efl teachers develop their sources of knowledge in vocabulary instruction? 1.3. objectives of the study based on the above research questions, the study has the following general and specific objectives: 1) general objective the general objective of this study is to investigate secondary school efl teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge in vocabulary instruction. based on this general objective, the study focused on the following specific objectives: 2) specific objectives i. to investigate secondary school efl teachers’ perceptions of their knowledge and practice in vocabulary instruction. ii. to find out secondary school efl teachers’ sources of knowledge in vocabulary instruction. 2. meterials and method 2.1. research design and methodology the study adopted an explanatory mixed-method design by combining quantitative and qualitative methods as complementary strategies appropriate to the research questions. explanatory design sets issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 193 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 191-202 shube, b. d. & hanshu, a. h. (teachers’ knowledge: teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge.....) out to explain information and seeks to ask "why" and "how" questions those go on to identify the actual reasons a phenomenon occurs (creswell et al., 2003). this design starts with the collection and analysis of quantitative data. the second, qualitative phase of the study is designed so that it follows from (or connects to) the results of the first quantitative phase. the reason behind the sequence of the explanatory design is that the quantitative data and their subsequent analysis provide a general understanding of the research problem. the qualitative data and their analysis refine and explain those statistical results by exploring participants’ views in more depth (creswell et al., 2003). consequently, in the first phase of data collection, the researcher conducted a questionnaire, followed by semistructured interviews in the second phase. based on some of the findings from the first phase, integration of the two phases was carried out, and further investigation of secondary school efl teachers' perceptions and sources of knowledge in vocabulary instruction was conducted. 2.2. participants of the study the participants of this study were efl teachers who were teaching english at randomly selected secondary schools. for the study, thirty-six english teachers from representative secondary schools took part in filling out the questionnaire. as well, for semi-structured interview, four purposefully selected teachers from these representative secondary schools were engaged. 2.3. data gathering instruments two instruments were employed in order to gather the necessary data for the study undertaken. these instruments are questionnaire and semi structured interview. 1) questionnaire in this research, questionnaire aids in gaining a preliminary understanding of the phenomenon under study. this is supported by teddlie & tashakkori (2009) that first, a questionnaire helps to obtain a general overview of the research. secondly, if the strategy of data collection is sequential (similar to the research), findings from the questionnaire pave the way for the development of other qualitative data-gathering tools such as interviews and others. in the same way, certain aspects of teachers’ perceptions and sources of knowledge in vocabulary teaching arising from the findings of the questionnaire were further investigated, and certain issues generated by the first investigation were addressed through the participants’ views and understandings. as morse (2003) maintained, by employing more than one method within a research design, the researcher is able to obtain a thorough understanding of human behavior and experience. the principal aim of this questionnaire was to obtain an overview of perceptions and sources of knowledge secondary school teachers of english have about their vocabulary teaching. 2) interview this study employed face-to-face semi-structured interview, which was guided by a list of interview questions and was designed to put interviewees at ease and allow them to express themselves. the semi-structured interview in this study served a number of purposes. first, it dug deep into the minds of the interviewees to explore efl government secondary school teachers’ perceptions and sources of knowledge in vocabulary instruction. second, it provided further insight into justifying the claims made by the respondents to the questionnaire. third, it allowed the researcher to ask questions that were not in the guide and the researcher could use prompts to encourage the participants to elaborate on the original response. such a distinctive feature helped the researcher to gain a thorough understanding of teachers’ perceptions and sources of knowledge in vocabulary instruction. in the light of the research questions and aims, the semi-structured interview questions of this study were formulated with the help of the relevant literature in the area and based on the findings from the questionnaire. it was conducted after a purposive selection of four teachers from representative secondary schools was made. 2.4. data collection procedures in this study, data was collected sequentially in two phases. the first phase of data collection was the administration of the questionnaire. in the second phase, the researcher used his time to conduct qualitative data, i.e., the semi-structured interview, with purposely selected teachers at representative government secondary schools, respectively. 194 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 191-202 shube, b. d. & hanshu, a. h. (teachers’ knowledge: teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge.....) 3. findings and discussion this section provides a discussion of research findings with reference to each of the two research questions. in each of these two sections, the quantitative and qualitative findings were analyzed and concisely discussed, followed by an interpretation of the results with reference to the literature reviewed and existing relevant research evidence. 3.1. what perceptions do secondary school efl teachers have about their knowledge and practice in vocabulary instruction? this section of the questionnaire contains seven items designed to elicit teachers' perceptions on teaching english vocabulary. table 1 below shows the frequency and percentages of the responses with reference to each item. table 1. frequency and percentages of responses to teachers’ perceptions no teachers’ perceptions sa a cd d sd total f % f % f % f % f % f % 1 learning a foreign language is mostly a matter of learning new vocabularies. 8 22.2 14 38.9 2 5.6 8 22.2 4 11.1 36 100 2 teaching vocabulary learning strategies to students should be the primary role of an efl teacher. 13 36.1 10 27.8 2 5.6 7 19.4 4 11.1 36 100 3 vocabulary is best learned naturally through meaningful communication. 9 25 14 38.9 5 13.9 6 16.7 2 5.6 36 100 4 vocabulary teaching has to be given prime consideration in efl classes. 8 22.2 12 33.3 5 13.9 6 16.7 5 15.9 36 100 5 teaching vocabulary is more important than teaching grammar. 8 22.2 11 30.6 5 13.9 7 19.4 5 13.9 36 100 6 teachers should use an explicit instruction technique more than an implicit one when they teach english vocabulary. 7 19,4 13 36.1 6 16.7 6 16.7 4 11.1 36 100 7 teachers should use students l1 when they teach new words. 7 19.4 12 33.3 3 8.3 8 22.2 6 16.7 36 100 based on their perceptions, teachers involved in the survey reported a variety of responses they considered helpful to their vocabulary teaching. as table 1 shows, 61.1 % of the respondents confirmed that ‘learning english is the same as learning new english words. however, 33.3 % of the respondents disagreed (4 teachers) and strongly disagreed (8 teachers) with the item respectively. it is clear from the majority of the respondents’ views that participant teachers believed the importance of new english words to learn english language. the rest 2 respondents didn’t decide to the item. in response to the second item, a large percentage of the respondents (63.9 %) confirmed that teaching vocabulary learning strategies to students should be the primary role of an efl teacher. this entails the teacher’s role in an efl class is to provide students with a variety of strategies and let the students choose these strategies and make them independent learners. however, 30.5 % of the respondents opted to disagree (19.4%) and strongly disagree (11.1 %) with the statement, thinking teaching vocabulary learning strategies to students should not be the primary role of an efl teacher. the remaining respondents (5.6 %) chose to not decide on the item. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 195 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 191-202 shube, b. d. & hanshu, a. h. (teachers’ knowledge: teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge.....) as far as the statement "vocabulary is best learned naturally through meaningful communication" is concerned, the data in table 1 shows that 22.2 % of the respondents disagree (16.7 %) and strongly disagree (5.6 %) with the statement, respectively. however, 63.9 % of those polled preferred strongly agree (25%) and agree (38.9%). this suggests that teachers have positive (strong) attitudes toward developing vocabulary knowledge through meaningful communication. thus, respondents believed vocabulary teaching should expose students to interactive activities rather than learning only the forms of new words. regarding ‘vocabulary teaching has to be given prime consideration in efl classes’, 55.6 % of the respondents replied: "strongly agree" (22.2 %) and "agree" (33.3 %) to the item, respectively. the data in the table shows that participant teachers have positive attitudes towards giving prime consideration to vocabulary teaching. however, 30.6 % of the respondents held negative feelings towards the statement, and the remaining respondents (5 teachers) chose to un decide the item. when teachers responded to the statement "teaching vocabulary is more important than teaching grammar", 52.8 % of the respondents replied "strongly agree" (22.2 %) and "agree" (30.6 %) to the statement, respectively. the responses of this percentage (52.8%) of teachers actually revealed that teaching vocabulary is more important than teaching grammar. compared to grammar, vocabulary plays an important role in expressing ideas and thoughts. however, 33.3% of respondents chose to disagree (19.4%) or strongly disagree (13.9%) with the claim that teaching vocabulary is more important than teaching grammar. the remaining 13.9% of the respondents could not decide which language element was important. the fact that these teachers preferred not to decide might show that some teachers found it hard to rank vocabulary and grammar according to their importance. as seen in table 1, more than half of the respondents (55.6 %) perceived vocabulary should be taught explicitly in efl class situations. this entails an explicit method of vocabulary learning promises the greatest opportunity for the acquisition of vocabulary by virtue of direct attention to it. however, 27.8 % of the respondents chose to disagree (16.7 %) and strongly disagree (11.1 %) with the item, considering teachers should use an implicit way when they teach english vocabulary. yet, 4 respondents preferred to choose undecided, arguing the use of neither explicit nor implicit instruction techniques in vocabulary teaching classes. finally, the data in the survey reveals that more than half (52.8%) of the participant teachers have strong beliefs in the use of students' l1 when students find it hard to express key concepts and notions in english. however, 38.9% of respondents disagreed with the statement, believing that students' l1 should not be used in vocabulary instruction because they may develop the habit of frequently waiting for translation in class, which is not good for learning a foreign language and is not required in vocabulary instruction. the remaining 3 teachers opted to undecided the statement. in the previous section, the findings of the questionnaire provided a preliminary understanding of teachers’ perceptions of vocabulary instruction. the next section discusses research findings from an in-depth study (semi-structured interview), followed by an interpretation of the results with reference to the literature reviewed and existing relevant research evidence. teachers' perceptions of vocabulary instruction underscoring the importance of vocabulary learning, all participants acknowledged the importance of vocabulary in learning english as a foreign language. as t1, who teaches english at a secondary school, pointed out, words are the bricks that can have the cohesive, sensible thought of ideas for holding a lot of concepts, and they are very important in foreign language learning (teacher1’s interview). much to the same thought, t3 added, "vocabulary is very important as cells are very important for our body. the basis for our body is a cell, and the basis for language is vocabulary (teacher 3’s interview). besides, based on the analysis of the findings in the quantitative parts, it is clear from the majority of the respondents’ view that vocabulary is central to language and important to language learners. in the study, most participants confirmed that "learning a second language is the same as learning the vocabulary of the language." in this regard, gass (1999) states that learning a second language means learning its vocabulary, as vocabulary skills make a significant contribution to almost all aspects of second language proficiency. this means that vocabulary knowledge is central to communicative ability and to learning a second language. generally, vocabulary is a core component of a language and it provides much for language proficiency and for how well learners learn to speak, listen, read, and write in an efl class. 196 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 191-202 shube, b. d. & hanshu, a. h. (teachers’ knowledge: teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge.....) in order to teach, english teachers have to develop knowledge of vocabulary teaching strategies (pratolo, & hafizhah, 2022). this thought was affirmed by most participants in both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of this study. according to nation (2001), teacher awareness of vocabulary teaching strategies has a direct impact on efl teachers' practice in the teaching and learning of vocabulary. since, without having sufficient awareness of the principles and purposes of vocabulary teaching strategies, it is difficult to effectively practice them in the classroom. so, to improve the effectiveness and efficiency, teachers should not only understand the students’ difficulties with word study but also know and use some useful strategies and methods in their classroom teaching (nugraheni & rokhyati, 2022). only in this way can they help to improve the students’ vocabulary knowledge and their ability to use english freely in communication. besides, teaching words is a crucial aspect of learning a language, as languages are based on words. therefore, it is essential for the teacher to have knowledge of vocabulary teaching strategies in order to make their students grasp new concepts in their vocabulary learning. participants in the study supported the idea that "vocabulary is best learned naturally through meaningful communication" and they believed vocabulary exercises should expose students to interactive activities rather than learning only the forms of the new words. this positive perception of the use of clt in teaching vocabulary is conducive to the actual classroom practice. in connection to this idea, richards and rodgers (2001) pointed out that vocabulary teaching focuses on meaning rather than form to achieve effective communication. thus, having a good knowledge of vocabulary is necessary to make students effective in different communication settings and help them express their ideas and feelings effectively. from this angle, about 64% of the quantitative survey respondents supported the idea and believed vocabulary exercises should expose students to interactive activities rather than learning only the forms of the new words. as a matter of fact, learning vocabulary is one of the most important domains in the process of learning a language. regarding its significance in learning a language, it can be said that limited knowledge of english vocabulary may affect the performance of english language learners at school. to this end, with positive feelings towards vocabulary teaching, teachers prefer the idea that "prime consideration should be given to vocabulary teaching in efl classes." as zhang jianmin (2003) underscored, "vocabulary is to the learner as building materials are to the architect, and without a large english vocabulary, no one can claim a good command of the language" (p.53). this shows that vocabulary knowledge is often viewed as a critical tool for second language learners because a limited vocabulary in a second language impedes successful communication. lewis (1993) went further to argue that lexis is the core or heart of a language, and a human being’s language is based on the vocabulary of that language. vocabulary is the basic material to put even the grammar into patterns because there is no sentence, no essay, and even no language without vocabulary (p. 89). the survey results expressed in the questionnaire were seen with most teachers’ interview responses that acknowledged the importance of vocabulary in learning english as a foreign language. as t1, who teaches english at a secondary school, pointed out, "vocabularies are the bricks that can have the cohesive sensible thought of ideas for holding a lot of concepts and it is very important in foreign language learning" (ssi). much to the same thought, t3 added, "vocabulary is very important as cells are very important for our body. the basis of our body is a cell. the basis for language is "vocabulary" (ssi). this implies that vocabulary is one of the significant components of language learning and it has to be given prime consideration in efl classes. respondents actually considered teaching vocabulary more important than teaching grammar. i think that vocabulary plays an important role in expressing ideas and thoughts. from this angle, mccarthy (1990) states that the single biggest component of any language course is vocabulary. no matter how well students learn grammar or how well they master l2 sounds, communication in an l2 cannot take place in any meaningful way unless they have words to express a wide range of meanings. thus, if students do not have a vocabulary to work with, they cannot even learn grammar. from this point, we can understand that to acquire a language, learning vocabulary is more compulsory than learning grammar. to this angle, one of the participants replied: "for me, vocabulary is more important than grammar since without vocabulary we can’t teach other language skills and even grammar" (teacher 4’s interview). this was also expressed in t2’s comment, "it is impossible to teach a language without the knowledge of vocabulary" (teacher 2’s interview). it is clear from these respondents' views that vocabulary is more important to acquire a second language compared to other language skills and language elements. from this angle, 52.8 % of quantitative survey respondents issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 197 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 191-202 shube, b. d. & hanshu, a. h. (teachers’ knowledge: teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge.....) disclosed that teaching vocabulary is more important than teaching grammar, and respondents thought vocabulary plays an important role in expressing ideas and feelings compared to grammar. it is worth noting that a difference existed between the findings in the questionnaire and in an indepth study (semi-structured interview) in line with using explicit and implicit ways of vocabulary teaching. in the questionnaire, more than 55% of the respondents prefer an explicit method of vocabulary teaching, whereas in an in-depth study, most teachers prefer the integration of both methods (explicit and implicit) in their vocabulary teaching. for example, teachers who respond to an interview appeal that vocabulary should be taught both explicitly and implicitly. evidently, one of the participants articulates that vocabulary should be taught using different ways of teaching. for example, if teaching involves the direct presentation of a lesson, i use an explicit method of teaching. if teaching promotes incidental vocabulary learning, i use implicit techniques and let students read it outside of class. thus, i didn’t have any specific way of teaching vocabulary (teacher2’s interview). this implies teachers do not prefer explicit vocabulary teaching to implicit teaching of vocabulary or the other way around. hence, it is perhaps impossible to put the two concepts of explicit or implicit teaching against each other, and it is hard to claim that one method is better than the other, which is also what many researchers of second language acquisition promote (chacón-beltrán et al., 2010). it is clear from this evidence that both approaches to learning vocabulary have been shown to be beneficial. teachers have a strong belief in the use of students' l1 when they find it hard to express key concepts and notions in english or feel students would be unable to understand the meaning of new words easily. in short, these teachers held the view that l1 could be used as a "scaffolding tool" in teaching english words. thus, ignoring student l1 would decrease the cognitive level of that learner. swan (1985) believes that "when learning a new language, learners habitually attempt to find ways to comprehend the new structures in the l2 by trying to find the equivalents in their l1". this is logical for taking l1 reference, and teachers should find a balance and decide if the use of l1 is excessive or not. however, as the data in the survey reveals, some respondents reflected that students' l1 should not be used in teaching vocabulary because students might develop the habit of waiting for translation in class now and then, which is not good for learning a foreign language and was not a must in vocabulary instruction. however, this finding also reveals that about 53 % of the participant teachers have a strong belief in the use of students' l1 when students find it hard to express key concepts and notions in english. thus, the use of student l1 cannot be ignored nor overused in efl classes when teachers teach new words. results and discussion of the findings about respondents’ perceptions of vocabulary instruction were presented in the previous section. in the following section, teachers’ sources of knowledge development in vocabulary instruction were analyzed first, and then the results of the findings were discussed with literature related. 3.2. how do secondary school efl teachers develop their sources of knowledge in vocabulary instruction? in order to address the responses to the items about teachers’ sources of knowledge development for vocabulary teaching, the responses were first counted; the percentages were calculated in the following table, and then they were analyzed and discussed beneath the table. table 2. frequency and percentages of responses on teachers’ sources of knowledge development no source items response percentage 1 teaching experience (the knowledge teachers themselves generate as a result of their experiences as teachers). 29 80.6 2 teachers’ disciplinary background (the knowledge teachers possess at college or university in their teacher education programme). 26 72.2 3 apprenticeship of observation (prior experience of teachers as learners). 22 61.1 4 peer learning 6 16.7 5 instructors’ advice. 5 13.9 6 teachers training or seminar held by the ministry of education or zonal education bureau. 3 8.3 7 students’ feedback 17 47.2 8 doing research or reading research articles in the area. 19 52.8 9 other (specify) 2 5.6 198 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 191-202 shube, b. d. & hanshu, a. h. (teachers’ knowledge: teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge.....) as the data in table 2 revealed, the sources noted most frequently were: teaching experience (the knowledge teachers themselves generate as a result of their experiences as teachers, 80.6%) , teachers’ disciplinary background (the knowledge teachers possess at a college or university in their teacher education program, 72.2%), and apprenticeship of observation (prior experience of teachers as learners, 61.1%), respectively. participants also reported that their knowledge is developed from the research they are doing or reading research articles in the area (52.8%) and students’ feedback (47.2%), respectively. some respondents as well stated that their knowledge about vocabulary teaching originated from peer learning, instructors’ advice, and seminars held by the ministry of education or zonal education bureau, which covered 16.7%, 13.9%, and 8.3% respectively. additionally, a very small percentage (5.6 %) of the participants indicated that their knowledge about vocabulary instruction is derived from other sources, including their use of emerging technologies such as mobiles, computers, and others. in sum, teachers' teaching experience, their disciplinary background, and teachers’ apprenticeship of observation contributed a lot to teachers’ knowledge about vocabulary teaching. besides, sources such as research they are doing in the area and students' feedback also play an important role in developing teachers’ knowledge in vocabulary instruction. in the preceding section, the findings of the questionnaire provided a preliminary understanding of teachers’ sources of knowledge developments quantitatively. the next section discusses research findings from an in-depth study (semi-structured interview), followed by an interpretation of the results with reference to the literature reviewed and existing relevant research evidence. sources of teachers’ knowledge development in vocabulary instruction in order to recognize teachers’ classroom practices and the knowledge embodied in these practices, it is important to understand the sources of influence that shape teachers’ conceptions of knowledge and practice (tsui, 2003). to this end, efl teachers’ knowledge of vocabulary teaching is developed from a variety of sources. the result of an in-depth study (a semi-structured interview) showed that the participants are mainly reliant on their own experience of teaching english. it is clear that experience is an important source of influence on the development of teachers’ knowledge in teaching english. from this angle, t1, who taught english for more than ten years in secondary school, said, "my knowledge regarding english teaching is not from my college or university education, rather it is from my teaching experience" (teacher1’s interview). t4 also supported this view and showed his position by saying, "basically, i give attention to experience because the experiences that i have passed through make me feel like a full teacher now" (teacher 4’s interview). the findings regarding the role of experience in shaping and developing teacher knowledge replicate existing research evidence supporting experience as an indispensable source for the development of teacher knowledge. for example, grangeat (2008) highlighted that professional knowledge is shaped by professional lived experience at work. thus, relevant efl work experience as an english teacher could make the teacher good at teaching language skills and language elements, including vocabulary, in an efl classroom. the data presented in the above excerpt indicates that the participant is mainly reliant on his own experience of teaching english. it is clear that experience is an important source of influence on the development of teachers’ knowledge in teaching english. the responses in the questionnaire were almost the same as the results from the interviews; with most teachers (80.6%) saying teaching experience was their major source of knowledge in vocabulary instruction. participants explained that by teaching, they gained more knowledge about how to teach vocabulary and assess vocabulary learning. as regards their content knowledge (mainly referring to their english proficiency), the participants tended to reveal that with an increase in teaching experience, their vocabulary size increased since they could develop some words through teaching the textbooks or other supplementary materials. besides, the experience of teaching different language skills in english in one way or another developed teachers’ vocabulary teaching techniques. the questionnaire results also showed most teachers (72.2%) agreed with the teachers’ disciplinary background as the second most important source of knowledge development in vocabulary instruction. however, interviews revealed the teacher participants did not seem to value the course issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 199 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 191-202 shube, b. d. & hanshu, a. h. (teachers’ knowledge: teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge.....) works of efl teacher education as an important source of their vocabulary knowledge. the teachers’ views expressed in the interviews were inconsistent with their questionnaire responses. as one of the interviewed participants said, "the teacher training course has no influence on my vocabulary teaching because we didn’t take any specific courses regarding how to teach vocabulary" (teacher 3’s interview). in the participants’ views, the major reasons for this perception as reported by these respondents include: the teacher education program aims to develop teachers’ disciplinary knowledge in linguistics, language teaching approaches, and other related courses. they argue this stage of education has less impact on their vocabulary teaching. however, t2 conceived that the courses he took had some impact on his vocabulary instruction. as he underscored, the methodology courses play an important role in how to teach english in general. even if there are no specific courses on how to teach vocabulary, the general methodology course has importance for vocabulary teaching (teacher 3’s interview). the data from the interviews also show that the participants' formal high school education and undergraduate education influenced the development of the teachers' english teaching in general, and vocabulary instruction in particular. for example, one of the participants stated that almost all the techniques that they shared to teach vocabulary were based on their apprenticeship of observation in formal education. one example worth mentioning is t2’s perception of vocabulary teaching. in the interview, t2 clearly said that: i had an excellent teacher when i was a student at yekatit 12 senior secondary school. this teacher was giving us lots of activities using different vocabulary teaching techniques so as to build our vocabulary knowledge. for example, he was presenting many vocabulary-developing exercises by telling a story and presenting vocabulary-building drills. this assisted the way i taught vocabulary today (teacher2’s interview). similarly, t4 in his part stressed, "the first important point is that i would like to appreciate my former teachers." i have got the very important skill of teaching english and teaching vocabulary as well from my former preparatory school english teachers"(teacher 4’s interview). these revealed teachers developed knowledge of teaching english language skills or language elements from their former schooling in their efl class learning. the data in the questionnaire also revealed that more than 61% of the respondent’s acknowledged apprenticeship of observation (prior experience of teachers as learners) helped a lot in developing their vocabulary instruction knowledge in efl classes. there were other sources revealed to be useful for the development of the various areas of teachers’ knowledge in teaching english vocabulary. to this end, teacher participants’ stated research they are doing in the area and students’ feedback as an important source of their knowledge development. on the other hand, most teacher participants did not seem to value training or seminars held by the ministry of education or zonal education bureau as a source of their knowledge. it seems that those seminars were not relevant to their teaching and research interests, or that they were quite general and not specific about how to teach english vocabulary. besides, it is important to note that in the interviews, teachers' own sources of knowledge in teaching english also impacted their knowledge development in vocabulary instruction. for example, t2 recalled his experience of how to teach english and how this source helped him with his vocabulary teaching, saying, “your teaching depends on your sources of knowledge." the more knowledge sources you have, the better your classroom teaching will be. thus, getting various knowledge sources has an impact on your vocabulary teaching (teacher 2’s interview). generally, the three most frequently mentioned contributing sources for teaching english vocabulary were: teachers’ teaching experience (the knowledge teachers themselves generate as a result of their experiences as teachers), teachers’ disciplinary background (the knowledge teachers possess at college or university in their teacher education program), and apprenticeship of observation (prior experience of teachers as learners). this finding echoed other researchers’ studies concerning esl teacher knowledge (tsui, 2003) and efl teacher knowledge (gao, 2007). besides, the participants agreed these sources have an impact on their vocabulary knowledge development and contributed to the consistent relationship between knowledge and practice in vocabulary instruction. 4. conclusion and recommendation participants in the study generally have positive perceptions of the teaching and learning of vocabulary. according to the participants' perspectives, vocabulary is central to language and is important to language learners. in this study, most participants confirmed that 'learning a foreign 200 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 191-202 shube, b. d. & hanshu, a. h. (teachers’ knowledge: teachers’ perceptions and their sources of knowledge.....) language is the same as learning the vocabulary of the language. this thought was affirmed by participants in both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the study. professional knowledge is developed or shaped by professional experience at work. participant teachers revealed that experience is an important source of influence on the development of teachers’ knowledge in teaching english vocabulary. besides, teachers’ disciplinary background (the knowledge teachers possess at college or university in their teacher education program) and apprenticeship of observation (prior experience of teachers as learners) are considered the most frequently mentioned knowledge sources for vocabulary teaching. teachers are the main personalities in an efl class, and they need to be effectively involved in the process of teaching and learning. the researcher would suggest that teachers should be aware of the role of constructive perceptions (views) necessary for the development of their knowledge and practice in vocabulary instruction. they should also know about their students’ different abilities, learning styles, and backgrounds in their vocabulary teaching. besides, teachers should know about potential knowledge sources that serve them in their vocabulary teaching. acknowledgment this research would not have been possible without many people’s support and help, including my professors, colleagues and english teachers at representative secondary schools. i would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all of them. my deepest thanks and gratitude go to my professors of english at addis ababa university, who generally provided knowledge and experience in doing research of this kind. i also couldn’t have undertaken this journey without arsi university, which gave me permission to study for my ph.d. and do this research work. additionally, this endeavor would not have been possible without the generous support of addis ababa university, which financed my research project. i am grateful to my classmates and cohort members, especially dr. ermias mulatu from dire dawa university and mr. mitiku garedew of the addis ababa science and technology university, for editing the manuscript, and providing feedback and moral support. i am also indebted to secondary school english language teachers who were involved in the research process for their cooperation during data collection. declarations author contribution : bekele daba shube was responsible for the entire research project. he also led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the second author. dr. alemu hailu hanshu participated in the data analysis and revision of the manuscript. both authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research is funded by addis ababa university with contract no. 01-0352/181117144 cbe conflict of interest : both authors declare that they have no competing interests. ethics declaration : we as authors acknowledge that this work has been written based on ethical research that conforms to the regulations of our university and that we have obtained permission from the relevant institutes when collecting data. we support english language teaching education journal (eltej) in maintaining high standards of personal conduct and practicing honesty in all our professional practices and endeavors. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 201 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 191-202 shube, b. d. & hanshu, a. h. 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(2022). using word cross game to impprove students’ vocabulary learning at smk muhammadiyah 1 yogyakarta. teaching english as a foreign language journal, 1(2), 135–143. https://doi.org/10.12928/tefl.v1i2.285 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 108-117 108 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id a corpus study of verbs in opinion articles of the jakarta post and the relation with text characteristics ikmi nur oktaviantia,1,*, asmad adnanb,2 a,b universitas ahmad dahlan, tamanan, bantul, daerah istimewa yogyakarta, indonesia 1 ikmi.oktavianti@pbi.uad.ac.id*; 2 asmad_adnan@yahoo.com * corresponding author 1. introduction in english syntactic construction, verbs are salient since there will be no grammatical construction without verbs. this corresponds to the need of tense inflection in english clauses and to be able to have tense inflection, there must be verbs in the clause (baker, 2004). in addition, verbs play a vital role to s-select the constituent allowed in the clause constructions. as argued by van gelderen (2017), verbs are salient because they determine the internal and external arguments of the clauses. with regard to its capability, verbs are more dynamic compared to the other lexical categories, i.e. nouns, adjectives, adverbs (clackson, 2007). in regard to the use of language, some aspects, such as the context of usage and text characteristics, affect the use of verbs. this means that different communication modes might result in different choices of verbs. for instance, with regard to verb, according to carter and mccarthy (2006), verb know is very frequent in spoken english, but it is not frequent in written english. aside from verb use, the first-person pronoun i is found to be more frequent in spoken language than in written language. this proves that there are some differences in using language, depending on the mode as well as the other aspects, e.g. text genres and/or dialects (biber & conrad, 2009). as with the differences in spoken and written language, one of the plausible reason is the different a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received may 04, 2020 revised june 26, 2020 accepted august 3, 2020 as one of the text categories, opinion texts have distinctive characteristics compared to any other texts in newspapers, including the choice of verb usage. this study then aims at preliminarily examining the verbs used in opinion articles in the jakarta post to find out the relation between frequency and text characteristics. this study collected the opinion articles of the jakarta post comprising 47.143 words. this study was assisted by lancsbox to store the corpus of opinion section texts, to identify the verb lemmas, and to count the frequency of verbs. the verbs found in this study were then classified based on scheibman’s main verb classification (which is based on halliday’s and dixon’s verb types). the results of the study show that there are three most frequent verb types used in opinion texts in the jakarta post; they are material, verbal, and feeling verb types. meanwhile, the lesser frequent ones are perception, possessive/relational, relational, and cognition verbs types. meanwhile, the least frequent verb types are existential, corporeal and perception/relational verbs types. as opinion text conveys the argument of the writer, it is plausible to find feeling verb type belongs to the third most frequent types, along with material type to show concrete actions and verbal type to report the information. these frequencies exhibit that there is a firm relationship between text characteristics and the tendency of verb choice. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords verbs opinion corpus frequency text characteristics http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:ikmi.oktavianti@pbi.uad.ac.id file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23baker04 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23van file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23van file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23clackson file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23carter file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23carter file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 109 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 108-117 oktavianti and adnan (a corpus study of verbs in opinion articles of the jakarta post...) characteristics of the medium; spoken language tends to be more spontaneous and involves two-way interactions than written language (biber & quirk, 2012). the representation of verb use in language can be seen in newspaper since the language used in newspaper is closer to everyday language (bednarek & caple, 2012; biber & conrad, 2009). newspaper, therefore, has been very appealing for linguistic studies. compared to literary works, the language use in them is rather manipulative, yet aesthetic for the purpose of building the imaginative world of the story (leech & short, 2007). as for academic text, the language used is the standard forms and use academic style (biber & conrad, 2009; biber & gray, 2016). thus, compared to other canonical text genres, investigating verbs in news texts is obviously interesting as well as beneficial for the description of language use in general. to be able to describe the verbs comprehensively, this study employs a corpus-based analysis, which means this study focuses on the frequency of use and uses a larger scale of data for the analysis. several corpus studies on verbs in newspapers have been conducted to seek for pedagogical implication (deng & li, 2017), and corpus studies to assist critical discourse analysis of the news texts (moon, 2016; wang, 2015), and to depict the morphosyntactic aspects of the verbs in news texts (bednarek & caple, 2012). some other verbs were examined by focusing on report verbs used by native and non-native speakers of english (yilmaz & ertürk, 2017), and by investigating phrasal verbs (zarifi & mukundan, 2013). in relation to frequency of use, there has been proven that verbs in news texts are more likely in the form of present tense and the use of active voice is more frequent than passive voice for some reasons (bednarek & caple, 2012). in text analysis (e.g. news text analysis), biber (2012) points out that each text has specific lexical choice that is included as the characteristic of the text. a particular lexical unit or linguistic unit is more likely to be used in a particular text. using longman spoken and written corpus, (biber, 2012) shows that passive verbs are more frequent in academic texts than in conversation, and some verbs (e.g. make, find) are more frequent in academic texts than in conversation. the study of frequency has been recognized in linguistics, such as in studying the relation of frequency and language typology (bentz, alikaniotis, samardžić, & buttery, 2017), the importance of lexical frequency for designing teaching materials (criado & sánchez, 2012), and the relation between frequency and language change (feltgen, fagard, & nadal, 2017). in text analysis, frequency holds a salient role because each text might have its own lexical choice that results in different frequency of use (biber, 2012). in this topic, hardjanto (2016) has investigated the relation between text type and modal use. although being in the same text type, bonyadi (2011) figures out that there are different tendencies of modal use in news texts between two news media. similarly, hardjanto (2016) who investigates the use of modals in academic texts of five different fields (e.g. economics, linguistics, medicine, engineering, natural sciences) also describes that there are some slight differences in the choice of modals. within the same mode of communication (i.e. written mode), there might also some notable differences in terms of linguistic unit usage such as done by staples, biber, and reppen, (2018) who compare the linguistic aspects of toefl ibt task and disciplinary writing task. those studies, however, mainly focus on news text as a single register. however, there are also sub-type of news texts to be analyzed, such as hard news, soft news or feature, and opinion or editorial (bell, 1991). there have been some studies focusing on the frequency of verbs in the more specific news texts; they are the corpus study of verbs in hard news (oktavianti & ardianti, 2019) and the corpus study in feature or lifestyle articles (oktavianti & pramesti, 2019). biber and conrad, (2009) also distinguish verbs used in news (both hard and soft news) and editorials. the discussion, however, is still limited to verb type based on transitivity (e.g. intransitive, transitive, ditransitive verbs) and voice (active, passive verbs). little is known about the choice of verb types and the relation with the characteristics of opinion texts. this study then aims at examining the frequency of verbs in opinion articles. to delimit the study, the jakarta post is selected because it is a wellestablished and the oldest english newspaper in indonesia. besides, it enables free and easy access for the compilation of data so that the results of the study can be comprehensive and reliable. 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file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23oktavianti file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 110 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 108-117 oktavianti and adnan (a corpus study of verbs in opinion articles of the jakarta post...) 2. literature review this research uses a corpus method (i.e. corpus linguistics) to analyze the data. corpus linguistics is the study of digitally stored language data (i.e. spoken and written texts) (mcenery & hardie, 2012). corpus is a collection of digitally stored texts, i.e. spoken and written texts (mcenery & hardie, 2012; stefanowitsch, 2020). given the large amount of data compiled in a corpus, the nature of corpus is related to the capability of providing rich quantitative data as language use is not parole, but it is collective use (burkette & kretzschmar jr., 2018). in accordance to the benefits it offers, corpus has been extensively used in various linguistic studies. thus, corpus linguistics is preferably seen as a methodology to approach language rather than a branch of linguistics (mcenery & hardie, 2012). with a large amount of data, studying language use with corpus assistance, thus, might enable comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analyses and obtain more reliable results. in linguistics, corpus studies have widely recognized for many branches (baker, 2003; biber, 2006; ismail, idrus, & syed sahuri, 2020; kranich, 2010; makamani & mutasa, 2017; moon, 2016; motschenbacher, 2018; staples et al., 2018; wright & brookes, 2019). aside from linguistics, corpus can also be applied for language teaching field (akıncı & yıldız, 2017; arellano, 2018; astika, 2018; kim, 2019; kızıl & savran, 2018; lin, 2016; phoocharoensil, 2017; yanto & nugraha, 2017). in regard to the main focus of a corpus study, this study examines the frequency of verbs in opinion articles. it is of importance to investigate frequency of linguistic units since frequency often tells about something. according to baker (2010), frequency indicates something important. in other words, something that is frequent is salient to the users. in regard to language use, different texts, for example, might affect different choice of linguistic units. as studied by biber and quirk (2012) and biber and conrad (2009) on the use of modals, it is evident that core modals are less frequent in news texts than in fiction and academic texts. emphasizing the results of those previous studies, szudarski (2017) points out that studying frequency in a certain text (corpus) can assist the description of the text. in other words, it is noticeable that certain linguistic features or units tend to occur more frequently in a particular text. with regard to news texts, bell (1991) classifies types of news texts into hard news (or news), soft news (features, lifestyle), and editorial (and sort of argumentative texts). each of the sections represents different types of text genres as well different purpose and characteristics. news report is expected to describe events with less subjectivity (biber & conrad, 2009). on the contrary, editorials and opinion texts are to some extent slightly different. editorials are written in the newsroom, so they express the opinion of the newspaper. meanwhile, opinions texts are written by outsiders or readers of the newspapers. bell (1991) further mentions that, apart from the different perspective of the opinions, editorials and opinion texts are relatively identical. both are basically meant to serve the same purpose to express an opinion openly and convince the readers to believe the opinion (biber & conrad, 2009). in other words, editorials and opinion are within the same genre (bednarek & caple, 2012). since this paper focuses more on the characteristics of the linguistic features, it is possible to overlook the insignificant difference of both types of argumentative texts. biber and conrad (2009) mention that what distinguishes news from opinion (or editorial) texts is factuality since opinion texts do not talk about factual events, but the opinion toward a particular event. news texts serve to report an event, while opinion texts aim at delivering an opinion (which tends to be more subjective) on an event or issue. having distinct text characteristics and functions, therefore, opinion texts might have different linguistic features as well as different verb choices. this has been proven by biber and conrad (2009) showing that there are modals that are more frequently used in opinion texts compared to news report. for instance, modal should is more frequent in opinion texts since one of the purpose of opinion texts is to recommend what should happen in relation to the phenomenon being discussed. 3. research method this study employs a corpus-based approach since it compiles a larger scale of data, uses a corpus tool, and conducts a corpus analysis (i.e. frequency analysis) (mcenery & hardie, 2012). corpus linguistics as one of the branches of linguistics is a methodology because it deals with how to collect and analyze linguistic data (mcenery & hardie, 2012; stefanowitsch, 2020). this study file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23mckenery file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23mckenery file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23mckenery file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23mckenery file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23stefan 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file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23szudarski file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23bell file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23bell file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23bednarek file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23mckenery file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23mckenery file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23stefan issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 111 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 108-117 oktavianti and adnan (a corpus study of verbs in opinion articles of the jakarta post...) compiled linguistic data (the self-compiled corpus) from opinion articles in the jakarta post published from october—november 2018 with the size of 47.143 words. the corpus was then analyzed by identifying the verbs as well as calculating the frequencies of the verbs by using a corpus tool, lancsbox (brezina, timperley, & mcenery, 2018). in lancsbox, frequency of verbs was calculated in whelk feature by sorting the type into lemma and filtering the result box by inserting *_v to sort out the results for only verbs. the corpus tool also calculates the frequency and displays the results based on the order from the highest to the smallest ones (or vice versa) that could assist the analysis. after having the frequency results, the verbs were classified by following (scheibman, 2001) which consists of verb classifications based on halliday (halliday & matthiessen, 2004) and dixon (dixon, 2005). this study used the classification compiled by scheibman since it best fits the need of the analysis of text characteristics. table 1 displays the classification. table 1. classification of verbs by scheibman (2001) verb type description examples cognition cognitive activity know,think, remember, figure out corporeal bodily gestures, bodily interaction eat, drink, sleep, live, smoke existential exist, happen be, havve, sit, stay, happen feeling emotion, wanting like, want, feel, need, bother, enjoy material concrete and abstract doings and happenings do, go, take, teach, work, use, play, come perception perception, attention look, see, hear, find, notice perception/ relational perception (subject not senser) look, smell, sound possessive/ relational possession (x has a) have, get relational processes of being (x is a, x is at a) be, get, be like (descriptive), become verbal saying, symbolic exchange of meaning say, talk, mean, tell, ask, go (quotative), be like (quotative) there are, however, some ambiguities for some words, e.g. get that can be classified into either relational or possessive/relational. to overcome this problem, this study uses lancsbox concordance feature, kwic (keyword in context), to distinguish which get belongs to which type of verbs. this study analyzes the frequency of verbs used in opinion articles by referring to the raw frequency (including token frequency) and the percentage. to comprehensively discuss the relation between frequency and characteristics of text, this study implements thick description (stake, 2010) to interpret the plausible connection. 4. findings and discussion this section discusses two key analyses of this study, namely the frequency of verb types and the relation between frequency and characteristics of the text. to begin with, the following is the discussion on the frequency of verb type investigated in the self-compiled corpus. 4.1. frequency of verb types in opinion articles based on the scheibman’s compilation of verb types, table 2 presents the overall frequency of verbs in opinion articles in the jakarta post. based on table 2, it is found that material verb is the most frequent verb type in the corpus of opinion of the jakarta post. this verb type dominates the whole corpus by occupying 28,4 % of all verbs found in the corpus. the other most frequent verb types are verbal (18,2 %) and feeling verb types (14,4 %). as for the less frequent verb types, there are possessive/relational (9,9%), relational (8,2%), perception (7,3%), cognition verbs (7,1%). meanwhile, the other three types of verbs, existential (2,1%), corporeal (2,8%) and perception/relational (0,8%) belong to the least frequent verb types in which the frequencies of those types are below 5% in the corpus. for the detailed description of verb type frequencies, it is listed in table 3. file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23brezina file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23scheibman file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23halliday file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23halliday file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23dixon file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23table1 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23scheibman file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23stake file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23table2 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23table2 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23table3 112 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 108-117 oktavianti and adnan (a corpus study of verbs in opinion articles of the jakarta post...) table 2. frequency of verbs types verb type absolute frequency percentage (%) material 225 28,4 verbal 144 18,2 feeling 114 14,4 possessive/relational 78 9,9 relational 65 8,2 perception 58 7,3 cognition verbs 56 7,1 existential 23 2,9 corporeal 22 2,8 perception/relational 6 0,8 total 791 100% table 3. detailed description of the verb frequencies rank verb type example token frequency total frequency percentage (%) 1 material do 14 225 28,4 go 31 take 41 teach 4 work 30 use 56 play 17 come 32 2 verbal say 65 144 18,2 talk 3 mean 23 tell 13 ask 9 3 feeling like 6 114 14,4 want 14 feel 11 need 73 bother 1 enjoy 9 4 perception look 20 78 9,9 see 34 hear 6 find 17 notice 1 5 possessive/relational have 49 65 8,2 get 12 6 relation get 4 58 7,3 become 54 7 cognition know 30 56 7,1 think 23 remember 3 8 existential stay 2 23 2,9 happen 21 9 corporeal eat 3 22 2,8 sleep 1 live 18 10 perception/relational look 6 6 0,8 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 113 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 108-117 oktavianti and adnan (a corpus study of verbs in opinion articles of the jakarta post...) table 3 shows some examples of material verbs found in the corpus. there are verbs, such as take (41 occurrences), come (32 occurrences), go (31 occurrences), work (30 occurrences), play (17 occurrences), and teach (4 occurrences). the second most frequent verb is verbal and the most frequent verb in this type is say (65 occurrences), followed by mean (23 occurrences). as with the third most frequent is feeling type with the verb need (73 occurrences) and want (14) as the most frequent members of the type. the less frequent verb types also comprise several verbs as displayed in table 3. for instance, perception type has the verb see with 34 occurrences as its most frequent member. as for possessive/relational type, there is have with 49 occurrences and relational type has the verb become with 54 occurrences as their most frequent verbs. following these results, there are the least frequent verbs in the corpus, such as existential, corporeal, and perception/relational verbs. in existential type, the verb happen occurs 21 times, the verb live in corporeal type occurs 18 times and the verb look in perception/relational type occurs 6 times. 4.2. the relation between frequency and text characteristics this section explores the plausible relation between the frequency of verbs and the characteristics of opinion texts. as every text works distinctively, it is compelling to examine the linguistic features, i.e. the use of verbs in a particular text, i.e. opinion texts. as pointed out by biber and conrad (2009), the difference between news texts and opinion texts is related to factuality. in news texts, factuality plays a salient role, as it is the core of the text, while opinion texts express argument or perspective of the author as an individual or member of a certain institution or society. this is supported with the result of the studies done by bednarek and caple (2012) and biber and conrad (2009) identifying that there are some discrepancies of the use of modals among texts in newspaper (i.e. news, feature, opinion). with regard to verb types compiled by scheibman (2001), oktavianti and ardianti (2019) show that the most frequent verb type in news texts is verbal (e.g. say, tell) and oktavianti and pramesti, (2019) describe that in feature texts, material type is the most frequent one. in this study, material type dominates the opinion corpus. it can be assumed that material verb type takes an important role in building opinion because the author writes their opinion, argues or reacts about something that is related to concrete action. in the delivery argument or ideology, the author needs to be as clear as possible, so concrete verbs are necessary and significantly used to convey the message to the audience. in the description of the opinion, one must explain the issue or event concretely. it is in line with the nature of opinion column in newspaper that reacts to a factual event or issue containing concrete activities from people involved in the issue or event. it is not surprising then to find out that material verbs occupy the highest percentage of use. for instance, the verb use is used to describe concrete activity related to a thing or object. likewise, other material verbs (e.g., take, work, come and go) can be found in the corpus. the second most frequent verb type in opinion column is verbal type. this type has the verb say as its dominant verb in which this verb is prominent in delivering information as mentioned in (lewis, 2014). therefore, verbal verbs are used to describe or to assist the delivery of an idea or argument about an issue or event. following verbal type in the second position, the third most frequent verb type is feeling. feeling verbs serve as the verbs to state emotional aspects and wanting. the function of feeling verb is related to how the author’s point of view about the event or issue being discussed. these verbs then suit the need of opinion articles. biber and conrad (2009) state that opinions express arguments of the author and try to persuade the readers to think the same way. it is not surprising that this verb type is pretty frequent in the opinion corpus. unlike other prior types, the verbs belong to perception, possessive/relational, relational, and cognition types are less frequently used in the corpus (but not the least ones). based on the nature of opinion or editorial, perception and possessive/relational tend to be more subjective and personal in expressing opinion. perception verbs are specifically used in relation to senses, hence irrelevant with building opinions. meanwhile, cognition verbs are types of verbs expressing mental action or concerned with the act of process of knowing, perceiving, etc. this verb type is basically quite relevant with the purpose of delivering argument, but it is somehow less frequently used in the corpus. this is not because of the verb, e.g. know, is lesser than any other verbs since it occurs 30 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23table3 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23table3 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23bednarek file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23scheibman file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23oktavianti1 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23oktavianti file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23lewis file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 114 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 108-117 oktavianti and adnan (a corpus study of verbs in opinion articles of the jakarta post...) times, but the number of variants in the types (found in the corpus) is limited. there are only know, remember, think found in the data showing that although we need them to express opinions, but we do not need various cognitive verbs. compared to material type, there are more verbs belonging to the category (e.g. do, go, work, teach, play, etc.) and they are used as well in the texts. the last discussion is about the least frequent verb types in opinion texts. based on the data, there are existential, corporeal and perception/relational verb types having the smallest number of frequencies among all other verb types in the corpus. this is presumably because of the irrelevance of the function of the verb types and the characteristics of opinion text genre. for instance, existential verb as the verb describing the details of the event is one of the least frequent types since it is most likely to be used in hard news texts. oktavianti and ardianti (2019) find that existential verb like happen occupies the third most frequent type since this feature is important to report an event in news text. this type, in the contrary, is not necessary in the writing of opinion, thus it is less likely to be used. similar to existential type, corporeal verbs are very rare in the corpus. this verb type refers to bodily gesture and interactions (scheibman, 2001). however, opinion articles are less likely to describe about bodily gesture or interaction individual and focus more on argumentation and the like. it is not surprising to find out that this type is rarely used in the corpus. meanwhile, perception/relational type has the lowest frequency of verbs found in the opinion or editorial in the jakarta post. this corresponds with the function perception/relational of type of verb to describe perception through the perspective of the object (not a human), which is to some extent not in accordance with the necessity to express someone’s opinion convincingly. thus, this type is rarely used in opinion articles (as found in the corpus). in other words, linguistic units that are not in accordance with the task of opinion to deliver argument on an issue are not pretty much needed, even though they are still used with lower frequency. to summarize the relation between frequency and opinion text characteristics, table 4 presents the highlighted points in relation to the most frequent verb types. table 4. relation between frequency and characteristics of text most frequent type the nature of the verb type the necessity of the verb type in opinion text material to express concrete actions to portray the issue or event verbal to deliver message to assist the description of the information of factual event feeling to express emotion and wanting to express opinion toward the issue or event more personally so that the readers can get along with the feeling of the author there are, however, some points to underline. from the data and the analysis, it is evident that verb types with lower frequencies deal with the irrelevance of the nature of the verbs with the characteristics of the texts. this result corresponds to the result of some previous studies (biber & conrad, 2009; biber & quirk, 2012). the more frequent use of certain verb types in opinion texts indicates that a particular text might need a particular linguistic unit more frequently. the result of this study is in line with those done by hardjanto (2016) and staples et al. (2018). this study also shows that, even within the same register, there might some slight differences among its subregisters, as found in biber (2012), biber and conrad (2009), and hardjanto (2016). however, the lower frequency might also be related to the variants of the verb type are minimal in the corpus so that they accumulate low frequency. as in cognition types that are negligible in the corpus due to the limited verb variants of the type in the corpus compiled in this study. these points, therefore, should be investigated further in the following studies comprehensively using a larger amount of data and from more various newspapers. 5. conclusion the findings of the study show that there are three most frequent types of verbs in the opinion articles of the jakarta post; they are material, verbal and feeling in the corpus of opinion or editorial file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23oktavianti1 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23scheibman file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23table4 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber12 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23hardjanto file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23staples file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber12a file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber09 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23hardjanto issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 115 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 108-117 oktavianti and adnan (a corpus study of verbs in opinion articles of the jakarta post...) column of the jakarta post. along with the most frequent types, there are some less frequent ones, such as perception, possessive/relational, relational, and cognition types, and the least ones are existential, corporeal and perception/relational verb types. these frequencies reveal that that there is a relationship between text category and the tendency of verb choices. as opinion texts convey argument, it is plausible to find feeling verb type belong to the third most frequent types, along with material type to show concrete actions and verbal type to deliver the message. meanwhile, the least frequent verb types include existential, corporeal and perception/relational types and most of them are less frequently used in opinion texts because of the irrelevance with the text purpose and/or the number of the type variants in the corpus is limited. this study shows that lower frequency can be either connected to the characteristics of texts or the limited verb variants of the type. the latter, however, needs further investigation. references akıncı, m., & yıldız, s. 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(2013). phrasal verb combinations in corpus-based studies: a critical review. international journal of applied linguistics & english literature, 2(4), 212–217. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.2n.4p.212 microsoft word emrah özcan & h. gülru yüksel (1).docx english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 157-168 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.7379 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id investigating the perceptions of preservice teachers on collaborative in-situ microteaching emrah özcan a,1,*, h. gülru yüksel b,2 a, b yildiz technical university, davutpasa campus, faculty of education, istanbul 34220, türkiye 1 eozcan@yildiz.edu.tr*; 2 hayuksel@yildiz.edu.tr * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 20 september 2022 revised 25 october 2022 accepted 25 november 2022 micro-teaching has been criticized for its artificial nature, limited practice period, and inadequate feedback. giving preservice teachers in-situ opportunities that they can collaborate on lesson planning, teach, and receive peer feedback can assist in addressing these drawbacks. to that end, an intervention study was devised to provide in-situ microteaching for preservice english teachers (pt). following the intervention, we solicited pts' feedback on the impact of the collaborative in-situ microteaching experience on their pedagogical knowledge development. a total of 41 pts participated in the 14-week intervention program offered as part of the teaching english to young learners (teyl) course. both quantitative and qualitative data were collected during this intervention study. a survey created by the researchers was used to gather quantitative data, and the reflection papers submitted by the participating pts served as a source of qualitative data. the results revealed that participants rated the experience as having a moderate overall contribution to their pedagogical knowledge development. collaborative in-situ microteaching (cim) had a slightly higher influence on student teachers’ lesson delivery skills than on their lesson planning skills. as per the qualitative data, the most frequently mentioned benefits were acquiring expertise in classroom management, material development and lesson planning, and getting to know young learners. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords collaboration in-situ microteaching preservice teacher education teaching english to young learners how to cite: özcan, e., & yüksel, h. g. (2022). investigating the perceptions of preservice teachers on collaborative in-situ microteaching. english language teaching educational journal, 5 (3), 157-168. 1. introduction microteaching is a technique that aims to provide opportunities for preservice teachers to link theory and practice (allen & eve, 1968). the original microteaching model, developed by allen and ryan (1969), consisted of six stages: planning, teaching, observing, re-planning, re-teaching, and reobserving (arsal, 2014). the technique has undergone a number of modifications over time, such as video recording the teaching phase (ramos et al., 2022), microteaching with lesson studies (e.g., fernández, 2010), or practicum-based microteaching (zhang & cheng, 2011). while micro-teaching is regarded as an effective teaching technique that gives future teachers a chance to understand the complexities of the profession (koross, 2016), recently it has been criticized for its artificial nature, limited practice period, and inadequate feedback (amobi, 2005; he & yan, 2011; erdemir & yeşilçınar, 2021; ralph, 2014; stanley, 1998; yan & he, 2017). it is still unclear how the microteaching experience can be developed to overcome its limitations. farrell (2018) recently proposed re-conceptualizing micro-teaching through a socio-constructivist and reflective 158 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 157-168 özcan, e., & yüksel, h. g. (investigating the perceptions of preservice teachers on.....) methodology. given the emphasis on the need to bridge the gap between theory and practice, we extended microteaching by allowing preservice teachers to collaborate and microteach in a real classroom setting. the current study aims to investigate preservice teachers' opinions on collaborative microteaching in a real classroom environment. 1.1. microteaching in teacher education the best way to provide aspiring teachers with the necessary knowledge, abilities, and competencies is still being debated on a global scale (furlong, cochran-smith, & brennan, 2013) since teacher education programs are widely regarded as "disconnected from teachers' work in the classroom" (kotelawala, 2012: 67). many teacher education programs have long sought ways to bridge the divide between university-led courses and actual classroom practices (borg, 2013; darlinghammond, 2000; korthagen, 2007; hennissen et.al., 2017). one of these ways is the use of microteaching, a technique developed to help preservice teachers improve their teaching skills (karlström & hamza, 2019; onwuagboke, osuala, & nzeako, 2017). this technique not only enables student teachers to build a repertoire of teaching strategies but also assists them in understanding how theory can be put into practice under controlled conditions (pringle, dawson, & adams, 2003). it has traditionally been characterized by simplified teaching tasks, small class sizes, and short lesson lengths (otsupius, 2014). microteaching has been shown to have several positive effects on preservice teachers, including improving sense of self-efficacy in the classroom (arsal, 2014), boosting self-confidence (akkuzu, 2014), raising awareness of teaching competencies and successful instructional strategies (ismail, 2011), and developing teaching abilities in lesson planning, selecting teaching goals, evaluating students' attention, and utilizing suitable assessment procedures (cebeci, 2016; fernández, 2010; saban & çoklar, 2013). despite these advantages, the technique also has a number of reported limitations. the main drawbacks found in the literature are the inability to replicate the actual classroom environment, limited time allotted for teaching, and negative peer feedback (erdemir & yeşilçınar, 2021; he & yan, 2011; stanley, 1998). for example, in a study on the perspectives of prospective chinese teachers about microteaching, he and yan (2011) reported the artificiality of the experience, insufficiency of instructor feedback, and limited practice time as the three key limitations. in another study evaluating canadian preservice teachers’ opinions on the effectiveness of microteaching, ralph (2014) noted that while the participants highly appreciated it as a pedagogical tool, they unanimously agreed that microteaching sessions were not authentic teaching experiences. yan and he (2017) found similar limitations in their study on the influence of pair microteaching on the professional learning of 30 preservice teachers of english. they found that even though the student teachers were satisfied with the experience, artificiality and limited practice time were cited as the two drawbacks. regarding peer feedback, a study by amobi (2005) revealed that most student teachers displayed passive and defensive reflection tendencies in response to peer criticism in the follow-up feedback sessions. banerjee et al. (2015) conducted a study to explore to understand the opinions of student teachers towards microteaching. they collected data from 130 teachers using a questionnaire. although t-test results indicated no significant difference among genders, the mean score of the female student teachers were higher than that of male students. the limitations mentioned above suggest that the microteaching practices incorporated in university-led courses do not entirely replicate authentic learning experiences. unlike university-led courses which provide theoretical knowledge devoid of context, authentic learning experiences situate learning tasks in the context of future use (herrington et al., 2014). that is, authentic learning experiences are directly pertinent to the learner and situated in a context (lombardi & oblinger, 2007). as johnson (2013) claims, the absence of social, cultural, and institutional components in simulations prevents them from accurately simulating authentic environments. therefore, allowing pre-service instructors to collaborate for micro-teaching in actual classes prior to practicum will help to address the social, cultural, and institutional shortcomings that occur in simulated settings. 1.2. collaborative microteaching collaborative learning, based on the piagetian and vygotskian theories of learning, involves students working in groups to develop and deepen their subject knowledge (järvenoja & järvelä, 2009). research on collaborative learning has shown that it enhances academic performance (bartimote-aufflick et al., 2016), facilitates knowledge construction (husman & hilpert, 2007), issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 159 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 157-168 özcan, e., & yüksel, h. g. (investigating the perceptions of preservice teachers on.....) promotes active learning (northey et al., 2018), and increases learner satisfaction (van leeuwen et al., 2023). according to atasoy and çakıroğlu (2019), fostering collaboration among preservice teachers will enable them to have common objectives and enhance their attitudes toward group work. collaboration during microteaching may not only provide a forum for group members to review and reflect on their lesson plan, but it may also allow groups to support and monitor each other's work. with this reasoning in mind, we modified the microteaching technique in the present study by: ● adding collaboration among preservice teachers during planning and teaching, ● prolonging the duration of lessons to regular class time, ● extending the scope of the lesson, ● providing in-situ teaching practice, ● providing feedback at multiple stages. this modified version is referred to as "collaborative in-situ microteaching" (cim). this paper examines the perceptions of pre-service teachers regarding the cim experience. the following research questions guided the study: 1. how does cim experience contribute to prospective teachers' (pts) pedagogical knowledge? 2. how do pts' perceptions about the cim differ according to independent variables (gender and prior experience)? 2. method this study is exploratory in nature and employs a post-test-only quasi-experimental research design. 2.1. context and participants teacher education in turkey is overseen by faculties of education. in four-year teacher education programs, a competency-based paradigm has been adopted. pts receive school-based field practice in actual classrooms only through two consecutive practicum courses (school practicum i & ii) offered in the fourth year of the program. these courses are coordinated in collaboration with the university and the ministry of national education. as a result, school-based field practice is postponed until the final year and aside from these two courses, pts do not have the chance to acquire experience in an actual classroom. hence, instructors generally employ microteaching techniques in universityled courses to help student teachers improve their instructional skills. in the present study, however, we modified the technique to provide extended authentic practice opportunities to our students. the modifications are described in section 2.3. data collection procedure. the study group consisted of 41 third-year students studying in the english language teaching program at a state university. of these 41 participants, 27 were female, 14 were male, aged between 21 and 23. all the participants were enrolled in the teaching english to young learners course, which is a four-credit course with two hours of theory and two hours of practice. the course aims to develop preservice teachers’ knowledge about and experience in teaching english to children. thirty pts claimed to have had teaching experience, while eleven of them had none. the pts in groups of four were assigned to micro-teach a class of kindergarten pupils. the names of the participants were omitted from the quotations to maintain their anonymity. 2.2. data collection instrument quantitative data was collected using a survey devised by the researchers based on the general pedagogical knowledge categorisation of voss, kunter and baumert (2011). the survey had two sections. the first section aimed to collect demographic information (gender, age, the educational level they intend to teach, and prior tutoring experience). the second section of the survey included sixteen likert-type statements in which participants were asked to rate the contribution of the microteaching experience to their general pedagogical knowledge: knowledge of lesson planning (9 items) and knowledge of classroom management (7 items). pts responded to each item on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely). 160 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 157-168 özcan, e., & yüksel, h. g. (investigating the perceptions of preservice teachers on.....) in order to triangulate the quantitative data and better understand the impact of the cim experience on student teachers’ educational growth, the reflection papers submitted in the final phase were used as a data source. 2.3. data collection procedure for this research ethical approval was obtained from the researchers’ research ethics committee (approval number: 2018/11). researchers approached the kindergarten administration to inform them about the study and obtain permission. we held a parental conference after reaching an agreement with the administration to inform parents of the study objectives, the curriculum to be followed, and the materials that would be used. parental consent forms were distributed at the end of the conference. the study included only the minors whose parents gave written consent. following the model developed by allen and ryan (1969), the study went through six different phases (see figure 1): 1) introduction: pts were informed of the study's objectives during the first-class period, and microteaching groups were formed. the following topics were covered during the theory session (2h/4w): characteristics of young language learners; l1-l2 acquisition in children; design of language learning activities and materials; lesson planning; and classroom management strategies. pts visited the kindergarten during the practice session (2h/4w) to observe the children and their interactions with their peers and teachers. 2) planning: in line with the kindergarten curriculum, each group was assigned a unit and given a week to develop a lesson plan. after the completion of lesson plans, the groups were matched to provide feedback on each other's lesson plans. in addition to peer feedback, the instructor provided written feedback on the lesson plans. the groups revised their lesson plans based on the feedback they received. 3) micro-teaching: pts implemented their lesson plan in groups. the instructor and the other pts from the matched group observed the lesson and took observation notes to be shared during the reflection session. 4) feedback: shortly after the microteaching, the instructor convened a reflection meeting with the group. first, the microteaching group reflected on their teaching experience, then the observing group provided their reflections. lastly, the instructor shared his/her observation notes with the pts on their performances. 5) re-teach: at this stage, in accordance with the instructor’s feedback, the pts repeated the activities in phase 2, phase 3 and phase 4 respectively. 6) reflection: each pt wrote a reflection paper about the cim experience and the personal strengths and weaknesses they noticed in their teaching skills. fig. 1. phases of the cim experiment phase 3 microteaching (3 weeks) phase 4 feedback (1 week) phase 5 re-teaching (3 week) phase 2 planning (1 week)ph a se 1 in tr od uc tio n (4 w ee ks ) ph a se 6 re fle ct io n (1 w ee k) issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 161 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 157-168 özcan, e., & yüksel, h. g. (investigating the perceptions of preservice teachers on.....) 2.4. data analysis the following procedures were used in the data analysis. the reliability of the survey was measured using cronbach’s alpha test. the cronbach’s alpha was 0.85 for the whole survey. the coefficient α values measured were 0.81 and 0.74 for the first and second domain respectively. normality was checked through visual inspection of histograms and skewness and kurtosis values. the skewness and kurtosis values were within ± 1 range. the homogeneity of variance as assessed by shapiro-wilk test (p = 0.105) indicated normal distribution. demographic information gathered through the likert-type survey was analysed descriptively. the independent samples t-test was used to analyse differences between independent variables. the qualitative data was analysed using thematic analysis (nowell et al., 2017). the data was coded after a thorough reading of the reflection papers. the codes were assigned to four main categories: knowledge of lesson planning, knowledge of classroom management, knowledge of individual student characteristics and feedback. the researchers cross-checked the codes and categories to ensure reliability. following the reading and coding of the data, the set of codes was improved in light of the new information. consensus was reached following discussions about the disagreements. this cross-checking procedure improved the accuracy of the data analysis (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2000). frequencies and percentages were computed after this coding stage. 3. findings 3.1. quantitative findings the first research question aimed to examine the perceptions of the pts toward collaborative insitu microteaching. the descriptive statistics of the likert-type items indicated that pts perceived the experience as having a moderate level of overall contribution to their pedagogical knowledge, with a mean score of 3.79 (sd=0.77). the cim had a slightly higher impact on pts’ knowledge of classroom management than it did on their knowledge of lesson planning (m=3.90, sd=0.81, and m=3.72, sd=0.92, respectively). table 1. knowledge of lesson planning: items, means and standard deviations item mean sd ... designing engaging lessons. 3.97 0.85 ... choosing engaging activities from supplementary materials. 4.02 0.75 ... aligning instructional materials with learning outcomes. 3.95 0.63 ... integrating arts or technology into lessons to foster engagement. 3.85 0.98 ... aligning objectives to students' level of learning. 3.80 0.74 ... incorporating students' interests into lesson plans. 3.63 0.94 ... writing lesson plan objectives that reflect different levels of learning. 3.53 1.22 ... incorporating individual differences into lesson plans. 3.39 1.13 ... catering to individual differences while planning. 3.34 0.96 the computed mean scores for each item in the knowledge of lesson planning domain revealed that the cim experience had a high to moderate positive influence on pts’ lesson-planning skills (table 1). while the cim experience was perceived to have the highest contribution to choosing engaging activities from supplementary materials (m=4.02), designing engaging lessons (m=3.97), aligning instructional materials with learning outcomes (m=3.95) and integrating arts and technology into lessons to foster engagement (m=3.85). the item with the lowest mean value was taking individual differences into account while planning (m=3.34). catering to individual differences seemed to challenge our pts during lesson design. the means of the items in the knowledge of classroom management domain were comparatively higher than the means of the items in the knowledge of lesson planning domain (table 2). this finding suggested that collaborative in-situ microteaching had a greater impact on the pts' certain sub-skills of teaching. particularly, the highest mean was calculated for the ability to adjust the instructional language to pupils’ age and proficiency level (m=4.24). other items, from the highest to the lowest, 162 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 157-168 özcan, e., & yüksel, h. g. (investigating the perceptions of preservice teachers on.....) were: giving clear and understandable instructions (m=4.17), monitoring student engagement and understanding (m=3.88), managing the classroom (m=4.09), changing the pace of the instruction (m=3.85), managing the classroom (m=3.78), effective use of class time (m=3.75). in this subdomain the item with the lowest mean score was avoiding undesirable behaviours from emerging (m=3.34). table 2. knowledge of classroom management: items, means and standard deviations item mean sd ... adjusting my language to pupils’ age and proficiency level. 4.24 0.83 ... giving clear and understandable instructions and explanations. 4.17 0.80 ... monitoring student engagement and understanding. 4.09 0.73 … managing the classroom. 3.78 0.79 ... changing the pace of the lesson to give pupils time to complete the task. 3.85 0.79 ... making effective use of class time. 3.75 0.88 ... managing my classroom to avoid undesirable behaviours from emerging. 3.34 0.82 the overall perceived contribution of the cim experience was compared between genders using an independent-samples t-test. there was no significant difference in the scores of males (m=3.62, sd=0.44) and females (m=3.88, sd=0.50); t(39)=1.595, p = 0.119. as for the knowledge of lesson planning and knowledge of classroom management, there was no significant difference between males and females as well (p > 0.05). an independent-samples t-test conducted to compare overall perceived contributions for prior experience and no prior experience conditions yielded no statistically significant difference, t(39)=0.499, p = 0.809. there was no significant effect for prior experience on the knowledge of lesson planning, t(39)=0.698, p = 0.490, despite pts with prior experience (m = 3.76, sd = 0.59) attaining higher scores than pts with no prior experience (m = 3.61, sd = 0.59). in the same vein, in the knowledge of classroom management domain, no statistically significant difference was found between pts with prior experience (m = 3.91, sd = 0.47) and pts with no prior experience (m = 3.88, sd = 0.65), t(39)=0.166, p = 0.176. 3.2. qualitative findings as displayed in table 3, the analysis of the reflection papers showed that the most frequently mentioned benefits of the cim experience were related to classroom management skills, lesson planning, and individual student characteristics. the percentages displayed in table 3 clearly indicated that the most significant contribution of collaborative in-situ microteaching was on the pts’ classroom management skills. one male pt mentioned this benefit by saying, “this experience provided me opportunities to observe and practice different classroom management strategies.” this quote indicated that observing group members while instructing had positive impact on their teaching. another pt, describing the cim experience as a “unique opportunity to practice teaching with real pupils”, mentioned that she feels more confident in managing young learners thanks to the cim experience. table 3. contributions of the cim experience categories themes f % organizational skills lesson planning 15 13.04 material development 16 13.91 technology integration 6 5.22 management skills classroom management 33 28.7 instructional time management 16 13.91 instructional language use 5 4.35 student characteristics getting to know young learners 21 18.26 feedback peer/instructor feedback 3 2.61 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 163 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 157-168 özcan, e., & yüksel, h. g. (investigating the perceptions of preservice teachers on.....) the pts frequently referred to lesson planning and materials development as advantageous to their professional growth. one of the pts expressed the benefits of collaborative in-situ microteaching as an “...improvement in [my] time management skills, designing sufficient materials that are compatible with the objective of a lesson plan, providing a richer variety of activities based on the proficiency level and needs of young learners.” another pt also stated that “i was able to hone my lesson planning and material development skills through this group project. i learned a lot from my team members.” a few of the pts also mentioned that their knowledge of how to incorporate technology into their teaching methods had improved. the following quote is an example of how pts integrated technological tools in their lessons; “while preparing lesson plans, we had the chance to exchange ideas about how to integrate technology, and we got first-hand experience about which tech[nological] tools could work better in a class full of young learners.” other themes that emerged in the reflection papers were focusing on classroom management skills. especially the use of class time efficiently and getting to know young learners in a real teaching environment were the most recurring themes. pts claimed that after the cim experience, they realized their full potential. these advantages were stated succinctly by one of the pts, who said, "it was a wonderful chance to see real pupils in a real class... [this experience] provided me [with] a chance to experience teaching before stepping into a real classroom as a teacher. unlike the previous microteaching to our peers, this experience was real, and the learners were real pupils.” this teaching experience enabled the pts to further improve their instructional skills and strategies as well. one of the pts explicitly pointed out this benefit: “thanks to microteaching, i learned how to use teaching methods in the classroom. i became more experienced in aligning my language according to the proficiency level of my pupils.” other benefits identified by pts were the recognition of areas that they needed to improve. one of the pts stated that “i realized that classroom management in young learner classes is an issue. managing young learners was really difficult for me. i feel that i need to develop further management strategies.” another pt also commented on the same theme by saying, “classroom management was the toughest challenge for me. i struggled during the second microteaching. neither me nor my team members knew how to calm down the two kids who started to cry for the crayons during a drawing activity.” another pt expressed concern about his inability to effectively use instructional time by saying, "i realized that time management is a serious issue that i need to work on. the pts had a rare opportunity to observe young learners and their behaviours in an authentic learning environment. this enabled them to get to know pupils. one of the pts stated, “i realized that i do not have the patience to work with young learners as they are not my best suit.” one of the professional advantages of collaborative microteaching was the feedback they received from both their peers and the instructor; “working as a group while designing lesson plans and activities, the feedback we received played a great role in improving our lesson design skills.” peer feedback was complementary and aided in the improvement of the instructing abilities of pts. a few of the reflection papers pointed out challenges such as catering to individual differences while planning, developing supplementary materials and adjusting instructional language according to the learners’ levels. these difficulties were reported to be resolved through peer support because the pts worked together throughout the entire experience. one of the pts reminisced on how she “was able to provide additional activities for the early finishers with the support of my group members”. another pt also remarked, “lessons did not always go as we planned, but we as a team learnt a lot about how to put our lesson plan into action through this [experience].” in-situ teaching raised their awareness of the significance of the teacher's instructional language use in student learning. one of the pts expressed his recognition by saying: “while teaching and observing other groups, i noticed how important instructional language is. during the first teaching, i had difficulties in giving instructions to the kids. when our group was rehearsing for the second teaching, my team gave ideas on how to modify my instructional language”. 4. discussion overall, our findings suggested that collaborative in-situ microteaching was a worthwhile and valuable learning experience for the development of pts’ instructional skills. according to the survey results, pts found the experience to be beneficial to their lesson organization, planning and classroom management skills. this finding is consistent with previous studies by amobi (2005), cebeci (2016) 164 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 157-168 özcan, e., & yüksel, h. g. (investigating the perceptions of preservice teachers on.....) and fernández (2010). according to our participants' perceptions, their cim experience improved their ability to design engaging lessons, select activities, and connect instructional materials with learning goals. in terms of instructional skills, the cim experience most benefited the pts in understanding how to modify the instructional language to the age and proficiency level of the pupils. several researchers have observed classroom management as a difficulty for preservice teachers; however, microteaching does not provide adequate practice opportunities (he & yan, 2011; otsupius, 2014). he and yan (2011) demonstrated in their study on the authenticity of microteaching that because peers were acting as pupils, their participants felt they had much less opportunity to practice real-life teaching skills, particularly classroom management. unlike previous research, because microteaching took place in an actual classroom, our participants reported that the cim had a considerable impact on their classroom management abilities. the experience provided them a chance to recognize their own pedagogical shortcomings, the majority of which were related to classroom management. earlier studies confirm our findings that pts deem microteaching to be a valuable tool for evaluating their own strengths and weaknesses (amobi, 2005; ismail, 2011; saban & çoklar, 2013; mikulec & hamann, 2020). our qualitative findings confirmed the quantitative findings of the study. the in-situ teaching's authenticity gave pts a chance to get to know the young learners better in terms of their characteristics and classroom behaviour. furthermore, the feedback that pts received assisted them in gaining an outside perspective on their performance in class. contrary to earlier research (erdemir & yeşilçınar, 2021; he & yan, 2011), our results showed that pts' instructional skills benefited from feedback in a complementary way. for instance, in her study amobi (2005) reported that most pts exhibited passive and defensive responses to peer feedback. on the contrary, our pts in the current research positively responded to feedback. this result is due to the fact that they worked as a team during the cim experience and that the instruction was performed in an actual classroom. teamwork strengthened social ties among pts, causing them to perceive feedback more constructively. feedback was made practical rather than hypothetical in an actual school setting. additional advantages of the cim included learning how to monitor student participation and comprehension, how to modify instruction, and how to make the most of class time. these benefits were explicitly mentioned in the reflection papers. when these findings are considered together, we may infer that having experience in a real classroom environment prior to practicum improves the pts’ teaching abilities. the statistical analyses yielded no significant differences in the perceived contribution of the cim experience to lesson planning and delivery skills according to gender or prior experience. this finding suggested that the participants, regardless of their gender and prior experience, equally benefited from this experience. 5. conclusion microteaching is a technique employed by teacher educators to improve preservice teachers’ instructional skills and abilities. it serves as a tool to bridge the theory-practice divide. in initial teacher education programs, this technique is embedded into university-led courses in the form of simulated microteaching practice. however, as johnson (2013) points out, this practice has several limitations: (1) the students in the microteaching setting are not real students, and the context is artificial; (2) the practice duration is limited; and (3) there is limited opportunity to receive feedback. various researchers have extensively remarked that there is a need for practice in an authentic classroom setting before school-based experience (amobi, 2005; he & yan, 2011). to respond to this call, this study attempted to eliminate the constraints of microteaching by providing pts with a collaborative microteaching opportunity in an actual classroom. in the study, we explored pts’ perceptions of the contribution of such an experience to their teaching skills. the findings revealed that the cim experience had a positive influence on their teaching competencies. pts’ reflections suggested that collaboration as a concept should be incorporated into the process of microteaching, particularly in preservice education programs. our pts reported that spending time in a real classroom was an excellent opportunity to get to know young learners and observe their behaviours in a natural setting. this study contributed to the findings of bransford et al. (1999), who found that prospective teachers criticize a lack of connection between theory and practice in methods courses. this experience helped the pts notice their weaknesses and begin thinking about general teaching ideas such as time management, ways of engaging students in class activities, and the importance of developing classroom management skills, as well as a deep understanding of the young learners and their needs. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 165 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 157-168 özcan, e., & yüksel, h. g. (investigating the perceptions of preservice teachers on.....) future research needs to address the limitations of the current study. first, the results are confined to this specific group of preservice teachers of the english as a foreign language education programme. further studies are needed to confirm our results in other teacher education programmes. second, the majority of the study participants were female preservice teachers. we suggest researchers collect data from a more homogeneous sample. the final limitation of the current study is that it only considers the perceived contribution of collaborative in-situ microteaching. the goal of the study, however, was to get a thorough understanding of the collaborative in-situ microteaching experience. thus, generalisations should be made with caution. more research is needed to understand how collaboration could enhance teaching competencies in microteaching practices. acknowledgment we would like to express our gratitude to all pre-service teachers who voluntarily participated in the study. declarations author contribution : the first author initiated the research idea and was in charge of resources, data collection and editing. the second author was in charge of conceptualisation, supervision and data analysis. funding statement : the research did not receive any funding. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : the study was approved by the yıldız technical university academic ethics committee (number: 2018/11, date: 15.11.2018). all personal information of the participants were anonymized. references akkuzu, n. 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(2011). learning to teach through a practicum-based microteaching model. action in teacher education, 33(4), 343-358. https://doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2011.620523 sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 2, 2019, pp. 90-101 e-issn: 2621-6485 the influence of family’s support for students english learning achievement at elementary school age 1arum priadi, 2rafa aly nuha 1central china normal university 2universitas ahmad dahlan 1arumpriadi@gmail.com, 2rafaalinuha17@gmail.com abstract this research is carried out 1) to find out whether there is a positive and significant correlation between family’s support and students’ english learning achievement and 2) to find out whether there is a difference between students who get the support and students who do not get the support from family. this research belongs to correlational research with quantitative approach. it was held at sd negeri kaliwungu 05, cilacap in academic year 2017/2018. the sample of this research is the fifth grade students at sd negeri kaliwungu 05. the data collecting techniques of the research were questionnaire, documentation, and interview. then in analyzing the data, the researchers used product moment formula with computer application spss. the result findings show that : 1) family’s support (x) level is in “supported” level at sd negeri kaliwungu 05. 2) the level of students’ english learning achievement (y) at fifth grade of sd negeri kaliwungu 05 is in “fair” level. 3) there is positive and significant correlation between family’s support and students’ english learning achievement of the fifth year students of sd negeri kaliwungu 05, cilacap, shown by the coefficient correlation 0.508. keywords: family’s support, learning achievement, correlation how to cite: priadi, a. & nuha, r.a. (2019). the influence of family’s support for students english learning achievement at elementary school age. english language teaching educational journal, 2 (2), 90-101 introduction among the factors influencing students’ learning achievement, motivation from parent is really needed and it is a very important reason for different achievements. qin xiaoqing in li & pan (2009) says that motivation is a very important factor which determines the success or failure in the learning, for motivation can directly influence the frequency of using learning strategies, will power of learning, goal setting, and persistence in learning. qin (2009) also says that learning motivation influences the learners’ autonomous learning ability and determines the learner confidence in overcoming learning difficulty. these theories on motivation demonstrate that motivation, as one of the most important factors determines the success in learning. and most effective motivation comes from parents as children’s closest person. the relevant study from amorós-martí (2016) in their research learning together, growing with family, uses qualitative descriptive. results showed a high quality of implementation with respect to the group facilitator and the programme organization factors, followed by the coordination with services and the support facilities offered to participants and, finally, by the factors of fidelity and prior organization steps. results of the focus groups confirmed that the prior steps were challenging and offered the more effective strategies. better quality in the implementation factors predicted better parenting styles and parental competencies after the programme, as well as a higher attendance rate. in sum, this study demonstrates the importance of good implementation in at-risk contexts and provides some clues as to the key elements that moderate programme effectiveness. the differences between this study is that their research is qualitative descriptive and aimed to know the importance of good implementation in at-risk and provide some clues to improve programme effectiveness on promoting parents-children mailto:arumpriadi@gmail.com mailto:rafaalinuha17@gmail.com eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ priadi & nuha 91 relationships. the similarity is that the sample of this study were children between 6 to 11 years old. and second, from kilic (2010) in “the influence of constructivism with family and instructor support on students’ success and conceptual learning capabilities in science lessons,” the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of constructivism with family and primary school teachers’ support onconceptual learning capabilities and accomplishment of 5th grade students attending sound unit in science lessons. the similarities of this research are the sample from primary school and factor family support for their children’s learning achievement. the difference is from the kind of research. this research is categorized into experimental research. and the result shows that family’s support has a positive effect upon students’ achievement. in elementary school level, family’s factors should have significant effect for students especially in critical age like in elementary school age, because they need affection from their parents. it is really good for their learning achievement and their mental health. at that age, children usually start to think about their school, they want to get the best achievement as well. parents need to help them if they want the best for their children, not just for good achievement but that would be good for child growth. parents want their children to get the best achievement as a result of learning in the school. they learn at school but parental involvement is still urgently needed because they are still children. it is because children in elementary level still have dependency on their parents. most of their daily activity definitely involve parents. so every touch from their parents will have a significant effect on children, whether it is good or bad. so parents’ support is really needed by children to get a good learning achievement. but at this time many parents do not realize that their involvement is needed by their children. in this research, the researchers feel interested to find out the correlation between family’s support and english learning achievement at sd negeri kaliwungu 05. thus the problems of this study are, therefore, formulated in the following research questions: 1) is there any positive and significant correlation between parents’ support and students’ english learning achievement at elementary school age? 2) is there any difference between students who get the support and students who do not get the support from parents? based on the research problems above, this study was conducted to know whether there is a positive and significant correlation between parents’ support and students’ english learning achievement. family according to hansen in kaakinen “family refers to two or more individuals who depend one another for emotional, physical, and economical support. the number of the family is self-defined (2010). burgess & locke (1953) in kaakinen (2010) adopted the following traditional definition in their writing: “the family is a group of persons united by ties of marriage, blood, or adoption, constituing a single household; interacting and communicating with each other in their respective social roles of husband and wife, mother and father, son and daughter, brother and sister; and creating and maintaining a common culture.” u.s. cencus bureau defines family as two or more people living together related by birth, marriage, or adoption (kaakinen, 2010). mac iver and page in khairuddin (2008) say that “family is a group defined by a sex relationship sufficiently precise and enduring to provide for precreation and upbringing of children. 92 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 family support family’s support is something that reflects family’s toughness on the needs of the child. emotional or esteem support conveys empathy, caring, concern, positive regard, and encouragement toward the person. it provides comfort and reassurance with a sense of belongingness and of being loved in times of stress. tangible or instrumental support involves direct assistance, as when people give or lend the person money or help out with chores in times of stress. informational support includes giving advice, directions, suggestions, or feedback about how the person is doing (sarafino, 2011). emotional support leads to emotional aspects in family-children’s relation, includes physical behaviour or verbal that shows affection or support and positive communication between family and children. instrumental support includes non-physical behaviour but still has contribution in feelings recieved by children. the form of instrumental support may be the provision of facilities and infrastructure to support children to get better learning achievement (lestari, (2012), adityas (2017)). in another setting of research, family support is proven significantly shaped the indonesian-muslim youths’s ways of understanding their muslimness in australia. these young muslims hold essentialised understandings of muslim identity, australian identity and indonesian identity (zulfikar, 2001). learning according to burton quoted from aunurrahman (2012:35), learning is behavioral changing in every person as a result of an interaction between a person and another person or a person with environment so they can interact with their environment. learning is a process of permanent behavioral changing as the result of some act, practice, and observation. brown (2006) also explains that learning is change in behavior, it is relatively permanent but subject to forgetting. chaplin in dictionary of psychology (2010) limits learning in two kinds of formula. first, learning is a result of behavioral change which is relatively permanent as a result of practice and experience. second, learning is a process in getting response as a result of special practice. learning achievement achievement is the result of the study. the result is obtained with an evaluation. “achievement test is a proccess to define students learning result using a test or measuring students learning achievement”. in addition, achievement is a thing that somebody has done successfully, especially using his or her own effort and skill (hornby (2010), arikunto (2013), brown (2004), anggraeni, endriyati & pratolo (2019)). hughes in his book says that achievement tests are directly related to language courses, their purpose is to know how successful individual students, groups of students, or the courses themselves have been in achieving the objectives” (1992). everyone would get different achievement one another based on his or her result in learning after being evaluated. it can be low, medium or high achievment. the achievement obtained by the students is different based on their intelligence, attitude or talent. when doing learning activity, though it is done in the same way, on the same place and with the same instrument, many factors may influence the students’ learning achievement. research method this research is correlational research with a quantitative approach (creswell (2012), bachman (2004), brown & rodgers (2002)). the sample of this research was fifth grade students of sd negeri kaliwungu 05 consisting of 27 students. the data in this eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ priadi & nuha 93 research were scores. for collecting the data the researchers used questionnaire and documentation of students’ final exam result. for the questionnaire’s validity, the researchers used expert judgement. first, the researchers decided that the sample was the 5th graders of primary school with consideration that 5 graders still need support from their family. second, the researchers chose the instruments to collect the data from those variables that are questionnaire and documentation. third, after the data were collected, they were analyzed by using product moment formula with computer application of spss. findings and discussion the researchers present the data description based on the data obtained from the research conducted at sd negeri kaliwungu 05 in academic year 2017/2018. the description consists of two variables, they family’s support (x) and students’ english learning achievement (y). the first, family’s support (x) is the variable which influences english learning achievement. in this case, the data were gained by using a questionnaire distributed to the students. second, english learning achievement (y) is the variable influenced by the (x). the data were also obtained from documentation. the researchers used the computer program on spss (statistical package for specific science) in analyzing all of the variables or the data. the description presented here involves the mean, standard deviation, maximum score and minimum score of the variables. the result of the calculation is drawn in table 1. table 1. description of data analysis variable total sample mean sd highest score lowest score x 27 68.66 4.607 74 57 y 27 67.03 3.96 75 60 the data in table 1 are the general description of data finding by using spss. the description of each variable is presented as follows: family’s support in this research, family’s support is the independent variable (x). the data were collected by using the questionnaire given to the students of fifth grade sd negeri kaliwungu 05. the result of the calculation shows that the mean is 68.66 and the standard deviation is 4.607. the highest score for the family’s support is 74 and the lowest is 57. the result of the calculation can be seen in table 2. table 2. categorization of family support score interval f percentage category ≥ 72 8 29.63% very supported 71-64 16 59.26% supported < 64 3 11.11% less supported based on table 2, the general average of family’s support of fifth graders of sd negeri kaliwungu 05 in 2017/2018 academic year can be categorized into supported category. table 2 shows 59.26% for the supported. english learning achievement in this research, students’ english learning achievement is the dependent variable (y). the data collected by using documentation were taken from the teacher of fifth graders 94 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 at sd negeri kaliwungu 05. from the calculation process, the data analysis shows that the mean score is 67.03 and the standard deviation is 3.96. the highest score of english learning achievement is 75 and the lowest score is 60. based on the scale, the researchers distribute the students’ english learning achievement result into table 3: table 3. categorization of students’ learning achievement score interval frequency percentage category ≥ 73 3 11.11% very good 69 – 72 5 18.52% good 65 – 68 10 37.04% fair 61 – 64 8 29.63% poor < 61 1 3.70% very poor from the data explained in table 3, the result shows that there is only 1 student who is in very poor category out of 27 students, and there are 3 students that got very high category. the highest level is in fair, with 10 students. therefore, the researchers can classify the students at sd negeri kaliwungu 05 are in fair category because it is the greatest number. hypothesis testing in the hypothesis testing, this research uses the pearson product moment. before this hypothesis is done, firstly it should fulfill several requirements, that is, the description from of x and y variables should be normal and it can be applied by test of normality. the relationship between x and y variables should be linear, it can be applied by the linearity test. to fulfill the requirement of the inferential statistics, the researchers tested the normality of the data distribution and the linearity of existing relationships between variables. those are the tests done to determine whether the data analysis technique can be applied or not. the test of normality is aimed at revealing whether or not the distribution of the data score is normal and the kolmogorov-smirnov test is used. the computation is done by the help of spss computer program. the result can be said normal if p > 0.05. the print outprocessing from normality test as follows: eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ priadi & nuha 95 table 4. spss output of test normality one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test family support students’ learning achievement n n 27 27 normal parameters a,b mean 68.6667 67.0370 std. deviation 4.60769 3.96602 most extreme differences absolute positive negative .196 .124 -.196 .111 .111 -.072 kolmogorov-smirnov z 1.016 .579 asymp. sig. (2-tailed) .253 .891 a. test distribution is normal b. calculated from data case processing summary cases included excluded total n percent n percent n percent student’s learning achievement * family’s support 27 1000.% 0 .0% 27 100.0% the variable of family’s support above shows k-s z = 1.016 with p = 0.253, it means that family’s support’s test distribution is normal. and variable of english learning achievement shows result k-s z = 0.579 with p = 0.891. it means that english learning achievement’s test distribution is normal. the test or linearity is used to know whether the relationship of two variables is linear or not. test of linearity between variable of family’s support toward students’ english learning achievement has a result f = 1.171 with significant 0.379 (p > 0.05). it means that the relationship between variable family’s support and students’ english learning achievement is linear because significant level is higher than 0.05 (5%). the test of linearity was by using compare means test for linearity with spss. the data are linear if probability or p > 0.05. the output of spss is as follows: 96 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 table 5. test linearity sum of squares df mean square f sig. student’s learning achievement between groups (combined) linearity deviation from linearity 238.546 105.510 133.036 11 1 10 21.686 105.510 13.304 1.909 9.287 1.171 .121 ,008 .379 family’s support within groups 170.417 15 11.361 total 408.963 26 based on table test of linearity above each variable forms a linear curve with p value (0.379) > 0.05. it can be concluded that the relationship between family’s support and students’ english learning achievement is linear. hypothesis testing analysis after the test of normality and test of linearity were done, the hypothesis testing was done. in the hypothesis testing, the regression analysis was used with the level of significance of 5%. the main hypothesis of this research is that there is a positive and significant correlation between the family’s support and students’ english learning achievement and family’s support makes the students’ english learning achievement better.. the relationship between the family’s support and english learning achievement the coefficient correlation shows 0.508 and probability value p = 0.007. the researchers use the r value in the table (r table) to compare with the r value obtained (r xy). it can be seen that the r value obtained in the research is higher than the r value in the table, that is, 0.508 > 0.381. it means that the hypothesis of the research can be accepted. r squared shows 0,258 that means the independent variable or variable family’s support affects the dependent variable or the english learning achievement about 25.8%. from the discussion above, the hypothesis testing can be interpreted that there is a significant correlation between the family’s support and english learning achievement of the fifth grade of sd negeri kaliwungu 05 kedungreja, cilacap in 2017/2018 academic year. the family has a tendency to influence the students’ english learning achievement about 25.8%. table 6 shows the summary of the result of the correlation coefficient. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ priadi & nuha 97 table 6. spss output of correlation x and y measures of association r r squared eta eta squared students’ learning achievement * family support .0508 .258 .764 .583 correlations family’ s support students’ learning achievement family’s support pearson correlation sig. (2-tailed) n 1 27 .508** .007 27 students’ learninng achievement pearson correlation sig. (2-tailed) n .508** .007 27 1 27 ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) discussion the result of the data analysis shows that the mean of data is 68.66, and the mean is applied in the category of students’ family’s support. the mean exists in the interval 71-64. it can be concluded that the average of family’s support is categorized into supported level. from the data on the students’ family’s support, it can be seen that there are 16 students from the number of sample who have supported by their family or 59.26%. meanwhile there are still 8 students or 29.63% who are classified very supported and 3 students or 11.11% under the category of less supported by their family. even though the percentage shows that students’ support is in supported category and the coefficient correlation shows that there is a significant and a positive correlation between family’s support and students’ english learning achievements. it still needs an improvement from family’s support itself and the teacher must pay more attention to every student so that the student feels more supported even though not by their family. based on the overall interview, the students are supported enough through facility like book, stationary, and place for study provided by their family. but there are some students that studied by themselves. it was due to the lack of knowledge that their family have or the low awareness of the importance of family support for school-aged children, especially elementary school as reflected in the interview sample below. student a r: does your family accompany when you are studying? s : no r : how if you have a trouble in learning?? s : do it by myself, if it is hard, i ask for help to mother. r : does your family give books? s : yes. it is provided by my family r :if you get a good result of learning, is your family happy? s : yes they happy but do not give a gift, just praise 98 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 r : how do you get to the school? s : bicycle r : your family reminded you to eat breakfast before going to school? s : yes. they are. r: if it is rains, does your family pick you up to school? s :no, i’ll wait till the rain stop students b r : does your family accompany when you are studying? s : no r : if you have difficulty in doing homework, who helps? s : ask father for help. but he is no helping r : if you got a good learning result, is your family happy?? s : just normal r : does your family give you stationary?? s : yes r : does your family giv you books? s : no, all the books are from school note : r = researcher s = students the other reason is because family whose majority was farmers and the low level of education they achieved underlies the lack of knowledge that family have, and there are some family working outside the city so that the students as children have difficulty in learning. even there were students who studied at his neighbor’s house because no body taught them at home as reflected in the interview sample below. student r : when you are at home, who is with you when studying? s : i study by myself r :how if you get a trouble in studying? s : get help to neighbors r : does your family give you books? s : yes, they do headmaster r : are there any students’ families that take the students to school? h : very rarely, because the students are brave enough to go to school by themselves.their homes are near also r :does the students’ family take the report card by themselves? h : mostly, they took the report card by themselves. unless their family is working outside of java note : r = researcher s = students h = headmaster the result of data analysis shows that the mean of data english learning achievement is 67.04. by seeing the table it can be seen that the average of english learning achievement score is categorized into fair level. based on the table in data interpretation above, it can be seen that most of students from the number of sample are in fair level. it eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ priadi & nuha 99 shows 10 students in fair level or 37.06% and there are 3 students who have very good achievement level or 11,11% from total sample of 27 students. and there is still 1 student is in very poor level. the main reason the english learning achievement is in fair level or below is because english subject learned just from fourth grade not from the early school like first or second grade. the students also have little difficulty in adapting to english because less time given, in one week students are only taught english 2 hours of lessons for 5 and 6 and 1 hour lesson for grade 4. and the other reason is that the teacher teaching the english subject is not a teacher from his field (english) but a teacher is from another subject but understands english. even though the percentage shows that learning achievement of fifth grade students in fair level and the family’s support has a positive effect to learning achievement. the students’ english learning achievement still needs improvement from teacher and students. because there is still 1 student in very poor level and the lesson time is needed to be added per week. hypothesis testing interpretation the result of statistic analysis proves that the value of r x y is 0.508. this value, then, it is consulted to r table which shows 0.381, with the level of significance 5% and the number of subject 27. as a result, the value of r xy is higher that r table (0.508 > 0.381). this result indicates that there is a significant correlation between family’s support and student’s english learning achievement. based on the result, it can be concluded that the students who have fair level on the family’s support will tend to have a fair score in english learning achievement. moreover this result strengthens the beest & baerveldt’s statement that emotional support tends to make an emotional aspect in family-children’s relation. emotional support can be affection or support and positive communication between family and children. instrumental support includes non-physical behaviour but still has contribution in feelings recieved by children. the example of instrumental support could be the provision of facilities and infrastructure that support the children get better english learning achievement. conclusion firstly, the family’s support is one of external factors that determine the english learning achievement. if someone has high family’s support, it means that she/he will get good score in english learning achievement. the english learning achievement also depends on her/his family’s support. in this research, the family’s support on fifth grade students of sd negeri kaliwungu 05 in 2017/2018 academic year is in supported level. from the data on the students’ family’s support, it can be seen that there are 16 students who were supported by their family or 59.26% or more than a half of the total sample. secondly, the english learning achievement as a dependent variable is a result that has been reached at sd negeri kaliwungu 05 especially by fifth grade students. this variable is affected by independent variable or in this research, that is family’s support. the english learning achievement is something done by the learners by the process of learning and practice. the result of english achievement after calculation is categorized into fair category, 10 students or 37.04% are in this category. finally, the family’s support and learning achievement theoretically are two things that cannot be separated. it is supported by hypothesis testing analysis that the coefficient correlation of x and y variables of the study is 0.508. the data analysis shows that r x y value is higher than r table for the level significance of 5%. this result shows that the hypothesis is accepted. it can be stated that the increase of family’s support is followed by the increase of the english learning achievement. 100 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 references amorós-marti, p., byrne, s., mateos, a., vaquero, e. & mundet, a. (2016). “learning together, growing with family”: the implementation and evaluation of a family support programme. madrid: elsevier espana. adityas, m.t. (2017). fostering social caring through multicultural-based language learning. ahmad dahlan journal of english studies, 4(2), 35-38. anggraeni, d. a., endriyati, r., & pratolo, b. w. (2019). oral assessment in efl class: is it a burden?. proceeding of the 2nd icollit (international conference on language, literature and teaching) 2019. arikunto, suharsini. (2013). prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: rineka cipta. aunurrahman. (2012). belajar dan pembelajaran. bandung: alfabeta bandung. bachman, l. f. (2004). statistical analyses for language assessment book. cambridge: cambridge university press. brown, h.d. (2004). language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: pearson education, inc. brown, h. d. 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(2010). the influence of constructivism with family and instructor support on students’ success and conceptual learning capabilities in science lessons. istanbul: marmara university. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ priadi & nuha 101 lestari, sri. (2012). psikologi keluarga: penanaman nilai dan penanganan konflik dalam keluarga. jakarta: prenadamedia group. li, p., & pan, g. (2009). the relationship between motivation and achievement--a survey of the study motivation of english majors in qingdao agricultural university. english language teaching, 2(1), 123-128. sarafino, e., and t. smith. (2011). health psychology biopsychosocial interaction. new jersey: john wlley & sons. soukhanov, anne h. (1992). the american heritage dictionary of the english language. michigan: houghton mifflin. zulfikar, t. (2011). zulfikar, t. (2011). young indonesian-muslims in australia: identity, family and the ummah (doctoral dissertation, monash university). sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 3, 2019, pp. 142-149 e-issn: 2621-6485 the implementation of visual, auditory, kinesthetic (vak) learning model in improving students’ achievement in writing descriptive texts oki dwi ramadian1, bambang yudi cahyono2, nunung suryati3 1,2,3 universitas negeri malang, indonesia okidwiramadian@gmail.com abstract the english teaching in a public vocational school of akomodasi perhotelan (smk ap) so far has shown unsatisfactory result. based on the preliminary study it was found that the writing skill of the tent graders of smk ap 3 was low. this classroom action research was aimed at improving the students’ writing skill of descriptive text by implementing vak learning model. in this study 26 students were selected as subjects. this study was completed through one cycle using vak learning model. the findings revealed that students’ writing scores increased after the researcher implemented the vak learning model. the average score of the students improved 38.18 points into 81.49 compared to their scores in the preliminary study which was 43.31. out of 26 students, there were only 7 (26.92%) who failed to achieve the minimum mastery criteria (kkm). it can be inferred from the findings that the vak learning model succeeded in helping the students to improve their writing’ achievement. the result of this study implies that vak learning model can be an alternative to improve the students’ writing skill. keywords: writing achievement, vak learning model, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic how to cite: ramadian, o. d., cahyono, b. y. and suryati, n. (2019). the implementation of visual, auditory, kinesthetic (vak) learning model in improving students’ achievement in writing descriptive texts. english language teaching educational journal, 2(3), 142-149. introduction english is one of the most widely spoken languages. it is also one of the international languages used intensively for communication among people with different backgrounds. english language is considered as a foreign language in indonesia. moreover, it has been made into a compulsory subject that is taught in the indonesian educational system, especially at the secondary levels. in english language, there are four skills that need to be mastered which are: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. reading and listening skills could be categorized as receptive skills in which according to harmer (2001), it was stated that receptive skills are the ways in which people understand meaning from the expression they acquire from seeing or hearing. besides, speaking and writing skills are categorized as productive skills in which according to spratt, pulverness and williams (2005) productive skills are skills that involve producing the language rather than receiving it. to develop all four skills of the students through learning and teaching activities in classrooms, aside from matching with the core and basic competencies, these should be integrated in all levels of the teaching and learning process. moreover, the process of those activities should be adhered to the core competences and the basic competences. writing is considered as one of the most difficult skills to acquire among those four english language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) (huda, hafifah, & wijaya, 2016; warda, & wijaya, 2019; soviyah & purwaningtias, 2018). the difficulties that the learners face while they learn writing subject are the difficulties in generating, organizing, and translating ideas into a readable text. writing is considered difficult as it involves both highly complex skills such as planning and organizing text and lower level eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ ramadian, cahyono & suryati 143 skills, for instance, spelling, punctuation, word choice, etc. writing will be more difficult if the learner's language proficiency is weak (richard & renandya, 2002). heaton (1988) states that writing skill is a complex skill that requires mastery on both grammaticalrhetorical devices and also the conceptual and judgmental elements. however, it cannot be denied that writing is produced in many different forms and being used for a wide variety of purposes (harmer, 2004) like for occupational or academic purposes and make people need to learn how to write correctly. similarly, the problems stated previously were also happening among the grade x students of smk ap 3 malang. based on the analysis of students’ writing, it was found that their writing lacks using some particular things such as tenses, grammar, and vocabulary. likewise, it showed that students were unaware of the organization and the language features of the descriptive texts. there is one method that teachers can utilize to improve students’ language skills especially writing namely visual, auditory, kinesthetic (vak) learning model. huda (2014), as cited in wulansari (2016), emphasizes that the vak learning model is a multisensory learning model that engages three learning styles. furthermore, rambe and zainuddin (2014) state that the vak is an approach and development of quantum learning that combine motivation, engagement, and cognitive processing habits of the students which then affect the use of metacognitive skills such as situation analysis, self-pacing, and selfevaluation to produce learning results according to the unique characteristics of the learning styles of students. according to ahmed (2012) learning style is the attributes and preferred ways of collecting, understanding, arranging and processing information by a person. similarly, skehan (1991) as cited in brown (2000) states "learning style is a general predisposition, voluntary or not, toward processing information in a particular way" (p. 31). furthermore, keefe (1979) as cited in brown (2000) assumes that “learning styles might be thought of as 'cognitive, affective, and physiological traits that are relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment” (p. 54). there are three main types of learning styles, to wit; visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. this study focuses on accommodating the vak learning style, which is the combination of those three main learning styles, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (vak) to develop students’ achievement in writing. table 1. the activities suitable for the students’ learning style preference visual learners auditory learners kinesthetic learners drawing or painting. using visual objects such as diagrams, video, flashcards, charts and maps, etc. showing the concrete forms of words and ideas. writing out notes for frequent and quick visual scan and review. listening to talks and lectures. saying the words while reading. providing clear verbal instructions since they are good in receiving it. playing on recorded audio from tapes etc. repeating and rehearsing information many times to get the sound. writing word several times and making written notes. moving around while studying. discussing idea with others. source: wood (2000) and reid (2005) 144 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 fleming (2006) as cited in wong (2015) has conducted a learning style survey and found out that: a) individual behaviors can be affected by the individual learning style preferences, b) the findings enable the teachers to create better teaching and learning strategies that are suitable with the students' learning style, c) strategies that are suitable for learners' learning style preferences can motivate them, d) the suitability of students’ learning styles and learning strategies can enhance deeper approaches to effective learning and metacognition, and d) it is important to understand learners’ learning styles. some researchers who were interested in confirming fleming’s finding conducted some studies about vak learning model. rambe and zainuddin (2014) showed that vak learning model significantly affected students’ achievement in writing especially writing recount text. another study conducted by lista, atmowardoyo, and salija (2015) also proved that the vak was effective to improve students’ writing ability. kazemi, zafarghand, and tahriri (2016) also investigated the effect of learning styles (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic) in language learning. they concluded that style preference in language learning is a significant factor fostering the learning process. furthermore, they stated that it is beneficial to teach language elements that suit the students’ preferred learning style. besides, suhara (2013) also conducted an experimental research in junior high school 1 lawang class x in south sumatra. the result has also proven that the vak learning model effectively improved the students’ skill in writing descriptive texts. based on a decree of the ministry of education and culture of indonesia number 24, 2016 related to core competences and basic competences of every subject in the 2013 curriculum, students of upper secondary school, including senior high schools (sekolah menengah atas), vocational high schools (sekolah menengah kejuruan), and islamic senior high schools (madrasah aliyah) and any other kind of upper secondary schools, should learn the varieties of texts including descriptive text. descriptive text is a text which describes person, place, or mood (nawawi, 2011). as the descriptive text is compulsory for the upper secondary school, teachers should focus on the teaching of this topic in their syllabuses. it is obviously true that we need to improve students’ writing skills, especially for descriptive texts. this motivated the conduct of this study, specifically to answer the problem: how can the visual, auditory, kinesthetic (vak) learning model improve students’ achievement in writing descriptive texts? research method the research design of this study is classroom action research (car). car is a research study which is usually conducted in a particular social situation that requires the researcher to do self-reflective enquiries. the objective of this type of study is to improve understanding and enable the researcher to do self-reflections toward their own performances, their understanding of these practices, and the situations in which the work is carried out (carr & kemmis, 1986). burns (2010) explains more about the definition of action research (ar). she says that ar involves taking a self-reflective, critical, and systematic approach to explore the teaching contexts. furthermore, kemmis and mctaggart (1988) as cited in burns (2010) say that action research employs four steps: planning, action, observation, and reflection. the process of planning activities involves (1) designing the lesson plan, (2) preparing the materials, (3) preparing the research instruments and (4) setting the schedule to conduct the study and the criteria of success. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ ramadian, cahyono & suryati 145 table 2. the criteria for success criterion data data source data collection ≥70 of the students achieve the standard minimum mastery of 75. the students’ score after implementing the action. students’ written output. scoring the students’ written output. action refers to the implementation of the strategy that had been planned. the researcher, who was the teacher of the class, took the role of applying the vak learning model in class. as the teacher, i observed both the learning and teaching processes. this is done to ascertain whether the vak learning model is suitable or not and to see whether the learning and teaching process follows the plan or not. besides implementing the action, i also observed the process. i observed the students while doing the vak activities. the data came in the form of description of what was happening in the class during the implementation the vak learning model. besides, i also observed the situation of the class. i also wrote what i felt while applying the vak learning model. the data were used as some of the consideration to evaluate the learning and teaching that were conducted. the final step of this classroom action research involved reflecting of the actions done in class. i analyzed the collected data from the preliminary study and the actual implementation of the learning model. the results were compared to know the differences. if students’ scores increased and reached minimum mastery criteria of 75, after the implementation of the vak learning model, then it may be concluded that the vak learning model helped improve students’ writing skill, specifically to write descriptive texts. conclusions were then made from the results of the analysis. findings i found that the students' average writing score in the preliminary study was 43.31. this indicated that most of the students failed achieving the minimum mastery criteria that i set which was ≥75. there was only one student (3.84%) who was able to reach this standard; on the other hand, the rest 25 students (96.15%) failed. after the implementation of the vak learning model, the students’ writing scores increased. i found that most of the students were able to achieve the minimum mastery criteria. out of 26 students, there were seven students (26.92%) who failed achieving the standard. despite, the number of the students who achieved or passed the standard was high, 19 students or 73.07%. moreover, in terms of the total average score, it showed a significant improvement. the mean score of the students in this writing descriptive text was 81.49. 146 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 0 20 40 60 80 100 a v f a s s a c w a ik c a n d a d n a d y p in s im s n l h m p l m h f y m h w n v m n t t n p p t d w r p a r m a s n t s s b w s a w w y s y f m writing score in preliminary study writing score after the implementation of the action figure 1. the improvement of the students’ writing score 43.31 81.49 0 20 40 60 80 100 the result on the preliminary study the he result after implementing the action figure 2. the mean scores of before and after the action after the implementation of vak learning model the minimum mastery criteria was reached by the students. the action was considered successful since ≥ 70 of the students achieved the minimum mastery criteria which was 75. based on the findings, the number of the students who were able to achieve or pass the minimum mastery criteria after the implementation of vak learning model was 19 students (73.07%). it proved that the strategy of integrating the vak learning model was successful in developing the students writing’ skill in writing descriptive texts. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ ramadian, cahyono & suryati 147 discussion there were some improvements on the students’ writing achievement according to the findings in terms of the students’ writing scores. out of 26 students, there were 19 students (73.07%) who achieved the minimum mastery criteria i set although there were seven students (26.92%) who failed reaching the standard. however, the percentage of the students who succeeded to achieve the minimum mastery criteria was higher than the students who were not able to reach the standard, meaning that the vak learning model brought some improvements to the students’ writing skill. this study supported the findings of the previous studies such as those conducted by rambe and zainuddin (2014), lista, atmowardoyo, and salija (2015), and suhara (2013 ). on the study that was conducted by rambe and zainuddin (2014), the result was that the vak learning model significantly affects the students’ achievement in writing especially writing recount text. the result of this current study was in line with rambe’s and zainuddin’s (2014) finding. the difference was only that on this present study the vak learning model managed to develop the student’s writing achievement in terms of writing a descriptive text. furthermore, the findings of this current study was also in line with the study of lista, atmowardoyo, and salija (2015) that indicated that vak learning model was useful to improve the students’ writing skill. there were some aspects of improvements in students’ writing skill such as writing organization, content, and language. in terms of the organization, the learning model enabled the students to realize the correct organization of the descriptive text. furthermore, during the implementation of the action, the learning model made the students remember that the organization of the descriptive text consists of twofold namely identification and description. this information was repeated few times through some activities related to three learning style activities. these activities were “listen and send” and “make the poster.” in terms of content, vak learning model also helped the students to find the correct way to convey a clear topic. through the use of this learning model, especially in the “use your body to describe”, the students were trained to make a clear topic sentence. the students were trained to make a topic sentence by choosing a particular tourism place, then they made particular tourism place into a noun phrase and finally, they made a sentence by adding the adjective. furthermore, this activity required the students to move their body that enabled them to remember the sentence because the movement became a clue. similarly, the language in the learning style also trained the students to fulfill the language features which were required to make a descriptive text. some of the language features of descriptive text have simple present tense form and employ many noun phrases and adjectives. through the “use your body to describe” activity, the students were trained to make the noun phrase. after that, the students were asked to put an adjective after the noun phrase that made the sentence turned into a simple present tense. through the training provided by the vak learning model, the students found the right form of a simple present tense. the simple present tense was taught deductively trough the vak activities, “use your body to describe”. this activity avoided the students from making grammatical errors. some grammatical errors were found during the activities but i, as a teacher, gave feedback to response the wrong form of the noun phrase or the sentence. the “use your body to describe” enabled the students to practice a lot. after the teaching and learning activities ended, the students obtained knowledge related to descriptive text and how to write one of the descriptive texts related to tourism place. although there were seven students (26.92%) out of 26 students who failed reaching the minimum mastery criteria, the number of the students who were able to reach the 148 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 standard was higher, i.e. 19 students (73.07%). this proved that the vak learning model was helpful to improve the students’ writing skill. all of the findings explained above matched with the theory that kazemi, zafarghand, and tahriri (2016) which stated that, in language learning, style preference is a significant factor which fosters the learning process. conclusion the findings of this study highlighted the practical advantage of the vak learning model to the classroom as it helped to increase students’ achievement in writing descriptive texts. the achievement of standard scores in all of the criteria set by the majority x graders of smk ha3 malang including students’ mean scores are indicated with the vak learning model. the vak learning model played a relevant role in the reinforcement of knowledge among students who became the participants of this study and trained the students in writing descriptive texts. the core activities found to be facilitative in developing students’ writing skill involved students’ bodily movements and group interaction. references ahmed, o. n. 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(2016) the use of visual auditory kinesthetic (vak) learning model to improve students’ reading comprehension (unpublished thesis). department of teacher training and education faculty state institute for islamic studies (iain) salatiga. http://www.jallr.com/index.php/jallr/article/view/360/pdf360 https://jurnal.unimed.ac.id/2012/index.php/eltu/article/download/1385/1144 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v1i1.265 http://dx.doi.org/10.30651/tell.v7i1.2696 english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 1, august 2018, pp. 29-37 e-issn: 2621-6485 students’ voice on their english teacher’s teaching techniques: a case study at a private indonesian junior high school 1 bambang w. pratolo, 2 ani susanti , 3 indriani english education department, universitas ahmad dahlan 1 (bambang.pratolo@pbi.uad.ac.id), 2 (ani.susanti@pbi.uad.ac.id) abstract this study is aimed to know the students’perception toward the english teacher’s teaching techniques. this study was conducted in grade eight of two efl classes of a junior high school in indonesia. the instruments to collect the data was a likert-scale questionnaire with five options of strongly agree to strongly disagree, while to analyze the data the researcher used descriptive statistics by finding means, standard deviation and frequency. an in-depth interview was also conducted to nine out of 60 students to scrutinize the students’ voice on their english teachers’ performance. the result of the analysis showed that the teacher in this study performed all the three techniques, controlled, semi-controlled and free technique. the finding also showed that the most frequently used technique was controlled technique, followed by semi-controlled and free technique. meanwhile most of the students have positive perception toward their english teacher’s teaching techniques. keywords: students’ perception, controlled technique, semi-controlled technique, free technique how to cite: pratolo, b. w., susanti, a., indriani. (2018). students’ voice on their english teacher’s teaching techniques: a case study at a private indonesian junior high school. english language teaching educational journal, 1(1), 29-37. introduction teaching is not only one way to transfer knowledge to learners, but it also a way to understand what they need, experience and feel and provide a necessary intervention to make them learn. when teachers teach a lesson to their students, they must use the ways to make interaction between them enjoyable. in the context of english language teaching and learning, english teachers need to make sure that the teaching techniques they use fit with their students learning need. therefore, english teachers need to be creative in choosing their teaching techniques to assist, encourage and motivate the students as they are aware that not all the students have interest in english language. according to effendi (2005) teaching means not only to show your acquaintance with english knowledge, but also your talent, experience and handiness of approaching your students to make the class enjoyable, relaxing, and interesting to them, so that, they will grasp the lesson excitedly and interactively. as a foreign language, english is not an easy subject to learn by most indonesian students. most of them consider english as a complicated language mailto:bambang.pratolo@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:ani.susanti@pbi.uad.ac.id 30  e-issn: 2621-6485 as the syntaxes, structures and the linguistic features are different. that is why although indonesian students have learned english since junior high schools, some even started earlier (since elementary school), they still cannot use english as a means of communication. that is why basic error-usages of language are regularly found in communication among the indonesian students. some of them may understand english text, especially those who study at a university but when the text is long and complex, they give up. their failure in reading comprehension test of toefl indicates their low english proficiency. in short, english language teaching in indonesia cannot be considered a success (mukhaiyar, 1994, pratolo, 2015). to help students build their interest in english language, english teachers need to find teaching techniques which fit with the students’ learning needs. students will enjoy learning activities if their teachers are creative, active, and use interesting techniques in teaching. harmer (2007) stated that a good teacher is somebody who has an affinity with the students that he or she is teaching. it means that successful teachers are those people who can identify with the hopes, aspirations, and difficulties of their students while they are teaching them. good teachers care more about their students’ learning that they do about their own teaching (brown, 2001). so, teachers should know more about their students, characteristics of their students, students’ background life, culture, and what methods are suitable to teach foreign language in their teaching process. a good teacher always wants that his teaching should be effective. he wants that all the students of the class should properly attend, listen to him and try to grasp what he teaches in the class (elizabeth, 2004). in short, a language teacher needs to choose the most appropriate teaching technique which meets students’ learning needs to present language materials. according to anthony (1963) a technique is a strategy, contrivance or a trick that a teacher implements in the classroom to achieve the teaching goal. in short, he believes that a teaching technique is the way how a teacher performs in the classroom to meet the goal. meanwhile doff (1988) argues that there is a correlation between teaching technique with how learning activities are organized. therefore, a teacher can change his technique if he believes that the new technique is more effective especially for the students. furthermore, brown (1995) asserts that teaching technique for a language teacher is the chosen way how the teacher presents language materials to learners and therefore it should match the students’ learning needs. this study was focused on looking at the teachers’ performance based on brown’s taxonomy of language teaching techniques (2001). brown classified technique into controlled, semi-controlled and free technique as he asserts that teaching technique always moves from manipulative to a free communication dimension. controlled technique is the technique that is still under the supervision of a teacher and he can predict and direct what the students will do. such activities as drilling, dictation, reading aloud belong to this classification. in a classroom communication where students have an opportunity to express their ideas in response to teachers’ questions, teachers have less control towards what the students will say. they can say something that even different from 31 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 pratolo, susanti, indriani what the teachers expect. in this setting the students may communicate in a freer and spontaneous way. therefore such activities like brainstorming, information gap, story-telling belong to the less-controlled activities. meanwhile, free activities deal with the situation where students may act out activities or express ideas without the control from their teachers such as, role play, drama, discussion, problem solving, simulation etc. (crookes & chaudron, 1991). table 1 below presents the characteristics of the three different techniques. table 1.types of language teaching techniques (crookes & chaudron, 1991). controlled semi-controlled free teacher-centered use of language in a less restrictive way than the controlled but taking into account linguistic patterns already set up by the teacher. student-centered manipulative communicative structured open-ended predicted student response unpredicted student response pre-planned objectives set curriculum negotiated objectives cooperative curriculum perception, psychologically, is explained as a process where someone becomes aware toward everything which exists in her or his surroundings by means of the senses (kartono & gulo, 2003). thus, the process of creating perception involves human being’s senses because perception is the interpretation of what are caught by the senses. meanwhile, according to rookes (2000), perception is a process which involves the recognition and interpretation of stimuli which register on our sense. in other words, perception is related to how we make sense of our environment and sensation refers to basic stimulation of the sense organs. research method this study was intended to investigate the teaching techniques used by the english teachers based on their students perceptions and how the students perceive their teachers’ teaching techniques. to get the answer for the first objectives, a questionnaire of what the teachers did in the classroom was utilized. meanwhile, an in-depts semi structured interview was conducted to get the answer for the second objective. the subjects of the research were the eighth grade students laskar pelangi junior high school, yogyakarta, indonesia. the number of the samples were 60 students distributed into two different classes, viii a and viii d. eight students out of 60 were purposively selected to be invited for an in-depth interview. this number is ideal for an interview as dornyei (2007) suggested. according to him the ideal number for an interview is between 6 to 10. to know the level of students’ perception, the writer used categorization which was made by referring to the normal distribution with the use of an ideal mean and an ideal standard deviation. the conversion criterion for deciding on 32  e-issn: 2621-6485 the standard of the ideal mean and the ideal standard deviation of english students’ perception toward the english teacher’s teaching techniques was presented in the following table: table 2. conversion criterion no. scale number category 1. ideal mean + 1,5 (ideal sd) strongly agree 2. ideal mean + 0,5 (ideal sd) agree 3. ideal mean 0,5 (ideal sd) rather agree 4. ideal mean 1,5 (ideal sd) disagree 5. < ideal mean – 1,5 (ideal sd) strongly disagree finding and discussion based on the score of the ideal mean and the ideal standard deviation, the following table presented the categorization which represented the standard of students’ perception toward the english teacher’s teaching techniques. table 3. conversion criterion of students’ perception toward the english teacher’s teaching techniques no. scale number score interval category 1. ideal mean + 1,5 (ideal sd) 272.25 – 330 strongly agree 2. ideal mean + 0,5 (ideal sd) 222.75 – < 272.25 agree 3. ideal mean 0,5 (ideal sd) 173.25 – < 222.75 rather agree 4. ideal mean 1,5 (ideal sd) 123.75 – < 173.25 disagree 5. < ideal mean – 1,5 (ideal sd) < 123.75 strongly disagree in order to ease the process of analyzing data, the researcher presented the score of students’ perception which was classified in a frequency distribution table. table 4. the result of students’ answer frequency in controlled technique no statement 5 4 3 2 1 score category 1 the teacher gives some jokes, songs or games (warm up) 20 22 23 1 0 259 agree 2 the teacher gives more explanation about grammar 31 31 4 0 0 291 strongly agree 3 the teacher gives some questions based on the material 12 37 16 1 0 255 agree 4 the teacher gives english text that you can read or learn 25 34 5 2 0 281 strongly agree 33 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 pratolo, susanti, indriani no statement 5 4 3 2 1 score category 5 repeat after the teacher says 21 31 14 0 0 269 agree 6 translate english to indonesian or indonesian to english 34 25 5 2 0 289 strongly agree 7 the teacher reads the text and the students write down the text 8 33 18 7 0 233 agree 8 the teacher shows the text and the students write down the text 10 38 17 1 0 247 agree 9 the teacher reviews previous lesson 17 39 9 1 0 264 agree 10 the teacher gives short quizzes 11 32 13 9 1 232 agree average 262 agree according to the table above, the average of controlled technique is 262 and the category is “agree” because the average is in interval 222.75 – <272.25. it means that the controlled technique is categorized “agree”. it implies that the teacher applied this technique in teaching. out of the ten statements within the controlled technique, teacher’s teaching grammar is the most frequent activity, followed by translation activity in the classroom and assigning the students to read text. table 5.the resultof students’ answer in semi controlled technique no statement 5 4 3 2 1 score category 11 the teacher assigns group discussion 6 24 27 8 1 224 agree 12 the teacher tells the story or intermezzo to make students happy 17 26 22 1 0 256 agree 13 the teacher gives some questions to know your understanding 12 40 13 1 0 260 agree 14 the teacher assigns conversation based on the text conversation given by teacher 16 32 18 0 0 261 agree 15 the teacher assigns the students to describe the picture given by teacher 4 22 20 2 0 0 211 rather agree 16 the teacher assigns sharing with other friends 6 32 17 1 1 0 229 agree 17 the teacher gives summary about the lesson 11 40 10 4 1 253 agree average 242 agree 34  e-issn: 2621-6485 based on the table above, the average of semi-controlled technique is 242and the category is “agree” because the average is in interval 222.75 –<272.25.it means that the semi-controlled technique is categorized “agree”. it implies that the teacher implemented this technique in the teaching and learning process in the classroom. among seven activities of semi-controlled technique the teacher did in the classroom, the most frequently done activity was that the teacher assigns conversation based on a text given, followed by teacher’s giving question to check students’ understanding and teacher’s telling a story as an intermezzo to make the students happy. table 6.the resultof students’ answer in free technique no statement 5 4 3 2 1 score category 18 the teacher assigns drama with theme and plot based on your creativity 4 18 23 17 4 199 rather agree 19 the teacher uses vary activities and games 24 20 15 5 2 257 agree 20 the teacher assigns writing project 2 18 21 22 3 192 rather agree 21 the teacher gives some cases and you solve the cases with your friends 10 22 21 9 4 223 agree 22 the teacher assigns simulation 6 10 16 23 11 175 rather agree 23 the teacher assigns interview activity during the lesson 2 19 27 14 4 199 rather agree 24 the teacher uses discussion method during the lesson 5 24 28 6 3 220 rather agree 25 the teacher uses english when he talks to you in daily activity 5 18 27 15 1 209 rather agree average 209.25 rather agree based on the table above, the average of free technique is 209.25 and the category is “rather agree” because the average is in interval 173.25 – < 222.75. it means that the free technique is categorized “rather agree”. the table above also shows which teaching activities the english teacher used most frequently in the classroom to teach english. it shows that using vary activities and games in the classroom was the most frequently activity the teacher did within free teaching technique. meanwhile, teacher’s assignment of giving cases to students to solve with their friends was less frequently activity used by the teacher followed by teacher’s use of discussion method during the lesson. 35 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 pratolo, susanti, indriani based on the results above, it is known that the english teacher’ use of controlled teaching techniques at this private junior high school obtained 262 scores (37%), followed by semi-controlled technique with 242 scores (34%) and free technique with 209.25 scores (29%). thus, it can be concluded that generally the teacher used all the three technique in teaching english although with different intensity. the most favored techniques by the teachers was controlled techniques, followed by semi-controlled techniques and free techniques. the interview towards the student participants indicated that most students enjoy their teachers’ teaching performance. they liked the way their teachers explain the materials and they said they felt the benefit of their teachers’ drilling them with pronunciation practice and vocabulary building. they also enjoyed the dialogue drill during the lesson as they felt they could really use the english language for “real” communication. in term of the semicontrolled activities, the students expressed their positive reaction. they confessed that they enjoyed the story-telling very much; it is not only about the story they built but also about the opportunity the teacher gave to them to tell it to others. many students also share positive perceptions toward their teachers’ choice of free activities. the most interesting activity the students enjoyed was games, followed by role play and discussion. discussion as can be seen in the finding, this current study identified that both the teachers under the investigation employed controlled technique most frequently. this finding is line with what galindo (2008) found in his study. he found that both teachers he observed used controlled teaching technique for one semester. he added that in their teaching techniques the teachers employed activity-centered lessons to help guide students’ learning process. he also found that the students spend most of their time to work on language activities which was intended to practice their language features. from the interview, we found that most students had positive perception toward their teachers’ teaching performance. they said that they enjoyed their teaching techniques and always had good time learning english with their teachers. this finding is similar to that discovered by muhammad, moslem and sari (2017) that identified that most students had positive response toward their teacher’s way of teaching reading comprehension. out of 28 student participants, only 6 of them had negative perceptions toward their teacher’s way of teaching. they assumed that their teacher could not help them, failed to motivate and attract them to study. they added that the classroom circumstances could not make them focus to study english properly. in general, however, most of the participants perceived their teacher as a successful teacher of reading comprehension. he could help the students, motivate and attract them to study english. 36  e-issn: 2621-6485 this current study also yielded similar result as widayanti (2007) found in her study of students’ perception toward teaching techniques of teaching reading. the student participants in her study had positive perception toward their teacher teaching technique of reading. they assumed that the teacher’s technique in pre-reading, whilst teaching and post reading stages were effective. meanwhile, compared to the study of hasan, alias, saleh and halizah (2017), the teachers in this current study was better considering the students’ perceptions towards their teaching performance. hasan, alias, saleh and halizah (2017) found that students’ perception toward their teachers’ teaching performance was just slightly above average. teachers’ task performance which was least developed among the three dimensions may be the cause of their performance, while their adaptability performance was the highest even though it is still less than excellent. in general, they suggested that the teachers need to improve themselves. conclusion based on the research findings and discussion in the previous section, it can be drawn some conclusion as follow. first, based on the students’ perception towards the teachers’ teaching performance, the teachers used controlled techniques most frequently followed by semi-controlled techniques, and free techniques. the students’ perception toward the teaching techniques is 59.1 in “agree category”. it means that they have positive perception toward the english teacher’s teaching techniques at this private junior high school. the most and the least favored technique can be seen from the result of perception. the most dominant technique in students’ perception is controlled technique with frequency 262 into agree level. while the least dominant technique is free technique with frequency 209.25 into rather agree. the students of this private junior high school enjoyed the techniques applied by their teachers, that is why most of the students could learn english well, at least they were confident enough to show their skill in verbal english. finally both of the teachers could maintain their teaching techniques as the students’ perception was positive. references anthony, e. (1963). approach, method and technique. english language teaching, 17, 63-67. bashir, h., alias, m., saleh, k.m., halizah, a. (2017) students’ perceptions of their teachers’ performance in teaching engineering drawing in nigerian tertiary institutions, traektoriânauki = path of science. 2017. vol. 3, no 10 brown, j. (1995). a systematic approach to program development. massachussets: heinle&heinle publishers. brown, h. douglas. 2001.teaching by principle, an interactive approach to language pedagogy. new york: addison wesley longman 37 eltej e-issn: 2621-6485 pratolo, susanti, indriani crookes, g. & chaudron, c. (1991).guidelines for classroom language teaching.in celce-murcia, m. teaching english as a second or foreign language (2nd ed., pp. 46-67). boston, mass.: heinle and heinle. doff, a. (1988). teaching english: a training course for teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. dörnyei, z. (2007). research methods in applied linguistics: quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodologies. oxford: oxford university press. effendi, p. rahmat. 2005. to be an effective english teacher within two days. yayasanbinaedukasidankonsultasihapsaetstudia: jakartapusat elizabeth, dr. m.e.s. 2004. methods of teaching english. new delhi: discovery publishing house galindo, franciadelpilargavilán. 2008. a study of the dominant type of technique (controlled, semicontrolled and free) of two english teachers from a languages teaching program. profile 10, 2008.issn 1657-0790. bogotá, colombia. pages 163-180. http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/prf/n10/n10a10.pdf harmer, jeremy. 2007. how to teach english. england: pearson education limited ibrahim, r and nana syaodih s. 2003.perencanaanpengajaran. jakarta: rinekacipta kartini, kartono dr. & dali gulo. 2003. kamuspsikologi. bandung: penerbitpionir jaya. mukhiyar. 1994. designing teaching material for young learners of english in selected article from 41st tefl in seminar. padang: ikip padang press pratolo, b. (2015). exploring indonesian learners’ beefs about language learning strategies through reflection. unpublished doctoral thesis, monash university australia. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/85136600.pdf rookes, paul and jane wilson. 2000. perception theory, development and organisation. london: routledge. english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 1, no. 3, 2018, pp. 161-175 e-issn: 2621-6485 students’ needs for academic writing at the english education department nur fatimah english education department of universitas ahmad dahlan, yogyakarta, indonesia nur.fatimah@pbi.uad.ac.id abstract there are some demand and facts on english teching and learning that made the research conducted. they are the teaching and learning in the academic writing class, the feedback from lecturers on the students language performance, the students’ weaknesses in writing, the students’ expectation for the materials, and the requirement on publishing scientific articles. the study, then, reveals the students’ needs for academic writing at the english education department of ahmad dahlan university and their problems in academic writing. the aspects investigated were teaching materials, learning activities, skills and learning resources. the data were obtained by a questionnaire to describe whether the stated items very interesting/very important – not very interesting/not very important. the number of population is 370. krejcie and morgan table was referred for the sample. an open question was responded to enable respondents to share more feedback on their academic writing skills and problems. the results show that the materials designed by the department are worth to teach. further, interesting learning activities include getting feedback from the lecturer and peers, and in-class writing practice. in relation to writing, the students confirm the importance of essay elements and academic work, outlining, paraphrasing and producing complete academic writing. another finding is priority to use textbooks, references from the internet and journals. the last is that the students have problems in developing ideas, grammar, vocabulary, and language expressions. keywords: needs analysis, academic writing, materials, academic writing problems how to cite: fatimah, n. (2018). students’ needs for academic writing at the english education department. english language teaching educational journal, 1(3), 161-175. introduction the development of education is influenced by not only external but also internal factors. policy from the government as well as regulations from instutions affect the output of the educational process. the decree of director general of higher education no. 152 / e / t / 2012 requires the obligation of scientific publication for graduates of s1/s2/s3 (undergraduate, master and doctoral degrees). thus, the process undertaken by students in the academic writing class influences the success of students in obtaining scientific writing skills. english education department as one of the related parties takes significant roles in empowering the indonesian people in particular young generations taking english as their major. what emerges in the society may reflect what happened in classroom settings. ability to express ideas, feelings and experiences through words can be traced back to the process of teaching mailto:nur.fatimah@pbi.uad.ac.id 162  e-issn: 2621-6485 and learning. accordingly, the demand to increase the number of scientific writing publication can be associated with the process of learning writing. in fact, class observations and preliminary interviews with some students and lecturers conducted by the researcher showed that the 5th semester students and above, who took the academic writing course, have difficulty writing scientific papers. some lecturers of seminar on language teaching and thesis supervisors acknowledge student weaknesses in written expression in the form of papers or student thesis. the question that arises is whether the materials delivered have supported each other for the success of students in completing their study, including writing their thesis? what are exactly their wants, interests, and abilities related to scientific writing skills? what activities are experienced by students in the learning process of academic writing? academic writing learning is still implemented traditionally. the lecturer delivered the material classically, students listened, worked on the acacemic writing exercise and submitted their writing. so far, there has been no specific guide for the academic writing class, so that the main material comes from lecturer presentation and parts of the book as the references. before getting into the teaching material, it becomes important to analyze the needs of academic writing students. this paper aims to describe the research result on the needs of the english education department (eed) students for academic writing. academic writing writing activity takes into account the role of the writer, the content, the reader and the form of language that is commonly used (taylor, 2009). in an academic writing, a writer is required to provide reasons that reinforce the ideas conveyed. all is delivered by the author with clear and acceptable language for the academic community. when composing academic writing, the writer has to consider the followings. academic writing contains a structured, formal and objective pattern, and the language used is often abstract and complex. the term academic writing is related to writing to fulfill academic assignments or assignments as teachers and researchers do for publication and conference purposes attended by academics (thais and zawachi (2006), paquot (2010), taylor , (2009), bailey (2003)). hedge (in murray and christison (2011)) states five competencies that must be achieved in academic writing. first, students are able to have a high level of organizational competence so that the ideas in their writing are clearly understandable. next, students also have high accuracy in writing by paying attention to technical terms to avoid misunderstanding in their meaning. third, students as writers need to control the use of grammar so that information is conveyed. furthermore, the author must know the vocabulary in the discipline eltej issn: 2621-6485  fatimah 163 and then students as writers must be able to integrate all these competencies to produce a style that is suitable for the reader and certain context. writing errors especially in second language learning can arise due to several factors. according to myles (2002) there are social and cognitive factors. social factors include such as negative attitudes toward english, insignificant progress in mastering the language learned, a large social and psychological barrier between learners and the culture of the speakers of the language being studied and lack of motivation in learning. different from social factors, the cause of errors in writing can come from cognitive factors. for example, the acquisition of scientific vocabulary and the style used, the writing process (construction, transformation and execution of ideas, according to anderson (1985) in myles (2002) which is undertaken at the same time students also think about how to realize their ideas in writing. various knowledge in writing, for example relating to discourse, readers, rules related to sociolinguistics, the influence of language used (l1). academic writing in the english education department is a compulsory subject offered in semester five. the competency expected by students is their ability to write scientific papers in english. academic writing courses ideally include materials that make the students able to write scientific work. the materials should be made gradually from developing ideas from general to specific, thesis statements and supporting details, parts of scientific writing, outlining to writing some types of writing that are often found in scientific work presentations, such as descriptive, comparison and contrast and argumentative. in addition to these materials, subjects such as paraphrasing, making conclusions and making reference lists are topics discussed in the academic writing class. to arrive at a conducive learning process and the satisfying products of academic writing, the provision of teaching materials that support the achievement of these goals is certainly of importance. however, in order to produce good materials, the first attempt that needs to be made is to get data about the needs of the students related to the subject being studied. needs analysis brown defines needs analysis as systematic data collection and analysis of all relevant information needed to meet learners' needs. according to brown (1995) needs analysis is “…the systematic collection and analysis of all relevant information necessary to satisfy the language learning requirements of students within the context of the particular institutions involved in the learning situation.” the need analysis, as stated by murray and christison (2011), is expected to be able to answer questions: what are students already aware of and can do? what do they need to know and what they can do? furthermore, both of them explained the need for exploration of data regarding the identity, experience and goals of students in learning the subjects presented (murray and christison, 2011). 164  e-issn: 2621-6485 need analysis according to hutchinson &waters (1991) includes target needs and learning needs. target needs focus on the needs of students in certain situations including needs (necessities), wants (wants) and weaknesses (lacks) while learning needs focus on what they need to be able to learn. why students need academic writing, what they want in the class and what problems or difficulties they feel or experience related to academic writing. scientific or academic writing can be highlighted from 4 parts. according to bailey (2003), scientific writing can be directed at the writing process, the accuracy in writing, the important elements in writing and the availability of examples in producing writing. these four sections can be seen by looking at the following issues. do students have difficulties on the basic knowledge of writing, reading and recording for scientific writing and writing following the stages in writing, including determining planning, organizing, compiling scientific work? do students recognize and can they use the types of written text (comparison, cause and effect, definitions, etc.), styles in scientific writing, visual information, etc? or is there an aspect of grammar that is a problem or is considered difficult by most students in composing academic writing? meanwhile, what is trying to be explored related to learning needs is the need for the learning process. tomlinson (1998) states that the needs of students include personal needs, learning needs and future professional needs. considering the current needs in learning english, utilizing technology can be a significant point. academic writing can be supported by the use of learning media. nowadays, information and communication technology is becoming a trend regarding their many benefits in learning. ybarra and green (2003) state that the use of technology can facilitate verbal interaction, develop vocabulary, improve reading and writing skills. utilization of information and communication technology-based technologies such as computers according to mills (2006) in nurohman (2011) enables to achieve the form of "complex skills" needed in the global era while also allowing student-centered learning. further, alvarez (2007) conducted a qualitative study of the difficulties of students in research writing. the results show that esl learners still need help from their instructors in completing research writing assignments; that they need clear, explicit commands about tasks to do, and that individual guidance is important in lecturer communication during the learning process. technology with many features can also help teachers/lecturers to develop materials. dudeney and hockly (2007) explain various technologies for teaching english. the types range from word processors, website utilization, e-mail, online reference tools, technology-based materials, elearning etc. the selection of the right technology will greatly help convey the teaching materials to make them easier for students to reach the targeted objectives through the learning process. eltej issn: 2621-6485  fatimah 165 research method this research is exploratory and descriptive. questionnaire of needs analysis was modified from the questionnaire used in previous research exploring the needs of students in the cltpd-children language teaching program development course (fatimah, 2012). the materials listed were adjusted for those of academic writing. the questionnaire for this research covers the target needs and learning needs of academic writing students. the questionnaire was consulted with an expert in english teaching. the questionnaire of this study consists of 3 parts. the initial section lists the materials in the academic writing. respondents were asked to select which materials were to maintain and which to discard. there was enough space for the students to describe their reason(s) for their answer(s), if necessary. next, several groups of questions are presented to determine the needs of academic writing students. the aspects included in the questionnaire are: learning activities, skills in academic writing, and learning sources. table 1. blue print of the questionnaire of academic writing needs no. aspects number of items 1 learning activities 10 2 skills 12 3 learning sources 6 respondents also had the opportunity to express their suggestions and problems in academic writing. in addition, the researcher also obtained the data from the interview with 2 seminar lecturers and 2 thesis supervisors. the population for data collection was students of english education department of the faculty of teacher training and education, ahmad dahlan university (n = 370). the sample was determined by a purposive technique. only the students of the academic writing classes filled out the questionnaire. the filling and return rate of the questionnaire was 73.82%. findings and discussion students’ needs in academic writing the students as the respondents were asked about the list of academic writing materials in the english education department (eed). the results showed that they confirmed the themes listed. the students considered the importance of these themes to be taught ( mean = 0.877). table 2. needs on academic writing materials material mean a. conclusion 0.943 b. writing references 0.943 c. argumentative writing 0.908 d. introduction 0.894 166  e-issn: 2621-6485 material mean e. expository writing 0.887 f. discussion of students' work 0.879 g. direct and indirect quotation 0.872 h. review of organization of essays and outlining 0.858 i. descriptive writing 0.851 j. drafting 0.738 materials on review of organization of essays and outlining, descriptive writing and drafting are at the lowest means. some of the reasons that appear in the questionnaire filled by student1 are as the following in my opinion, the type of text most easily understood by students is descriptive text. most english education students who study academic writing courses are able to make descriptive text. although descriptive text taught is more extensive than when students have studied in junior and senior high schoos, in my opinion, giving such a material is less effective ... while for drafting , the reason informed by students is that "j ( drafting ) should be eliminated because it already exists in the other material ..." and other respondents stated, "... the material of review of organization essays and outlining is not needed. furthermore, related to lecturing activities, the results of the study are presented at table 3. table 3. needs on learning activities learning activities mean a. getting feedback or suggestions from the lecturer 4.518 b. getting feedback or suggestions from friends 4.142 c. practice writing directly in class 4.028 d. individual work 3.979 e. class discussion 3.858 f. working in pairs 3.830 g. elearning for writing 3.660 h. material presentation by students 3.404 eltej issn: 2621-6485  fatimah 167 learning activities mean i. working in groups 3.305 j. lecturing 2.511 table 3 shows that there are 3 most interesting activities according to students. the activity is getting feedback from the lecturer and students (mean 4.518 and 4.142 respectively) and direct writing practice in class ( mean 4.028). meanwhile, the opposite is the activity of lecturing, group work and the presentation of material by students (mean respectively 2.511; 3.305; and 3.404). for skills that need to be mastered related to academic writing, the results findings are as reflected in table 4. table 4. needs on skills in academic writing skills mean a. get to know essay parts and scientific works (intro, content, closing parts) 4,688 b. make an outline 4.411 c . make paraphrases (writing ideas from the theory in their own words) 4.319 d . make a complete scientific article (paper) 4.170 e . formulate a statement thesis 4.135 f . make a quote (direct and indirect) 4.128 g. make abstract scientific articles 4.121 h . make a reference list 4.113 i . make a summary 4.078 j . make a full article 4.043 k. draft 3.979 l . revise the draft 3.695 table 4 shows that recognizing essays and scientific works intro, content, closing parts (mean 4.688), making outlines (mean 4.411) and making paraphrase ( mean 4.319) are three skills that are considered most important in academic writing. it also appears that the activities of revising and drafting and making full articles are inversely proportional to the 3 activities mentioned earlier. regarding material sources, eed students show their needs as presented in table 5. 168  e-issn: 2621-6485 table 5. learning sources of academic writing learning sources mean a. module / textbook 4.511 b . source from the internet 4.397 c. journal articles 4.234 d . student worksheet 3.936 e. video 3.688 f. audio source 3.468 students still consider the importance of the existence of modules / textbooks (mean = 4.511), sources from the internet (mean = 4.397) and articles in scientific journals (mean = 4.234). for sources derived from worksheets, videos and audio sources, students do not make them the most important source. in accordance with hutchinson and waters (1991), the needs of students are also connected with weaknesses, obstacles or problems according to students. students’ problems in academic writing according to eed students there are several problems in learning academic writing. the problems encountered can be mapped as follows. table 6. problems in academic writing problems percentage a. developing ideas 46.67 b. grammar 16.67 c. motivation 10 d. vocabulary and language expressions 10 e. preparing references 6.67 f. learning activities 6.67 g. abstract writing 3.33 for academic writing, the main problem for eed students is developing ideas (46.67%). this problem is followed by grammar (16.67%), motivation and use of vocabulary and language expressions in academic writing (10% each). these results show similarities with those of the interview with two seminar lecturers and two thesis supervisors at eed of ahmad dahlan university. the students have the problem on the flow of ideas in their academic writing, of producing grammatically correct sentences and of using words/registers and language expressions in their writing work. in terms of grammar, the results of this study are different from those of other research findings by luong quynh trang and nguyen thi mai hoa eltej issn: 2621-6485  fatimah 169 (2008). they showed that students in writing academic essays did not pay much attention to grammatical and spelling mistakes, they had various strategies to solve their difficulties. in contrast to argumentative writing, from the results of the research conducted, the study reveals that the material discussed in the previous semester such as descriptive writing in eed, the students thought that should not be included in academic writing. another reason according to students is that there is material that can be united with other materials. for example, expository writing can be combined with argumentative writing, another reason according is to save time. something similar was also found in the material about essay writing material review. interestingly, when responding to questionnaires about essay but related to the scientific work, eed students generally think this as an important skill. scientific works that generally have the possibility of being discussed in an academic forum have certain parts. one important part is abstract. it should be noted whether the contents of the scientific work are based on research results or on discussing a problem without conducting research. other important aspects are keywords and preparation of a reference list. moreover, in terms of learning needs, data obtained from eed students show that lecturing activities in class, group work and material presentations by students are not included in the activities that are of interest or are considered important. this finding has similarities with the opinions of students regarding activities at the cltpd class children language teaching program development which shows the uninteresting lecture and presentation activities by students (fatimah, 2012). the reason given by the academic writing students is because when the presentation was made the students felt unsure about what their friend had delivered. students need judgments from the lecturer who is as an expert in the class. in the academic writing class students consider feedback as important . what they expected was feedback from lecturers (mean = 4.518) as well as from fellow students (mean = 4.142). according to hyland (2003) feedback can be in the form of written feedback from the teacher/lecturer, conference/presentation between teachers and writers, and importantly peer feedback feedback given by classmates. the finding of the study confirms that feedback from both the lecturer and the classmates is needed by the eed students. however, referring to the means, the students expect the feedback more from the lecturer. giving feedback by lecturers is also considered important in research on students who study eap (english for academic purposes) as done by setiawan (2009). since students are not interested in the presentation method by students, lecturers need to think of various ways to provide feedback. raimes (2002) warns that not all aspects of writing need to be commented on or given suggestions, the right media must be chosen to respond to student writing and the type of response. 170  e-issn: 2621-6485 in line with raimes, murray and christison state several things to be considered by the instructor in giving feedback. according to both, the feedback, should be specific, can vary depending on the situation, based on the work of students who were previously and sincerely delivered (murray and christison, (2011)). the same feedback to students, as murray and christison say, will only cause giving feedback to be meaningless. special points in giving feedback can be determined by the lecturer by taking into account the situation and conditions in the academic writing class. more specifically, students find it easier to recognize what revisions they need to do. ferris (2002) in hyland (2003) grouped feedback into 5: genre-specific errors (type of text used), stigmatizing errors (errors related to the intended readers), comprehensibility errors (related to clarity of the content), frequent errors (a mistake that is often made when writing), student-identified errors (errors expected by students to get suggestions from lecturers). clear communication about the five types of errors that might occur in the student's writing can be the basis for a lecturer in giving feedback on student scientific work. it is expected that through feedback, students' writing skills can improve. lecturers in giving feedback need to pay attention to the following: esl writing teachers misread student texts, are inconsistent in their reactions, make arbitrary corrections, write contradictory comments, provide vague prescriptions, impose abstract rules and standards, respond to fixed and final products, and rarely make content-specific comments or offer specific strategies for revising the texts. . . . the teachers overwhelmingly view themselves as language teachers rather than writing teachers. zamel (1985) in hyland (2003) from the quote, giving feedback by the lecturer should be consistent, responding to writing with clear comments, giving suggestions related to the contents of the writing, offering strategies to revise the writing to support improvements in student writing skills. a variety of feedback can be used by lecturers in providing suggestions to improve the quality of student scientific writing. hyland (2003) offered in the form of comments, rubrics, hints such as line number, types of mistakes, then students conducted self-editing strategies, comments using audio media so they could also train students' listening skills and feedback by utilizing technology/computers. the practice of giving or getting feedback from classmates also needs attention. based on the researcher’s observation after teaching writing for more than 10 years, the point that was used as the focus of the peer feedback was more on the superficial aspect, for example, concerning suggestions to improve the use of grammar. the content aspect has not been touched much. eltej issn: 2621-6485  fatimah 171 therefore, lecturers need to explain or formulate criteria that can guide academic writing students in criticizing content from scientific works written by their classmates. with the existence of these criteria, perceptions of academic writing students will have more or less in common so that the author can easily follow up to revise the work she or he made. giving this kind of feedback can be combined with a conference writing activities so that the suggestions of the students in a class for the scientific work and they can be a lesson for other students in the academic writing class. in addition, the practice of writing in class is another important activity in student assessment (mean = 4.028). learning academic writing is to achieve the goal of being able to write scientifically, not just knowing what and how to write it. writing skills can be learned, not solely depending on one's talents. there are several skills or abilities in academic writing that are important according to eed students. the skills are to know the parts of scientific work, make outlines, paraphrase and make complete scientific articles. in the introduction , students can also be reminded of the importance of the thesis statement in writing scientific papers. the statement of the thesis statement is in the form of a sentence or clause. for beginner writers, the thesis statement should be explicit in the introduction to academic writing. it is also important to see that the fluency of students in writing scientific works cannot be separated from the availability of resources as references. three important material sources according to eed students are modules / textbooks, sources from the internet and scientific journals. so far there have been no books or modules specifically for academic writing at the eed. the source used is compilation and adaptation of material from various references, and still refers to sap (lecturing preparation unit). sources from the internet need to be clearly informed in detail so that student time is not much consumed for exploration of material sources. some websites that might be used as references in further studying academic writing material are https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/1/2/ , http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource / 560/01 / and for publication addresses, online journals, or material sources including http://asian-efljournal.com/teaching-articles/, http://americanenglish.state.gov/englishteaching-forum. from the data collected, the researcher obtains the ones on the expectations of students. the lecturer presents his/her own scientific journal in class so that students are more motivated in making scientific writing. the work of lecturers can also be used as one of the examples included in the reference list of scientific works. possible positive values from this activity include the possibility of the work of the lecturer to be cited so that it has more benefits, compared to if it only ends in a research report or proceedings after joining a conference or scientific seminar with colleagues. in line with the idea above, lecturers can compile the work of eed lecturers. multiple benefits can be obtained because of it. first, institutionally, the ees has documentation of lecturers' articles. another benefit is to make it easier for students to obtain examples from their own lecturers’ work. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&prev=_t&sl=id&tl=en&u=https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/1/2/ https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&prev=_t&sl=id&tl=en&u=http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&prev=_t&sl=id&tl=en&u=http://asian-efl-journal.com/teaching-articles/ https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&prev=_t&sl=id&tl=en&u=http://asian-efl-journal.com/teaching-articles/ https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&prev=_t&sl=id&tl=en&u=http://americanenglish.state.gov/english-teaching-forum https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&prev=_t&sl=id&tl=en&u=http://americanenglish.state.gov/english-teaching-forum 172  e-issn: 2621-6485 besides using the articles for the studnts in the class, lecturers can use the articles publised to socialize their work. for example, a paper that has been created or presented at a seminar or conference forum can be put together or published in online media. technological advances now allow lecturers to upload their scientific work on the official website of the university or departments (such as: eprint.uad.ac.id, pbi.uad.ac.id, journal.uad.ac.id) or other pages (such as: www.academia.edu, or the teacher / lecturer forum on facebook, on google scholar etc.) selection of other sources (which are audio and video) below textbooks / modules, sources from the internet, and journal articles more or less reflects views of students about writing activities that are still separated from other skills. the integration of material delivery of writing skills with other language skills (listening, speaking, reading) seems not yet a discourse to deal. the application of academic writing through elearning (mean = 3.660) has not been a priority for the students. to initiate the implementation of integrated english teaching, lecturers can take advantage of short talk in academic forums in the academic writing class. audio sources such as the toefl test or audio visual sources from www.youtube.com or even from seminar in the eed itself can be utilized. this periode of time the focus of students in writing academic writing is related to the 3 main problems. in writing scientific works, eed students find difficulties in developing ideas, use of grammar, vocabulary and expression of language and efforts to motivate themselves. the students propose to hold journal writing as a means for reflection from the academic writing class and the preparation of portfolios to show the progress achieved in academic writing. regarding difficulties in developing ideas, several activities in academic writing classes can be undertaken. in the planning stage, seow (2002), among others, offers the need for group brainstorming, wh-questions on a topic, sources of multimedia and interviews, questionnaires and frequently asked questions about ideas to be written. another possibility is to invite students to individually or in groups do mind mapping so that supporting ideas can be organized to produce scientific writing. at the initial stage, training in the form of collaborative writing can be applied. for english grammar in academic writing, lecturers need to realize that this course is not a grammar subject. thus, improving student grammar should not be an activity that dominates the class. grammar points that are considered important can be inserted in the learning process. different aspects of grammar can be classified so that academic writing students get clarity in an effort to improve the quality of their writing. gulcat and ozagac (2004) state there are 10 biggest problems for turkish learners in writing english as a second language. the first five are the use of articles, prepositions, infinitives, types of words ( nouns, adverbs, adjectives ), suitability in the subject and verbs, pronoun and tense . while the other five https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&prev=_t&sl=id&tl=en&u=http://www.academia.edu https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&prev=_t&sl=id&tl=en&u=http://www.youtube.com eltej issn: 2621-6485  fatimah 173 problems are choosing the right tense and form, active-passive voices, sentence structures (fragments, run-ons, convoluted sentences), punctuation and style in writing can be better with a lot of writing experience in the language studied. this explanation is similar to what happened in eed. the lack of fulfillment of minimum requirements in academic writing can be used as a basis for improving the quality of student writing. concord between subject and verb, use of articles and use of singular and plural noun forms are still the material for students to revise their writings. in fact, those details on grammar mentioned are not covered in focus of this recent research. further investigation is demanded, especially, the one related to academic writing. what needs to be considered next is a strategy to overcome these problems in the academic writing. does the lecturer need to provide special time for grammar or is it enough to convey it implicitly as suggestions generally in the academic writing class? models such as 'matriculation' might be applied, by delivering supporting grammar materials for developing the ability to write scientifically by providing simple handbooks as a first step before students focus on writing the contents of their scientific work. given the complexity of the problems in academic writing, aspects of student motivation still need attention. giving too many suggestions to all aspects that have already been discussed will reduce student enthusiasm in learning. feedback is given as needed and there should be clarity of expected improvement. clear and constructive comments will support efforts to improve writing quality while verbal and written appreciation from lecturers will also affect the psychological and mental side of students in an effort to improve academic writing skills. in addition, internal policies to send student scientific work to scientific forums can be considered as an effort to increase student motivation in academic writing. conclusion the research describing students' needs for english education department (eed) for academic writing courses reveals what is considered important / interesting by students, including materials, learning activities, skills and sources of academic writing. students expects that lecturers are more active in scientific work and in assisting students in academic writing classes to overcome their problems in academic writing through active learning. the results of this study can be used as a starting point for developing academic writing materials in eed. this study can lead to multiple effects such as giving a real contribution to the preparation of the procurement of learning material in the english education department of fkip uad. in addition, the results obtained support the efforts of lecturers to pay attention to suggestions from the students and related parties in preparing and providing teaching materials. also, exploration of the needs of students in academic writing can provide suggestions for the department for material review of teaching and learning activities, material or even implementable curriculum. 174  e-issn: 2621-6485 references alvarez, d. (2007). a concert of voices: helping college-level esl students learn to write research paper. master’s thesis. seattle, w.a.: the university of north carolina at charlotte. retrieved from http://www.tesol.org/docs/pdf/8103.pdf bailey, s. (2003). academic writing. new york: nelson thornes. brown, j.d. (1995). the elements of language curriculum. boston: heinle & heinle publishers. dudeney, g. dan n. hockly. (2007). how to teach english with technology. essex: pearson education limited. fatimah, n. (2012). pengembangan materi kuliah english for children berbasis project work. yogyakarta: laporan penelitian lpp uad gulcat & ozagac. (2004). correcting and giving feedback to writing. accessed from http://www.buowl.boun.edu.tr/teachers/correcting%20and%20g iving%20feedback%20to%20writing.pdf hutchinson, t. & a. waters. (1986). english for specific purposes. oxford: oxford university press. hyland, k. (2003). second language writing. cambridge: cambrige university press. luong quynh trang, & nguyen thi mai hoa. (2008). student writing process, perceptions, problems,and strategies in writing academic essays in a second language: a case study. vnu journal of science, foreign languages. 24. 2008. pp. 184-197. accessed from http://tapchi.vnu.edu.vn/3_208_nn/6.pdf murray, d.e. and m.a. christison. (2011). what english language teachers need to know, volume ii: facilitating learning, new york: roudledge. myles. j. (2002). second language writing and research: the writing process and error analysis in student texts. in tesl-ej 6 (2) september 2002, pp. 1-20. accessed from http://www.cc.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/teslej/ej22/a1.html nurohman, sabar. (2011). pengembangan modul elektronik berbahasa inggris menggunakan addie-model sebagai alat bantu pembelajaran berbasis http://www.tesol.org/docs/pdf/8103.pdf http://www.buowl.boun.edu.tr/teachers/correcting%20and%20giving%20feedback%20to%20writing.pdf http://www.buowl.boun.edu.tr/teachers/correcting%20and%20giving%20feedback%20to%20writing.pdf http://tapchi.vnu.edu.vn/3_208_nn/6.pdf http://www.cc.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/tesl-ej/ej22/a1.html http://www.cc.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/tesl-ej/ej22/a1.html eltej issn: 2621-6485  fatimah 175 student-centered learning pada kelas bertaraf internasional. prosiding seminar nasional penelitian, pendidikan dan penerapan mipa. yogyakarta: uny. paquot, m. (2010). academic vocabulary in learner writing: from extraction to analysis. london: continuum international publishing group. raimes, a. (2002). ten steps in planning a writing course and training teachers of writing. in richards and renandya’s (eds.) methodology in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. seow. (2002). the writing process and process writing. in richards and renandya’s (eds.) methodology in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. setiawan, d. (2009). investigating the perceived needs of international students learning eap. teflin journal, 20(1), february 2009, pp. 48 60. taylor, g. (2009). a student’s writing guide. cambridge: cambridge university press. tomlinson, b. (1998). materials development in language teaching. melbourne: cup. thais, christ, dan terry zawacki. (2006). engaged writers, dynamic disciplines: research on the academic writing life. portsmouth, nh: boynton/ cook, heinnemann. in http://classweb.gmu.edu/bhawk/302/academic.pdf ybarra, r. & t.green. (2003). using technology to help esl/efl students develop language skills. the internet tesl journal, ix, no. 3, march 2003. retrieved from http://iteslj.org/articles/ybarra-technology.html http://classweb.gmu.edu/bhawk/302/academic.pdf http://iteslj.org/articles/ybarra-technology.html sebuah kajian pustaka: english language teaching educational journal (eltej) vol. 2, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-12 e-issn: 2621-6485 an exploration of english students’ attitude towards english learning teuku zulfikar, syarifa dahliana, riska amelia sari ar-raniry state islamic university e-mail: teuku.zulfikar@acehresearch.org abstract attitude is one of the success factors in language learning. it includes students’ feelings, beliefs, and behavior tendencies. this study was conducted using the qualitative method exploring english department students’ attitude towards english learning. the main focus of the study was to discover students’ belief on english, and to understand students’ attitude, feeling and behavior on learning english. the data were collected through semistructured interview. the participants of the reseach were six students selected purposively to participate in an interview session. the results indicated that english department students showed positive attitude in three points of cognitive aspect; the students’ reason for learning english, the students’ level of english competence, and the students’ thinking towards learning english which they considered important. moreover, the students had four positive points of emotional attitude; the students’ interest in learning english, the students’ feeling in learning english, the students’ preference in learning english, and the students’ enjoyment in learning english which all showed good feeling towards learning english. furthermore, the students had three positive points in behavioral attitude; the students’ attention during learning english, students’ positive participation during the english learning. in sum, it can be said that english department students were found to have positive attitudes toward learning english. keywords: learning attitude; efl students; language learning; language belief how to cite: zulfikar, t., dahliana s., & sari, r. a. (2019). an exploration of english students’ attitude towards english learning. english language teaching educational journal, 2 (1), 1-12. introduction english as a foreign language has been an obligatory subject in indonesian schools. the government regulation mandates secondary schools and tertiary education institutions to include english in their curriculum as a mandatory subject. however, english is still a challenging subject for many. there are various factors considered to have influenced the learning process such as motivation, attitudes, anxiety, learning achievements, aptitudes, intelligence, age, and personalities (pratolo, 2017; hasan and fatimah, 2014; shams, 2008). of all these factors, attitude is believed to be crucial in language learning. inal, evin, and saracaloglu (2003) also stated that attitude refers to ones’ feelings and shapes our behavior towards learning. attitude is not only about behavior, but also about feelings, beliefs, and behavior tendencies (baron, robert, byrne & donn, 2003). besides, schiffman and kanuk (2004) suggested that attitudes were constructed around three components: (1) a 2 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 cognitive component (beliefs); (2) an affective component (feelings); and (3) a conative component (behavior). students with positive learning attitudes are happy towards learning and thus they would actively engage in learning. while those with negative learning attitudes may feel anxious in learning; they would get bored easily and difficult to enjoy their learning. this suggests that the negative attitude leads to lack of learning success (padwick, 2010). i̇nal, et al (2003), for example, assert that identifying the students’ attitude is important to allow teachers understand their students well. the student's behavior is also related to students’ classroom participation. lee, (as cited in devi & simanjalan, 2008) states that participation means students’ interaction in the classroom with their colleagues and also their teachers. zhafira (2019), for example showed that many students did not actively participate in the class. lack of students’ participation in learning can reduce the performance of the students. those situations can be caused by a lack of motivation. gardner (1985) states that motivation as the combination of effort, desire and favorable attitude in achieving the goals of learning a language. katesi (1993) found that attitude and motivation were significant factors in determining the success and failure in language learning. a teacher is viewed as one of the most important components in boosting students’ motivation. they should be enthusiastic, inspiring, boosting students' confidence and encouraging them to have a positive attitude towards foreign language learning (yazigy, 1991) as positive learning attitude is a significant requirement for learning. this research aims at exploring efl students’ beliefs and attitudes toward learning english. it is expected to complement the previous research, which was intended to explore the attitude of efl students in an islamic higher institution in aceh by exploring students' emotional, cognitive, and behavioral attitudes. this research includes the students’ needs, preferences and view of their learning. this study explores the following research questions: how do the students believe that english is important? how do the students feel about learning english? and how do the students behave towards learning english? understanding language belief and attitude experts in the field of learning theory defines attitude in different ways. for example, schwarz, almer-jarz, and breitenecker (2009) viewed attitude as a behavioral intention. it is also seen as a central component of human identity (bohner & wanke, 2002). other experts such as latchanna and dagnew (2009) argue that understanding ones’ attitudes enables us to be aware of human behavior. the attitude itself is seen as the state where one’s beliefs and feelings are shaped. mensah et al, (2013) also stated that attitude tells us individuals’ performance, such as how they think, act, and behave. the components of attitude according to wenden (1991) attitudes include three important components, namely cognitive, affective and behavior. the first one is made up eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ zulfikar, dahliana, sari 3 of beliefs and ideas or opinions of something. the second one refers to one’s feelings and emotions towards something, and the behavioral component refers to one's action on an object. attitude in language learning attitude can be defined as a tendency of a person to respond positively or negatively towards something (idea, object, person, situation), therefore language learning attitude refers to one’s tendencies toward their effort in learning languages. research on learners' attitudes on language learning has been a topic of many researches in efl learning. most findings suggest that positive attitude towards learning yields positive result and vice versa (wang, 2010). brown (2000) reviewed a large number of studies related to attitudes shaping the language learning. he found that positive attitude on one’s language learning will shape the way these people learn the language, which results in positive result. at the same time, failure in language learning is the result of negative attitude towards learning (see holmes, 1992; karahan, 2008). if this is the case, to allow successful language learning, teachers should also pay attention on boosting their students’ attitudes towards learning, which then in turn will increase possibilities for students’ learning success (mantle-bromley, 1995). research method research design this is a qualitative research in which it used an important method of data collection in this kind of methodology, and an in-depth semi structure interview. the research was designed by using mixed methods. it relied on the methodology to help explore the students’ attitudes towards language learning. the qualitative method enabled the researchers to grasp inside into the students’ attitude towards language learning. participants the participants of this study were six students drawn from 55 students. these participants were taken through purposive sampling technique, in which they’re selected because they got the highest and the lowest score of each aspect referring to the data from the questionnaire. however, this article did not take its liberty to analyze the data from the questionnaires because it was beyond the purpose of this study. methods of data collection and collection to answer the research questions, it was done an interview with the participants using in-depth interviews. the interview questions designed to explore the students’ attitude toward language learning were open-ended, which allowed the researchers to explore deeply into the participants’ attitudes. the data from interview was analyzed through coding technique, in which they were first transcribed, and then analyzed using open, axial and selective coding. 4 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 findings and discussion findings students’ language learning attitudes the interview with the six participants revealed some important information on students’ learning attitudes. they were divided into three main categories, the cognitive aspect of attitude; emotional aspect; and behavioral aspect of language learning attitudes. cognitive aspect of attitude the data on the cognitive aspect was coded into three categorizations: students' reason for learning english, students' level of english competence, and students' perception of learning english. the students’ reason for learning english the interview results suggested that six participants showed a great passion in learning english. these students believed that learning english was important and they had different reasons for learning english, one of which was because english was seen to be fun and important. as one of the participants reiterated: i think learning english is fun and makes me more open about the new thing and new knowledge. since many books of knowledge were written in english, thus by learning english i can know the other knowledge. (p1) this quote suggested that one of the reasons students learned english was the fact that english was fun. the student also mentioned that english was important, since it helped those who learn english to gain access to the broader communities. future orientation the other participants suggested that students learned english for the sake of future orientation. the student, for example claimed that english was important for their bright future. english allowed them to go overseas, as one of them stated that: english language is international language. if i have the english skill, i will be easy to go abroad. then, another reason i learn english because i love listening to music and watching an english movie. so, learning english is also in harmony with my hobbies. (p2) this quote stated that there were many ways english could be applied. the participant stated that being competent in english enabled her to fulfill her hobbies as she liked to watch western movies and listened to english songs. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ zulfikar, dahliana, sari 5 assessment purpose still other participants also argued that they learned english to fulfill the academic requirement only. this was so because in all educational institutions in indonesia, students were required to take an english class, and it was counted as the credit point for students to graduate. one of the participants stated: i study english because i like english. learning english can enrich new vocabulary and new knowledge. besides, i study english also to pass the examination. (p1) in the same tone, another participant also asserted: there are some lessons that i want to learn seriously and other lessons just to pass the examination. for example, i am studying grammar seriously because grammar is needed whenever and wherever. but if the lesson such as discourse analysis, i studied it just to pass the examination because i don’t know when i need it again. (p3) these two quotations of the participants acknowledged that their main reason to learn english was not for knowledge per se, they in fact learned english to succeed in their summative assessment. level of students’ competence english is an easier language in the interview, it was found out that the participants had different opinions that their language competence was different from one another. one of the participants, for example stated that: i can understand the english learning well, but, i think the understanding depends on the lecturers' explanation especially the way he teaches. for example, a smart lecturer not always can explain the material well to the students. (p4) this excerpt suggested that students’ level of understanding of the lesson was very much influenced by teachers’ qualification in transferring english. other students argued that english was much easier than other kinds of language. one of them stated: from other languages, i think english is the easiest language. because, firstly, the tense is clear. secondly, the grammar is easy unlike the other languages such as japanese, germany, arabic which were hard to understand. (p6). 6 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 this student was very confident about learning english. comparing english with other subjects, english was seen as a much easier language to learn. cautious with language skills although some students claimed that english was an easy subject, some of them believed that some english skills were much difficult for them to acquire. one participant, for example stated: i do not fully understand, because in english there are several skills. the most difficult skills are grammar and speaking which make me confused sometimes. i am afraid that what i said is wrong and my friends will comment about it (p5). additionally, the participant added: also, i can’t understand well during english learning because of the lecturer and his teaching method. some lecturers want their students to be able to comprehend the lesson the way they want. for me, it is difficult to follow them. the other students might be able to follow, but i am definitely cannot follow it (p6). this quote suggested that students’ mastery of english was very much dependent on the teachers’ instructional approaches. it was understandable that students’ passion in learning english was very much influenced by teachers’ approaches. emotional aspect of attitude in the emotional aspect of the attitude, it was found out at least four categories i.e. english is interesting, lack of interest, anxiety, and skill preference. english is an interesting subject the participants in the study were interested in english. they saw english as not only an interesting subject but also an important one. one of them asserted: i’m so interested in learning english because i graduated from boarding school. previously in the boarding school, i couldn’t speak english well so i often got punished for not speaking the language. then, after graduated from boarding school, i regret wasting my time without often speaking in english. finally, i realized that english is important (p6) this indicated that the participant was very much interested in learning english as he understood english. meanwhile, other participants also showed some preferences toward language learning for different reasons. the participants then stated: eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ zulfikar, dahliana, sari 7 yes. i’m interested. because i want to continue my study abroad and i want to be a tour guide (p3). this quote showed that the student was interested in english because of educational reason. this meant that they liked to study english to enable them to gain a bright future. lack of learning interest even though some students were interested in studying english, these particular students lacked learning interest. however, some students argued that their passion in learning language reduced because of their teachers’ instructional approaches. it depends on the lecturer. last semester, i didn't have a spirit in learning english because the lecturer do not come to the class very frequently. besides, the learning also is not in accordance with the course. for instance, in the listening subject, the lecturer always tells the story about his life and do not very much covers material that is related to the subject. so i feel annoyed. but the other subjects, i don’t have problems and i am happy to learn. sometimes, i also feel proud of learning english because of so cool (p5) the quotation suggested that learning passion relied on the teaching exposure they received from their teachers. other also suggested that students got bored in a language learning due to teachers’ ineffective approaches. one of the participants stated that “sometimes, i am bored. the lecturer only explains the material without asks the students to participate. so, it makes the class is really boring”. learning anxiety the other learning attitude emerged in the study was that the students experienced learning anxiety. one of the students, for example stated that he actually experienced tremendous learning anxiety, but then the teacher helped and boosted his confidence. first, i was so scared and nervous. but, now i am very enthusiastic about learning because my friends are so enthusiastic which makes me don’t want to lose from them. besides, also the lecturer gives a bonus score to the student who wants to give opinion during the learning process (p4) in contrast, the respondent p2 said: i’m still nervous to speak in english. i'm not confident with my english and i am scared if my friends laugh at me. sometimes, when i have to 8 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 speak in front of the class, i often forget the things that i want to say (p2). prefer one skill to others the interview with the students also revealed that the students were interested in english, but some of them preferred a certain skill, such as grammar over other types of skills, as one of them stated: in learning english, i like the writing subject because i can get new knowledge such as grammar and how to arrange a good paragraph. i am happy that i can know that new information because the last time i write something it produces really bad writing which makes me concern about my writing skills (p2). other students also suggested that some of them liked to learn speaking, since they had a strong background in the speaking skill. the student stated: “i like to speak in english also. because i graduated from boarding school, i used to speak english and it makes me like learning english”. the behavioral aspect of attitudes in the behavioral aspect of the attitude, it was found out at least three categories i.e. effective teaching strategies, lack of participation, and making self-scheduling. effective teaching strategies in exploring the level of the students’ attention during learning english, it was found out several types of attitudes as shown by students interviewed. one of them, for example suggested that she paid attention on the lecturer’s explanation. other participants argued that their attention on learning depended very much on the lecturer’s teaching approach, as one of them said: the lecturer. but it depends on the teaching method used by the lecturer. if the lecturer used the teaching method that i don’t like and makes me bored and i don’t want to pay attention to the lecturer (p1) other students stated that they would participate in the classroom, if they were given some compensations by the lecturers, such as given higher grade or some other types of compensation. one student, for instance, stated: yes, sometimes. it depends on the lecturers. if the lecturer gives me the bonus scores, i will participate (p3). this quotation clearly informed that his participation occured with the condition that was if the lecturers encouraged participation through compensation, then the students would be willing to participate. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ zulfikar, dahliana, sari 9 lack of participation the interview results also suggested that some students participating in the research felt reluctant to participate because of anxiety reason. it was mentioned by one of the participants. never. because i really don't like to participate. i'm not confident with my ability to present in front of the class. it is because i feel my english still bad. so, i prefer to be silent rather than participate in class (p2). another student also admitted that he chose to just keep quiet in the classroom, rather than expressing himself in front of the student, as he said “i choose to be silent and sit down on my chair” making self-scheduling the other information obtained during the interview was the nature of students’ learning. part of the question addressed was related to the students’ learning strategies. one of the participants suggested: i learn english at night or sometimes in the early morning. i review the materials that will be examined (p2) others preferred to review their lesson differently, as stated in the following: i prefer to study alone by my self rather than study in a group. i review the material at night before the examination (p4) in the interview, it was also identified that some students spent so much time to study english. as seen in the following quotations: apparently, i learn english every day, especially about grammar which i learn it chapter by chapter. when i think i have understood the topic, i will stop study. so, i'm not sure how much time i spend to learn english in a week (p1) i spend my time to study english about 4 hours/week. because i’m busy, so i seldom to study english (p3). this information suggested that students paid attention on learning english. this was because they seemed to learn english on their own. discussion the research findings suggest important fact that the students participating in this research hold positive attitude towards language learning. this positive attitude indeed will shape their passion in language learning. kara (2009) 10 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 argued that positive attitude towards language learning influences students’ interest in language learning. the findings map three important codings in regard with types of attitudes emerging through the research: cognitive, emotional and behavioral attitudes. the cognitive aspects of attitude range from personal to communal issues. the data reveal that all of them like english for several reasons: english is seen as an important language for brighter future and also assessment purpose. it is no wonder that english is seen important for their brighter future. this is because english is used in many different fields and careers. it is important to note english is not only used in academic institutions but also in many different spaces. for that reason, it is reasonable to see english students are increasing and efl department reaches a large audience. the students also believe that they learn english so hard to pass their exam. even though they do not like english that much, but the fact that they have to pass english exam, they have to develop their interests in english. the cognitive aspect of learning attitude is influenced by students’ language level. for instance, when students acquire good language skills, they tend to like english better. their ability in english encourages them to improve their language skills. the emotional aspect and english learning attitudes yield very interesting findings as well. it shows that some students are indeed interested in learning english, while others argued that english is very difficult to learn and thus they do not have that much interest in learning english. some of the students state that they feel anxiety in learning english. this feeling of anxiety actually distracts their learning and inhibits their language ability. feng and chen (2009) stated that learning language is shaped by emotional process, or influenced by some emotional factors. this is so because some students are not capable of learning the language effectively if they are suffered from language anxiety. this anxiety occurs due to the internal factor, in which they do not see english as important or due to the external factors, such as ineffective instructional process. the findings also show that students learn better if they are taught by effective teachers. these effective teachers will indeed help students learn better. it is very much understood that teachers play very important role in making their students successful in their study. some students feel it is important to do their own scheduling for more effective learning. conclusion the study found that students in a department of efl education believe that english is such an important asset for their future. most of them state that english is an interesting subject and it gives them many benefits for their lives. english can help them in their future careers, and this is due to most fields of studies or workforces require certain qualification of english. in addition, these students see that effective instructional process contributes significantly to their learning success. in fact, they see that making their personal learning schedule will allow them to engage in a more effective learning. however, some of them claim that most of the time they feel anxious in learning english; they are not sure what language skills they are more capable off. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ zulfikar, dahliana, sari 11 references baron, r. a., byrne, b., & branscombe, n. r. 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(1991). learner strategies for learner autonomy. london: prentice hall. http://scripties.let.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/files/root/master/doorstroommasters/euroculture/2009/a.m.j.padwick/ma-2802445-a.padwick.pdf.%20on%20may%202 http://scripties.let.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/files/root/master/doorstroommasters/euroculture/2009/a.m.j.padwick/ma-2802445-a.padwick.pdf.%20on%20may%202 http://scripties.let.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/files/root/master/doorstroommasters/euroculture/2009/a.m.j.padwick/ma-2802445-a.padwick.pdf.%20on%20may%202 https://monash.figshare.com/articles/exploring_indonesian_learners_beliefs_about_language_learning_strategies_through_reflection/4711927 https://monash.figshare.com/articles/exploring_indonesian_learners_beliefs_about_language_learning_strategies_through_reflection/4711927 https://doi.org/10.4225/03/58b7763874bf3 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 113-124 10.12928/eltej.v4i2.4269 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id technology acceptance and usage behaviour of content and language integrated learning teachers in turkey özge koç a,1,*, gülru yüksel b,2, emin altunc,3 a velibaba anatolian high school, sapanbağları mahallesi, yenipazar caddesi, no:31 daire:3 pendik-i̇stanbul, 34893, turkey b faculty of education, yıldız teknik universitesi, davutpasa kampusu, egitim fakultesi, i̇ngilizce ogretmenligi bolumu, esenler-istanbul, 34180, turkey c ca’ foscari university of venice, ramo della palada, 392/a giudecca, venice, 30133, italy 1 ozgekoc824@gmail.com*; 2 gulruyuksel2002@gmail.com; 3 alltunemin@gmail.com * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 18 june 2021 revised 3 august 2021 accepted 20 august 2021 content and language integrated learning (clil) is an approach that combines content and language objectives. despite substantial expansion over the past two decades, its successful adoption raises several challenges for teachers. teachers turn to information and communication technologies (ict) to solve their problems. this study aims to investigate technology acceptance and use of english language teachers adopting the clil approach in turkey, and to identify the difficulties they encounter while integrating technology into practice. the study is explanatory in research design and employs the technology acceptance model (tam) developed by davis (1989) as a framework. a 27-item likert-type questionnaire was used to gather data from 61 teachers practicing in private and public schools. the results showed a statistically significant difference in technology integration intention and use behaviors of teachers. the qualitative data suggested that among the difficulties faced by clil teachers were facilitating environments, managerial assistance, and teacher technology awareness. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords content and language integrated learning (clil) information and communication technologies (ict) technology acceptance model (tam) how to cite: koç, ö., yüksel, g., & altun, e. (2021). technology acceptance and usage behaviour of content and language integrated learning teachers in turkey. english language teaching educational journal, 4(2), 113-124 1. introduction content and language integrated learning (clil) is an approach that combines content and language objectives. it is defined as “a type of instruction where non-language subject (content) is mediated to the learnera through a foreign language as a means of communication” (coyle et al. 2010, p. 31). though teaching content through a second/foreign language is not a new concept, interest in adopting clil methodology has gained momentum in european countries over the last two decades (eurydice, 2012). since its emergence, clil has fundamentally changed language teaching and learning and has become an inherent element of education at all levels in different countries across europe (eurydice, 2012). clil was first introduced in turkey in the 1950s in the maarif schools, later renamed anatolian high schools (çetintaş & genç, 2001). the main aim of establishing such schools was to keep up with rapid economic and technical developments by increasing the number of young people who were fluent in world languages and could benefit from scientific studies. (tbmm tutanak dergisi, 1955 as cited in çetintaş & genç, 2001). the medium of instruction in these schools was a foreign language, particularly english. by the late 1990s, some private schools have begun to introduce clil at the http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:ozgekoc824@gmail.com mailto:gulruyuksel2002@gmail.com mailto:alltunemin@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5221-9483 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i2.4269&domain=pdf 114 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 113-124 koç, o., et.al. (technology acceptance and usage behaviour) primary and secondary levels. an increase in the number of schools implementing clil has been noted, especially over the last two decades. it has recently been implemented in several social science high schools, as well as private elementary and secondary schools in a number of cities (tanış & dikilitaş, 2019). a review of the literature reveals that despite the attention it receives and the attempts undertaken to incorporate this approach into classroom practices, the implementation is not without difficulties. various difficulties have been identified in the studies conducted in different context. most clil teachers turn to information and communication technologies (ict) to overcome the difficulties they encounter. however, ict integration and its potential impact on teaching and learning in clil classrooms need to be explored from a variety of angles. the technology acceptance model (davis, 1989) posits that actual usage of technology is motivated by an individual’s attitude. in other words, the degree of acceptance of technology predicts the individual’s actual use (ajibade, 2018). since teachers are one of the major actors in any effective integration of technology into education (teo, 2011), investigating their technology use intention and behavior is crucial. however, previous studies in the field have mostly concentrated on how technology and web 2.0 tools can be used to deliver content and facilitate language skills in clil classrooms, and the impact of technology usage on students’ motivation and engagement in the learning process (e.g., o’dowd, 2018; mede & çınar, 2019; zhao & lei, 2019). research exploring teachers’ technology acceptance and their actual technology use behaviour in clil settings is scarce in number. the purpose of this study is to contribute to the literature by investigating the technology acceptance and use of turkish efl teachers who implement clil approach in their classrooms. 1.1. ict use in clil classrooms various studies investigating clil practices in different educational settings revealed that during implementation, teachers experience a variety of challenges. some of the problems identified in the studies conducted in the european context include insufficient teacher training programs and institutional support for professional growth (banegas, 2012; denman, tanner & de graaff, 2013); low language proficiency levels of students that lead to comprehension problems and unsatisfactory development of students’ productive skills (pladevall-ballester, 2015); teachers’ inadequate expertise in non-linguistic subject-areas (smajla, 2021); classroom management issues experienced during instruction; the amount of time required for lesson planning and class preparation (pladevall-ballester, 2015); and insufficient teaching materials (roiha, 2014). in a recent cross-cultural study, exploring the perceptions of managers and teachers about clil in spain, italy, and turkey, korbek (2019) found that support for teacher training, material design and use, and collaboration among teachers within their full schedule are the challenges prevalent in all three contexts. similar difficulties have been reported in the turkish context. teachers’ and students’ perceptions of science teaching and learning were investigated by erdem and morgil (1992), who found that low language proficiency and incomplete content knowledge of students, insufficient teaching resources, and inadequate expertise in teaching language subject-areas are the major difficulties expressed by the teachers. in another study examining the opinions of teachers and students on education in a foreign language at anatolian high schools, mirici et al. (2000) reported that the majority of teachers have unfavorable perceptions and they consider students’ difficulty in understanding the content as a fundamental problem. however, in a recent study tanış and dikilitaş (2019) reported that teachers practicing in a private school hold positive perceptions about clil instruction. despite positive perceptions, they also expressed various problems, including learners’ low levels of english proficiency, inadequate training support, and lack of sufficient instructional materials. 1.2. technology acceptance model (tam) today, clil teachers utilize information and communication technologies (ict) to tackle the challenges they confront. previous research on the effect of technology integration in education has suggested that it promotes innovative instructional methods while also improves the quality of education (mcknight et al., 2016). effective technology integration is a complicated process that necessitates careful consideration of a variety of factors, such as curriculum alignment, students needs and abilities, and teachers’ beliefs (oecd, 2015; siddiq, scherer & tondeur, 2016). among these factors, teachers’ beliefs play a significant role (borg, 2015), because teachers shape their classroom practices per their subjective judgments about the teaching situation (tondeur, et al., 2017). findings from past research indicated that the acceptance and use of technology is troublesome for teachers issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 115 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 113-124 koç, o., et.al. (technology acceptance and usage behaviour) (berrett, murphy & sullivan, 2012). in this regard, researchers have proposed and adopted various models as a framework for understanding the technology use, beliefs, and behaviors of the teachers. the technology acceptance model (tam) developed by davis (1989) is one of the widely used models. the model conceptualizes that individual’s actual use is determined by four variables of behavioral intentions and external variables (scherer et al., 2019). figure 1 illustrates the model as developed by davis (1989). figure 1: technology acceptance model (tam) (based on, davis, 1989) as figure 1 illustrates, perceived usefulness (pu) and perceived ease of use (peu) are the key variables that directly or indirectly explain the outcome (marangunić & granić, 2015). according to davis (1989), perceived usefulness is “the degree to which an individual believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance,” while perceived ease of use is “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort” (p. 320). previous studies into the relationship between these variables found that an individual's perception of ease of use directly impacts his or her perception of usefulness (hew et al., 2019), which in turn greatly influences his or her attitudes toward use (teo, huang & hoi, 2018). attitude toward use further influences an individual’s behavioral intention to use technology (teo, huang & hoi, 2018). the relation between intention and actual use behavior is a crucial aspect of technology-use behavior (wu & du, 2012). findings from past studies suggested that teachers use technology either for teacher-centered or for student-centered reasons (muganga & ssenkusu, 2019). while the former use aims to deliver language-related information and consolidate skills in isolation (e.g., vocabulary, grammar, listening), the latter use aims to improve students’ higher-order thinking skills (jeffrey & clark, 2019). in this vein, a recent study by liu, wang and koehler (2019) adopted the tam model to explore the strength and underlying mechanisms of the intention-use link with 198 foreign language teachers in china. the findings revealed a discrepancy in intention-behavior due to chinese foreign language teachers’ use of student-centered technology. in the same study, liu et al. (2019) also investigated the factors influencing the chinese efl teachers’ technology use and found that conditions facilitating technology use (i.e., hardware and software resources in hand) and teachers’ technological knowledge are the most significant factors influencing teachers’ technology use. teachers’ technological knowledge and facilitating conditions are found as the main predictors of teachers' intentions to adopt web 2.0 technologies (mei et al., 2017). these are also reported to be the variables affecting teachers' views and attitudes (teo, huang & hoi, 2018). furthermore, some researchers tested the impact of several demographic variables on teachers’ technology acceptance, including gender, age, and years of teaching experience. however, the results remained inconclusive. for example, in an earlier study with 248 iranian efl teachers, rahimi and yadollahi (2011) found that ict usage negatively correlates with teachers’ age and years of experience. in another study, mahdi and al-dera (2013) investigated the effect of gender, age, years of teaching on efl teachers’ technology integration with 46 in-service efl teachers in saudi arabia. the findings revealed that while age and experience do not have a significant effect, gender significantly influences technology integration. in the study, males are found to use ict more frequently than females. 116 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 113-124 koç, o., et.al. (technology acceptance and usage behaviour) the literature reviewed clearly indicates that research into technology integration in clil classrooms is still in its infancy. to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, there is not any study investigating efl teachers’ intention and actual use of technology for teacher-centered or studentcentered purposes during clil practices in turkey. this study was motivated by these research questions: 1. is there an intention-behavior discrepancy in teacher-centered and student-centered technology use among clil teachers in turkey? 2. does clil teachers' intention to use information technologies vary according to different independent variables (gender, teaching experience, training, school type and level)? 3. what are the challenges that clil teachers experience in technology integration? 2. method the study is explanatory in research design which attempted to investigate the technology use beliefs and behaviors of clil teachers. to answer the first two research questions quantitative data were collected via an online questionnaire. for the third research question qualitative data were collected through an open-ended question. 2.1 context this study was carried out with clil teachers practicing in both private and state schools. in turkey, education is governed by a central system, with the ministry of national education (mone) regulating all schools (both state and private). the mone is in charge of determining and implementing all policies in primary and secondary education. the ministry is the only decisionmaking authority in curriculum development, textbook approval and the assessment procedures. although schools have little autonomy in determining curriculum and assessment policies, the regulations give teachers a lot of leeway in defining the content and delineating the teaching and learning practices. the mone likewise monitors the quality of education and teacher qualifications. all prospective english language teachers must be competent in planning lessons, arranging interactive learning environments appropriate for english language learners, and utilizing materials, technological resources/tools, methods, and strategies suitable for the english teaching process. they should also be able to monitor and assess students' language learning process and provide adequate guidance, as well as keep up with professional advances in the area (republic of turkey ministry of education, 2016). 2.2 participants snowball sampling method was used in the study. potential participants were contacted via personal e-mails and requested to share the link of an online survey with colleagues who adopt clil in their classrooms. a total of 61 clil teachers volunteered to participate in the study (35 female, 26 male). at the time of data collection, 36 out of the 61 teachers were practicing in private schools, while 25 were practicing in state schools. the majority of the participants (75%) had more than five years of experience in teaching english. the participants’ teaching experience range was 0~5 years (25%), 6~10 years (37.5%), 11~15 years (23.2%), 16~20 years (10.7%) and over 21 years (3.6%). both state and private school teachers had almost comparable experience in adopting clil approach (m=3.5 and m=3.6, respectively). table 1 presents detailed information on the study cohort. table 1. study cohort school type level n mean y. of clil experience participants with ict training (n) state primary 9 (6f / 3m) 2.8 4 secondary 16 (8f /8m) 3.7 5 private primary 21 (17f / 4m) 2.7 17 secondary 15 (4f / 11m) 4.6 11 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 117 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 113-124 koç, o., et.al. (technology acceptance and usage behaviour) 2.3 data collection tool data were collected by using an adapted version of a questionnaire developed by liu et al. (2019). the questionnaire had three sections consisting of 28 items. the first section (6 items) sought to elicit participants’ demographic information including gender, range of teaching experience, school type and level, years of experience in practicing clil, and training received to integrate technology into the classroom. the second section included nine items that asked the respondents to express their perceptions on the following three factors in tam: perceived usefulness (pu) (3 items), perceived ease of use (peu) (3 items), and technology-use intention (int) (3 items). the last section consisted of nine items that asked the participants to rate their teacher-centered technology use (ttu) (4 items) and student-centered technology use (stu) (5 items) on a 5-point scale. the items in the second and third sections were modified to fit the objectives of the study by adding “clil” to the statements where applicable. furthermore, an open-ended question was added to gather information about the challenges that clil teachers experienced while integrating technology into their classrooms. cronbach’s alpha reliability for these five constructs was reported to range from 0.73 to 0.85 (liu et al., 2010). in the current study, the reliability of the questionnaire was checked using cronbach’s coefficient α and was found to be 0.80 for the whole scale. 2.4 data collection procedure the questionnaire was turned into an online survey and distributed as email links. the participants completed the questionnaire anonymously. in the initial part of the online survey the participants were informed about the aim of the study and requested to waive informed consent by clicking on a button. 2.5 data analysis the following statistical procedures were used for data analysis: for normality analysis of continuous variables, descriptive statistics and histograms were used. both visual and statistical inspection as assessed by p-p plots and kolmogorov-smirnov (k-s) tests indicated a non-normal distribution. therefore, the researchers utilized friedman’s two-way anova test to detect differences. mann-whitney u and kruskal wallis h tests were used for group comparisons. the level of significance was taken as .05 in all statistical procedures. the responses given to the open-ended questions were analyzed using open-coding analysis (bogdan & biklen, 2012; strauss & corbin, 2015). during the analysis, the researchers independently read the responses, marked and coded each meaningful unit. following the initial coding, codes were grouped into categories and themes. later, the researchers cross-checked the codes, and discrepancies in coding and/or categorizations were resolved upon discussion. the reliability of the analysis was achieved by this cross-checking process (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2017). the inter-rater reliability was found to be 90%. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 quantitative findings the first research question investigated whether there was an intention-behavior discrepancy in teacher-centered and student-centered technology use among clil teachers. when descriptive statistics were examined, clil teachers had positive perceptions about the usefulness of technology and intention to use (m=4.45, and m=4.55, respectively). however, their perception about the ease of use of technology in clil classrooms was comparatively lower (m=3.10). a high level of actual use was also demonstrated by the mean values of teacher-centered and student-centered technology domains (m=4.17 and m=4.47, respectively). the high mean value of the actual use suggested that turkish clil teachers actively utilized technology not only to support student learning, but also for teacher-centered purposes. however, friedman's two-way anova indicated a statistically significant difference in intention-behavior in technology integration (χ2(4) =86.741, p=0.000). dunnbonferroni post hoc tests revealed a statistically significant difference between the technology use intention and student-centered technology use (z=-4.865, p=0.007). there was no significant difference between technology use intention and teacher-centered technology use (p=0.007). this finding suggests that there was a gap between clil teachers’ intention and technology use behavior. 118 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 113-124 koç, o., et.al. (technology acceptance and usage behaviour) this finding echoes the recent study by liu et al. (2019). similar to the finding, liu et al. (2019) found an intention-behavior gap for chinese foreign language teachers in the use of student-centered technology. a series of non-parametric tests were run to examine whether clil teachers' intention to use information technologies differed according to independent variables under investigation: gender, teaching experience, training, school type, and level. mann-whitney u tests revealed statistically significant gender difference in perceived ease of use (u=273.5, z=-2.669, p=0.008) and teachercentered technology use (u=293.5, z=-2.422, p=0.015) in favor of females. in other words, female clil teachers’ levels of perceived ease of use and actual use of technology for teacher-centered purposes were higher than that of male teachers. no significant differences were detected with respect to other variables (p ≥ 0.05). other studies have also shown significant gender differences; however, cultural variation should be noted here. males were found to use ict more frequently than females in the study by mahdi and al-dera (2013), yet females’ actual use was higher in this study. 3.2 qualitative findings regarding the challenges that clil teachers experienced while integrating technology into their classrooms, the responses given to the open-ended question were analyzed. the analysis yielded four main challenge categories: facilitating condition, teachers’ knowledge, students’ ability, and managerial and policy issues. the categories and themes emerged from the participants’ responses, as well as frequencies and percentages by school type are given in table 2. table 2. challenges experienced by clil teachers category theme total private state n % n % n % facilitating condition material shortage 17 27.4 9 14.8 8 14.0 hardware shortage 9 14.5 4 6.6 5 8.8 software shortage 3 4.8 1 1.6 2 3.5 time limitation 25 40.3 19 31.1 6 10.5 training 8 12.9 2 3.3 6 10.5 sub-total 62 52.5 35 57.4 27 47.4 teacher knowledge tk* 7 30.4 3 4.9 4 7.0 tck 5 21.7 1 1.6 4 7.0 tpk 11 47.8 10 16.4 1 1.8 sub-total 23 19.5 14 23.0 9 15.8 student abilities device use 1 12.5 1 1.6 0 0.0 search skills 5 62.5 4 6.6 1 1.8 background knowledge 2 25 0 0.0 2 3.5 sub-total 8 6.8 5 8.2 3 5.3 managerial/ policy issues school policy 11 44 7 11.5 4 7.0 curricular restrictions 7 28 0 0.0 7 12.3 peer support & feedback 7 28 0 0.0 7 12.3 sub-total 25 23.7 7 11.5 18 31.6 grand total** 118 61 57 *tk: technological knowledge; tck: technological content knowledge; tpk: technological pedagogical knowledge ** grand total represents all responses given by the teachers. the responses are not ranked. in the facilitating condition category, five main themes emerged from the responses, namely material, hardware and software shortage, time limitation, and training. despite the fact that this was the most frequently reported challenge category by the participants (52.5%), there were worth noting issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 119 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 113-124 koç, o., et.al. (technology acceptance and usage behaviour) differences in the distribution of themes by school type. time limitation (31.1%) and material shortage (14%) were reported as basic problems experienced by private school teachers. for example, a private school teacher stated that “there are not enough materials to present the content. as teachers, we need to find the materials, edit the videos to align our students’ level, and to design activities using technology. so, it takes a lot of time, and we do not have enough time”. similar to private school teachers, state school teachers expressed material shortage (14%) and time limitation (10.5%) as basic difficulties they confronted. a teacher acknowledged the scarcity of materials and their lack of time by saying, “we do not have enough materials. it is hard to find, adopt and develop materials related to the content. this takes a lot of time and effort”. clil teachers practicing at state schools mentioned hardware and software shortages more frequently than private school teachers. one of the state school teachers mentioned using his own equipment to overcome the shortage and explained that hardware shortage was a major problem, and added, “our school does not have any technological infrastructure, including smart boards, computers, and projectors. so, we use our personal tools and equipment in the classroom”. this indicated that state schools needed urgent support. although private schools invested money in hardware and software, teachers could still experience difficulties. a private school teacher expressed that “sometimes there are some obstacles in my classroom related to the smart board. it’s not working properly”. consistent with the findings, pladevall-ballester (2015) and roiha (2014) previously reported that insufficiency of materials and inadequate time for course design as problems encountered by clil teachers. technology integration into foreign language classrooms is a demanding task, and teachers need support and training. the findings revealed that a need for training was more pronounced in state schools (10.5%) than in private schools (3.3%). a state school teacher explained this need by saying, “i do not receive any training about how to use technology in language classrooms effectively except for seminars i attended voluntarily. i need more detailed and structured training”. unlike state schools, private schools supported professional development either via in-house training events or by allowing teachers to attend various teacher training seminars. still, a few private school teachers mentioned that they did not receive any training. for example, an experienced teacher remarked, “i do not receive any training to integrate technology, so day-by-day, i am learning to use it in the classroom and it takes time […]”. knowledge was the second category of challenges for private school teachers (23%), but it was the third category for state school teachers (15.8%). in this category, the most frequently observed challenge experienced by private school teachers was the technological pedagogical knowledge (16.4%). a comment by a novice private school teacher said, “they [the students] sometimes can be distracted while they are watching long videos” clearly suggests that teachers lacked knowledge in possible limitations of the technologies they use and that they needed guidance and training in pedagogical design strategies. the responses of the state school teachers, on the other hand, indicated that they experienced problems due to insufficient technological knowledge (7%) and technological content knowledge (7%). these issues were explicitly mentioned in the following statements by two qualified teachers: “learning technology takes time for teachers. students know how to use smart boards better than me.” “i am still trying to learn by myself, that’s why it is so hard […] i do not know websites that provide resources for clil.” the emergence of knowledge as the second most commonly cited challenge was consistent with the low mean score calculated for perceptions of ease of technology use. this challenge might also explain the significant difference found between technology use intention and student-centered technology use. the findings that teachers needed training in technology integration, and that institutional support for professional growth was lacking comply with previous studies by banegas (2012), denman, tanner and de graaff (2013) and korbek (2019). teachers’ technological knowledge and facilitating conditions have been identified as variables affecting teachers’ opinions per technology use (mei et al., 2017; teo, huang & hoi, 2018). student related difficulties (i.e., students’ ability to use technological devices and background knowledge both linguistic and content) were the least frequently mentioned challenges experienced 120 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 113-124 koç, o., et.al. (technology acceptance and usage behaviour) by both groups of teachers (6.8%). while private school teachers expressed students’ ineffective internet search skills as a problem (6.6%), state school teachers were mostly concerned about their students’ language level and background of content knowledge (3.5%). one private school teacher explained the difficulty by saying, “students have difficulty in using technology and doing research. school does not allow students to use technology at school, so we cannot be a model for them and foster how to use technology”. on the contrary, a state school teacher raised her concerns by saying, “[…] students’ language level for some of the contents is a problem, they do not have enough background knowledge [..]”. catalonian teachers in pladevall-ballester’s (2015) study mentioned comparable student related difficulties shared by private and state school teachers who participated in the study. clil teachers spoke of the managerial and policy issues as notable challenges they encountered. while school policies restricting the use of technological tools appeared to be a problem shared by both groups of teachers, teachers practicing in state schools raised two other issues. the issues most commonly expressed by the state school teachers were the curricular limitations (12.3%), and lack of peer support and feedback (12.3%). one state school teacher said: “[…] lesson hours are not enough, the curriculum has deficiencies in terms of clil implementation” and another teacher complaint about missing support and collaboration among colleagues by saying: “[…] other teachers have negative attitudes towards my endeavors; i could not get feedback from my peers”. these expressions indicated that state school teachers felt a need to share their classroom experiences with their colleagues. unlike private school teachers, teachers in state schools had more flexibility in choosing the method they would adopt. thus, there was no standard teaching method practiced by all teachers from the same school. unlike state schools, the case was quite the opposite in private schools. they were required to work collaboratively and followed precisely the same procedures. this was highlighted by one of the teachers: “school policy is a major problem. the administration does not allow us to go online for some websites; i would like to trigger students’ creativity with technology but we are not free to choose and use our own activities”. indeed, similar to the study, korbek (2019) observed a lack of collaboration among teachers in italian, spanish and turkish contexts. the differences the researchers observed between private and state school teachers with respect to problems encountered suggested that school setting may have impact on teachers’ technology usage in clil classes. the implementation of clil approach requires teamwork rather than individual efforts. it may be concluded that from both the quantitative and qualitative data, they showed that the gap between intention to use and actual use resulted from a combination of these challenges. 4. conclusion three main conclusions can be drawn from the results presented above. to begin with, the findings showed that actual use behaviors can be taken as factors influencing the technology integration intentions of the clil teachers. teacher-centered purposes, as quantitative findings suggested, play a crucial role. instead of student-centered purposes or student’s active participation most teachers use technology to improve their work performance in the classroom, to enhance their effectiveness, and to accomplish the teaching-learning processes easily and quickly. furthermore, negative externalities could have an effect on teachers’ actual use of technology in the classroom. the quantitative results of the study, corroborating the findings of liu et al. (2019), showed that there is a discrepancy between turkish clil teachers’ technology integration intention and their actual use. gender wise disparities in the use of technology in the classroom is another point worth to mention. whereas many male teachers enabled their students to engage with technology in order to complete language learning tasks, female teachers used technology for more teacher-centered activities. clil teachers’ responses suggested that this tendency is closely linked to institutional context, lack of knowledge and experience in student-centered teaching, and assessment pressure. apart from these issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 121 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 113-124 koç, o., et.al. (technology acceptance and usage behaviour) factors, previous experiences of teachers might also be influencing their classroom practices. as hubbard (2018) mentioned “currently practicing teachers do not experience the integration of technology as students in their language classes as students” (p. 1). teachers must gain both knowledge and skills about how to incorporate new technologies in a student-centered manner. finally, facilitating conditions seem to be the most prevalent problem among the challenges that clil teachers experience when implementing the approach. due to time constraints and material shortages, both private and state school teachers presented the content without providing practice and consolidation opportunities for the retention of the content. while teachers in public schools were adversely affected by the shortage of technological resources, private school teachers still encountered difficulties in utilizing the resources despite having the necessary equipment. this limited teachers’ ability to present the subject in depth and design activities that would appeal to students' cognitive and affective domains. when state and private school teachers were compared with respect to their needs in selecting and using technological resources, teachers in private schools seemed to be more competent. most state school teachers needed support and in-service training. teachers expressed that finding educational websites and applications that provide content knowledge was a real challenge, and that they also needed guidance in how to adapt the resources they found. one major implication of our findings is that there is a discrepancy between clil teachers’ technology use intentions and their actual use. they mainly utilize technology for teacher-centered purposes. this clearly shows that clil teachers not only need in-service training in technological knowledge, but also in technological pedagogical and technological content knowledge. teacher competencies in these areas can be strengthened through webinars as well as workshops that can give teachers hands-on experience. furthermore, school management strategies that discourage teachers from exploring innovative technologies, approaches and techniques should be reconsidered. given the exploratory nature of the study and the relatively small sample size, the findings cannot be generalized across other contexts. further work on clil teachers’ actual technology use and classroom practices is needed. in the current study data were collected using a questionnaire, though. future studies may include observational data to have a more comprehensive picture of how teachers utilize technology in student-centered practices during instruction. declarations author contribution: the first author initiated the research ideas, was in charge of resources, investigation, data collection and writing and editing; the second author was in charge of conceptualization, supervision, data analysis and presentation, and editing; the third author was in charge of investigation, data collection, reviewing. funding statement: the research did not receive any funding. conflict of interest: the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information: no additional information is available for this paper. references ajibade, p. 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(2019). technology-enhanced content and language integrated learning in chinese tertiary english classes: potentials and challenges. in h. reinders, c. coombe, a. littlejohn, & d. tafazoli (eds.). innovation in language learning and teaching: the case of the middle east and north africa, (pp. 89-113). london: palgrave macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-016-9481-2 https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2012.15 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 138-147 10.12928/eltej.v4i2.4279 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id critical thinking, literature and teachers’ instructional activities: an indonesian case of community service program for english teachers isti siti saleha gandanaa,1,*, nia nafisah b,2, ernie d. ayu imperiani b,3 a universitas pendidikan indonesia, jl. dr. setiabudi no. 229, bandung 40154, indonesia b universitas pendidikan indonesia, jl. dr. setiabudhi no. 229, bandung 40154, indonesia 1 istigandana@upi.edu*; 2 n_nafisah@upi.edu; 3 ernie_imperiani@upi.edu * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 29 june 2021 revised 21 july 2021 accepted 20 august 2021 critical thinking (ct) has generally been known as one of the core competencies of the 21st-century skills that students need to acquire to succeed in today’s world. to attain this goal, teachers undoubtedly have a critical role to play. involving a group of indonesian teachers of english, this study aims to explore the teachers’ initial conceptions of critical thinking as reflected in their planned classroom activities. specifically, the data collected were in the form of written instructional activities that used literary works as learning materials. these data were obtained following the teachers’ participation in an online workshop on promoting critical thinking through literature held for english teachers from mgmp (i.e., english teachers working group) in bandung regency. the workshop introduced a model of teaching critical thinking skills using literary works and required the teachers to design their own instructional activities based on the proposed ct model. adopting content analysis as the methodological tool to scrutinize the teachers’ prepared materials, our initial findings indicate that, in general, the teachers had inadequate knowledge of how to incorporate critical thinking skills into their teaching. literature was seen merely as a tool to develop students’ linguistic abilities rather than as a way to explore humans’ experiences and to connect ‘the word and the world’. this study recommends that the teachers be given more time to better explore the concepts surrounding critical literacy pedagogy as well as be given more opportunities for practical application of the promoted instructional model. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords critical thinking efl classroom instructional activities literature how to cite: gandana, i.s.s., nafisah, n., & imperiani, e. d. a., (2021). critical thinking, literature and teachers’ instructional activities: an indonesian case of community service program for english teachers. english language teaching educational journal, 4(2), 138-147 1. introduction the 21st century presents opportunities and challenges like no other centuries did. on the one hand, it offers exciting opportunities such as global networks and innovations. on the other hand, however, it challenges life as issues of inequalities and inequities, especially in relation to global opportunities, becomes ever more pressing. moreover, with the bombardment of information on a daily basis, it becomes very challenging to decide what is true and what is untrue. the circulation of fake news can, indeed, be very harmful to those who lack the ability to distinguish facts from opinions or to those who are not willing to look beyond what a text has to offer. in light of these challenges and opportunities, the ability to think critically, then, becomes of paramount importance, http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:istigandana@upi.edu mailto:n_nafisah@upi.edu mailto:ernie_imperiani@upi.edu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 139 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 138-147 gandana, i. s. s. et.al (critical thinking, literature and teachers’ instructional activities) as it equips people with the skills to evaluate the quality of texts that are presented to them. according to facione (2015) critical thinking consists of cognitive skills and dispositions. a critical thinker should be able to interpret, analyze, evaluate, infer, and self-regulate a problem or a case presented in inquisitive, systematic, and seeking truth manners. hence, in this era of influx information, critical thinking has been regarded as part of the 21st century skills that students are required to attain (saleh, 2019). consequently, critical thinking skills have been incorporated into the national curriculum so as to prepare indonesian students to meet the challenges of the 21st century through its regulation of the republic of indonesia number 17 year 2010 regarding educational management and administration. hence, it implies that fostering critical thinking skills lies mostly in the shoulders of the teachers. 1.1 literature and teaching critical thinking skills much of literature on teaching critical thinking skills addresses teaching strategies and teacher’s role and perception. regarding the teaching strategies, a number of research have indicated that critical thinking can be incorporated into many different subjects such as sciences, physical education, and language and arts. interestingly, these studies have shown that the use of literary texts often provide more opportunities in cultivating critical thinking skills. literature, which includes poetry, prose, provides access to cultural aspects, encourages language acquisition and language awareness, develops students’ interpretive abilities, and educates the whole person (ahmad, zainal & rajab, 2019; küçükoğlu & arikan, 2011). by reading literature, students are expected to pay attention to details, to suspend judgments before examining assumptions, to make decisions based on their judgments, and to look for possible alternatives and solutions. this is in vein with the ability and disposition expected in critical thinkers. in reading literature, students are required to demonstrate abilities to recall, to differentiate facts from opinions, to understand the literal and implied meanings, to be perceptive and make moral reasoning, and finally to connect and apply what they have learned from the texts to other domains or real life situations (abudlridha & latiff, 2020). employing suitable strategies, teachers can scaffold students’ understanding of a passage or a story so that they become critical; this can be done by identifying facts, analysing the issues in the text, questioning unfounded statements, discussing real life issues, and providing the opportunity for students to create their own texts (bobkina & stefanova, 2016; tabačkovà, 2015). furthermore, a study by ilyas (2015) finds that the incorporation of literary texts in english textbooks for indonesian middle school levels provides more critical thinking questions and activities than other texts. the findings from this body of research emphasize the strength of literary texts to develop students’ critical thinking. besides teaching strategies, many studies on critical thinking focus on teachers’ roles and perceptions. as agents of change, teachers should be able to promote and improve critical thinking skills with every possible means available. on one hand, research suggests that critical thinking should be taught explicitly and that instructors who received training in teaching critical thinking showed to have better results in improving students’ critical thinking skills, regardless of cultures and disciplines (abrami, et.al, 2015; bobkina & stefanova, 2016; deering, 2018; liao, 2016; nold, 2017; tabačkovà, 2015). on the other hand, teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding critical thinking vary even in the same country. despite the models and the success stories of using literature, some have pointed out the discrepancies of teachers’ perceptions and practices with regard to critical thinking, which, in turn, may hinder the students’ enhancement of the skills. mok and yuen (2016), for instance, reveal that hong kong teachers in their study understand critical thinking but overlook bias and context-sensitivity. meanwhile, saleh (2019) and shpeizer (2018) focus on the challenges the teachers face in implementing critical thinking in the classroom. the challenges are greater when the teachers have vague concept of critical thinking. the discrepancy of understanding of critical thinking may lead to students’ poor critical thinking performance (enciso, enciso & daza, 2017; ilyas, 2018; shpeizer, 2018). these studies indicate that teachers are pivotal in developing students’ critical thinking. without rigorous training for teachers, it is very unlikely that there is a significant change in students’ critical ability and disposition as expected. 1.2 teaching critical thinking in indonesian context reviewing from the findings of studies above, little is known about the practice of teaching critical thinking skills in indonesian context. although ilyas (2015) confirms the benefits of literature to develop critical thinking skills, many indonesian-based research do not use literary texts and tend to rely on applying a particular strategy or technique which is considered in line with 140 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 138-147 gandana, i. s. s. et.al (critical thinking, literature and teachers’ instructional activities) critical thinking skills. in addition, report on success of teaching critical thinking is measured through quantitative data analysis (bustami & corebima, 2017; hasnunidah et.al., 2015; maknun, 2019; syahrial et.al, 2019). this implies two notions: 1) literary texts are not popular approach to teach critical thinking; 2) success is a fait accompli regardless the teachers’ competence and perception on the concept of critical thinking. such implication can be seen in the practice of workshops on critical thinking skills which we observed so far. the workshops rarely introduce literature, which previous studies proved to be significantly influential, to develop critical thinking skills. in addition, the workshops overlook the teachers’ ability and perceptions on the concept of critical thinking. studies by ilyas (2015) and solihati and hikmat (2018) indicate that indonesianpublished school textbooks lack engagement with critical thinking skills. it follows that many teachers in the country are not sufficiently equipped with the necessary tools to promote the development of students’ critical thinking skills. to contribute to this important area, we ran a workshop for teachers on how to incorporate critical thinking skills into their instructional activities through the use of literary texts. using the critical thinking model (henceforth is abbreviated into ct model) developed by bobkina and stefanova (2016), this paper examines the teachers’ understanding of the model as reflected in their instructional design. 1.3 a model for teaching critical thinking skills prior to elaborating the ct model we adopted in our community service program for the english teachers, it is important to acknowledge that the model has been drawn on the new london group’s (1996) pedagogy of multiliteracies. multiliteracies pedagogy emerged as a response to changes in the way the concept ‘literacy’ is perceived due to globalizing forces, such as communications technologies, which have opened up diverse modes of communication as well as linguistic expressions and representations. the pedagogy of multiliteracy, thus, extends beyond the monolingual and monocultural literacy pedagogy that revolved around traditional reading and writing and takes into account the proliferating diverse modes of meaning making. this new literacy pedagogy was aimed, among others, at meeting the students’ changing needs to be able to effectively function and navigate within these multiple modes of communication (willis allen & paesani, 2010). to do so, the multiliteracies approach embraces four key curricular components: (1) situated practice, (2) overt instruction, (3) critical framing, and (4) transformed practice. the first component, situated practice, refers to “immersion in language use” (in bobkina & stefanova, 2016, p. 686). the focus here is students’ thoughts and opinions, which may relate to their lives and experiences. the second component, overt instruction, deals with understanding of the text in a systematic, analytic and conscious manner, allowing students to construct meaning out of the text. the third component, critical framing, involves “the reflective dimension of literacy instruction” (ibid.), connecting the linguistic aspect to wider communicative and sociocultural contexts. the last component, transformed practice refers to the reshaping of the text and the changing of mode of representation. these four components are adopted by bobkina and stefanova (2016) as four stages upon which critical thinking skills are built. due to its systematic as well as easy-to-follow and executable stages, bobkina and stefanova’s ct model has, consequently, been used in our community service program to help the teacher participants involved develop their students’ critical thinking skills. in familiarizing the ct model to the teachers, we hope that they will, later on, adopt and incorporate the model into their actual classroom practice. in view of this, it is, therefore, important to investigate the extent to which the teacher participants have understood the concepts surrounding the ct model and how to design classroom activities based on the model, incorporating the four key stages into their instructional planning. while the issue of critical thinking skills has so often been raised in the education context, much of the focus has been given to students; not many workshops, however, have been given to raise the teachers’ own critical thinking abilities despite the fact that they are among the key players in the educational landscape. this study is, therefore, expected to contribute to the literature on teachers’ professional development pertaining to their critical literacy practices in the indonesian context. 2. method this qualitative case study is primarily concerned with answering the following research question: to what extent do the teacher participants exhibit an understanding of the ct model as issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 141 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 138-147 gandana, i. s. s. et.al (critical thinking, literature and teachers’ instructional activities) reflected in their planned instructional activities? the community service conducted was in the form of workshops. the initial plan was to run the workshops face-to-face. however, due to the covid-19 outbreak, online sessions became our only option. the workshops were carried out twice, on 21st and 30th april 2020 via google meet, and the duration for each session was approximately three hours. we chose literary texts as the medium to teach critical thinking skills for two main reasons: first, because we, the instructors, are from the english language and literature study program, and, second, because our professional experiences have shown literary texts to provide rich opportunities and resourceful space for engaging students with ‘the word and the world’ (freire & macedo, 1987). in the first workshop, we focused on familiarizing the teachers with the concepts surrounding critical thinking and on providing detailed explanation of the four stages of the ct model. to check the teachers’ understanding of the model, they were given an assignment to design their own instructional activities based on the model discussed using any literary texts of their own choice. they were given a week to complete their written assignments. in the second workshop, our primary focus was on discussing the teachers’ assignments and on giving detailed, one-on-one feedback. the assignments then became the data source for this study. table 1. the participants’ profiles no. pseudonym gender (male/ female) teaching experience institutional affiliation 1 ari m 1 year, 1 month public junior high school 2 apep m 12 years public junior high school 3 ayu f 16 years, 9 months private junior high school 4 iin f 22 years public junior high school 5 endah f 22 years, 9 months public junior high school 6 ela f 19 years public junior high school 7 intan f 4 years private junior high school 8 leni f 17 years, 9 months public junior high school 9 meti f 10 years, 3 months public junior high school 10 nandang m 10 years public junior high school 11 nani f 16 years, 10 months private junior high school 12 permatasari f 10 years public junior high school 13 setianingsih f 27 years public junior high school 14 tika f 24 years, 4 months public junior high school 15 vira f 15 years, 9 months public elementary school this study involved a total of fifteen teachers of english from mgmp (musyawarah guru mata pelajaran or english teachers working group) of bandung regency. they all voluntarily participated in the program. out of these fifteen teachers, fourteen were junior high school teachers, and one was an elementary school teacher. their ages ranged from 29 to 53 years old, and their teaching experiences spanned from just a year to around 24 years. four of the teachers taught in private schools, while the rest taught in public schools. from the fifteen involved, only three are male teachers. more detailed profiles of the teacher participants are shown in table 1 below. the participants’ names have been given pseudonyms. in analyzing the teachers’ written assignments, we adopted content analysis (hsieh & shannon, 2005), in which we scrutinized the appropriacy of the teachers’ selected texts and the suitability of their designed instructional activities to each of the four ct stages which include (1) situated practice, (2) overt instruction, (3) critical framing, and (4) transformed practice. in examining, the appropriateness of the teachers’ texts, we looked at the texts from three angles: (1) language level, (2) literary text type, and (3) text mode. in relation to the first category, which related to the linguistic aspect, we evaluated whether the teachers had chosen the right language level for their students. for this, we referred to the current curriculum for guidelines. as for the second category, we identified the type of the literary texts, whether it was ‘prose’ or ‘poetry’. regarding the third category, text mode, we looked at whether the text was in the form of a written text or some other 142 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 138-147 gandana, i. s. s. et.al (critical thinking, literature and teachers’ instructional activities) modes, such as a video. this was important to note because we also wanted to take into account the multiliteracy nature of today’s classroom. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. appropriateness of the teachers’ texts as our community service program was aimed at promoting the development of critical thinking skills through literature, the teacher participants were thus required to use literary texts to design their instructional activities. the form and mode of the literary texts were not limited to a specific kind; rather, the notion was to be interpreted in its broadest sense, ranging from poems to song lyrics (despite the current debates on whether song lyrics can be considered literature). in scrutinizing the appropriateness of the teachers’ texts, we looked at the texts from three angles: (1) language level, (2) literary text type, and (3) text mode. in relation to the first category, which related to the linguistic aspect, we evaluated whether the teachers had chosen the right language level for their students. for this, we referred to the current curriculum for guidelines. as for the second category, we identified the type of the literary texts, whether it was ‘prose’ or ‘poetry’. regarding the third category, text mode, we looked at whether the text was in the form of a written text or some other modes, such as a video. this was important to note because we also wanted to take into account the multiliteracy nature of today’s classroom. the 2013 curriculum for junior high school outlines that one of the standar kompetensi students are expected to attain in the english language classroom is the ability to read and comprehend a simple short essay, be it in the form of procedure, descriptive, recount, report or narrative texts. in view of this “simple short essay”, all of the teacher participants can be said to have selected the appropriate language level for their students. the length of their texts was around 200-300 words. however, in terms of text type, three out of the fifteen teachers chose wrong texts, as these texts were not classified as literary. ela, permatasari and vira mistakenly selected report texts instead and presented citarum river, bullying and the pandemic as their respective topics. as for the other twelve texts, which were literary, nine were prose, taking the form of short stories, and three were poetry (or poetry-like), two of which were song lyrics. out of the nine short stories, three can be considered as fables, since they had animals as characters, two were folktales, raising the legends of sangkuriang and surabaya, and one was a myth, telling the story of ramayana. in relation to the text mode, only one teacher presented the text in the form of a video, while the rest chose the traditional format of a plain written text. in the following sub-sections, we present a stage-by-stage evaluation of the teachers’ instructional activities which they had designed by drawing on bobkina and stefanova’s model for teaching critical thinking skills. to reiterate, this model comprises four main stages: (1) situated practice, which includes preand post-reading activities, (2) overt instruction, which requires students to be engaged with the ‘inner logic’ of the text, (3) critical framing, which seeks to connect the text and context, and (4) transformed practice, which opens up the space for students to be creative and comes up with their own texts. this model reflects the required explicit teaching in developing critical thinking as suggested by abrami et al. (2015) and lai (2011). 3.2. appropriateness of the teachers’ situated practice (stage 1) as previously mentioned, the main function of the first stage, situated practice, is to “activate students’ schemata” (bobkina & stefanova, 2016, p. 687) on the topic. to achieve this objective, the ct model requires teachers to engage students in a set of pre-reading activities. while most of the teacher participants included pre-reading activities in their instructional activities, two teachers, ari and tika, failed to incorporate this stage of situated practice, skipping both the preand post-reading activities in their planned instruction. the data revealed that a popular strategy to stimulate students’ prior knowledge is through pictures. it was a common practice for all of the teachers who had prereading activities to provide relevant pictures before going through the actual text under discussion in stage 2. they also provided questions to these pictures to guide the students’ discussion. the questions commonly combine ‘factual’ questions and those that sought students’ opinions and experiences. iin, for example, who chose to engage her students with a fable, presented a total of four pictures depicting local folklores, a fable and a western fairy tale as her pre-reading activities and included the following questions to encourage students’ involvement: “do you like reading or listening to stories?”, “what is your favorite story?” issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 143 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 138-147 gandana, i. s. s. et.al (critical thinking, literature and teachers’ instructional activities) however, the teacher participants in general seemed to have misunderstood the idea of ‘postreading activities’ as defined by the ct model. while the model referred to post-reading activities as activities that explore students’ thoughts and feelings related to the ideas contained in the main text, the teachers’ post-reading activities simply revolved around the pictures given in the pre-reading activities. a number of teachers skipped the post-reading activities altogether and moved straight to the next stage, that is, overt instruction. 3.3. appropriateness of the teachers’ overt instruction (stage 2) as outlined by the model, the overt instruction stage focuses on close reading of the text. it requires students to exhibit an in-depth understanding of the text, comprehending its structure, the general idea, main ideas of each paragraph and the language details. this stage is about understanding the ‘inner logic’ of the text. all of the teacher participants involved comprehension questions in this stage, which required students to scrutinize the text. these questions were often formulated using the wh-questions. some of the comprehension questions did not only ask students to look for information directly stated in the passage, but they also encouraged them to make inferences. endah, for instance, who chose the legend of sangkuriang as her literary text, included this in her reading questions: “was sangkuriang a bad son?” while there were hints in the passage regarding the kind of person sangkuriang is, the students had to make their own judgments to answer the question. one common mistake made among the participants was not paying attention to the coherent sequencing of the questions, in which the easier questions should be presented first before asking more difficult ones. such random formulation can not only discourage students from engaging with the text, it is also unreflective of the model adopted; to develop critical thinking skills, scaffolding is imperative (bobkina & stefanova, 2016). an example of random formulation of reading questions can be seen in leni’s instructional design. following her text that tells the story of ramayana, leni presented ten reading questions. listed as number one, she asked the question, “how was rahwana’s character?”, but then question number eight asked “where did the story take place?” this noncoherent sequencing of questions can be found in more than half of the teachers’ instructional design. another mistake, although less common, made by the teachers (i.e., ayu, endah, nani, tika) in the overt instruction stage is ‘expanding’ the questions to pictures presented in the pre-reading activities. further, we also encountered a number of reading questions that are more suited to post-reading activities rather than the overt instruction stage. such a ‘mismatch’ is evident in tika’s question of her short story that asks “do you like traveling by train?” clearly, this question does not center on the text but is asking the students’ personal preference. apart from reading questions, another popular activity employed by teachers in stage 2 is vocabulary building. nine teachers (60 %) incorporated activities that would help students to increase their new vocabularies. these activities commonly require students to define new words contained in the texts, to find synonyms, and to categorize words into their corresponding word classes; these vocabulary-building activities included word matching, crossword puzzle, and word search, among others. 3. 4. appropriateness of the teachers’ critical framing (stage 3) the ct model refers to critical framing as a stage that bridges the text to the wider sociocultural contexts, seeking relevance, for instance, between the ideas contained in the texts to the contexts in which the students are situated in. in this stage, the model emphasizes the important role of the teacher as the one who facilitates and directs the students’ discussion. critical framing is a very important stage in developing students’ critical thinking skills as it provides the space for students to question, relate and compare, skillfully analyze and evaluate ideas embedded in the texts. the data, however, reveal that three teachers (ari, intan and tika) missed this crucial stage in their instructional design. it was apparent that most teachers found this stage challenging, as they had to ask questions and create activities that would connect, borrowing freire’s phrase, the word and the world. all of the teacher participants who included critical framing had a question that directed students to thinking about ‘the lessons learnt’ from the texts, but very few of them went beyond this reflective activity. some seemed to even repeat the general objective of stage 2 and asked questions that required the students to look for information stated in the texts. rather than connecting to the bigger sociocultural issues, many teachers posed reader-response questions that are more suited to the post-reading activities than the critical framing stage; these questions tend to revolve simply around ‘the personal’, seeking to identify the students’ preferences and experiences, but they did not explore ‘the social’, ‘the cultural’ and ‘the political’. 144 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 138-147 gandana, i. s. s. et.al (critical thinking, literature and teachers’ instructional activities) 3.5. appropriateness of the teachers’ transformed practice (stage 4) according to the model, transformed a practice is a stage where students are given the space to be creative and evaluative, as manifested in the creation of their own texts. however, most teacher participants seemed to have misunderstood this objective; rather than encouraging students to create their own texts, most of the teachers asked them to retell or rewrite the text in their own words. this was a common misconception among the participants. another common mistake made by the teachers appears to lie in the formulation of their instruction; they failed to make the instruction clear that they would require students to create a text of their own; instead, they only scratched the surface of this creative stage by inviting students to be imaginative. apep, for example, who used the legend of surabaya as his chosen literary text, simply asked students to imagine “what would happen if sura won the fighting”, rather than requiring students to write another version of the story. similarly, endah, whose text was about the legend of sangkuriang, formulated this question in stage 4: “what would happen if sangkuriang could finish the boat?” endah could have stated a more explicit instruction that would better fit this transformed practice stage, for example by asking students to create a continuation of the story or to expand and act out a particular part of the story. only three teachers, ela, meti and vera, indicated that they have understood the requirements expected in stage 4. meti asked her students to create their own poems relevant to the topic discussed, while ela and vera tried to engage their students in a video-making project. a thorough analysis of the data indicated that the teacher participants, in general, do not seem to have fully grasped the concepts embedded in our proposed model. this is indicated in the various ‘mismatches’ between the stages and the activities they designed and their inability, in many cases, to fulfill the objectives of the four stages. the teachers’ lack of understanding may be due to a number of reasons: (1) unfamiliarity with the literary genres, (2) insufficient time allocated for the workshop, and (3) insufficient time given to them to do the required task. the change from face-toface mode to an online mode was, indeed, very challenging for us, the instructors. many modifications had to be made, and, due to technical problems and poor connection, we felt that we had not been optimal in delivering the materials. the online session, it turned out, could not substitute the face-to-face interaction. our initial plan was to include teaching simulations done by some of the teacher participants, but this, too, had to be omitted due to the pandemic. however, further reflection on the teachers’ difficulty to grasp the ct model pointed to their unfamiliarity to read and work with literary texts aesthetically, in which they overlooked the personal and affective dimensions of the text, hence failing to fully engage with the text. another misconception many teachers seemed to have is thinking they had to cover the four stages within one session of teaching. consequently, the activities designed for the critical framing and the transformed practice stage tended to be superficial. none of the teachers designed activities that were project-based in the critical framing stage, which, in fact, would have been very useful in providing space for students to develop their critical thinking skills. however, as teachers, it appears that they have selected their texts quite carefully, presenting texts that were didactic in nature. the teachers’ selection of texts appears to somewhat reflect a common conception generally held by indonesian teachers that position them not only as ‘knowledge transmitter’ but also as ‘moral guides’ (see gandana, 2014). it follows that ‘lessons learnt’ from texts appear to have become an important consideration for the teachers in selecting their texts. the data also indicate that for the majority of the teachers’ literary texts were merely seen as a tool to improve the students’ linguistic competencies, rather than seeing them as valuable resources to develop critical thinking skills. this may be due to their unfamiliarity with the idea of incorporating critical thinking in their teaching activities. although the teachers said that they often use narrative texts in the classroom, as this genre is part of the curriculum, it was apparent from their designed activities that promoting critical thinking skills does not seem to be their priority. the teaching of literature, instead, is perceived as a linguistic device to develop students’ vocabulary, grammar mastery and reading skills, such as drawing factual information from the texts. only a few teachers saw literature as an opportunity to open up a space to enhance the students’ empathic skills and to make connections with the students’ real-life situations. in western academia and in many other efl academic contexts, however, literature has made itself a way into the language curriculum and often been regarded as an effective tool to develop students’ critical literacy (aloqaili, 2011; gillespie, 1994; khatib & alizadeh, 2012). as american educator tim gillespie (1994) argues, “literature offers a different form of learning than just processing information; it requires us to issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 145 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 138-147 gandana, i. s. s. et.al (critical thinking, literature and teachers’ instructional activities) experience, to participate. works of literature are not just about human issues; the power of literature is that it makes issues come alive for the reader” (p. 20). literature, gillespie points out, provides a space for readers to “explore human experience in all its dimensions and possibilities” (ibid.), thus having the capacity to spark imagination, develop empathy, enhance creativity and critical thinking abilities. furthermore, the findings imply that the teachers have not had adequate knowledge and practice in teaching critical thinking. similar to ilyas’ (2018) study, the teacher participants are all familiar with the term ‘critical thinking’ and the concepts related to bloom’s taxonomy. however, in practice, they still have difficulties in transforming their knowledge critically, which suggests a diverse conception and implementation of critical thinking (saleh, 2019). the findings, thus, bring to mind arguments put forward by fahim and masouleh (2012) and lai (2011) who highlight the importance of teacher training to teach critical thinking. since it is indispensable that teachers scaffold students’ critical thinking, they must be trained to have greater success in developing this skill. 4. conclusion this study has explored the extent to which a group of english teachers demonstrated an understanding of how to implement a practical model for teaching critical thinking skills as reflected in their planned instructional activities. the data analysis reveals that, generally, the teachers have not fully grasped the concepts embedded in the proposed model and find incorporating activities that develop students’ critical thinking challenging. the teachers, in particular, find it challenging to find ways to connect the text to context, facilitating students to ‘read the word and the world’. while attempts have been made to establish personal engagement in students, as evident in the questions that explore students’ voices and experiences, many teachers apparently find it difficult to relate issues contained in the literary texts to wider sociocultural and political contexts where students are situated in. although a number of the teachers involved indicated that they understood what critical literacy is, many seem to be grappling with finding ways of how to skillfully and systematically do it at the practical level. this study, therefore, recommends that teachers be given more opportunities to explore the concepts surrounding critical literacy pedagogy, be facilitated in the engagement of professional development activities (i.e. in-service training), as well as be given more opportunities to do teaching simulation for practical application of the promoted instructional model. acknowledgment the authors would like to extend their gratitude to the mgmp bahasa inggris sub rayon 5 for their valuable contribution to this research. declarations author contribution : the authors confirm sole responsibility for the following: study conception and design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of results, and manuscript. funding statement : the research is funded under no research project. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information: no additional information is available for this paper. references abrami, p., bernard, r., borokhovski, e., waddington, d., wade c., & persson, t. 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(2010). exploring the feasibility of a pedagogy of multiliteracies in introductory foreign language courses. l2 journal, 2(1), 119-142. english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 125-137 10.12928/eltej.v4i2.4234 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id constructive alignment of mother tongue-based multilingual education (mtb mle) language policy implementation to the practices of a multilingual classroom hyra dave p. gempeso a,1,*, jubelle dianne s. mendez b,2 a, b mindanao state university – iligan institute of technology, andres bonifacio ave., iligan city, 9200 lanao del norte, philippines 1 hyradave.gempeso@g.msuiit.edu.ph*, 2 jubelledianne.mendez@g.msuiit.edu.ph * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 15 june 2021 revised 12 august 2021 accepted 20 august 2021 this descriptive observational study examined the implementation of mother tongue-based multilingual education (mtb mle) language policy to the classroom practices of a grade three multilingual classroom in the philippines. the constructive alignment of the said language policy implementation was evaluated in terms of: (1) mother tongue (mt) as a subject area, examining specifically the coherence of the teaching and learning activities and assessment criteria used; and (2) mt as a medium of instruction. findings revealed that there were discrepancies, incongruences, and insufficiencies in the administration of assessments in the alignment of mt as a subject area. these issues resulted in the underdevelopment of the four macro skills of the learners and caused misalignment of the classroom implementation to the language policy. the same is true with the implementation of mt as a medium of instruction in the classroom; however, the use of translation and code-switching of l1, l2, and l3 helped in the comprehension and participation of the students. these findings call for the attention of the policymakers and teachers for a rigorous review of the policy and its actual implementation as it significantly affects the holistic development of the students. this study further contributes to the continuous improvement of the educational system in the country particularly in the k-12 and mtb mle implementation. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords mother tongue-based multilingual education constructive alignment classroom practices teaching and learning activities assessments how to cite: gempeso, h.d.p. & mendez, j.d.s., (2021). constructive alignment of mother tongue-based multilingual education (mtb mle) language policy implementation to the practices of a multilingual classroom, english language teaching educational journal, 4(2), 125-136 1. introduction the department of education (deped) has enacted many policies in recent years that are pertinent to the current language-in-education policy. the deped order no. 74 issued in 2009 institutionalized mother tongue-based multilingual education (mtb mle) nationwide and mandated the use of the learners’ mother tongue (mt) in improving learning outcomes from kindergarten to grade three (deped, 2012). the deped order no. 16 issued in 2012 indicated the starting school year of the implementation (i.e., 2012-2013) and ordered all public schools to adopt it as part of the k-12 basic education program. this order also included objectives emphasizing the four developments that mtb mle would greatly influence specifically: (1) language development, (2) cognitive development, (3) academic development, and (4) sociocultural awareness. with the mtb mle’s implementation, two modes stipulated in the guidelines were expected to be carried http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:hyradave.gempeso@g.msuiit.edu.ph mailto:jubelledianne.mendez@g.msuiit.edu.ph http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 126 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 125-137 gempeso, h. & mendez, j. (constructive alignment of mtb mle language policy) out: (1) mother tongue as a subject area, and (2) mother tongue as a medium of instruction in all learning areas excluding filipino and english, in kindergarten to grade three levels (deped, 2013). however, since its implementation, it has been facing several issues and criticisms. for instance, the challenges on how to implement it such that it is aligned with the desired mother-tongue approach (eslit, 2014) and the challenge implied by lartec (2014) to the department of education to initiate a mechanism wherein the teachers’ innovative strategies and problems are assessed, monitored, and evaluated. the interpretation and implementation in the classroom define the success of the enactment of the policy; what happens on the ground level will contribute either directly or indirectly to the successful implementation of the language policy. it is in this premise that this study was anchored on. specifically, it sought answers to the following questions: how is mtb mle policy implemented in a grade three level classroom specifically as (1) a subject area, examining the coherence of: (a) teaching and learning activities, (b) assessment criteria; (2) a medium of instruction? what alignment issues are observed in the classroom policy implementation? 1.1 mtb mle language policy the inauguration of the language-in-education policy in the philippines was prompted by several studies such as the lingua franca project (1999 to 2001) and lubuagan project (1999 to present), as mentioned by walter & dekker (2011), which provided inputs that motivated the government to develop a policy that would bridge the learners from their first language to other languages of instruction (filipino and english). according to fillmore (2014), several studies proved that the use of second language in basic education programs may be linked to “under-achievement, poor literacy development, and high dropout rates”. thus, deped integrated mtb mle in the new k-12 basic education program and explicated one of the language policy’s wider purposes; the four forms of child development that mtb mle should influence to the students. these are language development, cognitive development, academic development, and sociocultural awareness. language development means “a higher-level cognitive skill involving auditory and oral abilities in humans to communicate verbally individuals’ wants and needs” (goldstein & naglieri, 2011). it establishes a strong education for success in school and for lifelong learning. cognitive development focuses on higher order thinking skills (hots) based on various taxonomies of learning, such as bloom’s taxonomy. critical thinking skills are distinguished from low-order learning outcomes (e.g., rote memorization) because hots involve synthesizing, analyzing, reasoning, comprehending, applying, and evaluating (watson, 2017). academic development prepares students to acquire mastery of competencies in each of the learning areas. students shall be given the opportunity to master essential skills and knowledge before they move on to the next level. lastly, sociocultural awareness means the “awareness of the societies and cultures of the target language, and therefore of the contexts the language is used in. teachers themselves transmit information subconsciously about culture and society through their behavior and interaction with students” (british council 2019; vitalaru, 2020). it enhances the pride of the student’s heritage, language, and culture. deped also provided specifications in the guidelines on how to implement mother tongue (l1), which in the case of this study is sebuano, as the medium of instruction, and the integration of filipino (l2), and english (l3). l1 is mandated to be continuously used as moi in a transition or bridging process through grade three; l2 shall be introduced in the first semester of grade one and have the four macro skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) continuously developed from grades two to six; and, l3 shall be introduced during the second semester of grade one and the four macro skills shall be integrated and developed starting from grade two until grade six. it is also suggested that the story track (meaning) and primary track (accuracy), a method that sets the standard in teaching for meaning and accuracy affecting the four macro-skills, be employed to ensure that students gain proficiency in both comprehension and critical thinking skills (see d.o. no. 28, s. 2013, deped, 2013). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 127 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 125-137 gempeso, h. & mendez, j. (constructive alignment of mtb mle language policy) 1.2 constructive alignment and classroom practices squires (2012) stated that “in aligning the curriculum to the standards, it must first be acknowledged that standards are general while curriculum is specific”. thus, in a classroom setting, the intended learning outcome can be carried out through different assessment practices whether informal or formal, or it could be manifested in the content of the literature found in the materials used. assessment, as defined by brown (2003), is an ongoing process that encompasses a much wider domain. assessment is administered depending on the context and the outcomes required to be achieved. however, the problem of what and how the particular outcome can be practiced and assessed in a classroom arises. moreover, factors like how the teachers carry out the lesson in which it is aligned to the outcomes of the policy or how the assessment practices are related to what has been taught, up to the curriculum and how it is being administered at the classroom level, highly affect the successful implementation of mtb mle. for instance, in burton’s (2013) study on the implementation of the mtb mle top-down policy implementation, she asserted that language policy is not simply defined by the national level statements; rather it is also important to understand the role teachers play in the enactment of the policy. with this, a constructive alignment which was introduced by biggs (2003), was used as an approach to determine the quality of learning employed in the classroom. this approach consists of two aspects, the constructive and alignment aspects. constructive aspect banks on the meaning of the learning activities that the students do while alignment aspect focuses on what the teacher does to achieve the desired learning outcomes (ajjawi, 2020). this approach examines the interconnectedness of the relationship of the intended outcomes of the guidelines of the language policy, classroom practices (i.e., teaching and learning experiences and assessment), and medium of instruction which are essential in the success of the language-ineducation policy. aside from the fact that it is important in the development of the educational system in the country, this language-in-education policy must be properly exercised on the ground level because according to watermeyer (2012), if the core elements of the educational structure are inappropriately or inadequately aligned then the coherent message of what is valued in the educational process is blurred which will directly contradict to the goals of the policy. 2. method this study utilized a descriptive, observational method in examining how mtb-mle curriculum is put into practice, particularly in a grade three level multilingual classroom. this type of research design was used in order to record the classroom situations in a natural, uncontrolled, and non-manipulative manner. hence, field observation was done to yield qualitative data. . 2.1. locale of the study the study was conducted in iligan city, located in northern mindanao (region 10), philippines. it is an urbanized and diverse place which is inhabited by people with different cultural backgrounds and languages such as cebuano, maranaos, higaonons, tagalogs and some minorities such as waray, ilocano, and chavacano. the primary language spoken in the city is sebuano, followed by meranao. english, on the other hand, is used as a third language (l3). this study employed one of the best and biggest schools in the area. 2.2. research participants purposive sampling method was used in choosing the participants of the research. a class of grade three students in the tenth section served as the participants. grade three students were relevant for the study because this level is the last grade where mtb mle is implemented, making the academic level a transitional stage for the students as they will no longer have the local language either as mt subject or as the medium of instruction in the succeeding years of their elementary level. further, the tenth section was chosen because based on the teachers’ assessment, 128 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 125-137 gempeso, h. & mendez, j. (constructive alignment of mtb mle language policy) this section demonstrated a low level of comprehension and academic competence, which is significant to the implementation of mtb mle. lastly, this class was composed of fifty-six (56) students with thirty-five (35) males and twenty-one (21) females, ranging from 7 to 9 years old. four teachers were also involved in the study. all of these teachers gained degrees in elementary education in their different respective fields. they were appointed to teach and handle classes based on their seniority, evaluation of the school principal, and recommendation from senior master teachers. however, one of the teachers taught several subjects in the chosen class participant and another one of the teachers filed a leave of absence during the duration of the class observation; thus, a substitute teacher was designated. 2.3. data gathering procedures before the conduct of the study, the researchers sought the permission of the division superintendent, school principals, school heads, and teachers through a letter and a closed-door discussion regarding the goals and intent of the study. for the visibility of the study, the researchers conducted a direct classroom observation where narrative descriptions of the situations were recorded through field notes. field notes were recorded accurately that even the side details were included as they might contribute during the analyses of the research data. the researchers only watched and observed, rather than participated, to maintain objectivity and avoid biases. the direct classroom observation lasted for one month, and the researchers were able to record thirty-one (31) class sessions. since the study focused on two aspects of mtb mle language policy implementation: mt as subject and as the medium of instruction; the researchers stayed in the school for the entire day within a month to observe all six subject areas that used mt as the medium of instruction. these subjects were: science, mathematics, araling panlipunan (ap), edukasyon sa pagpapakatao (esp), music, arts, physical education, and health (mapeh), and mother tongue (mt). also, it should be noted that english and filipino were excluded since english and tagalog, respectively, were the languages used as the medium of instruction in these subject areas. the researchers also procured the curriculum guides (cg) or better known as k-12 mother tongue subject curriculum guide (deped, 2016) and daily lesson log (dll) of the teachers. the department of education provided these cgs and dlls to serve as reference and guidance of the teachers for the lessons, content standards, performance standards, and learning competencies that are supposed to be achieved through the teaching and learning experience in the classroom. this initiative was intended to produce a top-down approach of delivering the standard competencies and outcomes of k-12 basic education program (d.o. no. 21, s. 2019). however, as mentioned by marinas and ditapat (2000), in genon and torres (2015), the curriculum is designed to be interpreted by the teachers and implemented with variations for as long as they meet the requirements of the said curriculum. however, peterson and cruz (2014) exclaimed that instructional alignment may seem to be a simple idea but, it is more challenging to implement than understand. this is why the researchers obtained the cgs and dlls of each subject area because these were subjected to constructive alignment to determine if the classroom practices, mtb mle language policy implementation, and outcomes or competencies from the dlls and cgs were achieved. the data were subjected to descriptive and thematic analysis during the process of data presentation. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. implementation of mtb mle language policy in a grade three multilingual classroom 3.1.1. examining coherence of teaching and learning activities and assessment criteria of mother tongue as a subject area in examining mother tongue as a subject, the researchers observed that in aligning mt subject to the outcomes found in the daily lesson logs (dll) provided by deped, most of the teaching and learning activities were not aligned to it. for instance, the learning competency intended to be issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 129 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 125-137 gempeso, h. & mendez, j. (constructive alignment of mtb mle language policy) achieved in one of the dlls of this subject area required students to initiate and participate in an extended social conversation about unfamiliar topics by asking questions and soliciting information, however, the actual observed teaching and learning activity administered was that the students were only asked to draw a picture of a pineapple from the folktale read by the teacher. from this, the researchers inferred as the misalignment of tasks since the given assessment was insufficient in order to assess and achieve the required learning competency. this is what argued by genon and torres (2015) that misalignment also occurs when assessments are inadequate in operationalizing the intended learning objectives, or there are tasks that may target the intended objectives yet still considered misaligned because performance-based learning objectives are reduced into knowledgebased assessments. in this case, the drawing activity administered was insufficient in achieving the intended competency and was therefore misaligned (see attached appendix a for more examples of alignment of tlas and competencies in the dll of mt as a subject area). conversely, in aligning it to the guidelines on the implementation of mtb mle language policy, language and cognitive development and sociocultural awareness were developed because of some teaching and learning activities and assessment administered in the succeeding class sessions such as oral recitation that required the students to share their opinions using the mt. in terms of the skills that the students needed to develop, only reading and speaking skills were emphasized because some activities and assessment enabled the students to express their thoughts, and ideas through speaking. meanwhile a quiz was used to assess the students’ reading skill. unfortunately, there were no empirical findings that led to the development of the other two skills: listening and writing. based on the observation, mt became one of the subjects, however, the teachers only asked the students to write down definitions of the concepts. they did neither discussion nor assessment with the students’ reading comprehension. this was problematic because assessment, as explained by young (2011) must contain clear instructions and the purpose of the activity must also be established clearly. additionally, brown (2001) explained that assessment must be a “method of measuring a person’s ability or knowledge in a given domain”. schofield (2020) added that a test is said to be valid if it tests what is taught and how it is taught. considering these arguments, therefore, it can be said that the alignment of the expected outcomes to the assessment and learning outputs of the students were not achieved. 3.1.2. examining the use of medium of instruction in all subject areas in terms of the implementation of mother tongue as a medium of instruction, which is mainly used during the discussion sessions in all subject areas, it greatly helps students improve their comprehension and active participation in the classroom. abao, et al (2016) argues that the level of development of children’s mother tongue is a strong predictor of their second language development. the use of l2 and l3 as an aid also proves to help them comprehend the lessons and enrich their lexicon. in contrast to the argument, according to deped order no. 28 s. 2013, stating that the macro-skills in l2 and l3 shall continuously be developed from grade 2 to 6, l2 and l3 use is only limited to the translation of specific terms and not entirely used in activities that assess the macro skills in these languages. the development of language, cognitive, academic, and sociocultural awareness promotes and enhances students’ achievement and life-long learning, which became a few of the main goals of the mtb mle in the philippines, besides being one of the language policy’s broader purposes as well. based on the observation, however, it is evident that the students somehow acquired the four forms of development, except that it was limited and not entirely developed. in the araling panlipunan class alone, none of these four forms were developed. the failure to assess the macro skills, especially in l2 and l3, and the four forms of development was mainly because there was a lack of appropriate activities that were fundamentally needed to achieve the goals of mtb mle. 3.2. alignment issues observed in the classroom policy implementation 3.2.1. discrepancy or incongruence between the assessment and the policy guidelines this is the first alignment issue that the researchers observed in examining the alignment of the policy to its implementation in the classroom. assessment is a broad term. this is corroborated by 130 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 125-137 gempeso, h. & mendez, j. (constructive alignment of mtb mle language policy) genon and torres (2015), who said that assessment encompasses any forms like tests or quizzes, assignments, performance tasks, etc. the researchers have observed that teachers lacked assessment, whether informal or formal, to test whether the students were listening or comprehending what the lesson was all about. this was very prominent in mother tongue as a subject such that there were some assessments conducted which were not enough to cater and facilitate learning for the students. as such, it did not satisfy some of the areas of development mandated in the implementation of the policy. when the teacher introduced a lesson, assessment was concluded by letting the students wrote passages from a book. for instance, in teaching grammatical awareness in mtb subject, the lesson about “panagtandi” (degree of comparison, in english) was introduced only through the same activity (writing its definition), instead of discussing and explaining the concept to the students. this lesson was supposed to target the language aspect or development of the subject and could have also led to the academic development of the students; however, the discrepancy of the assessment administered hindered this achievement. another discrepancy in the assessment was when the teacher tasked the students to draw a pineapple as their activity. this drawing activity could have been a “useful strategy to use in assessing the students’ understanding of concepts”, according to young (2011), however, this activity was not contextualized and the teacher did not specify the importance and relevance of it. in fact, this activity did not guarantee the students’ comprehension of the story. the assessments were also insufficient in acquiring the skills required for this subject. for example, there were no assessments administered in determining if listening and writing skills were really acquired. a mere “copy and answer” (sequencing events) quiz was the only assessment given to the students for developing their writing skills. although this activity tapped reading skill, it was not enough to assess their writing skill because the students could not write to communicate or express ideas that were supposedly to be the goal of this skill. the same was true with listening skill, wherein there was no assessment to determine if the students comprehended what they heard when the teacher read the story or not. these problems have made the assessment useless because there was no learning developed. furthermore, assessment also affects the use of mother tongue as a medium of instruction. the assessment supposedly helps facilitate learning and development of different areas specified in the policy; however, the researchers observed that there were some discrepancies in the implementation in the classroom. one of the discrepancies was that there was a dearth of assessment that enhanced the l2 and l3 in the classroom sessions. this was problematic because, in this grade level, which was the transitional stage of mtb mle, other languages (l2 and l3) were supposed to be enhanced and integrated into the discussion. the macro skills should be well developed in this level as preparation for the next grade level wherein there will be no more mtb subjects, and the other languages will be greatly used in the classroom. unfortunately, this was not employed and achieved by the observed class. the problems in the alignment of pedagogical tasks were also present in a study conducted by deocampo (2013) wherein it showed problems such as the mismatch between instruction and test, and misalignment and/or insufficiency of the tasks and assessment to fulfill the learning objectives. 3.2.2. assessment is limited to the first level/stage of bloom’s taxonomy another issue that occurred in this study was that the assessment, which greatly affected the coherence of the implementation of the policy, did not address or did not test what it was supposed to be tested. the tendency that underlies herein is that the assessments given addressed a different level of cognition. this also contradicts the notion of constructive alignment, which according to kurz (2012) et.al, “the extent to which expectations (i.e., standards) and assessments are in agreement and serve in conjunction with one another to guide the system toward students learning what they are expected to know and do”. kurz (2012) added that “an aligned test must comprise items that sample exclusively across the constructs expressed in the intended curriculum, which students (presumably) have the opportunity to learn during classroom instruction”. lawrence (2019) concurred that teaching and learning takes place in a whole-system, wherein all aspects of teaching and assessment are tuned to support high-level learning, so that all students are encouraged to use higher-order learning processes; otherwise, it becomes a poor system in which the components are not integrated, and are not tuned to support high-level learning. this explains that the assessment administered in the classroom should have met the intended outcomes. as for issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 131 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 125-137 gempeso, h. & mendez, j. (constructive alignment of mtb mle language policy) the context of the research, although some assessments under specific subjects did not have this kind of issue, some other assessments still fell under this classification. for example, in the mtb (mother tongue) class, the assessment which was in the form of quiz (sequencing events) tapped only the first level of bloom’s taxonomy of learning domains, specifically of the remember or recall level, when the supposed desired outcome was to achieve the performance and creative level. furthermore, assessments were not aligned with the expected outcome of mtb mle, especially the hots, under the cognitive development, which explains that if a learner truly understands something, he/she can apply, analyze, evaluate, use, and create new ideas. these kinds of assessments were not structured and administered in such a way that they would qualify for the expected outcome of the policy. 3.2.3. lack of contextualization one of the main areas of development in the implementation of mtb mle language policy is sociocultural awareness. for it to be achieved, one must value the ethnolinguistic and cultural heritage of the learners. as such, in the discussion, which includes the assessment and activities administered in the classroom, these factors must also be evident. each lesson must have contextualization, and for this policy, sociocultural awareness must be integrated to strengthen the cultural heritage and identity of the learners. contextualization of lessons is essential in the discussion, as well as in assessment and activities. in science and mathematics for example, although there is no language aspect in these subjects, other areas, such as sociocultural awareness, can be achieved by using examples that are relatable to the students. for instance, in the discussion about living and nonliving things, the teacher may encourage the students to answer using things they can see in their community and environment. in the context of assessment, mtb subject can also achieve contextualization of assessment by using folktales and relating it with the students' community and experiences, which are coherent to the goal of this area. based on the observation, however, araling panlipunan class, the class which were supposedly expected to provide extensive discussions on socio-cultural awareness, failed to achieve this area of development because there was not enough evidence found. in fact, there were only three class sessions conducted during one month of the classroom observation. moreover, the assessment done was not aligned to the expected outcomes of the policy. for example, in the assessment where the teacher tasked the students to write down the things they saw and got from the pictures in the book, the students were confused and did not understand what they were supposed to do because the teacher only gave them a brief and vague instruction. however, what the researchers found out in the guideline was that the intended activity was supposed to be: based on the pictures provided, the students should identify the products they could get in their locality. furthermore, there was also another activity in the same subject, wherein the teacher grouped the students and tasked them to draw pictures which were, again, only found in the book without contextualization. expectedly, through this activity, the students would have achieved the creative level of bloom’s taxonomy as well as the academic development because of the nature of the activity; however, what the researchers found out during the observation was that the students were asked to identify the calamities depicted in the picture and the effects they could bring to their community especially to the products that their community produce. this way, the activity failed in itself because the expected outcome was not achieved, and the learners did not acquire the contextualization and sociocultural awareness. 3.2.4. habit of code-switching the implementation of the mtb mle language policy is rooted in the fact that (1) the philippines is a multilingual country and; (2) the learners’ cognitive and academic competence need to be improved. this is also the reason why the government, primarily, deped pursued the idea that when the learners are able to achieve proficiency and fluency in the first language, the easier and quicker transference of knowledge from l1 to l2 to l3 will occur automatically. in the context of this study, it is by mandate that three languages shall be used simultaneously in the instruction. this technique was very evident in the classroom that the researchers observed in 132 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 125-137 gempeso, h. & mendez, j. (constructive alignment of mtb mle language policy) which the teacher code-switched by translating words to other languages. for example, in the esp class, the teacher translated the words “paglaom” and “sugilanon” into “hope” and “story” respectively during the discussion because the students no longer understood these sebuano words. the same with the use of l2 (filipino), some words do not have direct correspondence or direct translation in sebuano, that was why the teacher retained the english words. for example, in science, words like wind vane, living things, barometer, etc. do not have a direct translation in sebuano. as a result, the teacher no longer translated these words and used their english version during the discussion session. meanwhile, in the use of l2, the researchers observed that as there were sebuano words that are morphologically and semantically the same as the l2 (filipino), it was inevitable for the teacher and students to use them eventually. regarding the use of the technique, mondez (2013) criticized the inconsistency in the policy and the communicative efforts of the teachers to translate words for the students to understand as leading to a habit of code-switching to two languages rather than leading to fluency of one single language (filipino or english). several studies, however, argued that code-switching helps students enhance their cultural and language heritage by not hindering the students from changing to any language they prefer in conversation with peers and teachers (algarin-ruiz, 2014). furthermore, the researchers also observed that with this kind of technique, the students participated more in discussions that used sebuano rather than english as a medium of instruction. the researchers observed this through comparing the mother tongue subject, esp, and other languages, to mapeh, wherein the assessment was written in english. the teacher had to translate the quiz in mapeh into sebuano word for word before the students answered it. unlike subjects which were already written in sebuano, so that there was no reason for the teachers to translate it rigorously. consequently, only minimal words sufficed for further comprehension of the students. through this technique, the researchers inferred that using these languages interchangeably as an aid for discussion and explanation of the lesson was helpful for the students to understand the lessons better. lastly, the implementation of mother tongue as a medium of instruction also helped the students in comprehension and participation in the classroom which is backed up by ricablanca (2014) in his study about the effectiveness of mtb instruction on pupil’s achievement wherein it was claimed that mt allows children to express themselves and enables them to contribute to discussions and further develop their intellect because of the familiar language being used. 3.2.5. focus is only on the story track in evaluating the four macro skills another issue that the researchers observed is that in evaluating the four macro skills, only the meaning (story track) was focused on both as a subject and as the medium of instruction. for example, in mother tongue, most activities were focused only on the meaning, such as reading activity, the sequencing event quiz, and the informal assessment after reading the story, which only developed the reading and speaking skills under story track. however, the activity on grammatical awareness, which should have focused on accuracy, was not administered properly. the same is true with the use of medium of instruction wherein the learners’ skills were assessed more on the meaning than accuracy. for instance, in l1, the listening skill was assessed in all subject areas except in araling panlipunan as the speaking skills were assessed only in esp, science, and mother tongue classes, while the other skills were not. meanwhile, there were no activities that assessed the use of l2 and l3 which led to its misalignment in the guidelines mandated by the policy. this unequal assessment of the macro skills on both medium of instruction and subject area is crucial in language learning and teaching because what is tested will greatly affect what is taught and how it is taught. this could also further affect the proficiency profile of the learners (powers & powers, 2015). 4. conclusion after examining the alignment of the outcomes and the classroom practices (teaching and learning activities, assessment criteria, and medium of instruction), the researchers found discrepancies or incongruence between the assessment and the policy guidelines. there was an insufficiency of assessment to test the students' comprehension, competencies, and skills. moreover, even though there were some assessments rendered, they were not aligned to the policy's guidelines, issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 133 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 125-137 gempeso, h. & mendez, j. (constructive alignment of mtb mle language policy) and some of them only addressed lower cognitive level which hindered the policy's goal from achieving hots. the failure to assess the macro skills, especially in l2 and l3, and the four forms of development was mainly because there was a lack of appropriate activities. in other words, the activities were insufficient to achieve the goals of mtb mle. lastly, the habit of code-switching was prominent in using the mother tongue as the medium of instruction. fortunately, this factor elicited a positive effect on the teaching and learning of the students such that it allowed students’ comprehension of the lessons and active participation in the class. from these alignment issues, the researchers found that the implementation of the policy was greatly affected by the assessment administered in the classroom, especially with its discrepancies and insufficiencies. the researchers infer that because teachers play an essential role in implementing the policy, the conduct and manipulation of assessment and other activities that facilitate learning lie in their hands. the teachers must learn and realize the importance of assessment and any other teaching and learning activities in the classroom as they greatly affect the success of the policy. with that, more seminars and workshops must be done in order to educate the teachers more not just about the policy but also how to implement it such that it will be aligned to the intended outcomes of the policy. with these issues, the policymakers need to rigorously review and pay attention to it such that they could address the lapses that the implementation of language policy has, which will directly contribute to the successful realization of the desired goals of the policy. moreover, a constructive alignment of the policies and its actualization on the ground level must have a broader and more reflective research such that a multi-directional perspective may be achieved in the implementation of the educational policies (gesa, et al, 2019). after all, as argued by herman (2014), for an educational system to work, the significant elements, namely, teaching and learning activities, assessment, and curriculum standards, should be aligned with each other. lastly, as this study limits only to a month of immersion and observation of a grade three multilingual classroom, it is suggested for other researchers to conduct a longitudinal research or more extensive research of which a longer span of time shall be spent and a wider scope shall be evaluated. future researchers may also consider the following suggestions for further research: (1) focusing on one of the aspects such as evaluating the use of l2 and l3 in language acquisition and cognitive development of student; (2) making a comparative analysis of a multilingual and a monolingual classroom; (3) examining the effects of mtb mle on the multilingual students; and (4) examining the learning materials used in mtb mle subject area and medium of instruction. acknowledgement all great works are nothing and impossible without the tremendous help given by the people who became instrumental to this undertaking. hence, we would like to thank all that have participated and contributed to the completion of this paper. we may not be able to mention you individually but know that all efforts are sincerely appreciated. to my mentors in msu-iit, prof. villabona, prof. deocampo, prof. echavez, and most especially prof. fernandez-dalona, we thank you for pushing us beyond our limits and urging us to take a big leap such as venturing into publication. to cayden – my son, niño – my husband, my family, friends, you have become my inspiration and motivation to keep moving on. thank you so much! declarations author contribution : hdg and jdm: started the research study, conducted the data gathering, and analyzed all the data; hdg: revised the research ideas, literature review, data presentation and analysis, and the final draft. funding statement : the research was funded by the authors themselves. no additional funding from other organizations. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. 134 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 125-137 gempeso, h. & mendez, j. 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(constructive alignment of mtb mle language policy) appendix a actual teaching and learning activities (tla) observed by the researchers and competencies in the dll of the mother tongue subject area (taken from k to 12 mother tongue subject –curriculum guide, deped 2016) actual observed teaching and learning activities outcomes as based on daily lesson log for week 2 content standard performance standard learning competency the teacher reads the story “ang unang pinya”. theme: our community livelihood/trade and industry listening comprehension /reading comprehension participates in and initiate more extended social conversation or dialogue with peers, adults on unfamiliar topics by asking and answering questions, restating and soliciting information. give one’s reaction to the event or issues heard. identifies synonyms and antonyms of grade-level adjectives. give one’s reaction to an event or issue heard. identify synonyms and antonyms. spell vocabulary words in the selection read. the teacher instructs the students to draw a pineapple. theme: our community livelihood/trade and industry study skills participates in and initiate more extended social conversation or dialogue with peers, adults on unfamiliar topics by asking and answering questions, restating and soliciting information. give one’s reaction to the event or issues heard. identifies synonyms and antonyms of grade-level adjectives. give one’s reaction to an event or issue heard. identify synonyms and antonyms. spell vocabulary words in the selection read. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 137 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 125-137 gempeso, h. & mendez, j. (constructive alignment of mtb mle language policy) actual observed teaching and learning activities outcomes as based on daily lesson log for week 3 content standard performance standard learning competency the teacher reads the story “ang unang pinya”, while the students read the story silently on their seats. share information or ideas in giving accurate or consistent answers in the questions. be consistently apprehend the information given in the situation. listening comprehension / reading comprehension study skills give one’s reaction to the event or issues heard. make a two-level outline for a report. the teacher explains the story and asks questions that relate to the story. questions like, “unsa inyung buhaton kung suguon mo sa inyung mama?” (what will you do when your mother asks you to do some chores?) share information or ideas in giving accurate or consistent answers in the questions. listening comprehension / reading comprehension give one’s reaction to the event or issues heard. the teacher also gives a quiz to the students in order to assess if they really understand the story. the type of test is sequencing events where the students put number to the space provided before the statement. share information or ideas in giving accurate or consistent answers in the questions. be consistently apprehend the information given in the situation. listening comprehension/ reading comprehension study skills give one’s reaction to the event or issues heard. make a two-level outline for a report. actual observed teaching and learning activities outcomes as based on daily lesson log for week 4 content standard performance standard learning competency the students are tasked to write down “hinumdumi kini” from the book. it is about the degree of comparison (panagtandi) in mother tongue. grammar awareness uses correctly different degrees of comparison of adjectives. english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-112 10.12928/eltej.v4i2.4295 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador: implementation of the content and language integratedlearning during 2019-2021 pamela barre-parrales a, 1, jhonny villafuerte-holguín b,2,* a universidad laica eloy alfaro de manabí, av. circunvalación s/n. manta,ecuador, 130207, ecuador b proyecto comprensión lectora y escritura académica, y el proceso de titulación de la carrera pine de uleam, ecuador 1 pamela.barre@uleam.edu.ec ; 2*jhonny.villafuerte@uleam.edu.ec * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 25 june 2021 revised 15 july 2021 accepted 13 august 2021 ecuadorian educational policy for english as foreign language instruction in ecuador mandated in 2016 to introduce content and language integrated-learning (clil) methodology to improve the teaching and learning process. this research aims to analyze the implementation of clil methodology in zone 4 of ecuador during 2019-2021. this work subscribed to the transformative paradigm and administrated quantitative and qualitative methods of educational research. the participants were 70 english as a foreign language teachers from nine public and private educational institutions located in manabi province of ecuador. the instrument used was the instructor perceptions of differentiated instruction of turner, solis, and kincade (2017) in an observation format. the information collection techniques used were in-depth interview and focus group discussion. the results allowed the research team to determine the impact of the pandemic on the clil implementation in zone 4 of ecuador. the results show differences in the implementation of the methodology between public and private schools which are linked to internet and technology devices access, teachers' knowledge regarding clil methodology, and institutional policies. in regards covid19 pandemic, it is concluded that it has pacted the implementation of clil methodology in both public and private secondary schools that participated in the study. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords english as a foreign language english language instruction educational innovation public policy reading and writing how to cite: barre-parrales, p. & villafuerte-holguín, j. (2021). english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador: an analysis of the content and language integrated-learning implementation. english language teaching educational journal, 4(2), 99-112 1. introduction statistics show that ecuador has fallen in its position of the index of knowledge of english worldwide, going down from position 80 in 2011 to 93 in 2020 (ef, 2020). it is striking because after detecting weaknesses in the english teaching process in 2012, ecuador implemented some educational policies that are supposed to improve the quality of teaching. some factors have been assumed to cause the condition, one of them is the issue of learning motivation. at this point, the study of wang and littlewood (2021) showed that motivation for learning is a person's motivation to carry out the desired goal, starting from one's motivation to learn to be better than their enthusiasm results of learning activities. regarding the learning method, the government policies implemented in ecuador for teaching english as a foreign language included the use of content and language integrated-learning http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index 100 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-112 barre-parrales, p. and villafuerte-holguín, j. (english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador) methodology (ministry of education of ecuador, 2016). the ecuadorian academy expectation was clil helps create more meaningful efl classes to provide more prosperous relations, communication situations, and opportunities that engage learners as stated by karimi, lotfi and biria (2019) and mayora and gutiérrez (2019). the said methodology consists of two pedagogical principles: (1) making content understandable by providing comprehensible language input and (2) stimulating productive language for the students to use (escobar-urmeneta, 2019). in relation to the current situation where covid19 pandemic issue becomes a global issue affecting worldwide, it affects the learning process in ecuador as well. covid19 pandemic situation has led to changes in ecuador national educational system. as a result, the online and hybrid education model emerges, expecting to keep up the younger generations with their learning activities (world health organization, 2020). unfortunately, under ecuador's socio-economic and technological conditions, access to the internet and technological devices has impacted and distanced the private and public elementary schools. encouraged to provide the need to have reliable information regarding the status of the clil methodology implementation in ecuador, the authors of the study proposed the following research questions: 1. how is clil methodology implemented in the secondary educational institutions of zone 4 in ecuador between 2019-2021? 2. how does the covid19 pandemic impact clil implementation process in secondary schools of zone 4 in ecuador? this research aims to analyze the implementation of the clil methodology in english as a foreign language in nine educational institutions located in zone 4 in ecuador during 2019-2021. 1.1. literature review 1.1.1. content and language integrated-learning (clil) marsh et al. (2014) promoted the content and language integrated-learning (clil) method in 1994. clil reinforces literature, history, or science lessons with foreign language practices, by promoting 'you can do it!'. it requires teachers to be very well acquainted with the developmental stages of the language learning and the main theories of foreign language acquisition as well. to understand the concept of clil better, there are factors that academics need to understand, especially the differences between learning a mother tongue and a foreign language (marsh et al., 2014). clil has four basic principles: (1) content, which successfully places the acquisition of knowledge skills and understanding inherent in that discipline, (2) communication, which defines language as a conduit for communication and learning, (3) cognition, which represents a cognitive challenge for students to improve their thinking and basic interpersonal communication skills and the cognitive-academic language competence, and (4) culture, which functions to encompass to multiculturalism, considering that language, thought, and culture are closely linked (salamanca & montoya, 2017). in addition, in the technological and global society setting nowadays, it is imperative to understand that the knowledge of another language helps learners communicate ideas about science, art, and technology to people worldwide. regarding the strengths it holds, clil methodology is believed to be able to make meaningful content for meaningful learning and provide more prosperous relations, communication situations, and opportunities that engage learners (karimi et al., 2019). besides, mayora and gutiérrez (2019) found that, when using clil, learners show more favorable attitudes for learning a target language as the central methodology for learning efl. in addition, akila and ilankumaran (2020) argued that clil encourages a deeper level of assimilation in students exposed to similar languages and language roles. karimi et al. (2019) study also showed that english language learners groups find classes more accessible and attractive when it is used the methodology clil. however, applying clil should be done appropriately as barrios & milla-lara (2020) and antropova et al. (2021) who remarked that clil incorrect implementation can negatively impact learners' achievement. 1.1.2 curriculum and multicultural approach understanding the term curriculum can be different for each person. as a result, practically, how curriculum is applied varies. some teachers may tend to be concerned with the teaching techniques, while some others are going into more procedural. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 101 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-112 barre-parrales, p. and villafuerte-holguín, j. (english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador) graves and garton (2017) argued that the curriculum in foreign language can be classified according to its dominant approache. approach informs teachers about what to teach and how to teach. in addition, it also impacts the process of formulating teaching goals, selecting contents and their presentation sequences, selecting techniques to use, and designing evaluation procedures. the efl curriculum also uses diverse kinds of tasks such as collaborative learning and conversational skills to integrate curriculum content with non-native language instruction (calderon, 2018). regarding efl curriculum development in south american countries, mayora and gutiérrez (2019) revealed a persistent difference between the teachers’ visions about curriculum. in some schools, the vision of language is less present compared to others. meanwhile, in some other schools the vision of learning is more dominant. in most schools. however, there are cases in which both the learning vision and the language vision are either absent or posed in vague and unclear ways. in the case of ecuador, the ministry of education (2016) stated that curriculum is the expression of the educational project that members of a nation prepare to promote the development of the new generations. however, the challenges occur as ecuador is a multicultural nation. it is the home of 14 nationalities and 18 indigenous communities. the official languages spoken in this country are castilian, kichwa, and shuar. besides, there are other 14 indigenous languages and 8 different linguistics branches: barbacoa, chocó, jívaro, quechua, tukano, záparo and two language families called cofan. thus, such social characteristics demand a multicultural educational system as well. practically, according to intriago et al. (2019), the current ecuadorian educational system promotes intercultural education, but schools require time and investment to ensure students have access to good linguistic competence. moreover, technological development through the internet access with high volumes of information and diversity of entertainment activities has been going through academic and social life, which people assimilate as part of the transculturation process. consequently, this situation requires methodological changes in english language learning process in ecuador (ibarra-rius & ballester-roca, 2017). fortunately, academics identify clil as an appropriate methodology for the ecuadorian educational context. 1.1.3. information and communication technology in the english language instruction educational technology and communication in the efl context can provide diverse opportunities to innovate the teaching and learning process (çakici, 2016). ict emerges to support the links between students and teachers. it helps rebuild the roles and functions of formal education (casablancas, 2017). moreover, ict can promote students' critical thinking and strengthen their problem-solving skills (pandey et al., 2021). it allows teachers to encourage learners' autonomous and collaborative language practices. moreover, electronic games and consoles as learning tools can improve the dynamic and enjoyable processes to consider in the curriculum and lesson plans (wienecke & damsgaard, 2020). from students’ perspective, according to cortés-cabrera and meléndez-araya (2021), students positively value the use of ict and the articulation of the planning of learning objectives. ict use can enhance students’ motivation as well. hsiao and su (2021) suggested that as learning motivation, referring to a kind of attitude in which students naturally and willingly participate in learning towards the teaching goal and the internal psychological process set by the teachers, plays a significant role in a learning process, consequently, teachers can use diverse technological devices to increase students' learning motivation, which is a critical condition in every educational context. instead of the tremendous benefits it gives, the use of ict in an educational setting has some drawbacks. mora (2021) argued that the distance education process cannot replace the teacher's humanity in the classroom during face-to-face classes, so it is worth asking the question. other limitations of ict use are related to its accessibility quality and national policies where it applies. in other words, the use of ict especially in an educational setting needs to be done properly. 1.1.4. english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador the instruction of english as a foreign language in ecuador began in 1950, during the government of galo plaza lasso. at that period of time, only the students of high school received an hour of english language class per week. english as a foreign language (efl) instruction followed the curriculum reform project aimed at the development of the learning of english (cradle) for around 30 years. cradle program which was created in 1992 with the british consulate and the ministry of education of ecuador aimed to improve the secondary students' efl 102 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-112 barre-parrales, p. and villafuerte-holguín, j. (english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador) acquisition with a local contextualization. it was implemented until 2008, and successfully produced six textbook series called "our world through english". the book series were expexted to show the ecuadorian culture through the topics featuring local themes and characters (calle et al., 2015). for decades until the year 2007, efl used to be an optional school subject in ecuadorian curriculum. it was taught by teachers paid by the student's families. later, efl became part of the secondary school ecuadorian curriculum with the increase in the instruction duration to two and three hours per week (cáneppa-muñoz et al., 2018). in 2010, the ministry of education of ecuador evaluated teachers' english language levels. the results showed that 50% of teachers reached a basic beginner level base don the european framework (calle et al., 2015). nevertheless, in 2014 the education first index reported that ecuadorian students reached the 65th rank out of 88 countries evaluated worldwide. this unsatisfactory result could be related to a few factors such as the persistence of the overcrowded classrooms in public schools, the little attention given to the process of acquiring the english language, and the lack of specialized teachers for efl instruction (intriago et al., 2015). one of the first changes implemented to improve teaching and learning process in ecuador was the increment of the number of instructions hours from 3 to 5 hours per week in public educational system (gonzález, 2015). unfortunately, the efl class practices commonly consisted of mere grammar and structure explanation and basic vocabulary teaching (calle et al., 2015). in 2017, the education ministry, through the agreement number 0052-14, ordered the incorporation of the english subject into the general primary education curriculum from the second to the seventh grade. furthermore, ecuadorian government set policies implemented to improve the efl instruction which included: (1) strengthening teachers' communicative competencies until obtaining b2 level of the common european framework of reference for languages (cefr), (2) introduction of efl instruction standards, (3) implementation of program called "go teacher" (2014-2018) providing teacher fellows for training abroad, and (4) implementation of the national efl curriculum in 2017, which recommended the usage of clil method as the central methodology to improve students' english language competencies (ministry of education, 2016). in spite of the improvement policies set by the government, the changes in quality didn’t appear as expected as the students do not improve their efl knowledge level (matamoros et al., 2017). vélez-bernal and ramos-paredes (2018) added that students only improved their efl level passing from a1 to a2 when teachers used active strategies whaich reinforced students' knowledge. furthermore, statistic showed that the overpopulated classes and the focus on the choral repetition of dialogues pre-established by teachers, has distanced learners from the communicative class atmosphere. and it was all related to the ecuadorian public education policy (intriago et al., 2019). consequently, in 2020, the average of the ecuadorian population efl knowledge went down negatively to the position of 93rd out of 100 countries (ef, 2020). among the previous studies revised appears wang and littlewood (2021). they showed that motivation for learning is the strength used to carry out the desired goal, starting from one's motivation to learn to be better than their enthusiasm for learning activities. regarding the unsatisfactory result, there had been some studies conducted. one of them was the study by contreras, picazo, cordero-hidalgo and chaparro-medina (2021) which recommended that professors should consider students' context and limitations before planning the adjustments to their school programs. they ratified the relevance of teachers' training about educational platforms and technological tools used on education besides government support for issuing laws to formalize virtual education, giving schools the necessary tools and resources to meet their needs. another study by antropova et al. (2021) argued that teachers should efficiently use diverse didactic material to implement the clil methodology efficiently. besides, they demonstrated that teachers did not use didactic resources homogeneously, neither did they implement the four principles of clil, reducing the efficiency of this method. 2. method this work subscribes to the transformative paradigm. it administrated the quantitative and qualitative methods of the educational research to collect data and information describing more precisely the changes in the implementation of clil in the province of manabí (territorial zone 4 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 103 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-112 barre-parrales, p. and villafuerte-holguín, j. (english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador) of ecuador) between 2019-2021. furthermore, the study has been started within the framework of the consultancy involving 2 expert researchers in the efl instruction field and the observation of five public and four private schools located in the province of manabí. in terms of data analysis, the qualitative analysis used follows avraham (2016) strategies for processing the information using categories helped by the software atlas ti 8v. meanwhile for the statistical analysis to test the research hypothesis, it used spss, v25. as for the hypothesis, it’s formulated as follows: ho1: there are no significant changes between 2019 and 2021 regarding the implementation of clil in the private schools participating in this study. ho2: there are no significant changes between 2019 and 2021 regarding the implementation of clil in the public schools participating in this study. ho3: there are no significant differences regarding the implementation of clil between ecuadorian private and public schools between 2019 and 2021. 2.1. research participants the research participants presented in table 1 consisted of seventy efl teachers from nine educational institutions located in the province of manabi, ecuador. the participants reported to be between 28-45 years old with the average teaching experience of eight years. table 1. the sample secondary schools male female total schools public schools 3 2 5 1 3 1 4 1 2 4 6 1 1 4 5 1 2 13 5 1 private schools 4 1 5 1 5 3 8 1 4 1 5 1 13 4 7 1 total 37 (52.8%) 33 (47.2%) 70 (100%) 9 a. source: research project registers (jun/2019). 2.2. research instruments the instruments used in this research are the following. firstly, focus group discussion guide. focus group discussion guide was used to collect information from efl teachers concerning the efl instruction practice under ecuadorian policy during the covid19 pandemic. the instrument was designed ad hoc by the research team and validated by a panel of experts belonging to a public university located in manabí province and having vast experience in the fields of efl instruction, government policy, and social work. originally, the focus group discussion guide seven questions. however, the expert panel recommended using only five questions which are related to clil implementation. secondly, in-depth interview guide. this instrument aimed to collect teachers' opinions about the efl instruction in ecuador. the instrument was designed ad hoc, by the research team and validated by a panel of specialists consisting of 3 professionals who belong to a public university located in manabí province. these specialists have more than 10-year experience in education management, efl instruction, and government policy. as for the interview guide, it contained seven questions out of twelve as recommended by the panel. thirdly, observation form. the observation form used was the instructor perceptions of differentiated instruction of turner, solis and kincade (2017). it was adapted in such a way by the research so that it suited social and educational conditions of ecuador. the instrument was evaluated and validated by 3 specialists of a public university in manabí whose expertise are in efl instruction, education and psychology fields with more than 10-year experience. the 104 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-112 barre-parrales, p. and villafuerte-holguín, j. (english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador) instrument originally had 28 items, however, the panel recommended only 20 items. of these 20 items, five items were related to the demographic questions such as: sex, age, length of experience and training in clil methodology, and fifteen items were related to clil methodology implementation. 2.3. research procedures the research conducted through the executed the following stages. stage 1: selecting the participants. – the participants were english teachers from different educational institutions located in zone 4 of ecuador, district manta-montecrtisti-jaramijó. 70 out of the invited 100 teachers agreed to be part of the research. all of these participants signed an informed consent letter following the ethical research regulations of apa. the research project began in june /2019. stage 2: doing the observation process. – the instrument used during this stage was the instructor perceptions of differentiated instruction of turner, solis and kincade (2017). the research team adapted the instrument to an observation format in 2019. six groups of students (30 students) from an ecuadorian public university participated in the data collection process. the observation of the group 1 was carried out between dec/2019 mar/2020 before the covid19 pandemic. meanwhile observation of the group 2 was held during the pandemic using zoom application during sep-nov/2020. stage 3: designing guidelines for the focus group discussion and in-depth interview. – the instruments were developed by the research team in march/2020. a panel of specialists reviewed and validated the guidelines. stage 4: conducting focus group discussion. the activity was carried out in june 2020. nine teachers participated in it. following the apa ethics research procedures, the participants signed consent and informed letters. concerning to the pandemic of covid19, the focus group discussion was then conducted online using a teleconference application and lasted around an hour. stage 5: doing the interview. the interview was carried out in september/2020. as the focus group discussion conducter eralier, the interview was done online using zoom application due to the pandemic. the interview participants signed the informed consent letter following the ethics research procedure of apa. the interview lasted around an hour. stage 6: doing statistical analysis. – the statistical analysis was done using statistic package social science spss, v.24. considering all the critical points of the clil methodology, the present work gathered information contrasting virtual and face-to-face classes. the test applied was the wilcoxon test for related series with the p-value 0.050; stage 7: doing categorial analysis. the categories used in this analysis were: (1) teacher training for elf instruction. subcategories 1 comprised: (1.1.) teachers’ knowledge, (1.2.) teachers’ challenges for clil implementation, (2) challenges for teaching during the pandemic. meanwhile subcategories 2 consisted of: (2.1.) implementation advances, (2.2.) clil implementation limitations, and (3) materials and resources used for efl teaching during the pandemic time. and subcategories 3 included (3.1.) materials availability and (3.2.) resource availability. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. research findings the results presentation follows the order of the research questions formulated in the previous introduction section. 3.1.1. implementation of clil during 2019-2021 period in secondary schools of manabi, ecuador table 2 presents the analysis of teachers’ voices collected during focus group discussion. the fgd was conducted to collect information about participants’ clil knowledge and training and their challenges for implementing the methodology in 2019-2020 period during the covid19 pandemic. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 105 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-112 barre-parrales, p. and villafuerte-holguín, j. (english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador) table 2. teachers' challenges for the implementation of efl instruction policy in ecuador category 1: teacher training teachers’ knowledge teachers’ challenges for implementation e1.10 “we have not had strong training for efl online instruction. it was not part of the curriculum; it was not taught.” e4.17 “training processes have been so short that it has not had that follow-up cycle, where it was found that what was acquired is really being carried out in the classroom, that is why teachers fight and continue to ask for training." e7.22 “teachers with a lot of experience as teachers pay little attention to short trainings from the ministry of education. online instruction is something new for us” online education. teachers with limited training. teachers without experience about online education no available resources. no follow-up on clil use. teachers feel stress because the online education. category 2: challenges for teaching during the pandemic implementation advances implementation limitations e1.02. “we the teachers do not have the time for do too many activities students need to learn in a meaningful way. for me, the most complicate is to teach to students with disabilities.” e4.04. “many of the activities are not carried out due to the lack of materials in students’ houses. parents try to support their kids to carry out learning activities that for many of them do not make sense”. e6.12 “the limitation we have are too many. we should take decisions about what is the most relevant of the curriculum to teach. the most complicated for me is to apply evaluations. i have not permanent access to internet. limited class time. students are kept in learning activities. teaching basic grammar is prioritized. connectivity limitations. students support the students learning. limitation of access to devices category 3: materials and resources for efl teaching during the pandemic. materials’ availability resource’s availability e6.14 "the study guides are very heavy and long so that many students cannot see them on mobile electronic devices." e7.12 “to work on online education during this pandemic year 1, i have had to limit my classes to the fundamentals of teaching grammar. i feel unmotivated as a teacher”. e9. 14 “it's a shame, but i feel like i have regressed in class. we no longer have time to practice reading and listening comprehension, etc. students take little interest in learning efl.” poor quality internet. content’s priorities. limited time to teach online. the motivation to learn efl has decreased. less interest in learning efl b. source: focus group. jun/2020. category 1: teacher training. the evidence showed that teachers had limitations in the training process, which made it challenging to develop and transmit information that would facilitate joint learning and teachers' training about online education. those factors have affected the efficiency of the efl teaching process and their career development. category 2: challenges for teaching during covid19 pandemic. the evidence showed that teachers should encourage the learners' skills development while maintaining continuous attention. the implementation of clil had crucial limitations especially on the search for proactive teaching strategies and this resulted in students' less language production. category 3: the materials and resources for efl instruction during covid19 pandemic. the data showed that teachers did not have adequate didactic materials and resources for them to switch to an online learning mode. as a result, the students had lost interest in learning english. in such scenarios, clil methodology provided support for teachers to be trained in how to use the intended methodology, especially for social studies and science subjects. table 3 presents an analysis of the causes due to the decline in the use of clil methodology in efl classes during the pandemic. the categories used in this comparation were: (1) teachers training in clil methodology, (2) access to technology, and (3) attention given to efl subject. 106 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-112 barre-parrales, p. and villafuerte-holguín, j. (english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador) table 3. comparative analysis of efl instruction between public and private schools 2019-2021 public schools private schools (1) teachers` training about online teaching the teachers have not been trained in clil. teachers do not differentiate between soft clil and hard clil activities. the texts are designed with the face-to-face methodology, but the teachers do not know it. most of the schools apply soft clil (little articulation of the contents of natural sciences and history). teachers have been trained in the use of clil since 2017. teachers differentiate between soft clil and hard clil activities. the texts are designed with the clil method. teachers use hard clil in subjects as natural environment and sciences, history and geography. (2) techers’ access to ict for teaching during covid19 pandemic they have no online platforms to practice english classes using clil. the work guides are applied where all the weekly activities appear. a small part corresponds to efl. internet access limitations reduce the chances of advancing with classes with the clil method. they have online platforms to use clil in english classes. students having good connections can complete their schedule in online classes. teachers give priority to the class contains to warranty students advance in their learning. (3) attention given to efl subject insufficient time for online english classes to apply clil. parents do not attach importance to learning english. institutional policies prioritize the permanence of students in learning activity despite ict access limitations. mathematics and spanish language are prioritized as preparation for pisa. enough time of the online english classes to apply clil. parents place high importance on learning english. institutional policies prioritize the permanence of students in learning activity despite ict limitations. mathematics and spanish language are prioritized for the pisa exams. c. source: in-depth interview to efl teachers from zone 4 of ecuador. jun/2020. category 1: teacher training in online education. the evidence showed that private school teachers differentiated and created activities depending on whether the methodology was categorized into soft or hard clil; meanwhile, teachers in public schools did not differentiate between these two kinds of clil. as a consequence, teachers' productivity became lower and it limited student's achievement. category 2: access to ict during covid19 pandemic. the evidence showed that teachers of public schools informed that they had limitations to access technology. they had no specific platform for teaching and learning, and the students did not have mobile devices to join the online synchronous classes. in contrast, teachers of private schools showed good experience in using ict since they used to work with virtual platforms even before the pandemic occured. besides, parents from private schools gave high priority to online efl learning. category 3: attention given to efl subject. the evidence showed that in public schools the technical limitations and institutional policies did not give much attention to the english subject during the pandemic which eventually affected students' efl learning significantly. moreover, teachers had to direct their explanations to grammar topics only. as a result, they did not have time to do engaging learning activities like gamification or other engaging learning activities. on the contrary, the activities in the private schools were planned well and teachers had ample time to conduct each planned activity from introduction to evaluation. figure 1 shows the comparison of clil methodology implementation between 2019 (before the pandemic) and 2021 (during the pandemic). the private schools reduced their rate of clil methodology implementation from 30% 45% in advance in 2019 to 46% in advance in 2021. the implementation continued. meanwhile, clil implementation in public schools reduced from 15% in advance in 2019 to 13% in 2021. the students had online synchronous classes with their teachers once a week sharing 90 minute session as the other subjects. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 107 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-112 barre-parrales, p. and villafuerte-holguín, j. (english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador) private schools public schools fig. 1. : the contrast clil implementation in public and private schools of zone 4 of ecuador during 2019-2021. source: survey. project registers (july. /2021) the normality test of the kolmogorov-smirnov data series did not pass, as presented in table 4. therefore, nonparametric hypothesis tests should be conducted. table 4. normality tests of data series kolmogorov-smirnov a shapiro-wilk statistic gl sig. statistic gl sig. clil_private_2019 .148 25 .166 .906 25 .024 clil_private_2020 .247 25 .000 .866 25 .004 clil_public_2019 .400 25 .000 .642 25 .000 clil_public_2020 .368 25 .000 .745 25 .000 d. a. lilliefors significance correction ho1: there are no significant changes between 2019 and 2021 regarding the implementation of clil in the private schools participating in the research. to answer the ho1, the wilcoxon test for related series was administered with the p-value 0.050; and the result was 0.000. therefore, in table 5, it shows that the null hypothesis is rejected. it means that there are significant differences regarding the implementation of clil during 20192021 in the private schools participating in the study. table 5. hypothesis test report ho1 hipótesis nula test sig. decisión 1 la mediana de las diferencias entre clil_private_2019 y clil_private_2020 es igual a 0 prueba de wilcoxon de los rangos con signo de mestras relacionadas .000 rechazar la hipótesis nula. asymptotic significances are shown. the significance level is .050. ho2: there are no significant changes between 2019 and 2021 regarding the implementation of clil in the public schools participating in the research. in table 6, to answer the ho2, the wilcoxon test was administered for related series with the pvalue 0.050; the result is 0.000. therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected. it means that there are 108 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-112 barre-parrales, p. and villafuerte-holguín, j. (english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador) significant differences regarding the implementation of clil during 2019-2021 in public schools that participated in the study. table 6. hypothesis test report for ho2 hipótesis nula test sig. decisión 1 la mediana de las diferencias entre clil_private_2019 y clil_private_2020 es igual a 0 prueba de wilcoxon de los rangos con signo de mestras relacionadas .000 rechazar la hipótesis nula. asymptotic significances are shown. the significance level is .050. ho3: there are no significant differences regarding the use of clil between private and public schools in the periods 2019-2021. to answer the ho3, the independent sample median test was administered with the p-value 0.050; and the result was 0.000. therefore, table 7 shows that the null hypothesis is rejected. it means that there are significant differences regarding clil implementation during 2019 and 2021period between public and private schools that participated in the study. table 7. hypothesis test report for ho3 hipótesis nula test sig. decisión 1 la distribución de clil2020 es la misma entre las categorías de grupo prueba de mannwhitney de muestras independientes .000 rechazar la hipótesis nula. asymptotic significances are shown. the significance level is .050. 3.2. discussion based on the reviewed literature and the research results obtained, the authors argue that teachers of zone 4 of ecuador tend to consider implementing the methodology clil as a government decision imposed in the national efl curriculum. therefore, it is evident that efl teachers look at the curriculum as a learning approach to fulfill, instead of a tool in a permanent construction for improving the teaching and learning process. it is a situation that ratifies the mayora and gutiérrez (2019) position when teachers assume the curriculum only from the learning approach point of view. the information collected allows to help determining that there are differences in the efl teaching motivation between public and private school teachers. the results obtained ratify what wang and littlewood (2021) stated regarding motivation. as motivation is considered the strength capable of moving people to work harder and harder to reach the desired goal, teachers of public and private schools in ecuador have experienced different ways of managing their teaching motivation. moreover, the current covid19 condition has been putting the educational systems as well as teachers under high stress, which decreases their motivation in teaching. as for the results of the participants' voices, after analyzing them, the authors disagree with the ministry of education (2016) point of view regarding the pertinence of clil methodology for the efl online clases, especially when there’s a vast contrast between instruction expectations and the social, economic, and technological conditions of the families living in zone 4 of ecuador. this point of view is also argued by contreras, picazo, cordero-hidalgo and chaparro-medina (2021). they recommend considering students' context and limitations when planning certain school programs, including clil methodology. besides, there are no previous records in ecuador to affirm that clil can produce positive results in students' english language acquisition. it is like an unknown methodology for most of the efl teachers taking part in the research. as a result, especially among public school teachers, they tend to not put clil methodology into practice because they do not have enough knowledge about it. one of the solutions to such a circumstance is by giving teachers training on both methodology and technology. for this, the authors ratify issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 109 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-112 barre-parrales, p. and villafuerte-holguín, j. (english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador) contreras et al. (2021) regarding teachers' training on platforms and technological tools used for linguistic purposes. they recommend that the universities that train english teachers in ecuador should consider including clil methodology as one of the topics in their curriculum of efl teacher training program. another issue regarding clil implemetation is related to the intented subjects to teach. in practice, the students of public schools should attend online classes once a week for 90 minutes long by continuously listening to their teachers' explanations of such subjects as mathematics, literature, social studies, and english language. the main instruction for english teachers is to teach the target language and use it as the teaching approach for essential communication in everyday life. however, such a strategy is not clear for most of the teachers. using english separately among subjects is note ay to do because they consider everyday life involves comprehensive subjects including health and care topics, social life, family interaction, pets care, house organization, intergeneration communication, and sports practice. in regards with learning media, in harmony with karimi et al. (2019), the authors argue that the use of recycled objects as educational materials can effectively allow students to strengthen their learning environment and nature conservation attitudes. meanwhile, regarding the use of graphic organizers, pazan-torres et al. (2017) and antropova (2021) state that it provides learners with more possibilities to remember more information during online efl classes. as for the problems arising during the learning process, both public and private school teachers have experienced them though differently. private school teachers participating in the research state that they have shortcomingsin regarding issue of the efl standards and the way of handling the curriculum in a practical level. one of the causes of this is because they commonly use imported books with less local contextualization. meanwhile, base don the results, public school teachers face more complex problems. it is evident that because public schools have limitations of internet connectivity, teacher training on clil, and limited access to didactic materials as well, it has caused teachers feel difficult in implementing clil methodology in their clases. in sum, the observation of efl classes in nine educational institutions taking part in the research allows affirming that clil methodology implementation in ecuador has been reduced. besides, the collected data also allows inferring that the way how the ecuadorian government educational policy has been implemented or practised differently by teachers of public and privates schools. in terms of what way to improve the efl quality and thus to move the ecuadorian english knowledge index towards better place in english global index, it is probably necessary to improve teachers' training programs. when teachers are better trained, the students will have better english proficiency and viceversa. and when the students have low efl proficiency, it will make them hard to access international scholarships to continue their studies abroad. 4. conclusion the research concluded remarkable differences in the clil methodology implementation process between public and private schools in zone 4 of ecuador during 2019-2021. regarding covid19 pandemic, the results confirm that pandemic had impacted negatively on the implementation of clil during 2020-2021. results show private schools passed from clil implementation progress speed of 45% in 2019 (before covid19) to 46% implementation. having only 1% of improvement. however, public schools passed from 15% clil implementation progress in 2019 to 13% (-2%) in 2020. this phenomenon is probably related to the lack of internet connectivity, especially in rural schools, and institutional policies that gives more priorities to subjects such as as mathematics and national language. hopefully, the study enriches the information regarding clil implementation and can be useful for institutions which are in charge of evaluating government policy implementation. besides, schools can use the information to make decisions concerning efl instruction. the weakness of thisstudy, however, could be related to the size of its corpus (seventy efl teachers from nine secondary schools), which does not allow to generalize the results to all efl teachers of this geographical zone. finally, the authors invite other researchers to direct new studies to generate new information about the state of clil methodology in ecuador and other latin american countries. 110 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 99-112 barre-parrales, p. and villafuerte-holguín, j. (english as a foreign language instruction in ecuador) acknowledgment: the authors would like to thank universidad laica eloy alfaro de manabí for the support on this research process. declarations: this work subscribes to the research projects of the faculty of education science of the universidad laica eloy alfaro in manabí, ecuador. (1) project ‘comprensión lectora y escritura académica lea: cambiando vidas desde la educación para la paz, 2021’ and (2) project ‘innovación y desarrollo de procesos educativos 2018-2021’. author contribution : pbp: initiated the research ideas, instrument construction, data collection, analysis, and draft writing; jvh revised the research ideas, literature review, data presentation and statistics analysis, and the final draft. funding statement : non apply. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information: no additional information is available for this paper. references akila, s. & ilankumaran, m. 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(2020). who director-general’s opening remarks at the media briefing on covid-19 1 april 2020 (p. 1). https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-directorgeneral-sopening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---1-april-2020 (accessed 6 january 2021). english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5770 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id psychosocial learning environments: efl learners’ voices during a pandemic bora demira,1,*, scott l. walkerb,2 açanakkale onsekiz mart university, school of foreign languages, çanakkale, turkey b northwest vista college, san antonio, texas, united states 1dbora76@yahoo.com*; 2swalker6@alamo.edu * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 17 february 2022 revised 23 april 2022 accepted 27 april 2022 the aim of this study was to investigate university students’ psychosocial apperceptions between face-to-face and emergency remote learning environments they experienced in the same academic term during the 2019-ncov (coronavirus) pandemic of 2020. utilizing a mixed methods study design, our investigation involved quantitative data collection with the deles-tr instrument, followed by online focus group interviews with questions derived from the survey results to gain a deeper understanding of students’ perspectives of both educational environments. english as a foreign language students (n=687) from çanakkale onsekiz mart university, turkey participated in the study. the results indicated that students preferred the face-to-face environment over emergency remote learning due to difficulty in communication with instructors and peers and requiring students to take an active, responsible, and accountable role in their own learning in the remote learning environment. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords psychosocial learning environments distance education learning environments survey (deles) turkish higher education covid-19 pandemic how to cite: demir, b., & walker, s. l. (2022). psychosocial learning environments: efl learners’ voices during a pandemic. english language teaching educational journal, 5(1), 16-31. 1. introduction like many other countries under the threat of pandemic in early 2020, turkey shifted to emergency remote learning with the aim of keeping both students and faculty safe. however, the hastily developed emergency remote learning experience, offered as a part of general precautions taken for the public health, was distinctive from well-planned online learning experiences since the administrators, instructors, and students were not prepared for emergency remote teaching (hodges et al., 2020). exceptionally, the students had to experience both face-to-face and remote education in one single academic term. due to the nature of this unprecedented circumstance, we were without previous psychosocial learning environments research on which to fall back or review at the onset of this investigation, as affirmed by hagedorn et al. (2022). however, the situation enabled us to make a comparison between these two modes of learning; face-to-face and remote. through in-depth analyses of both quantitative and qualitative data, this study provides evidence from students’ voices to the question whether the shift from in-class learning to emergency remote learning during the covid-19 crisis worked for students or not, and to what extent. 1.1. school closures and sequestration during crisis events school closures during crisis events are nothing new. for instance, in the 14thcentury the black death infected students and teachers at winchester grammar school in oxford, england, closing the file:///c:/users/muhammadwildan/downloads/10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5770 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index about:blank about:blank mailto:swalker6@alamo.edu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8187-3206 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3074-1654 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5770&domain=pdf issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 17 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 demir, b. & walker, s.l., (psychosocial learning environments …..) school (boothman & cook, 2012). the 1918 “spanish flu” influenza virus closed schools in sweden (holtenius & gillman, 2014) and elsewhere. similarly, other crises have impacted instruction and have caused need for rapid instructional modifications. for example, in hungary “…in the last two school years of world war ii, many students did not attend school for more than 5 months…” (illéyi, 2020, para. 1). rather, teachers who were not defending the country were guided to use “circular letters”—letters from teachers to students, then back to teachers—to keep in communication with their students (hungarian spectrum, 2020, para. 5). an earlier societal crisis caused a rapid shift from faceto-face learning to distance education. during world war i the french ministry of education quickly shifted to distance learning by forming the centre national d’enseignement à distance (cned) in 1939 to educate children whose schools had closed due to the war (holmberg, 2008). 1.2. school closures and rapid shifts in education during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic school systems in china began to close as early as february 8, 2020, due to the outbreak of what we now know as the 2019-ncov (novel coronavirus) (cdc, 2020). by march 31, 2020, most school systems around the world, including tertiary-level schools, were closed, affecting over 1.6 billion learners (unesco, 2020)—an unprecedented number of students, their instructors, administrators, and support staff. turkey experienced a nationwide school shutdown on march 16, 2020, impacting over 24.9 million students, 7.2 million (28.9%) of those students were post-secondary level learners (unesco, 2020). by march 23, turkey’s ministry of education began teaching primary and secondary education online and through the education information network television (turkish ministry of education, 2020). however, unlike primary and secondary schools, universities in turkey had to resort to continuing the school year on their own accord. like much of the rest of the world, turkish universities rapidly shifted to emergency remote learning rather than ending the academic year unfinished. one turkish university, çanakkale onsekiz mart university (çomü), began offering coursework in synchronous and asynchronous formats on march 30, 2020, where the synchronous lessons were conducted via microsoft teams (sondakika.com, 2020). unlike school closures due to long-term crisis events in previous centuries, post-secondary education relied heavily on technology to finish out the academic year in early 2020. 1.3. remote education learning environments in this paper we distinguish between emergency remote learning and distance/online learning. distance education has a substantially long history interceded by online learning at a distance that involves web-based digital tools and learning environments. in many higher education settings, distance learning has strong support and has become an institutionally embedded standard of higher education. emergency remote learning, on the other hand, was a result of a sudden shift midway through the first term of 2020. this was a crisis-driven higher education situation that involved a rapid shift from face-to-face classes to classes reliant on synchronous digital tools and environments most higher education instructors were not prepared for or even interested in participating (craig, 2020; hodges et al., 2020). likewise, in the emergency remote learning scenario, students who were enrolled in face-to-face classes at the beginning of the 2020 academic year were also not prepared, necessarily interested in, or adept at learning through synchronous and asynchronous digital environments. the focus of this paper is concerned with students’ apperceptions-making sense of a new experience by assimilating it with prior experience-of the psychosocial environment initiated by the sudden shift to emergency remote learning. 1.4. psychosocial learning environments the history of inquiry into psychosocial learning environments reaches back to the 1970s with anderson and walberg (1974), and moos (1976). moos noted that “the growth of new institutional environments has increased the need for accurate descriptions of these environments.” he expanded that notion by stating, “…currently available descriptions of social environments are inadequate. the environment is usually described as it is seen by a small and unrepresentative sample of the people in it… in addition, no ‘feel’ of how the environment actually functions is provided” (moos, 1976, p. 351). moos’ declaration concerning new institutional environments was just as relevant in the 2020 pandemic-fueled learning milieu as it was five decades ago. 18 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 demir, b. & walker, s.l., (psychosocial learning environments …..) psychosocial environments are durable human ecology qualities that give social spaces their vulnerability and strengths. moos outlined this social ecosystem as having three enduring dimensions of: (1) relationship, (2) personal growth, and (3) system maintenance and change (moos, 1974, 2002). these dimensions tend to be preserved in the settings in which we find ourselves, including educational environments. further, these dimensions are “highly salient for the people who live and work in them…and profoundly influence their morale and behavior” (moos, 1996, p. 194). in terms of psychosocial learning environments, there are positive links between the environment and student outcomes, where positive student perceptions of their learning environment tend to support positive student outcomes (fraser, 2018). thus, by measuring the extent to which students perceive relationships, personal growth, and system maintenance and change in the classroom, we can learn a lot about the potential for positive student outcomes and work to adjust learning environment dimensions in order to support students in the short term and “…to develop better theories about environments’ underlying patterns and dynamics” (moos, 1996, p. 195) in the longer term. measurement of psychosocial learning environments has a 30-year history and is often investigated using survey instruments to gauge students’ first-hand perceptions of their environment. student viewpoints are strong indicators of their learning environment given that they themselves are experts in learning environments, having spent over “20,000 hours” as learners in a variety of learning environments by the time they complete a university degree (fraser, 2018, p. 2). while research on psychosocial learning environments have focused on learner perceptions about using such educational settings, this study differs from previous research in that it aims to understand the change in learners’ opinions about learning english by using both physical (face-to-face) and emergency remote learning during the same academic term. on the other hand, the majority of the related research try to provide conceptualizations of the relationship between both modes of learning. however, most of them fail to make comparisons by focusing either on physical or psychosocial learning environments (baars et al., 2021). this study also establishes comparisons of the two learning environments by focusing on various sub-dimensions namely, instructor support, student interaction, collaboration, personal relevance, authentic learning, active learning, and student autonomy (hagedorn et al., 2022). the present study also differs from previous research on psychosocial learning environments since it covers several student and teacher related factors. while previous research has also provided several findings for learner psychology (olawale et al., 2021), learner experiences (oliveira et al., 2021), and general psychological impacts of distance teaching (romeo et al., 2021), this study is significant in providing findings by focusing on several aspects of psychosocial learning environments in a single study. 1.5. aim of this study the aim of this study was to quantitatively and qualitatively ascertain students’ psychosocial learning environment apperceptions during a pandemic. we investigated students’ views of their faceto-face learning environment and the same students’ views after the shift to emergency remote learning using a validated survey instrument. using an economical and efficient survey instrument offered insight related to a broad picture of the extent of “what” students perceived. we followed the quantitative study (phase i) with a set of focus group interviews (phase ii) of a sample of the same students in order to gain a more nuanced student perspective of “why” they perceived what they did. the contributions of our study are the (1) demonstration of applied mixed-methods research to give voice to students through focus groups, to (2) demonstrate a method of rapidly gathering psychosocial perspectives from a representative sample of a large student body for practical relevance in the institute. for the quantitative phase of our study, we worked from the hypothesis that students would perceive the remote class psychosocial learning environment less favorable than the face-to-face learning environment. because we estimated that owing to the sudden shift from face-to-face-to learning to emergency remote learning, the instructors would have difficulty in modifying the new learning environment in terms of teaching materials, methods, and online teaching skills which in turn would create an obstacle for establishing an efficient learning environment. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 19 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 demir, b. & walker, s.l., (psychosocial learning environments …..) immediately following the shift to emergency remote teaching the institution organized online meetings for the instructors on topics such as the effective use of the online teaching platform, designing materials for online use, and outlining methods for assessment. specifically, for the english as a foreign language course, the school of foreign languages provided the content of the course textbook, implemented the use of microsoft teams, and reframed the class in a more simplified version since many of the students were relying on their smartphones to participate in the class. 2. method to analyze students’ apperceptions regarding psychosocial learning environment characteristics between face-to-face and emergency remote learning during the 2020 global 2019-ncov pandemic, we gathered quantitative and qualitative data from students at çanakkale onsekiz mart university in çanakkale, turkey. our investigation utilized a mixed methods study design that involved quantitative data collection with a survey instrument followed by interviews of students with questions derived from the survey results. the sections below outline each of the two phases of the study. 2.1. instruments 2.1.1. phase i quantitative study: survey instrument for the quantitative data collection phase of our study, we administered a modified version of the turkish language distance education learning environments survey (deles-tr) which is a 34item psychosocial learning environment instrument designed specifically to measure university students’ apperceptions about the distance education learning environment in which they are immersed (author, 2020). the original english-language deles has six psychosocial scales: instructor support (8 items), student interaction and collaboration (6 items), personal relevance (7 items), authentic learning (5 items), active learning (3 items), and student autonomy (5 items) (see table 1). the response choices were: 1 = never, 2 = seldom, 3 = sometimes, 4 = often, and 5 = always. participants were asked, using the modified deles-tr administered online via qualtrics core xm (2020), to provide responses to each of 34 items for the pre-pandemic face-to-face context of their class and then the emergency remote learning context in which they experienced after the university shifted to emergency remote learning. hence, the survey included 68 psychosocial items in total, not including demographic items. sample items that were piloted with a small group of students prior to the study (n=170), read as (translated to english): in this class, during… 1a. classroom learning: when i have a question, the teacher devotes enough time to answer. 1b. emergency remote learning: when i have a question, the teacher devotes enough time to answer. each item utilized the five-point response scale of the original deles, thereby resulting in one 34-itemdata set related to the pre-pandemic face-to-face version of the class and a second 34-item data set related to class experience during emergency remote learning, allowing for a comparative analysis of students’ perceptions of the two learning environments for the same class with the same instructor. 2.1.2. survey population our sample frame was the entire population of all freshman students enrolled in 117 english as a foreign language (efl) classes in çomü during the spring 2020 semester when the 2019-ncov pandemic occurred. as a part of the measures taken for the pandemic, after five weeks of face-to-face education, the efl course was migrated to a combination synchronous and asynchronous emergency remote learning format. we administered the instrument six weeks after the shift to remote teaching while students were still taking their classes. the efl class population was estimated at 6,200 students. thus, to achieve a probability sample with a 95% confidence level and 5% confidence interval, we aimed to collect survey responses from a minimum of 362 students. 20 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 demir, b. & walker, s.l., (psychosocial learning environments …..) table 1. deles scales, descriptions, and items in relation to moos’ social ecology dimensions moos’ dimension scale scale description items relationship – individuals are involved in the environment and support/help each other; personal relationships between inhabitants; involvement, affiliation, support, assistance, peer cohesion instructor support extent to which an instructor is approachable and responds quickly with feedback 8 student interaction & collaboration extent to which students have opportunities to interact with one another, exchange information and engage in collaboration 6 personal development – opportunity afforded by the environment for selfenhancement and development of selfesteem; personal growth and development; autonomy, independence, intellectuality, academic achievement, competition personal relevance relationship between students’ out-of-school experience and their classroom experience 7 authentic learning extent to which students have the opportunity to solve realworld problems that are authentic 5 active learning extent to which students have the opportunity take an active role in their learning 3 system maintenance & change – the environment is orderly, clear in expectation, control, responsive to change, order, organization, clarity, control student autonomy extent to which students have opportunities to initiate ideas and make their own learning decisions, and the locus of control is student oriented 5 (walker, 2020) 2.1.3. phase ii qualitative study: focus group interviews in addition to the quantitative data collection, we conducted online focus groups of survey participants using a stratified purposeful sampling approach. we used focus group interviews since they establish a natural environment for discussion in contrast to single interviews (krueger& casey, 2000) and provide further interpretation of survey results (merton, 1987). we organized three groups of four students each for triangulation purposes and to avoid groupthink (hennink, 2014; ruiz, 2017). the focus group questions were based on the results of our quantitative survey comparison of means analysis arranged by deles-tr scales to facilitate organization and comparison. three 45 to 60-minute interviews were recorded and transcribed in order to allow for a content analysis using qda miner 4 lite (2020) and to identify themes and categories (miles et al., 2014). 3. findings this section outlines our two-phase study, presenting the quantitative results first, followed by the qualitative results. we developed customized qualitative items and sampling based on the results of the deles-tr instrument administration. 3.1. phase i quantitative study: survey instrument results we distributed the instrument to approximately 4,000 students and received 933 deles-tr responses (23%) during a one-week administration period and analyzed those data using jasp 12.2 (2020). of those responses 687(73.6%) were complete and usable. most of the non-usable responses followed a partial non-response pattern, likely the result of respondent fatigue due to the nature of a 68-item survey where the mean response time was slightly over 10 minutes. 3.1.1. demographics results of the population sampled, 261 students were male (38%) and 426 were female (62%). the mean student age was 20 years old in a range of 18 years old to 45 years old. we determined that 56% of the students accessed the emergency remote learning portion of their class by smartphone, followed by 31% using a computer to access the class. the remainder used a tablet device or a combination of devices. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 21 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 demir, b. & walker, s.l., (psychosocial learning environments …..) 3.1.2. validity and reliability results considering that we applied the deles-tr in a non-standard manner—usually it is administered to collect psychosocial learning environments perceptions of 100% distance education classes—we conducted exploratory factor analysis to determine if the a priori scales held up in this unique situation. we treated the data as two subsets: one pre-pandemic face-to-face class subset and the other during-pandemic emergency remote learning subset. we refer to these subsets here as before and after data. the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) test of sampling adequacy for the before-data subset was 0.89, while the bartlett’s sphericity test resulted inp<.001. similarly, the after-data subset also proved adequate (kmo=0.95, bartlett’s sphericity test p<.001). factor loadings for the face-to-face class portion (before subset) demonstrated strong a priori loads (0.57 to 0.78) on the scale of instructor support and scale of student interaction & collaboration. however, the scales of personal relevance and authentic learning did not support the a priori model and loaded strong on the same factor (0.57 to 0.74). likewise, data for the scales of active learning and student autonomy loaded strong as one factor (0.53 to 0.71). correspondingly, factor loadings for the emergency remote learning portion of the class (after subset) also demonstrated strong a priori loading (0.65 to 0.80) on the scale of instructor support and scale of student interaction & collaboration; similarly, the scales of personal relevance and authentic learning loaded high on the same factor (0.56 to 0.70), diverging from the a priori structure. comparably, data for the scales of active learning and student autonomy loaded strong as one factor (0.60 to 0.76). thus, for the remaining analyses and the qualitative design we combined scales as presented in table 2. reliability of our refined deles-tr was strong using cronbach’s alpha coefficient as the measure. coefficients ranged from 0.87 to 0.96 across scales (see table 2) and was calculated as .96 for the entire data set (before subset α=0.95, after subset α=0.97). table 2. cronbach’s alpha coefficients by scale revised deles-tr scales number of items α instructor support before 8 .91 instructor support after 8 .93 student interaction & collaboration before 6 .91 student interaction & collaboration after 6 .92 personal relevance + authentic learning before 12 .94 personal relevance + authentic learning after 12 .96 active learning + student autonomy before 8 .87 active learning + student autonomy after 8 .91 n=687 3.1.3. comparison of means results in order to investigate the hypothesis that students would perceive the emergency remote learning psychosocial learning environment less favorable than the face-to-face learning environment we conducted a comparison of means analysis using a paired-samples t-test and descriptive analyses using the revised scales of the deles-tr. the data subsets were normal where in the before subset m = 3.8, mdn = 3.8, rku = -0.11, skewness = -0.34 and in the after subset m = 3.2, mdn = 3.3, rku = 0.63, skewness = -0.14. as presented in table 3, there is a drop in mean for each before/after scale were 1 = never, 2 = seldom, 3 = sometimes, 4 = often, and 5 = always. the correlation between scale subsets was positive, significant, and strong with the exception of the active learning + autonomy scale, which also has the least difference in means. we conducted a paired-samples t-test to compare the before and after means on the four scales of the modified deles-tr. there was a significant difference in the means for all subscales as presented in table 4. the t-test results demonstrate that shifting from a face-to-face learning environment to an emergency remote learning environment resulted in students viewing the face-to-face psychosocial learning environment more favorably than they did the resulting emergency remote learning environment. 22 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 demir, b. & walker, s.l., (psychosocial learning environments …..) table 3. means, standard deviations, correlations, and significance by scale revised deles-tr scales m δ sd r p instructor support before 4.13 .54 0.23 .86 .006 instructor support after 3.59 0.30 student interaction & collaboration before 3.32 .77 0.21 .98 .000 student interaction & collaboration after 2.55 0.24 personal relevance + authentic learning before 3.76 .75 0.16 .72 .008 personal relevance + authentic learning after 3.01 0.15 active learning + student autonomy before 3.99 .38 0.16 .54 .163 active learning + student autonomy after 3.61 0.15 n=687 table 4. results of a paired-samples t-test revised scales m sd sem lower upper t df p instructor support 0.54 0.16 0.06 0.4 0.67 9.51 7 .000 student interaction & collaboration 0.77 0.05 0.02 0.71 0.82 36.37 5 .000 personal relevance & authentic learning 0.75 0.12 0.03 0.68 0.82 22.25 11 .000 active learning & student autonomy 0.38 0.15 0.05 0.25 0.5 7.13 7 .000 n=687, p = two tailed. overall, after data analyses, we reduced the original deles-tr scales from six to four and determined good instrument and scale reliability. comparison of means data suggest a drop in students’ apperceptions of their english as a foreign language class learning environment when it shifted from face-to-face to remote as visualized in figure 1. instructor support had the strongest before mean (4.13, often occurring) and remained relatively strong after shifting to emergency remote learning (m=3.59, just above sometimes occurring). in contrast, student interaction and collaboration was low to begin with (m=3.32, sometimes occurring) and fell even lower (m=2.55, just above seldom occurring) during emergency remote learning. the least difference in means was that occurring on the scale of active learning + student autonomy (before m=3.99, often; after m=3.61, nearly often occurring). 1.6. phase ii qualitative method: interviews this section presents findings of the qualitative analysis based on focus group interviews in accordance with each scale of the modified deles-tr. each section provides existing links between the t-test results obtained from the survey data and the themes and categories obtained from the analysis of the focus group interviews. question 1: what are the differences between face-to-face and emergency remote learning regarding instructor support? fig. 1. means of the modified deles-tr scale data before and after subsets. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 23 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 demir, b. & walker, s.l., (psychosocial learning environments …..) the results of the content analysis with reference to the first question had the most input and revealed eight different themes under four main categories (see table 5). these categories are interaction with instructors, communication problems, technical problems, and lack of motivation. table 5. categories and themes for responses to question 1 category theme description count frequency interaction with instructors gestures and body language students understand better when they observe (see) instructors teaching in the classroom. 7 11.1% feeling away from instructors remote education feels like learners are not close to instructors. 7 11.1% eye contact with instructors students learn better when they have eye contact with instructors in the classroom. 9 14.3% communication problems hard to communicate students think that remote education is not an easy way to communicate with instructors. 7 11.1% hesitate for communication students think participating in remote learning might interrupt the lesson due to time limitations. 13 20.6% technical problems internet connection problems students cannot follow the online classes because of internet problems. 4 6.3% lack of motivation demotivated instructors instructors are less motivated in remote education when compared to face-to-face education. 5 7.9% demotivated learners learners think remote learning is not motivating. 11 17.5% the first category, “interaction with instructors” includes three main themes, namely gestures and body language, feeling distant from instructors, and eye contact with instructors. findings suggest that a remarkable number of the participants provided responses that included expressions, pointing out the importance of observing the instructors in the classroom as they were teaching (f=16). students emphasized the importance of seeing the instructor in the classroom during face-to-face learning. however, many believed the lack of eye contact and physical interaction in the remote education environment as obstacles to learning and mutual understanding. s:“…when we were in the classroom, the instructors were able to get feedback from our eyes, gestures, and mimics. but in emergency remote learning most of the students do not turn their webcams on. however, in face-to-face learning, you cannot hide your facial expressions. it is easier both for the students and the instructors to understand each other with physical support”. interestingly, very few participants (f=4) reported their internet connection problems as a hindrance for getting instructor support in emergency remote learning. however, in the few cases where they did have difficulty, they seemed to “check out” of learning. b: “…during online classes the internet quality gets weaker and i have to close the video stream and only have the chance to listen to the instructor. however, sometimes it is even worse. i find myself disconnected from the class. this is so annoying that i do not even try to reconnect to the team”. additionally, some of the participants (f=20) stated that they found it hard to communicate in the emergency remote learning environment and they avoided asking questions or making comments due 24 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 demir, b. & walker, s.l., (psychosocial learning environments …..) to time limitations. according to the participants, it is also clear that both the learners and the instructors were less motivated to communicate compared to the face-to-face educational environment (f=16). question 2: what are the differences between face-to-face and emergency remote learning regarding student communication and collaboration? the analysis addressing the second question revealed five different themes under two main categories (see table 6). these categories were socialization (f=16) and student collaboration (f=13). table 6. categories and themes for responses to question 2 categor y theme description count frequency socialization no social time with friends students are not happy with remote learning since they cannot meet their friends. 6 20.7% less communication with friends students have less communication with their classmates during remote education. 7 24.1% less fun students do not enjoy remote education. 3 10.3% student collaboration ineffective collaboration students believe that online collaboration is not effective and is time consuming. 10 34.3% less opportunity for collaboration students think they have less opportunity for collaboration in remote learning. 3 10.3% for the socialization category, the participants’ arguments mostly focused on the social aspect of face-to-face learning (f=16). most of the participants complained about lack of social contact with peers during remote education. since they do not have the opportunity to meet their friends, they think it is not as fun of a way of learning. m:“...i can still ask questions to my friends by using whatsapp. however, that is not the point. we cannot meet and chat anymore. we used to go to social places together before, but unfortunately, we don’t have that chance in emergency remote learning”. the participants also reported similar complaints about remote collaboration (f=13). they believed that although there are several means of communication available, none of them are as effective as face-to-face collaboration and trying to learn from others is time consuming when they are remote. k:“…when we had face-to-face interaction, information exchange was much faster. as we were discussing a problem, others could contribute and share their ideas, so we were able to find quick solutions. also, we used to gather for doing assignments and projects at the library. however, things are harder in emergency remote learning. you cannot get answers to your questions all the time. when we were at school, we could collaborate more effectively and solve our problems with the help of others”. question 3: what are the differences between face-to-face and emergency remote learning regarding personal relevance and authentic learning? the results of the analysis related to the third question revealed four different themes under two main categories namely authentic learning (f=16), and personal relevance (f=8) (see table 7). the analysis revealed (f=16) students’ criticism of remote education for not being a genuine learning experience. in general, they stated that emergency remote learning failed in offering language practice opportunities such as interactive classroom activities, pair work, and role playing—an issue related to instruction rather than delivery mode. as a result, they considered remote education as an unreal way of language learning since they have less opportunity to use and practice the foreign language they learn. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 25 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 demir, b. & walker, s.l., (psychosocial learning environments …..) a:“…learning english in the classroom was what i would prefer. because, we were able to use english in the classroom by the help of role-play activities. in remote education, we didn’t have any pair or group work activities. i think this is not a realistic way of learning a foreign language. languages are best learnt with interaction”. table 7. categories and themes for responses to question 3 category theme description count frequency authentic learning not an active way of language learning interactive classroom activities cannot be performed in remote education. 4 16.7% no practical application students cannot practice what they learn in remote learning. 5 20.8% no real learning remote learning does not feel like real learning. 7 29.2% personal relevance less sharing of experiences less opportunity for transferring their experiences into remote classes. 8 33.3% as for the personal relevance category, the participants reported that they thought sharing their experiences or their prior knowledge during remote classes was irrelevant since it might be time consuming or not suitable for an emergency remote learning setting. b:“…when we were learning in the classroom, we had more chances of giving examples or mentioning something relevant to the topic. however, in [remote] classes i feel that giving extra information based on my prior knowledge would not be suitable and even time consuming. we have limited time and i feel like i would bother others if i take extra turns. as a result, i stay silent instead of making a contribution to the lesson”. question 4: what are the differences between face-to-face and emergency remote learning regarding active learning and student autonomy? the analysis addressing the fourth question revealed three different themes under two main categories (see table 8). these categories were active learning (f=4) and student autonomy (f=16). table 8. categories and themes for responses to question 4 category theme description count frequency active learning opportunity for active learning students believe remote education supports active learning since they are on their own. 4 20% student autonomy not suitable for my approach to learning the flexible schedule of classes is not suitable for some students’ approaches to learning since they feel like they have less control on their learning. 9 45% requires much responsibility students think they are more responsible for their own learning in remote learning. 7 35% it is interesting to note that the participants commented in favor of emergency remote learning only for the active learning category. some of the participants believed that remote education supported active learning since they were on their own and actively solved their own problems. according to those participants, emergency remote learning led them to become more involved and responsible for their learning when compared to the face-to-face learning environment. a:“i never felt myself active in the classroom. because, there was someone asking or answering the questions, taking notes, or helping on assignments. however, in emergency 26 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 demir, b. & walker, s.l., (psychosocial learning environments …..) remote learning you don’t have these advantages since you are in front of the screen on your own. it didn’t take too long for me to realize that i would fail if i did not become active”. similarly, the participants had the idea that emergency remote learning required a good deal of learner responsibility when compared with in-class learning. some participants used the word “responsibility” in a negative sense while others used it as something positive that referred to their self-efficacy and being a better learner. f:“when we were in the classroom, we could ask instant questions to our friends and instructors easily. but now it is not always possible to find someone to help from home. this led me to try hard to find my own answers by doing research on the web. i feel more responsibility about my own learning, and i believe i am doing well so far. i feel more confident about my capacity to learn something by myself”. additionally, the majority of the students (f=9) in this category reported emergency remote learning as unsuitable for their learning approaches since they felt as if they lost the control of their learning. s:“i am kind of a student who prefers to keep control of his learning by planning his time. during face-to-face learning this was easy because we had a fixed weekly program and we could plan the rest of the day according to that. however, in [remote] learning, our program is flexible and depends mostly on the availability of the teachers. i find this quite demotivating for individual study. i feel like i have lost the control of my own learning”. almost all the participants’ apperceptions related to remote education were negative. many found it exhausting to spend a long time in front of their screen, even though the average time this age group spends online is more than seven hours per day (phipps et al., 2020). as a new psychosocial learning environment, they were pessimistic, even about some of the advantages of emergency remote learning such as the opportunity to watch recorded class videos at their leisure. they thought that being able to watch the content as a recorded video at any time made them less thoughtful during remote classes and demotivated them to actively take notes, which they were doing in face-to-face classes. 4. discussion with no contemporary investigations of pandemic induced rapid shifts in global education upon which to rely at the onset of our study (hagedorn et al. 2022), aside from non-peer reviewed situational descriptions such as those of craig (2020) and hodges et al. (2020), we had no psychosocial learning environments research to compare or contrast our work prior to our study. therefore, we relied upon well-established qualitative (ex. krueger & casey, 2000; merton, 1987, ruiz, 2017) and quantitative (ex. anderson & walberg, 1974; fraser, 2018, moos, 1976, 1996) methods to investigate the situation at hand. however, post research several studies emerged and could be categorized into these broad, semi-related categories: student stress and wellness (co et al., 2021; olawale et al., 2021), teacher affect (zou et al., 2021), general exploratory student experience investigations (hagedorn et al., 2022; oliveira et al., 2021; mcmaughan et al., 2021), and general psychosocial impacts such as those related to employment and work-home environments (romeo et al., 2021). however, none of these studies looked exclusively at psychosocial learning environments. mcmaughan et al. (2021, p. 10), however, came to the conclusion that students had “neutral feelings” related to online learning, which did not align with our results. in our study of the unprecedented and rapid shift from a face-to-face learning environment to an emergency remote learning environment during a global pandemic, university-level students’ apperceptions measured with the deles-tr (phase i) confirmed our hypothesis that students would perceive the remote class psychosocial learning environment less favorably than the face-to-face learning environment. the phase ii qualitative follow-up study component substantiated why. on the scale of instructor support students began rating the learning environment at m=4.13 (often) and ended the term in the emergency remote learning environment at m=3.59 (close to sometimes). many of the focus group respondents attributed this drop to their own hesitation to interrupt in a videoconference learning environment. this situation could be mitigated through instructional methods, to include the instructor stopping more frequently to ask for questions or issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 27 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 demir, b. & walker, s.l., (psychosocial learning environments …..) establishing a social environment that encourages interruption for questions. further, in contrast to students in the united states, where “…an untold number of college and university students [were] living in homes without a broadband connection” (campus technology, 2020, para. 1) and many without any internet access, including instructors (mcmurtrie, 2020), çomü students reported few problems with internet connectivity—over half of the sample accessing their remote class via smartphone. the scale of student interaction & collaboration demonstrated the weakest learning environment characteristic (m=3.32, sometimes occurring) in the face-to-face environment and fared even worse in the remote scenario (m=2.55, halfway between seldom and sometimes), the largest drop in student apperception amongst the four scales. the majority responded that the emergency remote learning environment was simply not effective, and any collaboration was time consuming. however, this characteristic being low both before and after the change in learning environment suggests that instructors may want to consider how to increase student interaction and collaboration in all instructional scenarios. personal relevance + authentic learning, two scales of the original deles-tr that we combined into one considering their factor loadings, also demonstrated a substantial decrease in psychosocial characteristics in the eyes of the students—moving from nearly often occurring (m=3.76) to only sometimes occurring (m=3.01). personal relevance, which was related to students solving their own problems, seeking their own answers, and exploring their own learning strategies, despite being statistically related to authentic learning, appeared to have had the strongest impression (f=33.3%) upon students who reported having reservations about conveying their prior knowledge primarily due to time limitations and the less spontaneous video conference-oriented emergency remote learning environment. nearly as strong, a theme of “no real learning” (f=29.2%) emerged where students perceived the learning environment as being disingenuous due to the lack of collaborative abilities found in a face-to-face setting. active learning + student autonomy, two more combined scales, had the least difference between means, m=3.99 (often occurring) and 3.61 (about halfway between sometimes and often occurring) respectively. results demonstrated these were strong psychosocial learning environment characteristics to begin with and remained so after the shift to emergency remote learning. despite the smallest drop in means, nearly half (f=45%) of the students interviewed reflected that emergency remote learning was not suited to their learning preferences due to a loss in locus of control. in contrast, 20% of them reported the only positive comments related to emergency remote learning, that it supported their opportunities for active learning, leading us to believe some students favor active, involved learning where autonomy was concurrently available. in relation, a theme of responsibility surfaced from the students; it seems they may have used the term somewhat backhanded as if they knew they should be responsible for their learning and the remote environment forced them into more accountability than they wanted. 5. conclusion the largest take away from this study is evident—students who enrolled in a required face-to-face efl class in a turkish university context preferred the face-to-face version over the crisis-induced emergency remote learning scenario to the extent that their apperceptions were supported by both statistical and practical significance. major themes of (1) difficulty in communication with both instructors and peers was evident, as was what appears to be requiring students to take (2)an active, responsible, and accountable role in their own learning. a pandemic of this magnitude was unprecedented and rather than completely closing down higher education across the globe that might have occurred in this situation thirty years ago, colleges and universities attempted to march on by rapidly shifting to using variations of synchronous and asynchronous digital tools many face-to-face instructors were not accustomed to using, either methodologically or practically. of the psychosocial learning environment scales examined with the deles-tr, indications are that attention needs to be addressed toward instructor-student and studentstudent communication and interaction. without a relatively easy to correct, clear, and overt instructor-recognized communication strategy, students’ negative views tended to bleed over from the 28 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31 demir, b. & walker, s.l., (psychosocial learning environments …..) social ecology dimension of relationship to that of personal development (see table 1) that lends itself to students shutting down because they can no longer actively participate with peers. our study contributed what may be a once in a lifetime, real-time analysis of a massive and rapid shift in global higher education from which we can learn. on a less exuberant scale we have demonstrated another practical application of the 17-year-old deles as research instrument that, while not holding true to all a priori scales in our study, was flexible enough to allow us an adroit glimpse into the psychosocial nature of students’ views of their learning environment as they interpret it, followed by an unprecedented qualitative examination that gave voice to the students’ views and increased the depth and nuance of the entire study. 6. limitations limitations of our study include the fact that we did not have actual pre-pandemic quantitative data from the deles-tr, rather we had students’ apperceptions after the fact. given that any future pandemic or global crisis would be difficult to predict, recommendations for future research are difficult to suggest other than attempting to gather data prior to a rapid-onset crisis event. also, the target population of our study comprised students from a public university. different findings could be obtained by using participants from a larger population. 7. suggestions due to the limited amount of evidence concerning the comparison of psychosocial and face-toface learning environments, follow-up studies are needed to explore this relationship. further studies may focus on perceptions of learners from different countries to find out the effect of cultural differences on the comparison of the two modes of learning. also, unlike our study, further research may focus on perceptions of learners from primary and secondary education since their approach to learning might vary owing to various reasons. acknowledgment we would like to express our sincere gratitude to all participants of this study and all parties who have contributed to the completion of this research and the publication of this article. declarations author contribution : the first author initiated the research ideas, was in charge of resources, investigation, data collection, and writing; 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(2021). relationship between higher education teachers’ affect and their psychological adjustment to online teaching during the covid-19 pandemic: an application of latent profile analysis. peerj, 9(e12432). http://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12432 https://www.mi/ https://www.mindgarden.com/347-distance-education-learning-environments-survey https://www.mindgarden.com/347-distance-education-learning-environments-survey https://www.mindgarden.com/347-distance-education-learning-environments-survey http://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12432 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 187-198 10.12928/eltej.v4i3.4932 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id optimizing the virtual classroom: a case of intensive english course in the next normal chayaporn kaoropthai mae fah luang university, 333 moo 1 thasud, muang, chiang rai 57100 , thailand chayaporn.kao@mfu.ac.th a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 28 september 2021 revised 17 november 2021 accepted 9 december 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic, online learning has automatically become a normal practice of the “next normal”. intensive english is a compact three-week course offered to get first-year students ready for university study. online learning was something new for both students and instructors. a key challenge in online learning was how to make virtual classroom as lively and interactive as possible. the aim of this study was thus to design an instructional program which integrated various technological tools and applications to optimize the virtual classroom. the 63 first-year students from two intact sections of intensive english were used as participants of the study. a technology acceptance model (tam) questionnaire (davis, 1989; hernandez, 2021) was adapted to assess the effectiveness of the instructional program. the results of the study revealed that all of the participants achieved the overall objective of the course and the target cefr’s a2 level. they found their online learning experience rewarding. they were satisfied with this online learning experience and were willing to participate in similar online learning in the future. additionally, recommendations for further research were discussed. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords instructional design intensive english course online learning technology-integrated teaching the next normal how to cite: kaoropthai, c. (2021). optimizing the virtual classroom: a case of intensive english course in the next normal. english language teaching educational journal, 4(3), 187-198. 1. introduction the covid-19 pandemic has continued to disrupt the whole world. the diversification of the disease has brought about even more calamitous consequences in most areas. in education, all schools and universities had to change their delivery mode of instruction to exclusive online instruction. compared with the on-site real classroom, the virtual classroom generally has a lot more disadvantages. in the virtual classroom, it is usually more difficult to control class, to keep students attentive and highly motivated, and to effectively promote collaborative and active learning. all school teachers as well as university instructors had to adapt themselves by learning, unlearning, and relearning to cope with the situations. one important way to maximizing the use of the fundamental learning platforms such as google meet, microsoft teams, webex, or zoom, is to integrate additional technology tools and applications to support it. the problem faced by many teachers and instructors is how to utilize the platform to its optimum. the aim of this study is thus to develop an effective instructional program for the virtual classroom in the next normal. the program has been designed based on the assure instructional development model (heinich et al.,1989; karakis et al.,2016; sezer et al.,2013) and connected learning model (ito et al., 2020). http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:chayaporn.kao@mfu.ac.th http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3646-7767 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i3.4932&domain=pdf 188 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 187-198 kaoropthai, c. (optimizing the virtual classroom) 1.1. research questions 1. to what extent can first-year students achieve the overall objective of the intensive english course, based on the post-test scores and the total course score? 2. to what extent do first-year students accept the virtual classroom that integrates the use of supportive technological tools, based on the tam? 1.2. instructional design instructional design (id) is a power tool that helps instructors create effective learning experiences for learner. it is a process of taking classroom content and making it easy for learners to understand. id has been further defined as “a process of solving instructional or educational problems through systematic analysis based on the conditions of learning” (azimi & fazelian, 2013, p.256). id has now become an essential component for designing online courses as instructors need an effective way to facilitate learners to actively involve as much as possible in the virtual classroom. the covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the implementation of exclusive online learning worldwide. many recent research studies (baldwin & ching, 2020; jusas el al., 2021; nurpandi et al., 2013; sanga, 2019; zain, 2018) have focused on using id models to develop effective online courses to meet the needs of students of the 21st century. these studies have greatly contributed to the advancements of online instruction theories and practices that can be applied for online course designing in the pandemic situation. id models can be classified into three major categories: classroom-oriented, product-oriented, and system-oriented. classroom-oriented id models are used as a guideline to enhance the teaching and learning experiences in the classroom and are considered as potential models for designing technology-enhanced learning instruction (lim & chai, 2008). assure model (heinich et al., 1989) and kemp’s model (morrison et al., 2019) are examples of classroom-oriented id models. because this study aimed to develop an online intensive english course, the assure model has been adopted for course design. 1.3 assure model assure is a procedural, cyclic, and classroom-oriented id model for designing and developing technology-integrated instruction (bajacharya, 2019). the model was proposed by heinich and colleagues in 1989. assure is an acronym that stands for the six steps in the model as follows: a analyze learner s state standards and objectives s select strategies, technology, media, and materials u utilize technology, media, and materials r require learner participation e evaluate and revise these six steps of the assure model thus involve how to analyze learners and state objectives, and to select, implement, and evaluate the technology and instructional resources for employing technology integration during classroom instruction to accomplish the learning objectives (bajracharya, 2019, heinich et al.,1989). 1.4. connected learning connected learning can be defined as “learning that connects personal interests, supportive relationships, and academic, civic, and career opportunity” (ito et al, 2020, p.4). the relationship among these three elements of connected learning is illustrated in fig. 1. connected learning is considered as “learning in an age of abundant access to information and social connection that embraces the diverse backgrounds and interests of all young people”. learning is motivating when it is related to personal interests. interests keep learners attentive, make connections, persist and engage in deeper learning. in terms of relationships, it is evident that learners need support from peers and mentors when they encounter difficulties or challenges. learners’ accomplishments also depend on tangible connections to future real-world career and civic issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 189 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 187-198 kaoropthai, c. (optimizing the virtual classroom) opportunities. according to ito et al. (2020), connected learning originates when organizations sponsor and legitimize the interests of diverse youth, learners are engaged in shared practices such as creative production, research, or friendly competition; these practices are guided by shared purpose such as contributions to communities, social change, or solving real problems, and learning is connected across settings through brokering, coordination, and openly networked platforms (p.5). fig. 1. three spheres of learning that are integrated in connected learning (ito et al, 2020, p.5). 1.5. networked leaning networked learning (nl) can be defined as learning in which information and communications technology (ict) is employed to promote connections between learners, learners and teachers, learners and learning resources (ahshan, 2021; aljaafreh, 2021; boonmoh et al., 2021; wang et al., 2020). in language teaching, networked learning plays an important role in supporting learners to connect globally, access resources easily, and self-regulate their language processes (boonmoh et al., 2021; kannan & munday, 2018). networked technologies are an essential component of networked learning. networked technologies in education include various types of social working such as online games, educational social network platforms, and popular general social network platforms (johnson et al., 2016). in addition to networked devices such as desktop computer, laptops, tablets, and smartphone; technological applications are also considered as networked technologies. these applications include padlet, quizizz, plickers, etc. they are designed to captivate and engage users for a particular purpose, including learning new knowledge, supporting classroom engagement, reviewing class content, building a positive learning atmosphere and improving learners’ critical thinking skills (boonmoh et al., 2021; icard, 2014). table 1 lists some selected recent studies that examined technological tools used in english language teaching, complied by boonmoh and colleagues (2021). table 1. recent studies concerning the use of technological tools in elt author technological tools khamprem & boonmoh (2019) padlet, kahoot, quiziss, plickers putri (2019) kahoot chaiyo & nokham (2017) kahoot, quizizz, google forms hwang et al. (2016) mobile game-based laerning dellos (2015) kahoot dewitt et al. (2015) padlet reinders & wattana (2015) gameplay wong et al. (2015) 2d side-scrolling video game interests relationshipsopportunities connected learning 190 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 187-198 kaoropthai, c. (optimizing the virtual classroom) 1.6. the context intensive english course is a preparatory english course to prepare the first-year students whose onet (ordinary national education test) english scores are lower than 45%, to get them ready for the study in an english-as-a-medium-of-instruction university. the brief details of the intensive english course can be seen in the appendix (see appendix). the course lasts 3 weeks: 3 hours daily, monday to friday, totaling 45 class hours, prior to the first semester regular courses. the researcher was the instructor who taught these two sections: one in the morning (9:00-12:00) and the other in the afternoon (13:00-16:00). 2. methodology 2.1. participants the participants used in this study were a convenience sample. they were from two of the 85 sections of the first-year students who enrolled in intensive english, prior to the beginning of the first semester of academic year 2021. these students were used as participants because the researcher was the instructor of these two sections. the students were from various schools of the university and varying english proficiency backgrounds. table 2. distribution of participants by university’s schools school no. of students % 1. cosmatic science 2 3.17 2. health science 15 23.81 3. information technology 14 22.22 2. integrative medicine 1 1.59 3. agro-industry 2 3.17 4. sinology 12 19.05 5. management 8 12.70 6. law 9 14.29 total 63 100 table 3. distribution of participants by english proficiency level english proficiency level no. of students % beginner 38 60.32 a1 15 23.81 a2 8 12.70 b1.2 2 3.17 total 63 100 information in table 2 and table 3 shows that a majority of the participants (no.1-5 in table 2 = 53.96%) were science students, while the other three groups (45.04%) were from sinology, management, and law. most of the participants (60.32%) were at the beginner level and the rest (39.68%) were at the a1 to b1.1, of the cefr. 2.2. instruments tam questionnaire a technology acceptance model (tam) questionnaire (davis 1989; hernandez, 2021; weng et al., 2018) was developed to elicit information about students’ perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, student satisfaction, and intention to use. the questionnaire included 16 items, with four items for each component. the students were requested to complete the questionnaire on a five-point likert scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 191 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 187-198 kaoropthai, c. (optimizing the virtual classroom) the tam questionnaire has been validated through the item objective congruence (ioc) index procedure. three experts were asked to determine the content validity scores. the results and suggestions were received and the questionnaire has been accordingly revised. the criterial for interpreting the mean scores are as follows: 1.00 to 1.50 strongly disagree/ very low 1.51 to 2.50 disagree/ low 2.51 to 3.50 nether agree nor disagree/ moderate 3.51 to 4.50 agree/ high 4.51 to 5.00 strongly agree/ very high reflective statements at the end of the tam questionnaire, participants were asked to reflect their thoughts about this online learning experience. a prompt of “benefits” and “challenges” was given to elicit data for an analysis. 2.3. pedagogical design and procedures the study adopted a case study approach to assess the effectiveness of optimizing the virtual classroom in intensive english course to promote collaborative and active learning, enhancing students to successfully accomplish course objectives. in designing the instructional program, the assure instructional model and the connected learning model were applied. the course was designed to be synchronous activity-based instruction that employed additional supportive technological tools and applications to facilitate collaborative and active learning. the use of technological tools and applications was integrated to optimally support the capability of the video meeting platform, google meet. the course was organized following the pre-while-post instructional design as shown in table 4. table 4. struture of the pre-while-post instructional plan pre teaching while teaching post teaching activities ice breaking prview previous lessons small talk introduce a new lesson ask questions to check students’ knowledge summarize and share what was learner practice/ do exercise quiz exit ticket tecnological tools google meet padlet classsdojo youtube padlet liveworksheets gamilab flipping kahoot quizizz google form the course lasts 3 weeks: 3 hours daily, monday to friday, totaling 45 class hours. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 findings the results of the study are presented in three parts: analysis of students’ accomplishments, tam questionnaire results, and analysis of students’ reflective statements. because the proficiency level was determined by the adaptive test score, there was no exact score available for each student. the results for this part are thus to report the accomplishment of students from each level based on their post-test score and total course scores. according to the criterial of this post-test, a score of 60 to 80 is considered an a2 level. additionally, to the cut-off point for an s grade in this course is 59.50. 192 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 187-198 kaoropthai, c. (optimizing the virtual classroom) table 5. a summary of students’ accomplishments english proficiency level no. post-test* m (100) total course m (100) beginnner 38 62.17 78.38 a1 15 73.51 83.52 a2 8 80.33 86.85 b1.1 2 82.77 85.15 total 63 67.83 80.89 a. *the post-test score is also a part, accounting for 25%, of the total course score. b. table 5 shows that all of the students passed both of the criteria. the mean scores of the posttest reveal that although all of them have passed, the amount of their improvements appeared to be related to their initial levels of proficiency before the class. the mean score of the beginner was 62.17, followed by the a1 (73.51), a2 (80.33), and b1.1 (82.77), respectively. the results of total course mean scores were also similar except for the reverse results between the a2 86.85) and the b1.1 (85.15). the results confirmed that all of the students (100%) have achieved the overall objectives of the intensive english course based on both the post-test scores and the total course scores. the results of tam questionnaire in table 6 revealed that participants rated at the “agree” level (4.00 to 4.40) in all four components of the tam. the highest ranking was “perceived ease of use” (m = 4.34), “perceived usefulness” (m = 4.27), and “intention to use” (m = 4.00). table 6. results of tam questionnaire mean meaning perceived usefulness 4.27 agree 1. it enables learners to interact with the instructor and other learner like in a real classroom. 4.11 agree 2. it is not boring as learners can work in small groups discuss, and play games. 4.42 agree 3. it keeps all learners alert and attentive as class can be monitored by the instructor. 4.21 agree 4. it is flexible and can be adjusted to situation. 4.34 agree perceived ease of use 4.40 agree 5. it is not complicated to enter the classroom. 4.53 strongly agree 6. classroom arrangement is clear and understandable. 4.48 agree 7. it facilitates learners to interact with the instructor and other learners. 4.24 agree 8. the classroom system can be adjusted by the instructor. 4.35 agree students satisfaction 4.34 agree 9. it is a virtual classroom that promotes collaborative and active learning. 4.42 agree 10. it is pleasant and fun online learning experience. 4.35 agree 11. it is a virtual clarroom that enhances my academic performance. 4.26 agree 12. overall, i am satisfied with this online learning experience. 4.34 agree intention to use 4.00 agree 13. i like the virtual classroom that integrates the use of various supportibe tecjnology tools. 4.34 agree 14. i intend to study to study in the virtual classroom that uses additional supportive technology tools. 4.15 agree 15. i will attend the virtual classroom that can effectively enhance my academic performance. 3.92 agree 16. in the future, i would like to attend the virtual classroom that employs a variety of technology tools to support. 3.61 agree issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 193 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 187-198 kaoropthai, c. (optimizing the virtual classroom) considering the details of the four components of the tam, it was found that the highest mean score in each component tended to be the key characteristic of the component. in “perceived usefulness”, it was q2 “it is not boring as learners can work in small groups, discuss, and play games” (m = 4.42). in “perceived ease of use”, it was q5 “it is not complicated to enter the classroom” (m = 4.53). for “student satisfaction”, it was q9 “it is online learning that promotes collaborative and active learning” (m = 4.42). and in the last component “intention to use”, it was q13 “i like online learning that integrates the use of various supportive technology tools” (m = 4.34). the results of the tam questionnaire thus revealed that the participants in this study found this online learning program useful, motivating, and practical for the situation. overall, they were satisfied with this pleasant online learning experience as it promoted collaborative and active learning, and they expected to experience future enjoyable virtual classrooms similar this one. reflective statements to find out more about the benefits and challenges of online learning in this virtual classroom, students were also asked to write reflective statements about their online learning experiences, at the end of the tam questionnaire. it was guided with the term “benefits and challenges” as a prompt, and students could feel free to write only one word to very long sentence in response to the prompt. it was anticipated that these reflective statements could be considered salient responses because they would reflect students’ distinct perceptions. the reflective statements from all 63 students can be summarized as follows: benefits the first substantial benefit, which was revealed by 27 reflective statements (42.9%), was “the use of various support technology tools and applications effectively promoted interactions between learners and instructor and other learners almost like in a real classroom”. the second benefit, “it was pleasant and fun experiences”, was overtly addresses by 20 students (31.7%). thirdly, 18 students (28.6%) appreciated “its ease of use”, interestingly, the fourth benefit which was enjoyed by 16 students (25.4%) was “the instructor was nice and kind”. additionally, six students (9.5%) simply stated that “it was a very good online learning experience”. challenges while 17 students (27.0%) reported that “they did not experience any problems”, 23 students (36.5%) raised an inevitable issue of “internet unstableness”. secondly, eight students (12.7%) revealed that “if possible, they would prefer a real classroom because it would be easier to get to know one another”. thirdly, seven students (11.1%) had “some difficulties following the lessons”. finally, three students (4.8%) used “only one device (a mobile or a tablet), resulting in insufficient capability to effectively participate in class”. 3.2. discussion this instructional program of exclusive online teaching for these two intensive english sections (63 first-year students) has been proven to be successful. the results of both the post-test scores and the total course scores revealed that all of the students (100%) have achieved the overall objective of the course and the target a2 level. this success of the implementation of the instructional program is evidently supported by previous studies. constructing college online learning community that was fully combined with network environment, learners, teachers, and learning resources, zhang (2020) found that english learners’ competences were developed and their english online performances were promoted. hernandez’s revealed that online learning alternative method could improve students’ academic performance and enhance their productivity in general. online learning also provides students with many new opportunities that attract attention and increase their interest and motivation (valeeva & kalimullin, 2021). the findings from the tam questionnaire supported that the participants enjoyed opportunities to work in small groups, discuss, play games, and interact with instructor and other learners, almost like in a real classroom. they found it convenient and easy to enter the classroom and to communicate 194 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 187-198 kaoropthai, c. (optimizing the virtual classroom) with instructor and other learners. they agreed that the integration of various appropriate supportive technology tools and applications helped promote collaborative and active learning. overall, participants were satisfied with this pleasant online learning experience and were willing to participate in future online learning similar to this one. these tam questionnaire results are consistent with recent preview research. rojabi (2020) found that online learning via microsoft teams could effectively promote interaction between learners and instructor and other learners. online class via microsoft teams optimally supported students’ learning environment. alfadda and mahdi (2021) investigated the relationship between the variables of tam on using zoom application in language learning. the results revealed that there was “a strong positive correlation between the actual use of zoom and the students’ attitudes and behavioral intention” (p.883). the reflective statements by students did confirm their satisfaction with this online learning experience. interestingly, one fourth (25.4%) of the participants particularly addressed the benefit of having learned with a nice, kind, caring instructor. this reflection could help emphasize that instructor’s personal characteristics were one of the key contributing factors. not unexpectedly, internet unstableness was reported to occasionally be a frustrating experience by 23 participants (or 36.5%). additionally, eight participants (or 12.7%) preferred a real face to face classroom, so that they could easily get to know one another. the findings are in line with previous students which found that internet unstableness was an inevitable problem and many students would like to go back to real classrooms as soon as possible for various reasons (cranfield et al., 2021; sevy-biloon, 2021). 4. conclusion the results and discussion have provided evidence to show that integrating various supportive technological tools and applications into online teaching via google meet could optimally support the students’ learning environment in the virtual classroom. all of the participants were able to achieve the overall objective of the course and the target cefr’ s a2 level. the results from the tam questionnaire revealed that the participants were aware of the usefulness, satisfied, and willing to participate in future similar online learning. additionally, participants’ satisfaction with this online learning experience has been affirmed in their final reflective statements. this study has some limitations that might be addressed in future studies. firstly, intensive english is a compact three-week course, which is offered before the regular semester starts. the future study may experiment this online instructional program on a course offered in a regular semester. secondly, it might be interesting to explore on using other learning platform such as zoom or microsoft teams. thirdly, the findings of this study were based on questionnaire and reflective statement data. future studies may include interview data. lastly, because this study used the different types of pre-test and post-test, the future study may use the same type of test for comparative purposes. acknowledgment the author expresses her gratitude to the school of liberal arts, mae fah luang university and the three experts who were reviewers of the tam questionnaire. references ahshan, r. 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(optimizing the virtual classroom) appendix intensive english course description foundations of contextualized english grammar, vocabulary, and structures essential to conduct everyday transactions involving familiar situations and topics; intensive practice of basic english language functions; preparation of study skills for effective pursuit of english-medium studies; and introduction to and encouragement of self-directed learning through the use of technological aids. course objectives after the completion of this course, students will be able to: 1. achieve all 4 english skills at a2 level in accordance with the common european framework of reference for languages (cefr) with the use of technological aids; 2. speak english using appropriate and accurate vocabulary and expressions in daily life or familiar situations or topics; 3. identify main ideas, specific information, facts and opinions in english reading passages and video or audio clips; 4. write complete english sentences using various sentence structures with grammatical accuracy; 5. develop self-directed learning skills. course content no. topic brief content 1. ice-breaking introducing course materials getting to know your teacher and classmates grammar review: present simple (statement, negation, question), present continuous, present continuous for the future 2 life events sports, leisure time, expressions of time past simple (statement, negative, question) 3 clothes and accessories clothing past simple (regular/irregular verbs) 4 possibility and necessity modal verbs (possibility, intention, obligation and necessity), would like, want 5 air travel airports, on the plane indirect questions writing test 1 6 quantity expressing quantity, quantifiers, count and non count nouns 7 have you ever? talking about literature present perfect (statement, negative, question) 8 how often? daily routines, animals adverbs (of frequency, of time) 9 all by myself car parts reflexive pronouns, adjectives and adverbs 10 in my opinion expressing opinion, adverb of manner, comparison of adverbs, gerunds and infinitives writing test 2 11 let’s go surfing! water sports present perfect vs. past simple 12 asking for refund shopping electronic devices if-clause (zero conditional) 13 that is fascinating! expressing how you feel, banking participles as adjectives 14 review review speaking test 15 read aloud performance read aloud performance 198 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 187-198 kaoropthai, c. (optimizing the virtual classroom) assessment self-study (online course completion + final test) 50% 2 writing test (x2) 20% 3 show & tell 5% 4 read aloud (group live performance) 15% 5 speaking test 10% total 100% grading scale s 59.50 – 100 u 0 –59.49 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 1-13 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7716 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of efl students at a state university in padang, indonesia fitrawati a,1,*, insan kamil b,2, david d. perrodin c,3 a,b english language department, universitas negeri padang, jln. prof. dr. hamka, air tawar, padang, sumatra barat, indonesia indonesia c institute for population and social research, mahidol university, 999 phutthamonthon sai 4 rd, salaya, phutthamonthon district, nakhon pathom 73170, thailand 1fitra_bing@fbs.unp.ac.id*, 2insankamil6285@gmail.com; 3daviddperrodin@gmail.com *corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 17 february 2023 revised 6 april 2023 accepted 22 april 2023 this study investigates the levels of foreign language reading anxiety among efl students at a state university in padang, west sumatra, indonesia, to identify the main factors contributing to this anxiety. the study included 30 participants who provided data through two questionnaires. the first questionnaire utilized the foreign language reading anxiety scale (flras) to assess anxiety levels, while the second questionnaire aimed to determine the primary factor behind this anxiety. the results indicated that 67% of the students experienced moderate anxiety, 20% experienced high levels, and 13% reported low anxiety. the study identified two main factors influencing foreign language reading anxiety: text features and personal factors. text features encompassed unfamiliar vocabulary, topics, and culture, while personal factors included concerns about the effect of reading and fear of making errors. the second questionnaire revealed that unfamiliar language ranked as the most dominant factor, followed by concerns about the impact of reading, unfamiliar topics, fear of making errors, and unfamiliar culture. recognizing that reading anxiety is a common experience among language learners is essential. however, with the proper support and guidance, students can overcome these challenges and succeed in their english language learning journey. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords foreign language reading anxiety elt students state university how to cite: fitrawati, kamil, i., & perrodin, d. d. (2023). foreign language reading anxiety as experienced by efl students of a state university in padang, indonesia. english language teaching educational journal, 6(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7716 1. introduction early on, saito et al. (1999) recognized that foreign language reading was a critical source of language input and a potential source of anxiety for learners. as such, reading anxiety can impede language learning progress and hinder reading comprehension (rahmawati, 2017). although anxiety is a widely acknowledged inhibiting factor in language classrooms (al-obaydi et al., 2023), previous research has predominantly focused on oral performance rather than reading activities (cui, 2020; oteir & al-otaibi, 2019; özer & i̇şpınar akçayoğlu, 2021; toyama & yamazaki, 2021; zhang, 2019). yet, in academic settings, students often engage in reading more frequently than speaking activities (bektaş‐çetinkaya, 2019). ahmad et al. (2013) proposed two comprehensive aspects of foreign language reading anxiety: personal and text feature factors. three themes were identified under the text feature factors: unfamiliar vocabulary, topics, and culture. within individual factors, the themes encompassed worry https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7716 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:insankamil6285@gmail.com mailto:daviddperodin@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7716 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1266-5865 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4328-7342 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7716&domain=pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 2 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 1-13 fitriawati et.al. (foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of …) about reading effects and fear of making errors. unfamiliar vocabulary is often regarded as the primary factor contributing to anxiety, as unfamiliar words hinder comprehension and generate anxiety (januarty & azizah nima, 2018). furthermore, reading in a foreign language requires understanding the cultural context, which can increase readers' anxiety (lestari et al., 2018). unfamiliar topics and vocabulary can impede reading comprehension as students struggle to relate to and comprehend the text (mikami, 2023). additionally, the fear of making errors when reading aloud and worrying about the consequences of such mistakes can intensify anxiety (perrodin et al., 2022). muhlis (2017) evaluated foreign language reading anxiety and identified its potential factors among indonesian efl senior high school students. the findings revealed that more than half of the students experienced reading anxiety, with most falling into the medium anxiety level and a smaller proportion experiencing high anxiety levels. unfamiliar vocabulary emerged as the most frequent factor contributing to reading anxiety. similarly, saito et al. (1999) initially examined english learners studying french, russian, and japanese, while ahmad et al. (2013) later focused on university students from various majors (mass communication, tourism, hotel management, and law) taking basic english courses. however, limited research has been conducted on foreign language reading anxiety levels and the dominant factors experienced by students in the english language and literature department at the university level (kamil & fitrawati, 2022). it is often assumed that english major students are proficient in english and possess a good grasp of the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. consequently, english major students are expected to be less likely to experience reading anxiety (siregar & narius, 2019). to explore this further, additional studies should investigate whether efl students, particularly those within the english language and literature department of a prominent state university in padang, west sumatra, indonesia, also encounter anxiety when reading english texts. 2. method the present study adopted a quantitative research approach to investigate the level of reading anxiety and identify the factors contributing to such reading anxiety among efl students at a state university in west sumatra, indonesia. quantitative research employs numeric and mathematical models to analyze, collect, and interpret data (marvasti, 2018). to achieve this, a survey design was used, as it involves distributing a questionnaire to gather numeric descriptions of trends, attitudes, or opinions within a population by studying a sample of that population (creswell, 2014). the survey data were then analyzed using descriptive statistics, encompassing numerical and graphical techniques to present, organize, and explore the collected data (siedlecki, 2020). 2.1 population and sample the population for this research comprised 157 efl students enrolled in the english language and literature department at a state university in padang, west sumatra, indonesia, during the 2019 academic year. to obtain the sample, the researchers employed the simple random sampling technique. this method involved selecting participants from the population so that each individual had an equal chance of being chosen (fraenkel et al., 2022). for this study, 30 students were chosen to take part in the study. 2.2 research instrumentation in this study, two adopted questionnaires were utilized to comprehensively assess the level of reading anxiety and investigate its dominant factor. the first questionnaire employed was the foreign language reading anxiety scale (flras), which consisted of 20-item statements specifically designed to capture various aspects of reading anxiety. through the flras, students provided self-reports on their anxiety levels regarding different facets of reading, their perceptions of reading challenges in a foreign language, and their perspectives on the complexity and difficulty of reading compared to other language skills. the second questionnaire utilized in this study was developed based on the work of alshboul et al. (2013) and aimed to investigate the dominant factor contributing to reading anxiety. this questionnaire enabled students to self-report the factors influencing their reading anxiety in a issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 3 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 1-13 fitriawati et.al. (foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of …) foreign language. it consisted of 25-item statements to assess various factors associated with reading anxiety. by employing these two questionnaires, the researchers aimed to gather comprehensive data on both the level of reading anxiety and the dominant factors contributing to foreign language reading anxiety among the participants. 2.3 validity and reliability to ensure the quality of the final data, the instruments utilized in this study underwent a thorough validity check. experts from the english language and literature department reviewed and provided comments on the validity of the items included in the questionnaires, affirming their suitability for research purposes. according to creswell (2014), reliability refers to the consistency of scores over time when the instrument is administered a second time. when consistent findings are reproduced by these procedures in the same situation on multiple occasions or replicated by another researcher, the tool is considered reliable. the reliability coefficient's standard scale provides a categorization of the item achievement value, with values above 0.8 classified as "high," values between 0.7 and 0.8 as "good," values between 0.6 and 0.7 as "fair," and values below 0.6 as "poor." in this study, the reliability test results for the first questionnaire, the flras, yielded a score of 0.829, indicating high reliability. similarly, the reliability test for the second questionnaire resulted in a score of 0.860, indicating high reliability. 2.4 technique of data collection the flras and the developed questionnaire items were incorporated into google forms to facilitate data collection. this approach was chosen due to the logistical constraints posed by the participants' engagement in a field practice program, which made it difficult to gather everyone in one physical location. upon completion, the questionnaires were analyzed using microsoft excel and spss version 19. the analysis involved determining the mean and standard deviation scores. these scores were utilized to classify the levels of reading anxiety among the participants. additionally, the developed questionnaire aimed to identify the factors contributing to reading anxiety among efl students at a state university in west sumatra, indonesia. this questionnaire was also analyzed, focusing on determining the percentage of each factor's influence on reading anxiety. by employing these analytical approaches, a comprehensive understanding of reading anxiety levels and the factors affecting them was obtained within the context of the aforementioned efl student population. 2.5 technique of data analysis a descriptive analysis was conducted to examine the foreign language reading anxiety experienced by students comprehensively. the primary objectives of this analysis were to collect data on the level of reading anxiety and identify the dominant factors contributing to this anxiety. following the guidelines of creswell (2014), the descriptive analysis employed means, standard deviations, and scores to provide valuable insights into the results. data from the foreign language reading anxiety scale (flras) was collected and thoroughly analyzed to initiate the analysis. mean, and standard deviation calculations determined the student's reading anxiety level. participants who scored below the mean minus the standard deviation were classified as experiencing low anxiety. in contrast, those who scored above the mean plus the standard deviation were categorized as having high anxiety. students falling between these two scores were considered to have a medium level of anxiety. the responses were assessed using a 4-point likert scale that included categories ranging from "strongly agree" (4) to "strongly disagree" (1). to further delve into the analysis, the sample responses were scored accordingly, and the percentages and categorizations of the respondents for each item were calculated, where values ranging from 0.76 to 100 are classified as "strongly agree," values from 0.51 to 0.75 as "agree," values from 0.26 to 0.50 as "disagree," and values from 0.0% to 0.25 as "strongly disagree." an essential aspect of understanding the foreign language reading anxiety experienced by students lies in the analysis of their responses. this analysis provides valuable insights into their 4 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 1-13 fitriawati et.al. (foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of …) perspectives and attitudes toward specific statements or themes. in this context, the total response rate reveals the percentage of participants actively responding to each item's statement. by examining the frequencies of the different response categories, such as strongly disagree (sd), disagree (d), agree (a), and strongly agree (sa), the overall level of engagement and response among the respondents can be determined. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 students’ reading anxiety level the primary objective of this research was to assess the level of reading anxiety among efl students studying at a state university in west sumatra, indonesia. the participant's responses to the statements presented in the foreign language reading anxiety scale (flras) were considered to gauge the extent of their reading anxiety. the flras scores range from 20 to 80, with higher scores indicating higher levels of reading anxiety. according to wijayati et al. (2021), reading anxiety levels are categorized as low, medium, and high. as such, the student's scores ranged from a minimum of 32 points to a maximum of 68 points. the mean score was calculated as 49.37, with a standard deviation of 9.44. students were categorized based on their flras scores to determine their anxiety levels. those with scores lower than the mean minus the standard deviation were classified as having low anxiety. students with scores higher than the mean and standard deviation were classified as experiencing high anxiety. students falling between these two scores were considered to have a medium level of anxiety. furthermore, scores below 40 indicated low anxiety, above 59 indicated high anxiety, and between 40 and 59 indicated medium anxiety. analyzing the flras scores allowed for a comprehensive understanding of the distribution of students' reading anxiety levels. based on the frequency distribution, it was found that most respondents (20 students, or 67%) fell into the medium level of reading anxiety. additionally, six students (20%) experienced a high level of reading anxiety, while four (13%) reported a low level of reading anxiety. inconclusion, the majority of the students fell into medium anxiety level with a percentage of 67% (20 out of 30 respondents). 3.2 factors of foreign language reading anxiety the dominant factor of reading anxiety was analyzed using the adapted questionnaire developed by ahmad et al. (2013). this questionnaire comprised 25 statements organized into five themes: (1) worry about reading effects, (2) fear of making errors, (3) unfamiliar culture, (4) unfamiliar topic, and (5) unfamiliar vocabulary. the themes were ranked in order of dominance, with the most prevalent theme listed first and the least prevalent theme listed last. the categorization and ranking of these themes can be found in table 1. table 1. the percentage of the specific factors of reading anxiety aspects statement themes 1 (sd) 2 (d) 3 (a) 4 (sa) total response rate (%) category rank text feature factors 1–5 unfamiliar vocabulary 7.34% 30.66% 32% 30% 71.17% agree 1 6–9 unfamiliar topic 13.34% 29.16% 37.50% 20% 66.04% agree 3 10–14 unfamiliar culture 14% 44% 37.34% 4.66% 58.17% agree 5 personal factors 15-19 fear of making error 12.66% 36.66% 32.66% 18% 64% agree 4 20–25 worry about the reading effect 11.11% 30% 37.22% 21.67% 67.36% agree 2 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 5 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 1-13 fitriawati et.al. (foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of …) table 1 provides an overview of the percentage of responses related to specific factors contributing to reading anxiety. the factors were categorized into two main aspects: text feature factors and personal factors. three main themes emerged under the text feature factors aspect: unfamiliar vocabulary, unfamiliar topics, and unfamiliar culture. the leading cause of reading anxiety was the unfamiliar vocabulary theme, with 71.17% of efl students expressing a total response rate. the second factor was the worry about the reading effect theme under the personal factors, which garnered 67.36% response as a cause of reading anxiety. the third factor causing reading anxiety was identified as the unfamiliar topic theme, with 66.04% of the total response rate. the theme of fear of making errors under the personal factors ranked as the fourth factor, with 64% of the total response rate. finally, the unfamiliar culture theme under the text feature factors aspect was determined to be the last factor contributing to reading anxiety, with a total response of 58.17%. 3.3 unfamiliar vocabulary table 2 provides a comprehensive overview of the statistics, frequencies, and percentages of the data associated with the unfamiliar vocabulary themes. table 2. percentage of unfamiliar vocabulary no item description 1 (sd) 2 (d) 3 (a) 4 (sa) total response rate (%) category 1 unfamiliar english words upset and worry me while reading.. 3 14 9 4 61.7% agree 10% 46.66% 30% 13.34% 2 translating words helps me understand english texts.. 0 7 14 9 76.7% strongly agree 0% 23.34% 46.66% 30% 3 a series of three unfamiliar words makes me anxious while reading in english. 3 11 9 7 66.7% agree 10% 36.66% 30% 23.34% 4 knowing the translation of a text in english enhances my enjoyment.. 0 2 7 21 90.8% strongly agree 0% 6.66% 23.34% 70% 5 i dislike english texts with numerous difficult words.. 5 12 9 4 60% agree 16.66% 40% 30% 13.34% total 71.17% agree table 2 provides a comprehensive overview of the statistics and descriptions of the responses related to the unfamiliar vocabulary theme. five items (1–5) in the table encompass statements that revolve around unfamiliar vocabulary as a cause of reading anxiety. item 1 highlights that 43.34% of the respondents agreed (30% agreed and 13.34% strongly agreed) that encountering unfamiliar words leads to feelings of upset and worry. this indicates that unfamiliar vocabulary significantly contributes to reading anxiety. moving on to item 2, 76.66% (46.66% agreed and 30% strongly agreed) agreed they needed to focus on translating words to comprehend the text. this suggests that when students cannot understand the meaning of words, they tend to experience anxiety due to difficulty comprehending the overall text. furthermore, 53.33% of the respondents agreed (30% agreed and 23.34% strongly agreed) with item 3, which aligns with ahmad et al.'s (2013) findings that unfamiliar words intensify the complexity of reading tasks and evoke anxiety. additionally, 93.34% of the respondents (23.34% agreed and 70% strongly agreed) reported enjoying reading english texts when they know the 6 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 1-13 fitriawati et.al. (foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of …) translation. this indicates that encountering unfamiliar words in the text triggers reading anxiety for these individuals. finally, in line with item 5, 43.34% of the students (30% agreed and 13.34% strongly agreed) agreed that encountering new or complex words frequently in a text acts as an obstacle that induces anxiety. the total percentage of responses with the unfamiliar vocabulary theme is 71.17%, establishing it as the predominant factor contributing to reading anxiety among the five themes analyzed. 3.4 unfamiliar topic table 3 displays the descriptive statistics, frequencies, and percentages of the data concerning unfamiliar topic themes. table 3. percentage of unfamiliar topics no item description 1 (sd) 2 (d) 3 (a) 4 (sa) total response rate (%) category 6 enjoy english reading when understanding part of the text. 0 5 15 10 79.2% strongly agree 0% 16.66% 50% 33.34% 7 prefer familiar topics over unfamiliar ones, especially in english. 11 13 6 0 45.8% disagree 36.66% 43.34% 20% 0% 8 favorite english reading: short stories with simple words and common topics. 1 3 15 11 80% strongly agree 3.34% 10% 50% 36.66% 9 anxious when reading unfamiliar topics in english. 4 14 9 3 59.2% agree 13.34% 46.66% 30% 10% total 66.04% agree table 3 provides the descriptive statistics for the responses related to unfamiliar topic themes. four items (6–9) in the table contain statements concerning the impact of unfamiliar topics on reading anxiety. regarding item 6, a significant majority of respondents (83.34%) agreed (50% agreed and 33.34% strongly agreed) that they enjoy reading english texts when they can understand some part of the content. item 7 reveals that 20% of the respondents prefer to avoid reading texts that discuss unfamiliar topics. in item 8, a substantial proportion of the respondents (86.66%) agreed (50% agreed and 36.66% strongly agreed) that they prefer reading short stories because they use more straightforward language and more accessible vocabulary. furthermore, item 9 demonstrates that 40% of the respondents (30% agreed and 10% strongly agreed) reported experiencing anxiety when encountering unfamiliar topics. the total response rate for unfamiliar topic themes is 65.87%, indicating that this theme is the primary contributing factor to reading anxiety among the five themes analyzed. 3.5 unfamiliar culture table 4 below displays the statistics, descriptions, frequencies, and percentages of the data about unfamiliar cultural themes. table 4 provides a comprehensive overview of the statistics, descriptions, frequencies, and percentages related to the unfamiliar culture theme. this theme is explored through five items (10–14) that examine its role as a factor causing reading anxiety. the results indicate that 50% of the respondents (43.34% agreed and 6.66% strongly agreed) acknowledged item 10, highlighting multiple meanings for a single word, leading to inaccuracies in text comprehension. similarly, 56.68% of the respondents (53.34% agreed and 3.34% strongly agreed) agreed with item 11, stating that understanding word meanings does not guarantee an understanding of the author's intent. in item 12, 30% of the respondents agreed that they engage in word-by-word translation to comprehend the text. however, they encounter difficulties when related issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 7 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 1-13 fitriawati et.al. (foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of …) words result in different meanings. this frustration was further emphasized by item 13, which received agreement from 46.66% of the respondents (36.66% agreed and 10% strongly agreed), highlighting the challenges posed by related words that alter the intended meaning. table 4. percentage of unfamiliar culture furthermore, item 14 revealed that 26.66% of the respondents (23.33% agreed and 3.33% strongly agreed) often face situations where they cannot understand english texts, despite knowing the meaning of individual words. this demonstrates the complexity of comprehension beyond wordlevel understanding. the total percentage of responses related to the unfamiliar culture theme is 58.17%. these findings suggest that unfamiliar cultural elements significantly contribute to reading anxiety among the respondents. 3.6 fear of making error table 5 displays the statistical information, descriptions, frequencies, and percentages about the theme of fear of making an error. table 5 presents a comprehensive analysis of the responses related to the fear of making errors theme. this table includes data from five items (15–19) that explore the impact of the fear of making mistakes on reading anxiety. item 15 reveals that 36.66% of respondents (26.66% agreed and 10% strongly agreed) expressed concern about making errors while reading english texts, leading to increased anxiety. similarly, item 16 indicates that 66.66% of respondents (26.66% agreed and 40% strongly agreed) experience distress when they cannot comprehend the text they are reading. according to item 17, 56.67% of respondents (46.57% agreed and 10% strongly agreed) admitted to spending excessive time searching for the meaning of every word due to a lack of confidence. furthermore, item 18 highlights that 43.33% of respondents (36.67% agreed and 6.66% strongly agreed) feel anxious about pronouncing unfamiliar words, indicating a lack of confidence in their pronunciation skills. additionally, item 19 reveals that 50% of respondents (26.66% agreed and 23.34% strongly agreed) prefer silent reading, possibly due to a fear of making pronunciation errors. overall, the total percentage of responses related to the fear of making errors theme is 64%. this theme is the fourth dominant factor contributing to reading anxiety among the five themes analyzed. no item description 1 (sd) 2 (d) 3 (a) 4 (sa) total response rate (%) category 10 multiple word meanings hinder my understanding of english texts. 2 13 13 2 62.5% agree 6.66% 43.34% 43.34% 6.66% 11 english text comprehension challenge: understanding words but not the writer's message. 2 11 16 1 63.3% agree 6.66% 36.66% 53.34% 3.34% 12 i translate word by word while reading english text. 6 15 9 0 52.5% agree 20% 50% 30% 0% 13 frustrating when words in english are connected but have different meanings. 1 15 11 3 63.3% agree 3.34% 50% 36.66% 10% 14 despite knowing every word's meaning, i struggle to understand english texts. 10 12 7 1 49.2% disagree 33.34% 40% 23.33% 3.33% total 58.17% agree 8 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 1-13 fitriawati et.al. (foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of …) table 5. percentage of fear of making error no item description 1 (sd) 2 (d) 3 (a) 4 (sa) total response rate (%) category 15 anxious about making errors while reading english text. 4 15 8 3 58.3% agree 13.34% 50% 26.66% 10% 16 upset when unable to comprehend the text. 1 9 8 12 75.8% agree 3.34% 30% 26.66% 40% 17 overprepare by searching for meanings of every word if asked by the lecturer. 2 11 14 3 65% agree 6.66% 36.67% 46.67% 10% 18 anxious about encountering unfamiliar word pronunciations. 6 11 11 2 57.5% agree 20% 36.67% 36.67% 6.66% 19 prefer silent reading over reading aloud. 6 9 8 7 63.3% agree 20% 30% 26.66% 23.34% total 64% agree 3.7 worry about the reading effect table 6 provides a comprehensive analysis of the statistics, descriptions, frequencies, and percentages of the data related to the worry about the effect of the reading theme. table 6 presents a comprehensive analysis of the statistics, descriptions, frequencies, and percentages of the data related to the worry about the effect of the reading theme. six items (20–25) contain statements that reflect the fear of making errors as a factor causing reading anxiety. when examining the responses, it becomes evident that 53.34% of the respondents (20% agreed and 33.34% strongly agreed) acknowledged focusing more on reading correctly rather than on understanding the text during reading aloud. this emphasis on performance often hinders their comprehension of the text. maintaining focus is crucial for students to comprehend english texts effectively. however, item 21 reveals that 43.34% of the respondents (33.34% agreed and 10% strongly agreed) find it challenging to understand the text while reading aloud. on the other hand, item 22 indicates that 70% of the respondents (43.34% agreed and 26.66% strongly agreed) understand the text better when reading it silently. concerning word accents, item 23 shows that 46.66% of the respondents (36.66% agreed and 10% strongly agreed) tend to focus on word accents, potentially inhibiting their reading comprehension. additionally, 76.66% of the respondents (60% agreed and 16.66% strongly agreed) expressed feeling upset when they did not understand the text they read, as revealed by item 24. furthermore, item 25 highlights that 63.34% of the respondents (30% agreed and 33.34% strongly agreed) reported losing focus and being easily disturbed due to worry about reading. these findings collectively contribute to understanding the worry about the theme of the reading effect. overall, the total response rate to the concern about the reading effect theme is 67.36%. this establishes the theme as the second dominant factor of reading anxiety among the five themes examined in the study. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 9 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 1-13 fitriawati et.al. (foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of …) table 6. percentage of worry about the reading anxiety no item description 1 (sd) 2 (d) 3 (a) 4 (sa) total response rate (%) category 20 reading aloud: prioritize accuracy over text comprehension. 3 11 6 10 69.2% agree 10% 36.66% 20% 33.34% 21 understanding text is harder while reading aloud in class. 5 12 10 3 59.2% agree 16.66% 40% 33.34% 10% 22 silent reading enjoyable due to easy comprehension. 3 6 13 8 71.7% agree 10% 20% 43.34% 26.66% 23 in class, prioritize word accent over understanding when reading english text. 6 10 11 3 59.2% agree 20% 33.34% 36.66 10% 24 upset when unsure about understanding english reading. 1 6 18 5 72.5% agree 3.34% 20% 60% 16.66% 25 when reading english text, i get disturbed easily by noises and do not remember what i have read. 2 9 9 10 75.2% agree 6.66% 30% 30% 33.34% total 67.36% agree 3.8 analysis and interpretation the findings of this study provide valuable insights into the level of reading anxiety and its dominant factors among 30 efl students at a state university in west sumatra, indonesia. most respondents reported experiencing medium-level reading anxiety, with a notable percentage reporting high-level anxiety and a smaller portion reporting low-level anxiety. these findings align with previous studies conducted by aisyah (2017), al faruq (2019), and muhlis (2017), indicating a common prevalence of reading anxiety among students in similar contexts. among the various factors contributing to reading anxiety, the theme of "unfamiliar vocabulary" emerged as the primary cause. many respondents expressed anxiety when confronted with new or unfamiliar words. however, the study also revealed that understanding the meaning of words played a crucial role in alleviating anxiety (badara et al., 2019). respondents who agreed that knowing the translation of words enhanced their enjoyment of reading demonstrated a positive correlation between vocabulary comprehension and reduced anxiety. these findings support and corroborate the conclusions drawn by aisyah (2017), al faruq (2019), al-shboul et al. (2013), muhlis (2017), and ahmad et al. (2013), highlighting the dominant role of unfamiliar vocabulary as a significant source of reading anxiety. the second most prominent factor identified in this study was the "worry about reading effect" theme. anxiety within this theme stems from concerns related to performance (zhang, 2019) and the fear of negative evaluation by peers or teachers (perrodin et al., 2022). interestingly, many students acknowledged focusing more on reading correctly rather than understanding the text during oral reading, which contrasts with the emphasis placed on the theme of being "afraid of making errors" in previous research conducted by ahmad et al. (2013) and muhlis (2017). these variations in findings emphasize the contextual nature of foreign language reading anxiety, suggesting that the dominant factors may vary depending on the specific circumstances and cultural context. 10 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 1-13 fitriawati et.al. (foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of …) the remaining themes, including "unfamiliar topics," "fear of making errors," and "unfamiliar culture," were found to contribute to reading anxiety to a lesser extent. unfamiliar topics presented challenges and led to anxiety when students lacked familiarity and interest in the subject matter (dang, 2022). similarly, the unfamiliar culture factor did not immediately cause anxiety but hindered overall comprehension due to incomplete knowledge of cultural references within the text (jin et al., 2021). based on the results obtained from the questionnaire about reading anxiety, the current study showed that the level of students' reading anxiety is at the medium level. this finding means that the group of students experienced reading anxiety at a moderate level. similarly, muhlis (2017) clarified that students' reading anxiety level is medium. it means the students feel anxious when reading activities in class. recently, the study done by al faruq (2019) was consistent with the current results that students feel nervous when involved in reading activities. linking reading anxiety to critical reading might be interpreted as a negative relationship, which means the more students feel anxious when they are involved in reading activity, the lower the reading comprehension score they will get. in summary, the findings of this study highlight the dominance of the "unfamiliar vocabulary" and "worry about reading effect" themes as the primary factors causing reading anxiety among efl students. these results underscore the importance of vocabulary acquisition and addressing performance-related concerns in alleviating reading anxiety (limeranto & subekti, 2021). educators and curriculum designers can utilize these findings to develop targeted strategies that mitigate anxiety and promote adequate reading comprehension among globalized efl learners (wijaya, 2022). additionally, the contextual nature of reading anxiety should be acknowledged, as different factors may exert varying influences depending on the specific linguistic and cultural context (valizadeh, 2021). 4. conclusion the study on foreign language reading anxiety among efl students revealed essential insights into the levels and factors contributing to this phenomenon. it is evident that each student experiences anxiety to varying degrees and is influenced by different factors. the study's first finding indicated that more than half of the sample experienced a medium level of reading anxiety. this suggests that reading anxiety is a prevalent issue among efl students, with 67% falling into the medium anxiety level, 20% experiencing high anxiety, and only 13% reporting low anxiety levels. the study identified two broad aspects that contribute to anxiety in reading: text features and personal factors. under the text feature factor, themes such as unfamiliar vocabulary, unfamiliar topics, and unfamiliar culture emerged as prominent contributors to anxiety. among these, unfamiliar vocabulary had the highest percentage (71.17% total response) and was ranked as the primary factor causing anxiety in reading. unfamiliar topics followed closely, scoring 66.04% in total response and becoming the second factor contributing to reading anxiety. the unfamiliar culture theme obtained a 58.17% total response and was ranked as the least dominant factor among the five themes. within the personal factor aspect, the worry about the reading effect emerged as the primary source of reading anxiety. this theme garnered a 67.36% total response and ranked as the second dominant factor. the fear of making errors was identified as the final theme in the personal factor aspect, scoring 64% in total response and ranking as the fourth dominant factor contributing to foreign language reading anxiety. the study concluded that efl students at a prominent state university in padang, west sumatra, indonesia, experience reading anxiety at a medium level. in descending order, the most dominant factors contributing to this anxiety were unfamiliar vocabulary, worry about the reading effect, unfamiliar topics, fear of making errors, and unfamiliar culture. this study sheds light on students' challenges when reading in a foreign language and highlights the importance of addressing these factors to alleviate reading anxiety. educators and language instructors should consider implementing strategies and interventions to help students overcome anxiety and develop confidence in their foreign language reading abilities. by creating supportive learning environments and providing targeted language instruction, students can improve their reading skills and gain proficiency in the foreign language. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 11 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 1-13 fitriawati et.al. (foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of …) acknowledgment the researcher extends the gratitude to all parties who helped in the process of this research project, data collection, data analysis and provided feedback so that this paper could be completed. therefore, the researchers would like to thank and appreciate to all parties who have supported and encouraged the researchers to complete this manuscript. declarations author contribution : fitrawati was responsible for the entire research project. he also led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the second author. insan kamil revised and proofread the final draft. david d. perrodin participated in the data collection, transcription and analysis. all the authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research did not receive any funding from any party. conflict of interest : all authors declare that they have no competing interests. ethics declaration additional information : we as authors acknowledge that this work has been written based on ethical research that conforms with the regulations of our university and that we have obtained the permission from the relevant institute when collecting data. we support english language teaching educational journal (eltej) in maintaining high standards of personal conduct, practicing honesty in all our professional practices and endeavors. no additional information is available for this paper. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references ahmad, i. s., m. al-shboul, m., sahari nordin, m., abdul rahman, z., burhan, m., & basha madarsha, k. 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(2021). indonesian theology students’ foreign language reading anxiety and reading performance: a correlational study. studies in english language and education, 8(1), 131–142. https://doi.org/10.24815/siele.v8i1.17398 marvasti, a. (2018). research methods. in a. treviño (ed.), the cambridge handbook of social problems (pp. 23–38). cambridge university press. mikami, h. (2023). a preliminary assessment of facilitating anxiety in second language reading. reading in a foreign language, 35(1), 30–47. https://hdl.handle.net/10125/67437 muhlis, a. (2017). foreign language reading anxiety among indonesian efl senior high school students. english franca: academic journal of english language and education, 1(1), 19– 44. https://doi.org/10.29240/ef.v1i1.160 oteir, i. n., & al-otaibi, a. m. (2019). foreign language anxiety: a systematic review. arab world english journal, 10(3), 309–317. https://doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol10no3.21 https://doi.org/10.2991/isseh-18.2019.12 https://www.jltl.com.tr/index.php/jltl/article/view/86 https://doi.org/10.36922/ssr.v2i3.1003 https://doi.org/10.1145/3551708.3556209 https://doi.org/10.26858/ijole.v2i2.4347 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2021.102604 https://doi.org/10.24036/jelt.v12i1.121549 http://jurnal.untad.ac.id/jurnal/index.php/elts/article/view/11495 https://doi.org/10.24815/siele.v8i1.17398 https://doi.org/10.24815/siele.v8i1.17398 https://doi.org/10.29240/ef.v1i1.160 https://doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol10no3.21 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 13 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 1-13 fitriawati et.al. (foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of …) özer, ö., & i̇şpınar akçayoğlu, d. (2021). examining the roles of self-efficacy beliefs, self-regulated learning and foreign language anxiety in the academic achievement of tertiary efl learners. participatory educational research, 8(2), 357–372. https://doi.org/10.17275/per.21.43.8.2 perrodin, d. d., liangruenrom, n., & chancharoen, s. (2022). lasting effects of foreign language anxiety with adults working in international organizations. pasaa, 63, 254–278. https://www.culi.chula.ac.th/publicationsonline/files/article/itddal1lnhmon41145.pdf rahmawati, i. f. (2017). modelling the pattern of relationship among cognitive learning style, reading anxiety, reading strategy and reading comprehension of efl university students [master’s thesis]. universitas negeri malang. http://repository.um.ac.id/id/eprint/58910 saito, y., garza, t. j., & horwitz, e. k. (1999). foreign language reading anxiety. the modern language journal, 83(2), 202–218. https://doi.org/10.1111/0026-7902.00016 siedlecki, s. l. (2020). understanding descriptive research designs and methods. clinical nurse specialist, 34(1), 8–12. https://doi.org/10.1097/nur.0000000000000493 siregar, a. i. a., & narius, d. (2019). an analysis of student’s reading motivation in reading subject at english department of universitas negeri padang. journal of english language teaching volume, 8(3), 391–398. https://doi.org/10.24036/jelt.v8i3.105345 toyama, m., & yamazaki, y. (2021). classroom interventions and foreign language anxiety: a systematic review with narrative approach. frontiers in psychology, 12, article 614184. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.614184 valizadeh, m. (2021). the effect of reading comprehension strategies instruction on efl learners’ reading anxiety level. shanlax international journal of education, 9(s1-may), 53–58. https://doi.org/10.34293/education.v9is1-may.3999 wijaya, k. f. (2022). strategies to overcome foreign language reading anxiety among globalized efl learners. salee, 3(2), 138–152. https://doi.org/10.35961/salee.v3i2.436 wijayati, p. h., mardianti, n. i., & murtadho, n. (2021). the correlation between students’ reading anxiety and their reading comprehension in esp context. ijole (international journal of language education), 5(2), 15–29. https://doi.org/10.26858/ijole.v5i2.15440 zhang, x. (2019). foreign language anxiety and foreign language performance: a meta‐analysis. the modern language journal, 103(4), 763–781. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12590 .%20https:/doi.org/10.17275/per.21.43.8.2 https://www.culi.chula.ac.th/publicationsonline/files/article/itddal1lnhmon41145.pdf http://repository.um.ac.id/id/eprint/58910 https://doi.org/10.1111/0026-7902.00016 https://doi.org/10.1097/nur.0000000000000493 https://doi.org/10.24036/jelt.v8i3.105345 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.614184 https://doi.org/10.34293/education.v9is1-may.3999 https://doi.org/10.35961/salee.v3i2.436 https://doi.org/10.26858/ijole.v5i2.15440 https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12590 foreign language reading anxiety: exploring the experiences of efl students at a state university in padang, indonesia fitrawati a,1,*, insan kamil b,2, david d. perrodin c,3 a,b english language department, universitas negeri padang, jln. prof. dr. hamka, air tawar, padang, sumatra barat, indonesia indonesia c institute for population and social research, mahidol university, 999 phutthamonthon sai 4 rd, salaya, phutthamonthon district, nakhon pathom 73170, thailand 1fitra_bing@fbs.unp.ac.id*, 2insankamil6285@gmail.com; 3daviddperrodin@gmail.com *corresponding author how to cite: fitrawati, kamil, i., & perrodin, d. d. (2023). foreign language reading anxiety as experienced by efl students of a state university in padang, indonesia. english language teaching educational journal, 6(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1292... 1. introduction early on, saito et al. (1999) recognized that foreign language reading was a critical source of language input and a potential source of anxiety for learners. as such, reading anxiety can impede language learning progress and hinder reading comprehens... ahmad et al. (2013) proposed two comprehensive aspects of foreign language reading anxiety: personal and text feature factors. three themes were identified under the text feature factors: unfamiliar vocabulary, topics, and culture. within individual f... muhlis (2017) evaluated foreign language reading anxiety and identified its potential factors among indonesian efl senior high school students. the findings revealed that more than half of the students experienced reading anxiety, with most falling in... however, limited research has been conducted on foreign language reading anxiety levels and the dominant factors experienced by students in the english language and literature department at the university level (kamil & fitrawati, 2022). it is often a... 2. method the present study adopted a quantitative research approach to investigate the level of reading anxiety and identify the factors contributing to such reading anxiety among efl students at a state university in west sumatra, indonesia. quantitative rese... 2.1 population and sample the population for this research comprised 157 efl students enrolled in the english language and literature department at a state university in padang, west sumatra, indonesia, during the 2019 academic year. to obtain the sample, the researchers emplo... 2.2 research instrumentation in this study, two adopted questionnaires were utilized to comprehensively assess the level of reading anxiety and investigate its dominant factor. the first questionnaire employed was the foreign language reading anxiety scale (flras), which consist... the second questionnaire utilized in this study was developed based on the work of al-shboul et al. (2013) and aimed to investigate the dominant factor contributing to reading anxiety. this questionnaire enabled students to self-report the factors in... by employing these two questionnaires, the researchers aimed to gather comprehensive data on both the level of reading anxiety and the dominant factors contributing to foreign language reading anxiety among the participants. 2.3 validity and reliability to ensure the quality of the final data, the instruments utilized in this study underwent a thorough validity check. experts from the english language and literature department reviewed and provided comments on the validity of the items included in th... the reliability coefficient's standard scale provides a categorization of the item achievement value, with values above 0.8 classified as "high," values between 0.7 and 0.8 as "good," values between 0.6 and 0.7 as "fair," and values below 0.6 as "poor... 2.4 technique of data collection the flras and the developed questionnaire items were incorporated into google forms to facilitate data collection. this approach was chosen due to the logistical constraints posed by the participants' engagement in a field practice program, which made... the analysis involved determining the mean and standard deviation scores. these scores were utilized to classify the levels of reading anxiety among the participants. additionally, the developed questionnaire aimed to identify the factors contributing... by employing these analytical approaches, a comprehensive understanding of reading anxiety levels and the factors affecting them was obtained within the context of the aforementioned efl student population. 2.5 technique of data analysis a descriptive analysis was conducted to examine the foreign language reading anxiety experienced by students comprehensively. the primary objectives of this analysis were to collect data on the level of reading anxiety and identify the dominant factor... data from the foreign language reading anxiety scale (flras) was collected and thoroughly analyzed to initiate the analysis. mean, and standard deviation calculations determined the student's reading anxiety level. participants who scored below the me... to further delve into the analysis, the sample responses were scored accordingly, and the percentages and categorizations of the respondents for each item were calculated, where values ranging from 0.76 to 100 are classified as "strongly agree," value... an essential aspect of understanding the foreign language reading anxiety experienced by students lies in the analysis of their responses. this analysis provides valuable insights into their perspectives and attitudes toward specific statements or the... 3. findings and discussion 3.1 students’ reading anxiety level the primary objective of this research was to assess the level of reading anxiety among efl students studying at a state university in west sumatra, indonesia. the participant's responses to the statements presented in the foreign language reading anx... students were categorized based on their flras scores to determine their anxiety levels. those with scores lower than the mean minus the standard deviation were classified as having low anxiety. students with scores higher than the mean and standard d... analyzing the flras scores allowed for a comprehensive understanding of the distribution of students' reading anxiety levels. based on the frequency distribution, it was found that most respondents (20 students, or 67%) fell into the medium level of r... 3.2 factors of foreign language reading anxiety the dominant factor of reading anxiety was analyzed using the adapted questionnaire developed by ahmad et al. (2013). this questionnaire comprised 25 statements organized into five themes: (1) worry about reading effects, (2) fear of making errors, (3... table 1. the percentage of the specific factors of reading anxiety table 1 provides an overview of the percentage of responses related to specific factors contributing to reading anxiety. the factors were categorized into two main aspects: text feature factors and personal factors. three main themes emerged under the... 3.3 unfamiliar vocabulary table 2 provides a comprehensive overview of the statistics, frequencies, and percentages of the data associated with the unfamiliar vocabulary themes. table 2. percentage of unfamiliar vocabulary table 2 provides a comprehensive overview of the statistics and descriptions of the responses related to the unfamiliar vocabulary theme. five items (1–5) in the table encompass statements that revolve around unfamiliar vocabulary as a cause of read... furthermore, 53.33% of the respondents agreed (30% agreed and 23.34% strongly agreed) with item 3, which aligns with ahmad et al.'s (2013) findings that unfamiliar words intensify the complexity of reading tasks and evoke anxiety. additionally, 93.... 3.4 unfamiliar topic table 3 displays the descriptive statistics, frequencies, and percentages of the data concerning unfamiliar topic themes. table 3. percentage of unfamiliar topics table 3 provides the descriptive statistics for the responses related to unfamiliar topic themes. four items (6–9) in the table contain statements concerning the impact of unfamiliar topics on reading anxiety. regarding item 6, a significant majority ... 3.5 unfamiliar culture table 4 below displays the statistics, descriptions, frequencies, and percentages of the data about unfamiliar cultural themes. table 4 provides a comprehensive overview of the statistics, descriptions, frequencies, and percentages related to the unfa... table 4. percentage of unfamiliar culture furthermore, item 14 revealed that 26.66% of the respondents (23.33% agreed and 3.33% strongly agreed) often face situations where they cannot understand english texts, despite knowing the meaning of individual words. this demonstrates the complexity ... 3.6 fear of making error table 5 displays the statistical information, descriptions, frequencies, and percentages about the theme of fear of making an error. table 5 presents a comprehensive analysis of the responses related to the fear of making errors theme. this table in... furthermore, item 18 highlights that 43.33% of respondents (36.67% agreed and 6.66% strongly agreed) feel anxious about pronouncing unfamiliar words, indicating a lack of confidence in their pronunciation skills. additionally, item 19 reveals that 50%... table 5. percentage of fear of making error 3.7 worry about the reading effect table 6 provides a comprehensive analysis of the statistics, descriptions, frequencies, and percentages of the data related to the worry about the effect of the reading theme. table 6 presents a comprehensive analysis of the statistics, descriptions, ... on the other hand, item 22 indicates that 70% of the respondents (43.34% agreed and 26.66% strongly agreed) understand the text better when reading it silently. concerning word accents, item 23 shows that 46.66% of the respondents (36.66% agreed and 1... table 6. percentage of worry about the reading anxiety 3.8 analysis and interpretation the findings of this study provide valuable insights into the level of reading anxiety and its dominant factors among 30 efl students at a state university in west sumatra, indonesia. most respondents reported experiencing medium-level reading anxiety... among the various factors contributing to reading anxiety, the theme of "unfamiliar vocabulary" emerged as the primary cause. many respondents expressed anxiety when confronted with new or unfamiliar words. however, the study also revealed that unders... the second most prominent factor identified in this study was the "worry about reading effect" theme. anxiety within this theme stems from concerns related to performance (zhang, 2019) and the fear of negative evaluation by peers or teachers (perrodin... the remaining themes, including "unfamiliar topics," "fear of making errors," and "unfamiliar culture," were found to contribute to reading anxiety to a lesser extent. unfamiliar topics presented challenges and led to anxiety when students lacked fami... based on the results obtained from the questionnaire about reading anxiety, the current study showed that the level of students' reading anxiety is at the medium level. this finding means that the group of students experienced reading anxiety at a mod... in summary, the findings of this study highlight the dominance of the "unfamiliar vocabulary" and "worry about reading effect" themes as the primary factors causing reading anxiety among efl students. these results underscore the importance of vocabul... 4. conclusion the study on foreign language reading anxiety among efl students revealed essential insights into the levels and factors contributing to this phenomenon. it is evident that each student experiences anxiety to varying degrees and is influenced by diffe... the study identified two broad aspects that contribute to anxiety in reading: text features and personal factors. under the text feature factor, themes such as unfamiliar vocabulary, unfamiliar topics, and unfamiliar culture emerged as prominent contr... within the personal factor aspect, the worry about the reading effect emerged as the primary source of reading anxiety. this theme garnered a 67.36% total response and ranked as the second dominant factor. the fear of making errors was identified as t... the study concluded that efl students at a prominent state university in padang, west sumatra, indonesia, experience reading anxiety at a medium level. in descending order, the most dominant factors contributing to this anxiety were unfamiliar vocabul... this study sheds light on students' challenges when reading in a foreign language and highlights the importance of addressing these factors to alleviate reading anxiety. educators and language instructors should consider implementing strategies and in... acknowledgment the researcher extends the gratitude to all parties who helped in the process of this research project, data collection, data analysis and provided feedback so that this paper could be completed. therefore, the researchers would like to thank and appr... declarations references ahmad, i. s., m. al-shboul, m., sahari nordin, m., abdul rahman, z., burhan, m., & basha madarsha, k. 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(2022). lasting effects of foreign language anxiety with adults working in international organizations. pasaa, 63, 254–278. https://www.culi.chula.ac.th/publicationsonline/files/article/itddal1lnhmo... rahmawati, i. f. (2017). modelling the pattern of relationship among cognitive learning style, reading anxiety, reading strategy and reading comprehension of efl university students [master’s thesis]. universitas negeri malang. http://repository.um.ac... saito, y., garza, t. j., & horwitz, e. k. (1999). foreign language reading anxiety. the modern language journal, 83(2), 202–218. https://doi.org/10.1111/0026-7902.00016 siedlecki, s. l. (2020). understanding descriptive research designs and methods. clinical nurse specialist, 34(1), 8–12. https://doi.org/10.1097/nur.0000000000000493 siregar, a. i. a., & narius, d. (2019). an analysis of student’s reading motivation in reading subject at english department of universitas negeri padang. journal of english language teaching volume, 8(3), 391–398. https://doi.org/10.24036/jelt.v8i3.1... toyama, m., & yamazaki, y. (2021). classroom interventions and foreign language anxiety: a systematic review with narrative approach. frontiers in psychology, 12, article 614184. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.614184 valizadeh, m. (2021). the effect of reading comprehension strategies instruction on efl learners’ reading anxiety level. shanlax international journal of education, 9(s1-may), 53–58. https://doi.org/10.34293/education.v9is1-may.3999 wijaya, k. f. (2022). strategies to overcome foreign language reading anxiety among globalized efl learners. salee, 3(2), 138–152. https://doi.org/10.35961/salee.v3i2.436 wijayati, p. h., mardianti, n. i., & murtadho, n. (2021). the correlation between students’ reading anxiety and their reading comprehension in esp context. ijole (international journal of language education), 5(2), 15–29. https://doi.org/10.26858/ijol... zhang, x. (2019). foreign language anxiety and foreign language performance: a meta‐analysis. the modern language journal, 103(4), 763–781. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12590 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 32-47 10.12928/eltej.v5i1.4403 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id efl learners' preference for corrective feedback strategies in relation to their self-perceived levels of proficiency kanokpan wiboolyasarin a,1 , ruedee kamonsawad b,2, nattawut jinowat c,3, watcharapol wiboolyasarin d,4,* a faculty of management science, chandrakasem rajabhat univeristy, 39/1 ratchadaphisek road, bangkok 10900, thailand b faculty of humanities and social science, bansomdejchaopraya rajabhat university, 1061 itsaraphap road, thonburi, bangkok 10600, thailand c demonstration school of suan sunandha rajabhat university, suan sunandha rajabhat university, 1 u-thong nok road, dusit, bangkok 10300, thailand d research institute for languages and cultures of asia, mahidol university, 999 phuttamonthon 4 road, salaya, nakhon pathom 73170, thailand 1 kanokpan.w@chandra.ac.th; 2 ruedee.ka@bsru.ac.th; 3 nattawut.ji@ssru.ac.th; 4 watcharapol.wib@mahidol.ac.th* * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 7 july 2021 revised 15 march 2022 accepted 27 april 2022 the purpose of this work was to address the overarching questions of how efl thai learners preferred corrective feedback strategies and whether there were any significant differences in preferences across learners’ language ability levels. the quantitative study collected 418 thai efl learners’ preferences for corrective feedback via a closed-ended likert scale questionnaire. the survey showed that learners desired to edit when their speech or writing contained errors, particularly when the wrong utterance was responded to with a metalinguistic comment regarding the error’s nature. statistical analysis found significant differences in students’ preferences for metalinguistic clues and public feedback between intermediate and elementary levels. it appeared that beginnerlevel learners would almost certainly experience embarrassment if they were corrected in front of their peers. conversely, self-correction, which was necessary once the student’s erroneous remark was explained in terms of grammar usage, probably made advanced students uncomfortable. while teachers should examine their efl students' corrective feedback preferences, this study found that their proficiency levels were slightly relevant. this is an open access article under the c license. keywords corrective feedback english proficiency error correction preference rajabhat student how to cite: wiboolyasarin, k., kamonsawad, r., jinowat, n., wiboolyasarin, w., (2022). efl learners' preference for corrective feedback strategies in relation to their self-perceived levels of proficiency. english language teaching educational journal, 5(1), 32-47. 1. introduction the salience of corrective feedback in second language acquisition has been recognised over the past two decades. as its name implies, it relates to approaches used by teachers and peers to help learners identify their incorrect production in the target language. teachers apply various instructional strategies the foreign language classroom, depending on the ability level, the time period, the context, the type of error, and other factors, to assist l2 learners in acquiring language competency. however, despite the varied techniques for providing corrective feedback, some might be impractical or fail to meet the students’ expectations (aliakbari & raeesi, 2014). teachers then must address esl students’ preferences for corrective feedback in order to motivate them to succeed in language learning (lee, https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i1.4403 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index file:///c:/users/muhammadwildan/downloads/kanokpan.w@chandra.ac.th file:///c:/users/muhammadwildan/downloads/ruedee.ka@bsru.ac.th file:///c:/users/muhammadwildan/downloads/nattawut.ji@ssru.ac.th mailto:watcharapol.wib@mahidol.ac.th http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v5i1.4403&domain=pdf issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 33 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 32-47 wiboolyasarin, k. et.al (efl learners’ preference for corrective feedback strategies) 2016). numerous studies have discovered that students prefer a variety of corrective feedback procedures in the l2 classroom (amador, 2008; amrhein & nassaji, 2010; irwin, 2017; li & vuono, 2019; lee 2013; qutob & madini, 2020; yang, 2016). more importantly, past research has established that learners’ proficiency levels are substantial determinants of their preferences (e.g., orts & salazar, 2016; yang, 2016). as mentioned previously, while corrective feedback is an integral part of an l2 class, research on this phenomenon appears to have focused primarily on efl/esl students in europe (austen & malone, 2018; károly, 2015; şakiroğlu, 2020), or asia, more specifically in the dominant countries (chung, 2015; elwood & bode, 2014; moslemi & dastgoshadeh, 2017; zhan, 2016). although published studies on learner preferences for oral or written correction feedback are extensive, there is insufficiency in a study about varied proficiency levels of students towards preferences for correct feedback, notably in thailand. the current study is an attempt in this regard. the specific objectives of this large-scale study were to ascertain thai efl learners’ preferences for oral and written corrective feedback and to compare each group based on self-reported proficiency levels. the rationale for analysing undergraduate students at rajabhat universities (established initially as teachers colleges) was to identify gaps in their preferences and provide these prospective findings to policymakers for future revisions to efl teacher training. 2. literature review 2.1. corrective feedback type over the last twenty years, l2 scholars and practitioners have paid great attention to the subject of corrective feedback. a seminal work (lyster & ranta, 1997) identified six distinct oral corrective feedback strategies: recast, elicitation, clarification request, metalinguistic feedback, explicit correction, and repetition (table 1). multiple subsequent research has employed six different types of feedback, as defined by lyster and ranta’s taxonomy of corrective feedback. for instance, lee (2013) examined previous studies’ categories of teacher corrective feedback and evaluated learner absorption and repair using this typology. in a chinese as a second language classroom, yang (2016) explored students’ preferences for six types of oral corrective feedback on four different characteristics of errors. it also confirms comparable data found in other published studies (bao, 2019; wiboolyasarin et al., 2020). table 1. oral corrective feedback type (lyster & ranta, 1997) dimension type definition recasts recast the teacher modifies the entirety or a portion of a student's vocal sound in an error-free manner. negotiation of form elicitation the teachers elicit the correct version directly from the learner. clarification request the student’s utterance is imprecise and should be repeated or reformulated. it may include a teacher’s repetition of the error or phase such as pardon. metalinguistic comment the teacher provides grammatical justifications for the learner's incorrect speech without providing the proper version, which is necessary for the learner to self-edit. repetition the teacher’s repetition is in a high intonation to emphasise the fault. explicit correction explicit correction the teacher either provides the right version or indicates that the learner's pronunciation was incorrect. in terms of feedback in written production, ellis’s (2009) taxonomy of written corrective feedback types has been widely employed in much research (see kılıçkaya, 2019; shintani & ellis, 2013, 2015; suzuki et al., 2019). ellis’s concepts suggest a taxonomy for the two dimensions of written corrective feedback: teacher provision and student responses. the typology of written corrective feedback is shown in table 2. 34 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 32-47 wiboolyasarin, k. et.al (efl learners’ preference for corrective feedback strategies) table 2. written corrective feedback type (ellis, 2009) dimension type definition teacher’s provision direct feedback the teacher provides the correct version to the learner. indirect feedback the teacher identifies the existence of an error but does not rectify it. metalinguistic feedback the teacher provides a metalinguistic clue as to the error’s nature. electronic feedback the teacher highlights an error and provides a link to a concordance file containing examples of proper usage. feedback focus this refers to whether the teacher makes an attempt to correct the majority of the learners’ errors or focuses on a few specific types of faults. reformulation the teacher enhances the learners’ entire content in order to create as much native-like written language as possible while maintaining the integrity of the original text. students’ responses revision required the student is tasked with correcting typos or rewriting the content. no revision required the learner is not required to revise the text for errors or rewrite it. 2.2. learner’s preferred corrective feedback type with a profusion of studies examining the impacts of corrective feedback, researchers and practitioners have focused on learner preference. empirical investigations of learners’ preferences have revealed that preferences for corrective feedback vary across efl/esl contexts. in terms of oral corrective feedback, a vast number of studies highlight the importance of oral corrective feedback strategies for grammatical or general errors (e.g., yang, 2016). katayama’s (2007) findings showed that the most preferred correction strategy was elicitation or providing a clue to enable learners to become aware of their errors and self-correct. it is crucial to understand that this indirect correction is intended to point out that the students have made errors without humiliating them. likewise, east asian learners also demonstrated a high level of preference for elicitation, explicit correction, and metalinguistic feedback (wiboolyasarin et al., 2020). these techniques alleviated the cognitive load associated with this self-correcting learner errors and shifted focus to some grammatical metalanguage. it is consistent with katayama’s (2006) results, indicating that the learners preferred feedback in which the teacher described why the student’s statement was inappropriate. regarding peer correction, over half of the students thought that it was beneficial. earlier research (e.g., bruton & samuda, 1980) found that esl learners who corrected one another in group assignments believed that peer correction benefited them in the l2 class. one could argue that there is a definite preference for assigning responsibility for error correction to learners. although there are virtually few studies on the preferred venue for offering corrective feedback, either private or public, wiboolyasarin et al.’s (2020) work may be helpful in this area. the preferences of l2 learners of thai for public and private correction were investigated, it was discovered that both were beneficial. it is worth noting, however, that students were more receptive to personal revision than to public correction. the current study aimed to examining eight distinct kinds of oral corrective feedback: ignoring, repetition, explicit correction, elicitation, peer correction, metalinguistic comments, public feedback, and private feedback, as illustrated in table 3. previous research has been conducted to ascertain the preferences of l2 students for written corrective feedback techniques. sanu (2016) found that indonesian students preferred receiving the correct version to the incorrect form. it collaborates with black and nanni’s (2016) study, in which efl students desired direct feedback with metalinguistic remarks since accuracy was the primary concern. it can be said that grammar errors directly affect students’ grades. many undergraduate students also prefer to comprehend the nature of their errors immediately. according to another survey (diab, 2015), the majority of students favoured metalinguistic correction, which provided a clue to the origin and type of the error and encouraged learners to self-correct once the location of such an error was detected (li & vuono, 2019). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 35 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 32-47 wiboolyasarin, k. et.al (efl learners’ preference for corrective feedback strategies) table 3. oral corrective feedback selected to conduct the study type definition ignoring the teacher disregards the error that a student has made intentionally. s: i learning english. t: (silence) repetition the teacher repeats the student’s incorrect utterance with a doubting voice. s: one of my hobbies are bird watching. t: are? (with a high intonation) explicit correction the teacher states clearly that the error happened while the student was speaking. the correct version is also given. s: i am interesting at history. t: no, you should say, ‘i am interested in history.’ elicitation the teacher elicits an accurate model from the student by asking questions. s: animal experimentation is a highly emotion issue. t: how do we say ‘emotion’ as an adjective? peer correction the teacher asks the students to correct each other. s1: i am not do anything. t: can you help me correct mike’s error, emmie? s2: i am doing nothing. metalinguistics feedback the teacher explains grammatical usages or comments on the student’s incorrect utterances without explicitly providing the correct form. s: last night i go to the movie. t: when something happened or existed before the present time, typically, a verb should refer to the past tense. public feedback the teacher provides feedback to the student in front of others in public (e.g., in the classroom). private feedback the teacher provides feedback to the student one-on-one or in private (e.g., in the teacher’s room). moreover, chen et al. (2016) found that learners preferred feedback that 1) locates the error, 2) explains the error’s nature, and 3) provides the proper version. this finding is consistent with amrhein and nassaji’s (2010) observation that esl students viewed error correction with a comment as a tool for learning. nearly half (44.4%) of them stated that the comments aided in understanding why the error occurred and how to correct it. also, lee’s (2008) students requested more written comments because reading them was the most desired activity for both the skilled and incompetent groups. when interviewing nine l2 students in response to their teachers’ feedback, learners reacted positively to feedback. they expressed the notion that, for instance, ‘if the teacher gives you many feedbacks, you will feel very touched, that they care about you as a student. i read it, make corrections, and remember it. it is a pleasure for me’ (hyland, 2013, p. 186). along with their justifications for error types, most participants (71.4%) thought that grammar, spelling, and vocabulary were more critical than organisation and ideas. similarly, al hajiri and al-mahrooqi (2013) discovered that providing clear, positive and grammar-focused comments was beneficial and understood for efl undergraduate learners studying efl. this conclusion differs slightly from another investigation (elwood & bode, 2014), reporting that japanese efl students viewed wcf favourably; nonetheless, they preferred details about their organisational mistakes. concerning the dose of corrective feedback, more than four-fifths (83%) of l2 students preferred to rectify have all errors (lee, 2008). similarly, amrhein and nassaji (2010) asserted that the majority of esl students (94%) desired that their instructors corrected all errors. furthermore, when students were asked to select between teacher and non-teacher feedback, they indicated that while they appreciated teacher input the most, they also valued peer feedback (zhang, 1995). likewise, sanu (2016) explored students’ preferences for teacher-provided corrective feedback in business lesson writing and the reasons for their preferences. it showed that l2 students chose to consult their peers even when they received both unsatisfactory and satisfactory corrective feedback. students’ opinions regarding the red pen appeared to be unconcerned about the colour of the feedback writing. as elwood and bode (2014) reported, learners preferred red and blue markings approximately equally. it is consistent with wiboolyasarin et al.’s (2020) study, in which l2 students preferred receiving feedback in red pen. nonetheless, it is critical to note that in many cases (jones, 36 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 32-47 wiboolyasarin, k. et.al (efl learners’ preference for corrective feedback strategies) 2014), students did not understand what an instructor’s red-penned comments meant in terms of supportive feedback. therefore, when evaluating learners’ preferences for written corrective feedback, it is vital to assess their preferences for the following eight moves: ignoring, indirect feedback, error code, no updated version required, revised version required, all error rectification, peer correction, and red pen marking, as presented in table 4. table 4. written corrective feedback selected to conduct the study type definition ignoring the teacher indicates no errors and provides no correct version. indirect feedback the teacher identifies the error by circling, underlining, crossing, or highlighting it without providing an accurate model. error code the teacher brief comments on the error, such as ‘ww’ stood for a wrong word or ‘sp’ for spelling. no revised version required the teacher does not ask students to revise their written work. revised version required the teacher asks students to fix their written work. all error correction the teacher corrects all errors found in a piece of written work. peer correction the teacher tells students to add a written comment to their peer’s written work. marking in red pen the teacher indicates the error and provides the correct form by drawing in a red pen. 2.3 learners' preferences and proficiency level a myriad of researchers has investigated the relationship between learners' preferences and their characteristics, such as cultural background (yang, 2016), attitudes (hamouda, 2011; parkes & fletcher, 2017; wanchid, 2015), cognitive/learning styles (moslemi & dastgoshadeh, 2017; tasdemir & yalcin arslan, 2018), needs (nurie, 2018), academic performance (morris & chikwa, 2016), and educational activities (alnasser & alyousef, 2015; jolley, 2019; károly, 2015). in light of the evidence, chen et al. (2016) discovered that learners' preferences were not significantly related to their english ability levels. students likely demonstrated a distaste for grammar instruction and an obsession with precision regardless of their grades. additionally, participants favoured direct correction over indirect correction and showed a strong preference for increased self-correction activity throughout the revision stage. nemati et al. (2017) also reported that students at all proficiency levels preferred direct unfocused feedback. the lecturer corrected any errors discovered in the students’ text by providing the right form. surprisingly, while the majority of learners opposed metalinguistics comments in their native language, half (50%) of students across all levels anticipated their lecturer to provide such clarifications in english. roy (2019) found that the student writers anticipated explicit directive comments from their lecturers, especially those expressing confidence in their abilities preferred audio input to written comments. another empirical study (orts & salazar, 2016) identified that learners at the lowest competence level preferred to be informed of the correct answers, but more than half (60%) of higher-level pupils would like to fix their own errors. however, most students, particularly b2 students, paid attention to their teacher's constructive comments. chen et al.’s (2016) research findings corroborated this conclusion, as their proficient learners preferred detailed feedback to general error correction. on the contrary, according to li and he (2017), performance disparities substantially affected the preference for indirect written corrective feedback. also, wanchid (2015) observed that students' opinions towards various sorts of feedback differed significantly depending on their personality and preferences. therefore, it can be inferred that there might be no specific feedback that any proficiency groups favoured. the issue to probe further is oral corrective feedback. yang (2016) indicated that metalinguistic comments were seen positively by students at all levels, whereas intermediate students preferred clarification questions. furthermore, data revealed that efl learners of varying proficiency levels demonstrated a strong proclivity for having a variety of preferences. kaivanpanah et al. (2015) assessed efl language learners' attitudes towards various oral corrective feedback strategies and their relationship to their english ability. the results showed that iranian primary pupils studying english as a foreign language desired metalinguistic information. however, proficient learners reported a issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 37 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 32-47 wiboolyasarin, k. et.al (efl learners’ preference for corrective feedback strategies) distinct preference for self-correcting elicitation. in a similar context, saudi efl students at the advanced level favoured corrective feedback more than low-proficient students (alhaysony, 2016). interestingly, l2 grade 6 pupils from quebec and ontario who spoke english at the elementary to low intermediate levels preferred explicit feedback during esl-fsl tandem chat exchanges (giguère & parks, 2018). these findings contradict morris’s (2005) claim, which advocated for the provision of implicit negative feedback (e.g., recasts and negotiation). a possible explanation is that morris’s students possessed intermediate to advanced proficiency levels. nonetheless, another study (bryfonski & ma, 2019) revealed that explicit corrective feedback was more beneficial for beginners with less competency. as previously stated, a significant portion of current research on corrective feedback focuses on efl learners in developed countries, where the learner-centred approach has long been a recurring theme in numerous national education policies. it is critical to emphasise that the adoption of this technique has become a prominent issue in thailand over the last two decades. as black and nanni (2016) argue, thailand's educational system has been in a perpetual state of reform, advocating for a shift away from a teacher-centred approach toward one that is learner-centred. a vast number of thai students have been taught using traditional methods that emphasise memory and passive learning and are centred on the teacher (fry & bi, 2013). it can be said that students who have passively acquired knowledge over an extended period of time may prefer for their teachers to spoon-feed them their corrections (black & nanni, 2016); in other words, they may differ from other nationality groups in actively participating in their education. therefore, it needed us to consider a large number of thai efl students with varying degrees of english language proficiency in terms of their preferred corrective feedback techniques in order to address the following research questions: rq1. what types of oral and written corrective feedback strategies do thai efl learners prefer? rq2. does the proficiency level of thai efl students affect their preferences for oral and written corrective feedback strategies? 3. method 3.1. participants and demongraphics previous studies (e.g., lee, 2013; rassaei, 2015; yang, 2016) have advised performing a largescale study to ascertain the persuasive techniques preferred by efl learners in order to provide insight into how instructors in general, and thai lecturers in particular, might be more productive in their efl teaching. g*power 3.1 was used to estimate the sample size for a one-way anova with a probability of alpha errors at 0.05 and a power of 0.90. a sample of 360 would be necessary for small effect size (d = 0.20). due to the survey’s accessibility to participants, a random sample of 418 efl students (351 females and 67 males) from twenty rajabhat universities in thailand was chosen to complete it. the majority (n = 146) were in their second year of the four-year bachelor programmes, while some were in their first year (n = 102), third year (n = 92), or fourth year (n = 78). participants have at least 10-20 years of experience in learning english as a foreign language since kindergarten or first grade, according to thailand’s national education act be 2542 (1999). respondents were asked to identify themselves using the common european framework of references for languages’ descriptors; they assigned various english skill levels ranging from a1 to b2. nearly half (42.1%) of participants (n = 176) claimed proficiency at the a2 level, while the others were assessed on the a1-level (n = 134, 32.1%), b1-level (n = 91, 21.8%), or b2-level (n = 17, 4.1%) scales. among the four distinct proficiency levels, groups a1 and a2 were designated as ‘beginning’ and ‘elementary’ levels of proficiency, respectively. the b1 and b2 groups, respectively, represented the ‘intermediate’ and ‘upper intermediate’ levels. as the authors have taught at various rajabhat universities, we asked our efl undergraduates to answer an online questionnaire utilising surveyplanet and remaining accessible for a three-month period (july-september 2020). additionally, acquaintances from other rajabhat universities were called to urge their students to participate in the internet survey. all respondents participated voluntarily and anonymously, and the surveys were kept strictly confidential. 38 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 32-47 wiboolyasarin, k. et.al (efl learners’ preference for corrective feedback strategies) 3.2. instrument the survey began with a demographic section from which the aforementioned information was extracted. following that, in order to uncover students’ cf preferences, the questionnaire was divided into two sections. part 1 featured eight statements in which participants stated their views on oral corrective feedback. the second section included eight items that assessed attitudes towards written corrective feedback. all questions were devised by the authors to accomplish the study’s objective of enquiring about students’ preferences for corrective feedback in the english class. the questionnaire was issued using a 6-point likert scale ranging from ‘worst’ – 1, ‘very bad’ – 2, ‘bad’ – 3, ‘good’ – 4, ‘very good’ – 5, ‘best’ – 6 and was written in thai to guarantee that each item was understood. furthermore, reliability and validity were verified prior to the implementation. content validity was determined using a sample collection of items before the pilot test. the content validity index (cvi) was developed to evaluate the degree of agreement between a purposively sampled committee of five content specialists in the field. the experts were deliberately selected based on academic criteria, including the following: (a) a phd in english or a related field of study, (b) ten or more years of experience in english teaching, and (c) publication of at least three relevant research articles within the last five years. to calculate the i-cvi, five experts were asked to independently assess the relevance of each item to the objectives using a 4-point rating scale: (1) not relevant, (2) somewhat relevant, (3) quite relevant, and (4) very relevant (waltz et al., 2010, p. 165). if raters assigned a 3 or 4 to any item, an x would mark the spot. the results indicated that item cvi equaled 0.96, representing a satisfactory level of content validity. a few amendments were made to the items in response to their suggestions. cronbach’s alpha coefficient measures internal consistency reliability. a pilot study with 40 potential volunteers was conducted. the result of examining a 16-item scale was 0.761, which was considered ‘reliable’ (cohen et al., 2018, p. 774). calculating for each item on the scale, the values ranged between 0.727 and 0.777, showing that internal consistency would improve if the following items were omitted. however, the item-total correlations for items 1, 3, and 8, which were substantially lower than all the other correlations, were redefined. as previously indicated, the internet-based questionnaire was utterly anonymous since it did not require the participant’s name. the consent statement was located on a separate introductory web page containing information about the study’s purposes and a privacy statement. respondents would not be able to access the survey questions until they clicked the ‘begin’ button to indicate their acceptance of the voluntary participation. the survey’s quantitative data was analysed using ibm spss statistics 22. a one-way anova was used to investigate the effects of learners’ proficiency and their preferences for oral and written corrective feedback and indicate statistically significant differences using bonferroni correction at an overall level of significance of 0.05. 4. findings 4.1. research question 1: what types of oral and written corrective feedback strategies do thai efl learners prefer? table 5 shows the average scores of learners’ self-reported preferences for corrective feedback. participants were asked to rate on a 6-point likert scale, with 1 being the worst and 6 being the best. items with mean scores of less than or equal to 3.50 reported that the majority of respondents were averse to corrective feedback techniques, whilst items with mean scores of more than 3.50 indicated that learners preferred these strategies. as demonstrated, efl students made similar preferences for both scenarios, scoring somewhat higher for oral corrective feedback (m = 4.115, sd = 0.941) than for written corrective feedback (m = 3.915, sd = 1.011). as presented in items 1-8, the results showed that metalinguistics feedback (m = 5.31) was the preferred strategy by rajabhat students. moreover, most of them agreed that they favoured being directly informed of their faulty utterance and being supplied with an error-free model (m = 5.31). it would also be ‘very good’ if any feedback were offered in a private chat (m = 4.57) rather than in a classroom (m = 4.01). in speaking situations, rajabhat undergraduates preferred to be informed of the error and asked to say the correct version themselves (m = 4.39) and have their statements corrected by other students (m = 4.06). learners found teachers’ lack of attention to any errors to be unpleasant issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 39 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 32-47 wiboolyasarin, k. et.al (efl learners’ preference for corrective feedback strategies) (m = 2.41). similarly, students did not appreciate hearing their wrong utterance’s intonation rise (m = 2.63). table 5. mean and standard deviation of each item in the learners’ preferences questionnaire item statement mean standard deviation definition oral corrective feedback 1 ignoring 2.41 .915 very bad 2 repetition 2.63 1.038 very bad 3 explicit correction 5.31 .825 best 4 elicitation 4.39 1.054 very good 5 peer correction 4.06 .865 good 6 metalinguistic feedback 5.54 .783 best 7 public feedback 4.01 .931 good 8 private feedback 4.57 1.123 very good average 4.115 .941 good written corrective feedback 9 ignoring 1.95 .901 very bad 10 indirect feedback 3.62 1.1078 good 11 error code 3.87 1.130 good 12 no revised version required 3.35 1.009 bad 13 revised version required 4.53 .960 very good 14 all error correction 3.84 1.175 good 15 peer correction 3.84 .960 good 16 marking in red pen 4.36 .846 very good average 3.915 1.011 good items 9-16 depicted learners’ reactions to the written corrective feedback. most l2 students requested additional work by stating that they should revise assignments after the teacher corrected them (m = 4.53). using a red pen for corrections appears to be beneficial (m = 4.36). furthermore, they expressed a general preference for correction strategies such as error code (m = 3.87), all error correction (m = 3.84), and peer correction (m = 3.84). it was also ‘good’ if students were informed of an error without inserting metalinguistic clues or writing the correct form above or around the linguistic error (m = 3.62). on the other hand, it was considered undesirable to overlook learners’ faults deliberately (m = 1.95). not surprisingly, efl students were dissatisfied unless they had an opportunity to revise the assignment when they committed errors (m = 3.35). 4.2. research question 2: does the proficiency level of thai efl students affect their preferences for oral and written corrective feedback strategies? a one-way anova was conducted to determine whether statistically significant differences in proficiency levels for corrective feedback preferences existed. the 0.05 level of probability was used to test the difference. the test revealed statistically significant differences in their cf preferences for elicitation (f (3, 414) = 2.721, p = .044), metalinguistic feedback (f (3, 414) = 4.989, p = .002), and public feedback (f (3, 414) = 3.287, p = .021). however, the one-way anova does not reveal the differences between the groups; the bonferroni correction is used to identify the precise location of the discrepancies. according to fig. 1, there was no significant difference between the groups on item 4 (elicitation). nevertheless, there were substantial disparities in metalinguistic hints between b2-level learners and the remaining three groups. additionally, there was a significant difference in public feedback between b1and a1-level learners. according to the data, there was no difference between the a1 and a2 groups or between the b1 and b2 cohorts. in conclusion, varying levels of english competence have little bearing on corrective feedback views on the majority of issues. 40 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 32-47 wiboolyasarin, k. et.al (efl learners’ preference for corrective feedback strategies) table 6. efl learners’ proficiency level on each cf preference item mean score1 p-value one-way anova a1 (n = 134) a2 (n = 176) b1 (n = 91) b2 (n = 17) 1 2.40 2.37 2.48 2.59 .666 2 2.57 2.60 2.69 3.06 .286 3 5.20 5.36 5.38 5.29 .284 4 4.25 4.45 4.55 3.94 .044* 5 4.00 4.13 4.08 3.59 .075 6 5.49 5.62 5.58 4.88 .002* 7 3.87 4.01 4.24 3.76 .021* 8 4.63 4.66 4.43 4.00 .063 9 1.94 1.90 1.99 2.29 .355 10 3.66 3.64 3.54 3.59 .867 11 3.87 3.81 3.92 4.12 .669 12 3.40 3.33 3.36 3.00 .477 13 4.43 4.55 4.62 4.59 .525 14 3.76 3.89 3.85 3.94 .784 15 3.84 3.88 3.80 3.71 .872 16 4.33 4.35 4.36 4.65 .542 1where 1.00-1.82 = worst; 1.83-2.66 = very bad; 2.67-3.50 = bad; 3.51-4.33 = good; 4.34-5.17 = very good; 5.18-6.00 = best *p < .05 fig. 1. means and standard errors for efl learners’ proficiency level on selected cf preferences 5. discussion the findings indicated that efl rajabhat students, regardless of their proficiency level, were receptive to corrective feedback, as shown by their responses to preferences for oral (m = 4.115) and written (m = 3.915) scenarios. the results also suggested that metalinguistic feedback was the most preferred approach for correcting their errors, as indicated by their replies to its frequency (m = 5.54). as the metalinguistic comment clarifies grammar usage or other linguistic terminology, it has an effect on students' academic progress in general (kayar & veyis, 2020). it may aid learners’ perceptions by providing them with an explicit rule or grammatical explanation to use in other contexts. there was, however, a significant difference between b2 and non-b2 learners. the highly proficient students issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 41 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 32-47 wiboolyasarin, k. et.al (efl learners’ preference for corrective feedback strategies) appeared to favour metalinguistic feedback more minor than the other groups. it is feasible that selfcorrection seems undesirable because b2-level students would be embarrassed to discuss their faults, especially if the incorrect answer is repeated. furthermore, explicit error correction was placed in the second position (m = 5.31). it was helpful for l2 learners since a straightforward strategy could be made clear to them and was more likely to assist them in self-correcting their errors (ellis, 2017). according to amador’s (2008) research, efl college students favoured strategies in which they were explicitly informed about the linguistic challenge. it echoes yang’s (2016) findings, revealing that both metalinguistic feedback and explicit correction have high ratings in learners’ favour. as a result, it has become evident that metalinguistic comments and explicit corrections also significantly impact on thai efl learners. the analysis of the learners’ questionnaire responses suggested that explicit correction was significant. as explicit correction informed learners directly of an error and the right form (quinn & nakata, 2017), b2-level undergraduates preferred this strategy less than other cohorts of students. one probable explanation is that learners’ language abilities were assessed and addressed at the upper intermediate level. they are thought to have more tremendous potential for successful language learning than any other. if their mistakes were to be repaired, this inevitably resulted in significant anxiety, demotivation, or timidity among l2 thai learners. however, this is yet another field of exploration for future research. in general, it was pertinent to provide oral corrective feedback in public for the benefit of the entire class (ur, 2012). rather than discussing their errors publicly (m = 4.01), rajabhat students requested to discuss them privately (m = 4.57). their strong preference for private feedback corroborated li’s (2010) assessment; learners were more engaged with feedback obtained during individual interactions than during classroom interactions. another interpretation of this finding is that providing feedback in front of other students may increase students’ humiliation. this is particularly true for lowproficient students. as wiboolyasarin et al. (2020) remark, acknowledging the existence of mistakes might undermine learners’ confidence and pride, or cause them to lose face if they disclose the mistakes in front of their classmates. while all high proficiency learners favoured public comments, a statistically significant difference between students in the b1 and a1 groups was required to be noticed. less proficient students preferred receiving personal error corrections to obtaining feedback from their peers in order to avoid being ridiculed or thrust into the spotlight. with regards to those who correct the mistakes, efl thai students did not feel awkward or uncomfortable when corrected by friends. it was highly likely that peer interactions provide a framework for learners to explore freely with language use (sato, 2017), with less concern about being corrected and increased autonomy (philp et al., 2014). a quick glance at this suggests that thai learners believed their peers were qualified to correct their errors. it echoes some resemblance to a discussion of other findings (e.g., zhang & rahimi, 2014). nonetheless, the notion that only the language teacher is capable of providing feedback is controversial. according to amador’s (2008) study, nearly half (47.9%) of efl learners in costa rica implied that peers should not correct them and were, therefore, unreliable sources due to the learners’ common language proficiency. previous research showed that learners with a high degree of proficiency tended to prefer elicitation (katayama, 2007; papangkorn, 2015). by contrast, there was a significant difference in learners’ elicitation preferences. in comparison to learners at the fundamental level, b2-group students were the least satisfied with eliciting the correct version. a probable explanation for this is that when teachers pushed students to provide the right form, it was reasonable to presume some erroneous information was present, causing embarrassment to advanced learners who made it. conversely, most learners in this study viewed repetition as ineffective since it did not supply adequate information to correct the errors. besides, it was claimed to be the detrimental effect of repeating incorrect forms (gooch et al., 2016). it is also consistent with yang’s (2016) findings that intermediate-level students do not favour elicitation and repetition for their errors. as yang points out in reference to katayama’s (2006) explanation, repetition and elicitation via non-verbal cues are highly ambiguous in terms of interpretation and self-correction. the results found that the students had a range of preferences for the oral corrective feedback strategies discussed previously, ranging from good to best. many learners believed that their errors should be repaired regardless of the techniques utilised. not surprisingly, if the teacher frequently chose to dismiss most, if not all, errors, more than half of students evaluated their preferences for such 42 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 32-47 wiboolyasarin, k. et.al (efl learners’ preference for corrective feedback strategies) neglect on a scale of ‘bad’ and ‘very bad’. this conclusion confirms prior research findings that no corrective feedback provided was the least favoured method by efl learners (zhang & rahimi, 2014). another critical finding was in a writing environment. this study discovered that no feedback was more evident for written correction (m = 1.95) than oral (m = 2.41). this means that teachers should not forgo all forms of error correction. even though it may be upsetting to students’ sensibilities (e.g., truscott, 1996), the data indicated that rajabhat efl learners desired to edit their l2 writing mistakes. likewise, amrhein and nassaji’s (2010) study revealed that when learners were asked whether teachers should correct any errors, they wanted the teacher to correct their errors. in light of the evidence, thai students request further written work for themselves, indicating that they should be assigned to rewrite it (m = 4.53). on the other hand, replies from learners’ ratings presented a slightly lower preference score (m = 3.35) in the absence of replication in the updated version. this appears to contradict one of truscott’s arguments, stating that it undermined students’ confidence. generally, written corrective feedback highlighting numerous errors with red marks tended to frustrate learners, who frequently committed many mistakes (scrivener, 2005). conversely, our findings suggested that participants were unconcerned with error correction in red pen (m = 4.36). other scholars (elwood & bode, 2014; orts & salazar, 2016) also found that l2 learners reported a clear preference for red-penned corrections in a similar vein. concerning the subject of whether teachers emphasise location or type of error or both, the present study revealed that when error code and indirect feedback were compared, error code (m = 3.87) had a slightly higher view of preference than indirect feedback (m = 3.62). this finding implies that while indirect feedback merely indicates the presence of an error, the error code provides an indication as to the cause and error’s nature (li & vuono, 2019). it appears likely that students prefer to focus on the specifics and correct their mistakes through the use of grammar rules (li & roshan, 2019). since written corrective feedback aims to raise the learners' awareness of their errors, oral and written feedback preferences were identical. the questionnaire for this study showed that all error correction and peer feedback received the same preference for corrective feedback (m = 3.84). in the former, the teacher comments on each inaccuracy; in the latter, it is up to the student to correct their classmates’ mistakes. typically, learners are welcome to participate in the correction process (schulz, 2001), regardless of who handles it. it is feasible to note that teachers play a minor role in error correction. in comparison, the data indicated a strong preference for empowering students with the ability to modify. regarding whether all mistakes are repaired, earlier research reported that students required their english teachers to point out all of their mistakes (amrhein & nassaji, 2010; irwin, 2017). as the finding indicated, peer correction seemed to contradict other scholars’ results (hamouda, 2011; saeli & cheng, 2019; sanu, 2016). rajabhat students agreed in this study that their peers should correct one another in class. it is consistent with trabelsi (2018), whose omani efl learners stated that they valued peer input because each student brought a unique perspective that enabled them to correct one another. this again demonstrates the beneficial effect of peer and teacher correction on the student. 6. conclusion the primary goal of this study was to assess efl rajabhat undergraduate students' preferences for corrective feedback techniques and to examine whether there are significant differences between learners at various levels. based on the analyses of the self-reported questionnaire, the study provided the following results. first, metalinguistic feedback and requesting students to revise their written work were preferred for most corrective feedback strategies by students. this is because thai efl learners desperately needed corrective feedback to learn english as an exact model for instructing them to recognise their own mistakes or places for growth. among the techniques that most students choose are those that demonstrate the proper form or provide vital information on how to rectify it and the opportunity to receive additional assignments that have been altered in response to feedback. on the other hand, learners disagreed that teachers ignored and did not rectify their errors and indicated that there were errors by repeating students' mistakes with doubting intonations. secondly, this study assisted in determining how the rates of learner preferences varied according to the students' competency levels. even if students preferred metalinguistic feedback, the result found that students with a high level of skill in the target language tended to evaluate their preferences for metalinguistic issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 43 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 32-47 wiboolyasarin, k. et.al (efl learners’ preference for corrective feedback strategies) comments lower than learners at the beginner or intermediate levels. similarly, low proficiency students viewed public comments as a relatively favourable strategy, but not the advanced level group. although this study sheds light on learner preferences for corrective feedback techniques across self-perceived competency levels, some limitations should be acknowledged. it is necessary to emphasise that the data collection method was restricted and adhered tightly to the questionnaire. it could not elicit information about the factors that influenced their preferences. future research with a similar design and additional instruments would be advantageous. for instance, cooperating with the in-depth interview elicits a complete picture of the underlying reasons and delves further into their true thoughts on corrective feedback. acknowledgment we would like to express our gratitude to the editor and anonymous eltej reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this paper. declarations author contribution : kanokpan wiboolyasarin: initiated the research ideas, instrument construction; ruedee kamonsawad and nattawut jinowat: collected and analysed data. watcharapol wiboolyasarin: revised the research ideas, literature review, data presentation and analysis, and the final draft. funding statement : the research is non-funded conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references al hajiri, f., & al-mahrooqi, r. 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(2022). shifting critical listening class to virtual learning during the covid-19 pandemic. english language teaching educational journal, 5 (3), 169-179. 1. introduction as the most traditional teaching and learning mode, the face-to-face class has been primarily applied in indonesia for centuries. face-to-face learning is defined as physical learning participation for periodic concourses. the students will be engaged in a learning activity, instructed by a teacher, following a specified teaching session schedule (cooper, 2020). face-to-face or conventional learning is also known to provide a traditional education where the teacher is unimpeded to manage the whole learning process and is viewed as the key figure (ananga & biney, 2021). the face-to-face class combined teaching methods, e.g., writing, discussion, reading, group work, presentations, practice, and demonstration. conventional style is believed to help reach effective knowledge transfer and communication between students and teachers (astuti et al., 2019). since the physical presence of a teacher and the interactive nature of face-to-face classes create a comfortable and welcoming learning environment, it is highly ideal encouraging students to participate in the learning process. unexpectedly, the whole culture of learning that has been run inherently must meet massive and simultaneous alterations. due to the corona virus (covid-19) worldwide spread, the world health organization (who) attempted to break the chain of transmission by issuing orders to implement large-scale social restrictions universally (bueno, 2020). this policy prompted the enactment of 170 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 169-179 eppendi, j., & firdausya, a. r. (shifting critical listening class to virtual learning.....) regulation in indonesia to restrict and address almost all public activities access on a virtual basis (rasmitadila et al., 2020). in the formal education field, conventional teaching and learning program faces a significant obstacle in implementing the health protocols to a large extent, as they require the participation of students in each teaching session. not seeing any better option, the ministry of education and cultural has instructed a national mandate to shift the current teaching and learning activities with study from home (sfh) (mendikbud, 2020). consequently, both lecturers and students must continue to fulfill each duty and responsibility by assiduously exploiting efficacious learning technology as an alternative during the lockdown (soni, 2020). transforming the prior learning activities into e-learning was assumed to prompt tensed adaptation and predicted a challenging transition owing to sudden and unexpected shifting (crawford et al., 2020). in grappling with the abrupt change from brick-and-mortar education into total remote learning, challenges confront both parties (students and teachers) to maintain the educational performance (dhawan, 2020). a study by atmojo & nugroho (2020) came up with challenges in carrying out pure virtual learning during the coronavirus explosion, including the lack of readiness. teachers admit that they did not have much time to prepare the backup learning system. a comparable level of chaos might apply to the students, heading to a disquieting adaptation and mean score drop. meanwhile, online learning provides students with increased flexibility, convenience, and access to many courses and resources, making it a popular choice for many learners (eppendi & vega, 2020). since the learning access shifting is imposed to reduce human exposure to public space, the lecturers attempted to redesign the learning scheme to be more remotely reachable. therefore, the current study concerns fully online learning that has been applied to tertiary education students. even though virtual learning has been increasingly popular in the education pathway (safsouf et al., 2018), studies in the learning proceeding literature generally observe carrying out face-to-face classes (wang & chen, 2013; thai, wever, & valcke, 2020; usher & barak, 2020). in such a term, the lecturer and the learners can directly communicate precise pronunciation and exchange knowledge. instead, some education providers opt to practice blended learninga collaboration of face-to-face and computermediated instruction (brian & nikolaevna, 2016). even though it is juxtaposed with blended learning, fully online learning develops another set of obstacles. before the invasion of the 20's global pandemic, very little empirical research explicitly discussing pure virtual learning was published (sun, 2014). the urge of traditional learning attaches the most to a skill-based course that needs appropriate media to apply; for instance, a listening comprehension course. listening skills are part of four principal efl competencies that need to be honed by practicing, using third person assistance (audio and technology) (arono, 2014). in concordance with solak (2016) and , instead of a passive skill, listening including an engaging and collaborative mechanism in which the listener generates sounds of speech and attempts to add meaning to spoken words. the recipient starts to identify the speaker's feelings and intended message to respond to verbal communication effectively (gilakjani & ahmadi, 2011). in efl learning, listening skills are judged as essential, for the key to language learning is to obtain language input (gilakjani & sabouri, 2016). in students' requirements to undertake any learning instruction, the importance of listening skills is highlighted as the most frequently exploited skill in the language classroom (hamouda, 2013). in each listening session, specific media such as an audio player, headset, and personal computers are required to engage and support the learning process, available as a single laboratory set. by applying pure e-learning all through the nation, the equipped media must be accessible for students to experience similar learning circumstances; otherwise, students' chances to draw diverse feedback and language acquisition progress might be higher. several researchers have conveyed good news apropos the reliability of online learning. a previous study proposed by gördeslioğlu & yüzer (2019) on how the blackboard learn works for second-semester students at koc university confirms the virtual learning is proven as a supportive invention to achieve a higher level of listening competency in a brief span, yet still, lack in developing an adequate student-teacher interaction. contemplating this issue, it is worth demanding an interactive and accessible learning media for the prevalent distribution of information. it is affirmed that utilizing smartphone apps as learning media potentially encourages students' self-paced learning since it enables learners to access content practically anywhere and anytime (mindog, 2016). there is number of mobile applications that provide instant messaging, and the whatsapp application is on the topranked list (cetinkaya, 2017). church & de oliveira (2013) emphasize this point by stating that whatsapp has risen in popularity due to economic reasons, requiring low data cost, and being more issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 171 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 169-179 eppendi, j., & firdausya, a. r. (shifting critical listening class to virtual learning.....) social-conversational. this hype then has been brought into the efl teaching path by setyowati (2019), where she has shown profitable completion after creating a learning whatsapp group. without significant problems, wijaya putra senior high school students enjoy learning as their listening performance increases. in response to the former studies, the current research concerns to discuss whatsapp as a primary educational technology to conduct the main listening comprehension class agenda to seek renewal and discovery for handy efl learning media. the study pairs verified the significance and efficiency of fully online learning and were taken from the education provider's perspective. as appointed earlier, literature review on pure virtual learning is somewhat scarce in quantity; it gets rarer when it comes to virtual listening classes for tertiary education students. the course objectives are pretty at a high pace, requiring the students to develop listening comprehension in advanced spoken english. therefore, this research aim was to examine students' perception of the functioning of remote learning for critical listening class due to a prediction for drawing divergent language acquisition. 2. method 2.1. research participant and context of the study the required listening course targets the english department students in the fourth semester of the academic year, particularly at the borneo university of tarakan, north kalimantan, indonesia. the purpose of this course is to have excellent comprehension in listen for specific personal information, listen for prediction, listen for greetings and introduction, listen for completing and note-taking, listen for evaluating, comparing with own reaction, and rating, and listen for specific information. one semester's activities revolved around eight units and were distributed in 16 meetings, covering midterm and final exams. also, this course possesses a prerequisite, an interpretive listening course, before the students take this course. this research took 46 participants, all of whom were undergraduate-fourth-semester students enrolled in a critical listening class of the english education department at borneo university of tarakan in north kalimantan. the participants were recruited via course credit for their participation. each meeting started with a class discussion where the students had an introduction to the material. technically, three platforms (whatsapp, kahoot, and ispring cloud) were applied variously in each session. after topic orientation, the lecturer shared the audio in whatsapp group chat one by one. the tagged student was instructed to take at least one unsolved question in each meeting and share it with the class alternately. done with the listening session, the students attended a kahoot quiz session to recollect what they had learned with fun. finally, in every eight meetings, the exam will be administered on the ispring cloud website. 2.2. research design this study has been conducted using a mixed-method design by integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches (schoonenboom & johnson, 2017). each issue's paradigm is the initial data collection as qualitative and quantitative data in interviews to grant a broader insight into the investigated study. the mixed-methods analysis presents the opportunity to conduct more meaningful, detailed, and deliberate research than the case using only a single approach (qualitative or quantitative) (whitehead & schneider, 2012). besides, it provides the researcher with other valuable instruments to apply to their research expertise. the study utilized a mixed-methods research design, which involved collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative data. the quantitative data was collected through a questionnaire that assessed the participants' perception of the virtual class of critical listening. the survey consisted of standardized measures of virtual class performance during covid-19 pandemic. the qualitative data was collected through interviews with a subset of participants who reported high responses to the survey questionnaire. the interviews focused on exploring the participants' experiences of an online class in more detail. 2.3. data collection and analysis the research data were collected from the second-year students in the english education department of the borneo university of tarakan in north borneo. they were asked for their perception of the distanced learning application on the critical listening course. respondents' 172 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 169-179 eppendi, j., & firdausya, a. r. (shifting critical listening class to virtual learning.....) impressions were recorded in questionnaires and interviews in the form of open-ended questions to perceive the students' background in their preceding claims. the data were collected on two separate occasions through google form links; the first attempt was taken from may 17 to 22nd, 2020, while the second distribution was from may 30 to june 1, 2020. the enrolled students in the critical listening class were 74, and only 46 students actively participated in an online class since they found an unstable internet connection in their environment. questionnaires used in this research composed of one identical type of item using a four-point likert-type scale. the questionnaire was designed to determine students' perceptions of the sudden curriculum digitalization (joshi, kale, chandel, & pal, 2015). it was statistically calculated to measure each statement's attitude ratio and then presented in a descriptive approach. the interview questions were designed to explore the students' experiences with virtual learning and how it has impacted their critical listening skills. the interviews provided more detailed and in-depth information on the students' perceptions of virtual learning and how it has affected their learning outcomes. the data collected from the questionnaires and interviews were analyzed thematically to identify common themes and patterns. it enables the researchers to understand how the covid-19 pandemic has affected critical listening classes in a virtual learning environment. 3. findings and discussion out of all the 74 students engaged in the online learning proceedings, only 46 shared their views (37.84% non-participant). the data show a diverse perception of the online learning application, revealing that digitizing the critical listening course class gave students a taste of a more advanced battlefield. more than half of the respondents struggled due to the adaptation phase but still managed to stabilize their academic performance. here is the result of the obtained data analysis. 3.1. students’ impressions on the current e-learning the questionnaire findings recorded students' various experiences in applying e-learning in the critical listening course. the most conspicuous admission comes from the idea of the dysfunctional application for most participants, considering specific issues that came along while conducting the learning session (table 1). table 1. respondent responses to virtual critical listening class no statement response sa a d sd 1 virtual learning is beneficial in the middle of a global pandemic 4 32 7 3 2 i experienced rapid adaptation to the online earning 3 27 12 4 3 online learning is challenging 9 33 3 1 4 i have external issues that affect the learning process 8 31 7 5 i find it troublesome to access the learning platform 11 21 13 1 6 i always join the online class on time and participate well 4 25 15 2 7 the given material is accessible and easy to understand 2 14 23 7 8 i find it hard to communicate with classmates and lecturer during the learning session 8 24 14 9 i need some help to access the learning platform 7 25 14 10 the lecturer provides explicit instruction during the learning session 4 24 16 2 11 i can easily focus during the entire listening session 5 21 18 2 12 submitting any assignment counts to be convenient 3 29 12 2 13 i find it burdensome to speak through a voice note 5 18 20 3 14 the online exam form counts to be user-friendly 3 26 17 15 the distribution of the audios is disorganized and affect the effectiveness of the session 5 24 17 16 online learning gives me an efficient learning experience 4 24 12 6 17 switching to online learning does not affect my progress in language acquisition 4 22 20 18 online learning helps me improve my listening skill 2 32 10 2 19 i prefer to learn online with the chosen platform as the medium rather than the conventional class in my future learning. 1 9 15 2 a. source: adapted from joshi et al., 2015 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 173 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 169-179 eppendi, j., & firdausya, a. r. (shifting critical listening class to virtual learning.....) though numerous obstacles have emerged and were involved in the sessions' affectivity, out of 46 respondents, 65.2% do not deal with a lengthy adjustment to the new education scheme. moreover, 63% of students realize their excellent attendance and performance during class. over and above, 73.9% of them proclaimed augmented listening skills in a time. the factors mainly arrive from the platform's accessibility for the learning material (audios, powerpoint, and ebook) and the lecturer's explicit instruction. even though, the online class issues appeared, still the main objectives of learning had been met on a fairly broad scale, and most participants wished to shift back to face-to-face learning for the subsequent application. 3.2. feedback to the online learning the qualitative data obtained from the open-ended questions indicate whatsapp as the most favored platform throughout the e-learning period (92.6% vote). the chosen media has been a place to access the learning content and perform the teaching-learning activity (listening and discussion session). therefore, as a primary learning platform, an abundance of praise and judgment during the implementation was varied and intriguing. fig. 1. respondents’ view on whatsapp features the participants have been questioned on traits in the learning platforms that support their listening skill acquisition. the analysis proves that whatsapp's mobile version is operated twice as much as the desktop version, for it is a less effortful way to get connected. simultaneously, the rest tend to access the online listening class by exploiting both of the choices synchronously. besides the low-cost and convenient access as the prominent advantage, several distinctive highlights are on the list. conforming to the graph above, the most approved feature in whatsapp win by the audio play, followed by the chat room and starred message. the interview findings showed that how the learning process turns out to be more comfortable with infinite audio plays. through whatsapp, the students are allowed to repeat the given audios limitlessly to perfect the assessment. moreover, the audios must have automatically downloaded before it is ready to listen, leading to a flexible practice at any time. another stated preferential is the chat room feature and starred message. a chat room as a learning forum is where the lecturer shared the material and assignment through chat, and the contents are counted to be intelligible. the task collection system is also accessible and convenient; the assignments were submitted through group chat rooms. the starred message feature obtains the same amount of votes as the chat room does. it technically functions as a 'bookmark' of the platform to compile the critical messages and files. the open-ended question defined that with the platform's features, the students have many chances to practice and an open-access learning resource. the students' lexicon got extended, resulting in more vital listening skills after whatsapp mediated the class. the current learning scheme also pushes the students to be more productive in-class participation. the tense of learning surprisingly builds their critical thinking and structure accuracy. although positive feedbacks are flooding, the absence of deficiencies is still quite hard to evade. the data shows that 45.5% of participants agree with the language acquisition improvements, whereas the other 31.8% questioned the new learning mode's advantages. some of them claimed that there was no discernible transformation to their listening skills during the period of learning. 0 5 10 15 20 25 audio play chat room starred message nothing irrelevant points 174 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 169-179 eppendi, j., & firdausya, a. r. (shifting critical listening class to virtual learning.....) for some, the learning activity appears to be less advantageous in performance. respondents likewise affirmed their inclination to switch back to the prior learning circumstance. • does distance learning give any benefit to critical listening acquisition progress? actually, not really. many applications are used interchangeably, which makes the students increasingly bored during the learning activity. moreover, e-learning makes us less likely to practice our communication skills directly. • if, any chance, the future listening class is continuously conducted online, is there any hesitation? we (partly participants) prefer face-to-face class because the material was delivered in a way more graspable than in the online course. despite students' interlanguage that might influence the learning activity, 84.78% of participants faced particular external issues during online learning. • is there any specific trouble in conducting online learning? if there is any, what are those? in some cases, the audio was not supported in the ios version did hinder us (partly participants) from doing my best in class. another time, personally, the device's memory was full, which created a problem in downloading the audio and a weak internet connection. 3.3. respondents suggestion students feel that the amount of material should be increased, and the task's duration should be extended. the accessible audio format should be available, considering some operating systems in students' devices do not support the play. some thought that the online lectures mediated by whatsapp should be implemented earlier and are willing to cope in the next semester, while the rest considered to shift back to the conventional class or alter the learning platform, regarding the high chances of committing plagiarism. 3.4. discussion although online class was challenging and problematic, the study found that shifting to the new learning mode, a critical listening course (online learning), was revealed to be favored and helpful. the respondents find the online class better in assisting them to participate in the class activity, although it offers more barriers than beneficial (halim & hashim, 2019; octaberlina & muslimin, 2020; al-amin, zubayer, deb, & hasan, 2021; eppendi, muliawaty, & aisyah , 2021). besides, immediate acceptance and adaptation are deemed to take place. in creating a proportionate learning application, the required media in distanced learning should support the learning objectives. however, the provided audio file yet capable of covering the students' situational diversity on particular occasions. in line with setyowati (2019) & gördeslioğlu & yüzer (2019), augmented listening skills are shown with another soft skill proficiency. another point is that the rise in students' confidence in delivering their opinions is significant. however, this finding exposes an issue that (setyowati, 2019) did not find, where her finding was the positive effect and students’ exemplary performance in an online class. compared to her study, the current findings show minimum misbehavior in the class discussion. most of the time, the students use formal english while holding the discussion but do code-switching when they have peer discussion. on the other hand, the present research highlights the students' various capacities to reach the learning forum, whereas poor connection got involved in 26% of participants. the university students typically come from sundry domiciles throughout the nation. the research participants themself originated from hometowns scattered across the north borneo province, counting rural and border areas. those who are trapped in unstable internet networks are rather live in rural or suburban areas. after all, individual states of network source causing a lack of access to reliable internet network are generally following the instruction of virtual education (jibrin et al., 2017); (adnan & anwar, 2020); rasmitadila et al., 2020; atmojo & nugroho, 2020; dhawan, 2020). notwithstanding the problematic learning circumstance, participants deduced that virtual learning helps them acquire listening skills effectively. this result approves the amount of research that associates whatsapp with the online class (fauzi & angkasawati, 2019; setyowati, 2019; dewi, 2019). the lecturer's explicit instruction was admitted as an advantage proving how the issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 175 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 169-179 eppendi, j., & firdausya, a. r. (shifting critical listening class to virtual learning.....) communication realms amongst the distanced learners and lecturer were appropriately built, filling the gap in the study of gördeslioğlu & yüzer (2019). despite this, a small number of students encounter different states of affairs. miscommunication throughout the learning session was reported to be falling due to the lack of explanation. besides, the distribution of the audios is disorganized. there is no definite time limit in the individual listening section, which affects the session's efficacy. since the students only give the material with insufficient instruction, that leads students get confused when the material is done. the adoption of online learning obliquely detaches elements of homogeneity from the formal learning culture. limited access to the audio files for ios users leads to troublesome downloads and contributes significantly to their academic performance. they have to access the m4a format file on other devices, explaining why some participants project duality access. otherwise, being out of presence is the worst choice. aside from this issue, the students succeed in adjusting the requisite toolkit. by utilizing features of whatsapp to reconstruct the teaching and learning environment, a virtual listening class is not impossible for being close to wholly relevant. on the other hand, the sophomores' language proficiency appeared to get caught up—the inadequate mental lexicon yields suboptimal performance to interpret several phrases in the speaker's speech. this fact strengthens by 65.2% voices, affirmed the material comprehension is almost out of their league. a higher level of academic fraud has been detected among online learning practices, for it is easier to commit than in face-to-face class. the un-proctored assessments and examinations are prone to plagiarism, especially when the given time for each topic is more than sufficient. the user's device is easily compatible to access multiple platforms concurrently, e.g., search engines. one of the threats to implementing online tests is that students may present fraudulent behavior and do unethical acts (munoz & mackay, 2019). cheating has been recognized as a common phenomenon (raines et al., 2011), but still, none of such misbehavior should be neglected under the term of education. whereas a student is willing to cheat, then the educational outcomes will be depreciated. more certain learning activities are deemed necessary under plagiarism as a serious ethical offense. fighting it from the root of the problem will somewhat bring up an effective solution. in remote assessments, teleconference offers to facilitate proctoring and conclusively avert cheating (hylton et al., 2016). other online testing applications have conducted examinations in a supervised environment by blocking access beyond the learning management system (ghauth & abdullah, 2010). holistic proctoring ensures identity verification and assessment behavior monitor. the stated notion where students are more likely to cheat in uncontrolled environments than in supervised settings propped these findings (khalid et al., 2014). the robust platform excellently accommodates learning activity through its reliable features. in the light of its primary function as the communication media, whatsapp has been a daily basis for various levels of society, counting in lecturers and students. the familiarities brought up by whatsapp helps to create a more natural learning atmosphere. by the convenience granted, the intention to build a clear comprehension within each meeting has been achieved with lighter effort. however, the enhancement of the execution in the future retains expected. 4. conclusion this compiling of dual sides of pure virtual listening comprehension class contributed to complete and widened technology utilization in education literature, as the study's scope is a novel discovery. implementing sfh throughout the nation will set a hypothesize being challenging in transition. the students have to anticipate the need for the required online listening tools to attain the planned learning goals. however, the students can accommodate the learning media, even though the provided audios are inaccessible to every device. in most cases, students noticed an improvement in their language acquisition during the virtual class and were provided with a practical learning experience. regardless, most respondents preferred to switch back to the face-to-face class as they believed direct deliverance of teaching materials remains an essential part of learning. however, another reason why is online learning increases opportunities for plagiarism. in a condition where none of us can predict the end of the mandatory remote activities, this research provided an insightful manual that needs minor enhancement. discussed alternatives and advancement referring to the applied virtual learning can be internalized in prospective learning and study. 176 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 169-179 eppendi, j., & firdausya, a. r. 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(2012). mixed-method research. in nursing & midwifery research: methods and appraisal for evidence-based practice (4th editio, p. 264). mosby australia. english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 225-234 10.12928/eltej.v4i3.5209 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id developing an android-based bilingual e-glossary application of english for specific purposes (esp) siti rohani a,1*, achmad suyono b,2, a,b state polythecnic of malang, jl. soekarno-hatta no. 09, malang 65141, indonesia siti.rohani@polinema.ac.id 1,*, achmad.suyono@polinema.ac.id 2 *corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 26 november 2021 revised 15 december 2021 accepted 30 december 2021 one effort considered quite effective in assisting vocabulary mastery and facilitating understanding of english texts is the provision of a bilingual glossary (english-indonesian). this glossary becomes more essential especially for non-english department students because basically english for specific purposes has a higher level of difficulty than general english. this study was a design and development research, with a product cluster and research tool. there were four main stages undergone, namely preliminary study, product development, expert validation, and field-testing. the research subjects were students and lecturers in seven departments of both commerce and engineering schools at state polytechnic of malang. instruments of data collection used were questionnaires, interviews, and focused group discussion. the output of the study is an android application of bilingual e-glossary of english for specific purposes. there were seven fields of glossary, each of which consists of vocabulary in english, the translation or description in indonesian language, along with example sentences in two languages. pictures are also displayed for easy understanding of the vocabulary. field testing proves that the e-glossary application is quite effective in helping users in comprehending english texts better. the application is also considered attractive, easy to use, and easy to understand. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords bilingual glossary android application english for specific purposes how to cite: rohani, s. & suyono, a. (2021). developing an android-based bilingual e-glossary application of english for specific purposes. english language teaching educational journal, 4(3), 225-234. 1. introduction in the current global era, there are almost no borders between one country and another. likewise, education may be obtained in any country in the world. now students can choose to study in indonesia, singapore, malaysia, australia, and even other countries, by utilizing various scholarships offered by universities, multinational companies, governments, or even with private funding. the opportunities to study abroad now are much more facilitated and publicized for all students around the world. thus, international classes are available in most universities in indonesia (muttaqin, 2020). the main medium in delivering learning materials and communication plays a very essential role in the current global era. in this case, english is recognized as one of the international languages used as a medium of communication in higher education internationalization in indonesia, including for delivering learning materials (simbolon, 2021). many english textbooks are used as compulsory learning materials in all fields of study. in other words, english is the main communication medium in the current global era. http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:siti.rohani@polinema.ac.id mailto:achmad.suyono@polinema.ac.id%202 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i3.5209&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2489-7484 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6170-869x 226 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 225-234 rohani, s. & suyono, a. (developing an android-based bilingual e-glossary) despite the prominent role of english that has been recognized as the international language and becomes the primary medium to master knowledge, students still encounter various challenges in mastering english. the main problem faced by students in mastering english is vocabulary while vocabulary is believed to be the most essential component of a language. gebhard (2000) states that vocabulary building is one of the main problems faced in reading activities. brown and lee (2015) also confirmed that the lack of vocabulary mastery is the main obstacle in students' reading activities. vocabulary is believed as the bone of a body of language. poor vocabulary mastery may communication breakdown and block the acquiring of knowledge. nation (2013) elaborated the two factors leading to a communication's ineffectiveness: first, the learner does not have sufficient vocabulary mastery, and second, the learner does not know how to use the vocabulary in communication. thus, attempts should be made in order to assist students to acquire better mastery of vocabulary. while reading can improve vocabulary mastery, many students are weak or lacking in mastering vocabulary in reading activities. one effort that is considered quite effective in helping vocabulary mastery and facilitating understanding of english texts is the provision of a bilingual glossary (english-indonesian language). a lot of studies (eg., cohen, tracy, & cohen, 2017; wolf, kim, & kao, 2012) have demonstrated the importance of a glossary in helping students to attain successful learning. therefore, glossary becomes more essential especially for non-english students as basically english for specific purposes has a higher level of difficulty than general english. furthermore, learning process will be more effective by paying attention to the supporting factors such as learning methods or strategies; interesting, challenging, and motivating learning materials; and the use of appropriate learning media. all of those, surely, cannot be separated from the use of the latest technology. technologies, however, are changing rapidly and, as a result, changing how people work and interact in nearly every sector, including education. one consequence of this convergence of situations is a tension in training and education. on one hand, new technologies provide the ability to support highly personalized and learnercentered education. (spector, 2015, p. 3) thus, the learning materials arrangement must be attempted to follow the most updated technology advancement. currently, the use of the latest technology in english learning is widely known and implemented, including the use of mobile phones. research have been conducted to review or develop mobile phone-based english learning media (eg., adlof et al., 2019; ally & samaka, 2013; cavus & ibrahim, 2009; hao, lee, chen, & sim, 2019; thornton & houser, 2005). in fact, rohani, suyono, and rozi (2019) have developed an interactive mobile phone application for autonomous english learning with the components of reading, listening, writing, pronunciation, and vocabulary with the most outstanding effectiveness on the improvement of vocabulary mastery. this confirms the effective use of mobile phone as a medium of vocabulary learning. in different context of the vocabulary learning for senior high school students, adlof et al. (2019) proved the effectiveness of a dictionarysquared research platform with a web-based vocabulary program that provides individualized vocabulary instruction. furthermore, cavus and ibrahim (2009) also confirmed the effectiveness of a mobile learning tool (molt) system in which students enjoyed and learned new words with the help of their mobile phones. with the many research on the use of high technology, especially mobile phones in the learning of english, a few have been done regarding with the use of mobile phone to assist non-english department students to read english texts, in this sense is the use of mobile phone as a medium for a glossary. research resulting in the development of glossary include those conducted by cohen et al. (2017) and by wolf et al. (2012). only a few have been done in indonesia while in fact, glossary in this sense is supposed to be bilingual, in english and in local language. development research with the topic on designing dictionary or glossary for indonesian students are only for certain departments; no research has been done to develop bilingual glossary for several departments in one mobile application. therefore, it is prominent to develop an english-indonesian glossary of english for specific purposes for indonesian students. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 227 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 225-234 rohani, s. & suyono, a. (developing an android-based bilingual e-glossary) this study was done with the main aim to develop an android based bilingual e-glossary in order to assist students, especially non-english department students to comprehend english texts. the research was assisted by students in doing their final projects. 1.1 reading and vocabulary mastery in the current study, what is referred to be reading is not simply reading, but reading with comprehension. therefore, when a student says he can read a written text but he does not understand the message, he is not really “reading” it. reading here is not only decoding or translating written symbols into appropriate sounds, however, reading also involves several components: the reader, the text, and the reading activity itself. butler et al. (2010) describe vocabulary as “knowledge of words and their meanings”. vocabulary is also claimed to be “something that expands and it deepens over time’. then, saidbakhramovna, valijonvna, and sharofidinovna (2021) illustrate the important features of vocabulary in receiving knowledge in a foreign language; they emphasize the core hypothesis of vocabulary as well as several crucial strategies and vital techniques of mastering vocabulary. apart from grammar and pronunciation, vocabulary plays an important role in learning a foreign language because the meaning of new words is often emphasized either in books or in class (alqahtani, 2015). vocabulary is one component that connects speaking, writing, reading, and listening (schmitt & schmitt, 2020). difficulties in reading can be caused by a variety of causes, one which is poor vocabulary. readers with insufficient vocabulary knowledge will encounter difficulties in reading texts containing a lot of foreign terms. gebhard (2000) states that “vocabulary development” is one of the problems faced by most english as a foreign language (efl) teachers in teaching reading comprehension. he also discovered that students frequently asked their teachers how they could improve their vocabulary knowledge to cover their difficulties in reading texts. in addition, (brown & lee, 2015) mention one of the reasons why students frequently find the lack of vocabulary to be an obstacle to their reading activities. they further states that ‘as a written language, reading usually uses more variety of lexical items than spoken conversational language’ (brown & lee, 2015, p. 400). in this view, the critical importance of receptive vocabulary in developing or improving foreign language reading skills requires a stronger focus on the enrichment of receptive vocabulary itself. the correlation between receptive vocabulary and reading creates a cycle of interdependence between the two. when the learner's receptive vocabulary is improved, they will find it easier to read the text, resulting in richer input in the receptive vocabulary. it is undeniable that the aspect of reading includes many aspects other than just vocabulary. as noted by nation (2013), increasing a learner's vocabulary does not always imply a significant improvement in reading skills. however, vocabulary size proved to be the best predictor of reading comprehension. however, every increase in vocabulary size must be supported by many opportunities to utilize the vocabulary in reading activities in order to improve the foreign language competence in general. in order to master a new language, second language learners need to know a very large number of words in the target language (nation, 2013). when people have a large number of vocabularies in mind, they will select words easily on certain situations. without having much vocabulary, it is hard to write, speak and understand the target language. thus, enriching vocabulary will be of great benefit in learning a new language, including english. vocabulary is also the main requirement in learning english as a second language (esl) and learning english as a foreign language (efl). vocabulary is the base of literacy, and teaching impacts vocabulary and reading comprehension. it is well documented that teaching vocabulary is better than no instruction at all even though this instruction barely contributes much to the number of words students have to accomplish. vocabulary knowledge should also be seen as key to the improvement of reading skills; vocabulary improvement should be seen as both a cause and a consequence of reading ability. thus, the discussion of vocabulary must be seen from its relation to reading improvement. 228 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 225-234 rohani, s. & suyono, a. (developing an android-based bilingual e-glossary) 1.2 dictionary dictionary is an important tool in learning vocabulary and foreign languages, and a lot of information about words and their usage is displayed in a dictionary (ali, 2012). a dictionary can be in monolingual, bilingual, or printed dictionary (cohen et al., 2017). al bulushy (2012) states the variety of dictionary formats as printed dictionary, pocket electronic dictionary, dictionary program, online dictionary, and visual dictionary. using a dictionary while reading can help students understand the text and learn vocabulary and further can be used as a tool to find the true meaning of a word (rohmatillah, 2016). a dictionary is also important for learning english as a foreign language, and, obviously, dictionary can be a tool for students to understand the true meaning of a word in a particular context. 1.3 glossary (glossary) according to cohen, tracy, and cohen (2017), “a glossary contains simplification of terms and phrases that are not related to content that is considered complex for students. this simplification includes clarification of complex sentences and synonyms or word definitions related to the context”. a glossary can also contain a list of terms in one or more languages (crabbe & heath, 2017). glossary and dictionary are different. the difference between a glossary and a dictionary is that the definitions given by the glossary are in context (cohen et al., 2017). glosses can usually be found at the end of a text or book in a glossary (webb, 2010), yet in this study, glossaries are compiled and inputted into an android application. glossaries can be found in a variety of formats, including paper-based glossaries, online-based glossaries, and computer programs. with technological advances, glossaries can also be accessed in mobile phone applications. in the current research, the developed glossary application was made for android mobile phone. several studies have been regarding the implementation and effectiveness of glossaries and dictionary in assisting students in their learning. wolf et al. (2012) confirmed the effectiveness of glossaries only for students or users who dealt with the field of study but not for users of different field of study; thus, glossaries are effective for those who have the content knowledge. furthermore, cohen et al. (2017) confirm the effectiveness and influence on validity of a computer-based pop-up english glossary accommodation for english learners. one development research on the topic of glossary and dictionary has been done by ependi and widayati (2014) who focused on the development of dictionary for accountancy. subhan (2014) also developed an application of dictionary in three languages (english-japanese-indonesian); he focused on the development of the program without emphasizing the content of the dictionary. 2. method the design of the current research was design and development research (ddr) or also known as development research. the current ddr research is a systematic study of design, development, and evaluation processes to establish an empirical basis for the creation of instructional and noninstructional products and tools and new or enhanced models that govern their development (richey & klein, 2014). out of the two clusters in ddr, the current research belonged to the product and tool research as the research was to develop and design a bilingual e-glossary application, an android-based brief dictionary or glossary of english – indonesian language for several fields of study, namely business administration, accounting, informatics, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and chemical engineering. the current ddr research was carried out following four phases of development research, namely preliminary study, product development, expert validation, and field testing. in the preliminary study phase, questionnaires were distributed, interviews with students and non-english lecturers from several majors in state polytechnic of malang. the main data achieved were about the essential need to read english texts in each of their fields as well as the need for brief two-language dictionaries made specifically for each of their fields. furthermore, respondents' preferences in using a dictionary or glossary in the form of books, computer programs, or android applications were also explored. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 229 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 225-234 rohani, s. & suyono, a. (developing an android-based bilingual e-glossary) with the data achieved, the second phase, product development, of the research was carried out. in the second phase, the design and development of the bilingual e-glossary application for non-english students of several major fields were carried out. the third phase was the expert validation, which was carried out by asking for validation from content and language experts. the last stage was the fieldtesting phase where the field test was carried out on the bilingual e-glossary application that has been developed. the trial or field test was done by applying it in several majors at the state polytechnic of malang. during the product trial, observations, questionnaires distribution, and interviews with lecturers and students who used the application were also done. finally, using the field-testing data, the bilingual e-glossary application was revised. revision was made for three times after returning the draft back to the expert validator. the subjects of the research were students and lecturers of state polytechnic of malang. several data collection instruments were used, namely in-depth interview (preliminary study, field testing), focus group discussion or fgd (preliminary study, field testing), and questionnaire (preliminary study, expert validation, field testing). the respondents filled out the questionnaires for the preliminary study and field-testing phases. some of them also participated in focus group discussions. furthermore, for the expert validation phase, expert respondents were from each field of study while the language expert or translators were lecturers at the english department of state polytechnic of malang who were also professional translators. experts were invited to fill out questionnaires and participate in interviews. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 findings the preliminary study was begun by distributing the questionnaires to the respondents – 92 students and lecturers of some departments of state polytechnic of malang. the questions in the questionnaire focused on the respondents’ needs for the android-based glossary application. there were seven simple questions to confirm the need to develop an english for specific purpose (esp) glossary android application. from the close-ended questionnaire of 1-6 likert scales, it was identified several findings. most of the respondents often read english texts (3.62). they also often encountered problems (3.87) in understanding the text, both vocabulary problems (3.71) and grammar problems (3.96). almost all respondents agreed that the glossary could help them to understand the english text they read (4.71). furthermore, the development of a bilingual glossary in one android application was considered to be very helpful for the respondents to understand the english text they read, with an index of 5.57. therefore, it can be concluded that the development of a bilingual glossary in one android application was very necessary. in the design and development phase, several stages were carried out, namely designing the android-based application, selecting the content or glossaries to be included in the application, translating the vocabularies and sentences, entering the data into the application program, and reviewing how the application that has been developed looked. the first stage of the development phase was designing the android-based application for the glossary. the mobile phone application was decided to use the android system, not ios, because there were more android users than ios users. the application program was submitted to the it experts due to the limitations of the researchers in making application programs. while waiting for the application program to be developed, the content of the application was prepared. it began with selecting the vocabularies to be entered into the glossary. sources of the glossaries were textbooks and e-book websites. it was decided to collect 250 vocabularies from each field, making in total of 1750 vocabularies from 7 departments. the vocabulary selection process from e-books was carried out using the antcon program. the program could select the vocabularies that had the most frequent occurrences in each field. then, the selected vocabularies were filtered and decided which ones were going to be included in the glossary. 230 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 225-234 rohani, s. & suyono, a. (developing an android-based bilingual e-glossary) table 1. needs analysis of the development of a bilingual e-glossary no questions responses average 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. how often do you read english texts? 2 (2%) 15 (16%) 25 (27%) 23 (25%) 24 (26%) 3 (3%) 3.62 2. do you encounter problems while reading the english texts? 4 (4%) 9 (10%) 20 (22%) 26 (28%) 26 (28%) 7 (8%) 3.87 3. do you often encounter vocabulary problems in comprehending the texts? 2 (2%) 7 (8%) 25 (27%) 36 (39%) 21 (23%) 1 (1%) 3.71 4. do you encounter grammatical problems while comprehending the texts? 2 (2%) 8 (9%) 20 (22%) 32 (35%) 23 (25%) 7 (8%) 3.96 5. do you think that a bilingual glossary would help you to comprehend the texts better? 4 (4%) 3 (3%) 10 (11%) 15 (16%) 34 (37%) 20 (22%) 4.71 6. do you think that an android based application of a bilingual glossary would help you to comprehend the texts better? 1 (1%) 1 (1%) 2 (2%) 4 (4%) 20 (22%) 64 (70%) 5.57 after selecting the 1,750 glossaries (250 glossaries from each field), a sentence example was made using the word. the vocabularies and sentence examples were then translated from english into indonesian language. in addition to vocabulary, pictures were also attached to help users understand the vocabulary easily. after the collection of words and examples had been completely translated into the indonesian language, all data were entered into an excel file. when all the data were ready, the application program was also ready to use. thus, the next step was inputting the data from the excel file into the application program. by using an existing excel file, the step of inputting data into the program was easier to do as it was already in an excel format. the next phase was the expert validation in which the developed application was validated by content experts (from each department) and language experts (translators) who assessed the content and language of the developed application. the validation was carried out using a questionnaire with close and open-ended questions. open-ended questions filled with opinions and inputs for application improvement. the results of expert validation show a good result. the vocabularies and sentences were believed to be in accordance with the kbbi (kamus besar bahasa indonesia) with a score of 6 (scale 1-6). the spellings of the vocabularies and sentences were also found proper and correct. the sentences were written with the correct punctuation and capital letters. the choice of words in the examples of the translated sentences were considered good. the translation results were also considered good and correct. sentence examples in english and the translations were considered easily can be understood. the illustrations were considered appropriate and quite helpful in understanding a new vocabulary. the developed e-glossary application was considered attractive and easy to use. the size and type of font used in the application were also considered appropriate and easy to read. one response and suggestion from the language expert is as below: “it is an excellent work of the researcher, and i believe it will be very useful for those studying accounting. there are some points, however, that i'd like to recommend for the betterment of the work, especially in the field of example sentences: (a) there are some entries that need grammar check as they are not a complete sentence or their subject-verb do not agree (e.g. entries 31, 44, 47, 114, 195); (b) some sentences use different indonesian meaning in the example sentence (entries 38, 249); (c) i think it will be more contextual if the researcher considers the choice of examples to be in issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 231 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 225-234 rohani, s. & suyono, a. (developing an android-based bilingual e-glossary) indonesian setting, such as rupiah or jakarta in entries 33, 116, and 142; (d) i think it will be better to avoid stereotyping or bias in the example sentence such as accountant and fraud in entry 7. nevertheless, i really appreciate such hard work of developing this glossary!” in the expert validation phase, interviews with linguists and lecturers as experts were also conducted to get inputs to improve the e-glossary application. the results of the interviews provided some inputs which were then applied in the application revision. the lecturers as experts stated some vocabularies were considered hard to be understood. the linguists also stated that the translation of some vocabularies was also considered to need revisions. with all the achieved inputs, a revision for the content was carried out, namely a review of vocabulary understanding and its translation into indonesian language. the last phase of the research was field testing. all questions in the questionnaire were answered by respondents and resulted in an average of above 5 (scale 1-6), which means that the developed application was considered good. only one item about the number of vocabularies in each field in the application was considered lacking. the number of 1,750 vocabularies was considered quite good, but it still needed additional vocabularies to make it better. table 2. responses on the use of the developed bilingual e-glossary no criteria responses average 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. the number of vocabularies in the glossary is sufficient. 1 (3%) 0 (0%) 2 (6%) 5 (15%) 16 (47%) 10 (29%) 4.91 2. the results of the translation are easy to understand. 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (3%) 5 (15%) 17 (50%) 11 (32%) 5.11 3. the translation of vocabularies in indonesian is easy to understand. 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 2 (6%) 3 (9%) 19 (56%) 10 (29%) 5.08 4. the translation of example sentences in indonesian is easy to understand. 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 6 (18%) 19 (56%) 9 (26%) 5.08 5. the application’s design is interesting. 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 3 (9%) 6 (18%) 12 (35%) 13 (38%) 5.02 6. the application is easy to use. 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 5 (15%) 13 (38%) 16 (47%) 5.32 7. the font and size of the contents are easy to read. 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 2 (6%) 7 (21%) 10 (29%) 15 (44%) 5.11 8. the images are clear and proper. 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (3%) 6 (18%) 15 (44%) 12 (35%) 5.11 9. the vocabulary in the bilingual glossary application is easy to find. 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 11 (32%) 11 (32%) 12 (34%) 5.02 10. bilingual glossary applications can assist you in understanding english texts. 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (3%) 3 (9%) 18 (54%) 12 (34%) 5.20 the respondents who used the e-glossary application considered the translation of vocabularies into the indonesian language were quite easy to understand, including the use of the vocabulary in the example sentences. the application design was also considered attractive and easy to use. the font size and type used was easy to read. the use of the pictures was considered quite helpful. the 'find' feature in the application was also considered to be quite helpful in finding a new vocabulary in the application. finally, the application was considered quite effective in helping users to understand english texts better. 232 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 225-234 rohani, s. & suyono, a. (developing an android-based bilingual e-glossary) 3.2 discussion the main result of the ddr research was a bilingual e-glossary application which was developed to help students, especially non-english department students to read and understand english texts well. the responses obtained from the field-testing phase showed the effectiveness of the application in helping the students to understand english texts. the finding is in line with several previous studies that have proven the effectiveness of mobile phone electronic learning media (eg. basoglu & akdemir, 2010; golonka, bowles, frank, richardson, & freynik, 2014; hamdani, 2013; rohani et al., 2019). the choice of making use of mobile phone is basically rooted from the fact that mobile phone is the most used tool to access information, including education media. the fastest growing web community is mobile visitors who browse web pages or retrieve web information using a cell phone over a wireless network (chen & chung, 2008). likewise, the development of educational technology lately tends to be mobilized, portable, and personal. this trend has caused the form of learning to change from traditional classroom learning to electronic learning. accommodating students’ favored learning medium is one of the strategies to improve students’ motivation to learn which later can assist the attainment of the learning goals. the use of technology in this sense is also the one mostly preferred by students. in the current study, when students find ease in comprehending english texts by using the android-based e-glossary, their motivation to read increase, and therefore, the process of comprehending texts becomes smoother and learning goals are attained. this is to confirm claims made by fox (2014) who reveal the effectiveness of technology in increasing students’ motivation to read and write. this is also in line with research findings by hao et al. (2019) that the use of mobile application lead to students’ positive attitude toward the learning of english. understanding and comprehending a new concept can be problematic, especially when it is an abstract concept. in the current study, all glossaries put in the application are aided by contextual examples; new vocabularies are put in sentences both in english and indonesian language. contextuality in this case is also supported by pictures. such an arrangement is aimed to provide more ease in using the application. abstract learning can be made easier by providing more “contextual” examples to the concept (bernat & mueller, 2014). with contextual examples, then, knowledge formation can occur more easily. 4. conclusion the final aim of the current research was to develop a bilingual e-glossary application for the business administration and accounting majors. the final product was an android-based application called "polinema bilingual e-glossary". the bilingual e-glossary application contained the terms used in the fields of business administration and accounting in english, the translations of those terms in the indonesian language, examples of the terms in english sentences along with the translations, as well as the pictures for each term. the expected significance of the ddr research was to assist users in understanding english texts better. in carrying out the current research, there were four phases; preliminary study, product development, expert validation, and field-testing phase. in the preliminary study phase, the researcher identified that most of the students and lecturers had difficulties in understanding english texts, especially in terms of vocabulary and grammar. from the interviews regarding the problems faced by the students in classes (especially in international classes), they admitted that they still have difficulties understanding english material. through a questionnaire, the students agreed that a bilingual eglossary should be developed to assist them in understanding english texts. after finding those problems, a bilingual e-glossary application was developed as the second phase of the research that was the design and development phase. furthermore, the developed bilingual e-glossary application had been validated by linguists and lecturers as experts. in the third phase, revisions were made based on the inputs from those experts. finally, the bilingual e-glossary application was ready to be field-tested by the users and their opinions were recorded using a questionnaire. from the field-testing phase, it was found that the bilingual e-glossary application was considered attractive, easy to use, and could help them understand english texts. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 233 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 225-234 rohani, s. & suyono, a. (developing an android-based bilingual e-glossary) acknowledgment this research was completed with the assistance of several students doing their final projects. our gratefulness goes to them, nurul kharomah, fauzi riyanto, alessa salsabila, ikhsanul mu'izzaddin, aldino, and nadhif declarations author contribution : sr: initiated the research ideas, literature review, instrument construction, data collection, analysis, and draft writing; as: revised the research ideas, data presentation, and the final draft. funding statement : the research is funded by dipa 2021 of state polytechnic of malang conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper references adlof, s. m., baron, l. s., scoggins, j., kapelner, a., mckeown, m. g., perfetti, c. a., . . . petscher, y. 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(2012). the effects of glossary and read-aloud accommodations on english language learners' performance on a mathematics assessment. applied measurement in education, 25(4), 347-374. https://doi.org/10.1080/08957347.2012.714693 http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/ehd_theses/522 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2012.700315 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.386 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.10.013 https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139858656 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203826034 https://doi.org/10.4108/eai.23-3-2019.2284960 https://doi.org/10.21744/lingcure.v5ns1.1994 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108569057 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8961 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02573-5_1 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2005.00129.x https://doi.org/10.1080/08957347.2012.714693 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.8627 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential and transformative effects on intercultural communication in english language teaching endro dwi hatmanto a,1*, bambang widi pratolo b,2, mariska intansari c,2 a,c universitas muhammadiyah yogyakarta, jl. brawijaya, geblagan, tamantirto, kec. kasihan, kabupaten bantul, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55183 b universitas ahmad dahlan, jl. pramuka no.42, pandeyan, kec. umbulharjo, kota yogyakarta, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55161 1 endrodwihatmanto@umy.ac.id*; 2 bambang.pratolo@pbi.uad.ac.id; 3 mariska.intan@umy.ac.id *corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 13 december 2022 revised 14 march 2023 accepted 17 april 2023 the emergence of metaverse, a three-dimensional virtual space that enables users to interact in computer-generated environments, has opened up new possibilities for language learning and instruction. this study explored the pedagogical potential and transformative effects of incorporating metaverse environments in english language teaching, with a specific focus on intercultural communication. drawing on theories such as social constructivism, intercultural communication, and autonomous language learning, this research investigated the impact of metaverse on language acquisition, intercultural competence, and learner autonomy. the study employed a qualitative approach, including interviews with experts in metaverse development and english language instructors. the findings revealed several pedagogical implications, including the promotion of immersive language learning experiences, enhanced interaction and collaboration, personalized learning opportunities, and increased motivation. additionally, the study uncovered the positive impacts of metaverse environments on intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning. the research contributed to the understanding of how metaverse could support language education and provides valuable insights for language teachers and students to optimize their language learning experience in virtual environments. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords metaverse virtual space language learning english language teaching intercultural communication pedagogical potential transformative effects social constructivism autonomous language learning how to cite: hatmanto. e. d., pratolo. b. w., & intansari, m. (2023). metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential and transformative effects on intercultural communication in english language teaching. english language teaching educational journal, 6 (1), 15-32. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.8627 1. introduction the english language is widely used as a second or foreign language throughout the globe and is regarded as a crucial element for international communication and education. in recent years, technological advancements have created new opportunities for language learning and instruction, including the utilization of virtual environments such as metaverse. metaverse is a virtual space that enables users to interact in a three-dimensional, computer-generated environment with digital objects (johnson, 2012). rapid growth in the use of metaverse in education has created new opportunities for language instructors and students to engage in authentic communication and cultural exchange. http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:endrodwihatmanto@umy.ac.id mailto:bambang.pratolo@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:mariska.intan@umy.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2633-2586 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8716-028x https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i1.8627&domain=pdf issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 15 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) multiple theories influence language acquisition in metaverse environments, including social constructivism, intercultural communication, and autonomous language learning. according to vygotsky's (1978) social constructivism, language acquisition is a social process that is constructed through interaction and negotiation between students and teachers. in metaverse environments, language students can interact with both native and non-native speakers, enhancing their intercultural communication skills and language development. gudykunst (2003) defines intercultural communication as the exchange of information and messages between people of diverse cultural backgrounds. language learners can engage in intercultural communication through the use of metaverse environments, as they can interact with people from around the globe in virtual spaces. this interaction can help language learners develop intercultural competence, such as the ability to comprehend and navigate diverse cultural norms and values. willis and willis (2007) define autonomous language learning as the process of assuming charge of one's own learning, establishing goals, and selecting strategies for language development. the use of metaverse environments can facilitate independent language learning by providing opportunities for self-directed learning, exploration of virtual environments, and collaboration with others. by fostering learner autonomy, language students can assume responsibility for their own language acquisition and develop problem-solving skills. prior research on the use of metaverse in english language teaching and learning has focused predominantly on the use of virtual environments for language instruction (liu, 2014; yu, 2015; kuo & tsai, 2011). however, research on the effect of metaverse environments on intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning is limited (smith, 2013; li, 2016). in addition, the potential of metaverse environments for encouraging learner autonomy, providing formative feedback, and promoting authentic communication practices in english language learning has not been thoroughly explored in previous research (johnson, 2012; chen, 2014). figure 1. density of the issue on the use of metaverse in english language teaching and learning by keywords, source: vosviewers, (2023) the vosviewer software was utilized to identify research gaps in prior studies. the vosviewer software visualizes with the fundamental colors red, green, and blue (rgb). the density visualization enables the examination of a topic's research density or scope. redder nodes indicate a 16 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) greater volume of research on a particular topic, while verdant nodes indicate a dearth of research (van eck & walton, 2010). to ascertain the research gap, "using metaverse in english language teaching and learning" was entered into scopus's database along with the keyword search term. initial retrieval yielded 76 articles; after meticulous selection, 51 research articles pertinent to the topic were identified. due to the novelty of the topic of metaverse in the context of english language instruction and learning, there are few articles on the subject. the research gap in the topics of foreign language and metaverse teacher areas is highlighted by the green node in figure 1. additional research is needed in these areas. the blue node contains keywords related to teaching and education effectiveness, suggesting the need for further investigation in these aspects. this study focuses on incorporating metaverse environments into the english language classroom, particularly exploring their pedagogical potential and adoption in intercultural settings, which have been underexplored. the presence of foreign language and metaverse teachers in the green node confirms the limited research in these specific areas, while the presence of teaching and education efficacy in the blue node indicates their potential for future study. the purpose of this research is to explore the potential of metaverse environments for supporting intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning. the research questions are: 1. what are the pedagogical potential of incorporating metaverse environments in english language teaching and how can they be best utilized in language education programs? 2. how does the use of metaverse environments affect intercultural communication and cultural understanding in the context of english language teaching and learning? this research will contribute to the understanding of how metaverse environments can support intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning, as well as provide strategies for language teachers and students to enhance their language learning experience in virtual environments. 2. literature review 2.1 metaverse the term "metaverse" alludes to a virtual world or shared space in which users can interact in a virtual environment (johnson, 2012). in recent years, the concept of the metaverse has received a great deal of attention, as technological advancements have enabled the creation of immersive, interactive virtual environments that offer a vast array of opportunities for communication, collaboration, and learning (kim, lee, & lee, 2021; pham & tran, 2020). the metaverse is frequently characterized by its three-dimensionality, which enables users to navigate and explore virtual spaces using avatars or virtual representations of themselves (lee & park, 2022). numerous studies have investigated the potential advantages and difficulties of utilizing metaverse environments for education and training. for instance, kim et al. (2021) discovered that metaverse environments can offer students a sense of presence and immersion that is not possible in conventional learning environments. this sense of presence, according to the authors, can contribute to increased engagement and motivation, as well as improved learning outcomes. research has also focused on the use of metaverse environments for intercultural communication and cultural understanding. lee and park (2022) found that metaverse environments can provide a secure and supportive environment for intercultural communication and cultural understanding because users can engage in authentic communication and collaboration with people of different cultures. according to the authors, this can aid in fostering intercultural awareness, empathy, and mutual understanding. research has also focused on the function of technology in promoting learning and interaction in metaverse environments. chen et al. (2021) discovered that the use of advanced technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence can enhance the issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 17 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) immersive and interactive nature of metaverse environments and provide users with personalized learning opportunities. literature suggests that metaverse environments have the potential to provide a variety of advantages for education and training, including increased engagement and motivation, improved learning outcomes, and opportunities for intercultural communication and cultural understanding. however, the field is still in its infancy, and additional research is required to investigate the full potential of metaverse environments for learning and to address challenges such as the need for effective pedagogy and technology design, as well as equity and accessibility issues. 2.2 intercultural communication and cultural understanding the exchange of knowledge, concepts, and attitudes among people with various cultural origins constitutes the complicated process known as intercultural communication (gudykunst & kim, 2017). according to byram and feng (2008), cultural understanding is the awareness and respect of cultural differences, including beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviours. both of these features are seen to be crucial for improving learner motivation and fostering communicative competence in language instruction (fantini, 2009; kramsch, 1993). extensive research has highlighted the importance of intercultural communication and cultural awareness in english language instruction. various strategies, including the integration of metaverse technology, have been explored to promote international awareness and cultural understanding. lee and lin (2018) found that incorporating virtual worlds in english language instruction effectively facilitates intercultural communication through authentic and immersive learning experiences. virtual environments offer a safe and controlled setting for students to practice their intercultural communication skills by simulating real-world encounters. according to a separate study conducted by pham and tran (2020), the inclusion of native speakers as language tutors in online settings has the potential to enhance cultural awareness by affording learners exposure to diverse cultural perspectives and experiences. the authors emphasized that virtual environments offer users access to a vast array of local speakers, thereby augmenting the authenticity of the learning experience and facilitating cultural immersion. scholarly research has also focused on investigating the significance of formative feedback in promoting cross-cultural understanding and communication. in a study conducted by chen and chiang (2021), it was found that providing students with formative feedback regarding their intercultural communication skills can contribute to the development of a heightened awareness of other cultures, as well as foster learner autonomy. the authors argued that formative feedback offers students direct and constructive criticism, enabling them to identify their strengths and areas for improvement, thereby motivating them to assume greater responsibility for their educational progress. despite several previous studies on the use of metaverse in language learning, further investigation is warranted to fully comprehend the impact of the incorporation of metaverse environment on pedagogical approaches and intercultural communication in the context of metaverse environment. 3. method the interviews were the primary mode of data collection for the study. the study included ten participants, one of whom (participant 1) was the rector of a cyber-university with expertise in metaverse development and experience implementing metaverse technology in the teaching-learning process. another participant (participant 2) was a metaverse developer who specialized in education and learning. in addition, nine instructors who taught technology-integrated courses in english education departments at universities in yogyakarta were selected as participants (participants 312). interviews allowed for an in-depth examination of the experiences, perspectives, and insights of participants regarding the use of metaverse environments in english language teaching and learning (kim et al., 2021). semi-structured interviews provided a balance between predetermined questions and the freedom to investigate emerging themes and ideas (lee & lin, 2018). participants' 18 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) responses were elicited using open-ended questions to ensure a comprehensive comprehension of their experiences (pham & tran, 2020). with the participants' permission, the interviews were audiorecorded to assure accurate data capture and subsequent transcription for analysis (lee & lin, 2018). the interview data was subjected to thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns, themes, and categories related to the research questions (chen & chiang, 2021). this method of analysis enabled the systematic organization and interpretation of qualitative data, thereby facilitating the extraction of meaningful insights (chen & chiang, 2020). through a rigorous process of data familiarization, classification, and data reduction, themes and categories were developed (chen & chiang, 2021). this study's findings contributed to our understanding of how metaverse environments can facilitate intercultural communication and cultural awareness in english language learning. the incorporation of recent research literature (kim et al., 2021; lee & park, 2022; pham & tran, 2020) ensured that the study built on prior knowledge and advanced the current understanding of the subject. ultimately, the purpose of this study was to provide instructors and students with strategies and insights for enhancing language learning in virtual environments by utilising the potential of metaverse technology. 4. findings and discussion 4.1 pedagogical potential of using metaverse environments in english language teaching the data findings guided by the first research questions pertain to the pedagogical implications of incorporating metaverse environment in english language teaching (elt). based on the participants’ responses, there are four pedagogical implications, namely immersive language learning experiences, enhanced interaction and collaboration, personalized learning and increased motivation as depicted in the concept map generated using nvivo 12 plus software (2023). each impact pertains to various understanding perceived by participants. figure 2. concept map for pedagogical potential of incorporating metaverse environments in english language teaching, source: nvivo 12 plus, (2013) issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 19 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) 4.1.1 immersive language learning experience table 1. immersive language learning experience pedagogical potential of using metaverse environments in eltl (english language teaching and learning) components of immersive language learning experiences immersive language learning experience students’ active engagement the real-life context foster collaboration incorporation of authentic materials personalization of students immediate feedback as shown in table 1, participants interpreted immersive language learning experience as pertaining to the learning process, learning materials, and feedback. using learning activities such as games, simulations, and role plays, students should be encouraged to actively participate in the immersive language learning experience's learning process in order to provide a meaningful context for skill practice (p9). according to p7, the real-world context could also be constructed using virtual environments that simulate real-world situations such as dining in a restaurant, shopping, and traveling. through group initiatives and conversation exchanges, metaverse could also enable students to collaborate with native speakers. according to p2, this paved the way for the individualization of students, as he stated, "i suppose metaverse could lead to the personalization of students." to enhance the experience's engagement and significance." metaverse could also offer immediate feedback (p11): to my point of view, metaverse enables the incorporation of immediate feedback mechanisms, such as automated grading or real-time corrections, to assist language learners in recognizing their strengths and shortcomings and advancing rapidly. 4.1.2 enhanced interaction and collaboration table 2. enhanced interaction and collaboration pedagogical potential of using metaverse environments in eltl components of enhanced interaction and collaboration enhanced interaction and collaboration promotes communication enhance active listening foster peer-to-peer feedback incorporate group assessment activities virtual networking according to the data presented in table 2, enhanced interaction and collaboration is the second pedagogical benefit of employing a metaverse environment in language instruction. participants connected this concept to fostering communication. for example, p8 stated: metaverse promotes communication because it encourages students to communicate with each other and native speakers to practice their speaking and listening skills, such as through virtual conversation exchanges or chat rooms. moreover, participants acknowledged the importance of interactive presentations and debates for enhancing active listening skills and fostering an appreciation of diverse perspectives (p10). in addition, participant p4 viewed enhanced interaction and collaboration as an opportunity to develop networking skills by encouraging language learners to connect with each other and native speakers via virtual events or online communities in order to establish relationships and foster a sense of community. additionally, participants p1 and p2 linked increased interaction and collaboration to the facilitation of peer-to-peer feedback and group assessment activities. 20 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) 4.1.3 personalized learning table 3. personalized learning pedagogical potential of using metaverse environments in eltl components of personalized learning personalized learning customizable learning paths adaptive learning self-directed learnings opportunities for personal reflection personalized support customizable virtual environment as indicated in table 3, personalized learning is an additional pedagogical potential associated with the use of the metaverse environment in english language instruction. p9 and p2 interpreted the concept of personalized learning as pertaining to learning paths and virtual environments that can be customized. the former refers to selecting the activities and materials that students will work on in order to align their learning objectives with their personal interests and preferences. the latter is concerned with allowing participants to create their own avatars or select their virtual environments in order to make the learning experience more engaging and significant. p1 and p11 related personalized learning to personalized support and adaptive learning in a similar manner. p1 described: teachers may have more opportunities to provide personalized support, such as virtual oneon-one tutoring or small-group instruction, to assist language learners in addressing their unique requirements and receiving targeted feedback. 4.1.4 increased motivation table 4. increased motivation pedagogical potential of using metaverse environments in eltl components of increased motivation increased motivation engaging virtual environment incorporate gamification provide real-world relevance providing immediate feedback as depicted in table 4, integrating metaverse environments into english language instruction has the potential to increase student motivation. participants viewed metaverse as more engaging than other platforms, despite its virtual nature, due to its capacity to generate visually enticing and interactive learning activities. participant p4 stated that metaverse had practical application. in addition, gamification could be incorporated into this platform. participant p6 stated, "teachers can incorporate gamification elements such as points, badges, and leaderboards into metaverse to motivate students during the learning process." in addition, metaverse's ability to provide immediate feedback and facilitate self-reflection were identified as additional strengths. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 21 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) 4.2 the impacts of metaverse environments to intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning figure 3. concept map of the impacts of metaverse environments to intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning, source: nvivo 12 plus, (2023) 22 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) 4.2.1 immersive cultural experience table 5. immersive cultural experience the impacts of metaverse environments to intercultural communication and cultural understanding in eltl components of impacts immersive cultural experience realistic interactions multisensory engagement cultural exploration cultural authenticity contextual language learning experimental learning as illustrated by the data in table 5, the incorporation of metaverse environments into english language instruction, as stated by the interviewees, facilitated immersive cultural experiences, thereby fostering intercultural communication and cultural understanding. as demonstrated in the table, the participants' perspectives emphasized the significance of interaction, engagement, culture, and learning. students were able to practice their english language skills by interacting with avatars representing individuals from the target culture, simulating genuine interactions, according to the participants. the participants remarked that such interactions involved multiple senses, including visual and auditory stimuli, which heightened the feeling of being physically present in the cultural context. this sensation of physical presence enabled authentic exploration of cultural content, including customs, traditions, values, and behaviors. one participant mentioned that students were able to precisely depict cultural practices, settings, and people. additionally, the participants emphasized that immersive cultural experiences facilitated contextual language learning and experiential learning, allowing language learners to practice their abilities in authentic cultural contexts. 4.2.2 promoting cross-cultural collaboration table 6. promoting cross-cultural collaboration the impacts of metaverse environments to intercultural communication and cultural understanding in eltl components of impacts promoting cross-cultural collaboration global connections authentic language practice cultural awareness cross-cultural collaboration and cooperation empathy and tolerance as observed in table 6, cross-cultural collaboration is the second effect of metaverse environments on intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language acquisition. participants associated this concept with various aspects, including global connection. through the metaverse environment, students were able to participate in virtual language exchange programs or online communities, engage in real-time conversations, exchange information about their own culture, and gain new perspectives. this exposure to diverse cultures promoted intercultural understanding and communication skills. increased global connectivity allowed students to acquire authentic language practice, cultural awareness, and fostered compassion and tolerance. participants viewed these elements as ingredients for enhancing cross-cultural cooperation and collaboration. as p2 indicated: the metaverse provides a collaborative space where students from diverse cultural backgrounds can collaborate on projects, duties, and problem-solving activities. this encourages coordination, cooperation, and the development of interpersonal skills essential for cross-cultural collaboration and cooperation through shared experiences and collaborative efforts, students develop an appreciation for diverse perspectives, the ability to negotiate meaning, and the ability to work towards common objectives. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 23 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) 4.2.3 incorporation of cultural awareness activities table 7. incorporation of cultural awareness activities the impacts of metaverse environments to intercultural communication and cultural understanding in eltl components of impacts incorporation of cultural awareness activities intercultural communication skills cultural reflection and discussion digital cultural portfolios global citizenship education access to remote or marginalized cultures based on the information in table 7, several major findings emerge from the responses of participants regarding the pedagogical potential of the metaverse in english language instruction. according to p6, "students can enhance their intercultural communication skills through the metaverse." learners may, for example, engage in simulated intercultural communication scenarios in which they negotiate cultural differences, demonstrate proper etiquette, and develop intercultural communication skills." this emphasizes the significance of utilizing the metaverse to promote intercultural competence. in addition, as mentioned by p8, students could construct digital cultural portfolios to document their cultural learning experiences and demonstrate their cultural awareness and language proficiency development. incorporating cultural awareness activities in the metaverse not only aligned with the goals of global citizenship education, as stated in p7, but also provided access to remote or marginalized cultures, as highlighted in p1, thereby promoting inclusiveness and increasing students' global awareness. 4.2.4 opportunities for reflection table 8. opportunities for reflection the impacts of metaverse environments to intercultural communication and cultural understanding in eltl components of impacts opportunities for reflection self-reflection cultural reflection language reflection critical reflection reflective writing feedback as can be seen in table 8, utilizing the metaverse to encourage self-reflection and personal development (p1) revolutionized english language learning. "interacting with diverse characters in the metaverse and interacting with virtual environments allowed me to reflect on my language skills, cultural awareness, and personal development," said one participant. it facilitated the identification of strengths and areas for growth, resulting in increased self-awareness and development" (p1). through immersive virtual experiences and interactions, students ruminated upon their language proficiency and cultural sensitivity. students developed a deeper appreciation for diversity as they evaluated cultural practices critically and compare similarities and differences (p12). language activities, such as virtual discussions and role-plays, enabled students to assess their language proficiency, identify their assets, and set learning objectives (p4). metaverse environments offered real-world scenarios that cultivate problem-solving and critical thinking skills, thereby honing decision-making abilities (p3). activities involving reflective writing enhanced comprehension and written communication skills (p10). teachers provided students with personalized feedback, guiding their reflective practice and enhancing their language and intercultural competencies (p2). the transformative power of the metaverse in english language learning resided in its ability to foster reflection, cultural awareness, metacognition, critical thinking, and effective communication. 24 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) 4.2.5 the use of localized language and cultural resources table 9. the use of localized language and cultural resources the impacts of metaverse environments to intercultural communication and cultural understanding in eltl components of impacts the use of localized language and cultural resources localized materials and media cultural comparisons localized language proficiency goals personalized learning paths from the data shown in table 9, utilizing localized language and cultural resources to teach english in the metaverse had proved to have a significant impact on language acquisition. one participant, p1, stated, "integrating virtual novels, newspapers, films, and music that reflect specific cultural contexts allowed me to gain an immersively deeper understanding of the language and culture." in addition, p2 emphasized the importance of cultural comparisons within the metaverse, where students were able to explore various regions and compare language use, customs, and societal norms, thereby increasing their appreciation for cultural diversity. p3 highlighted how teachers could tailor language instruction to the needs and interests of their students by establishing localized language proficiency objectives that provided practical language skills for specific cultural contexts. as acknowledged by p4, the availability of personalized learning paths within the metaverse encouraged students to delve deeper into the language and culture of their choosing, resulting in a more engaging and pertinent learning experience. in conclusion, the incorporation of localized language and cultural resources within the metaverse provided a dynamic and immersive language learning environment that improved students' language proficiency and cultural awareness. 5. discussion 5.1 pedagogical implications of using metaverse environments in english language teaching the findings of the study reveal several pedagogical implications of using metaverse environments in english language teaching. to deepen the academic discussion and incorporate recent literature, let's explore each implication in relation to relevant scholarly work. 5.1.1 promotion of immersive language learning experiences through the incorporation of considerable language practice and real-world circumstances, the usage of immersive metaverse environments in english language training fosters language learning immersion (willis, 2018). by including real-world scenarios, simulations, and role-playing activities, metaverse environments that are in line with task-based language teaching (tblt) principles enable learners to use language authentically (widdowson, 2017). additionally, in metaverse contexts, personalized learning experiences are essential, including individualized feedback and assessment (pane et al., 2017). these learning environments adhere to the tenets of individualized learning by adjusting to the needs of each learner and giving prompt feedback. this individualized approach increases the efficiency of language learning in the metaverse by allowing students to advance at their own speed and concentrate on areas that need development. 5.1.2 enhanced interaction and collaboration metaverse environments offer learners enhanced opportunities for interaction and collaboration, in accordance with vygotsky's sociocultural theory (1978). collaboration, peer-topeer feedback, cross-cultural interactions, and virtual networking are identified as crucial factors. within an interactive and supportive environment, language development is promoted through group initiatives, role-playing, and virtual conversations. byram (2018) argues that cross-cultural interactions in metaverse environments foster intercultural understanding and communication skills. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 25 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) in addition, peer-to-peer feedback in metaverse environments is consistent with the principles of peer-assisted learning, which improve language proficiency, learner autonomy, and self-reflection (cheng et al., 2019). engaging in peer-to-peer feedback exchanges in these settings fosters language growth and fosters a sense of community among students. overall, metaverse environments provide a rich collaborative space for language learners to interact, engage in crosscultural interactions, and benefit from exchanges of peer feedback, thereby enhancing their language learning experiences. 5.1.3 personalized learning the pedagogical implications of personalized learning in metaverse environments include the customization of learning paths, adaptive learning techniques, self-directed learning approaches, instant feedback, personal reflection, personalized support, and the customization of the virtual learning environment. recent research supports the effectiveness of individualized language instruction. learners can select activities and materials based on their interests and preferences (benson, 2017). in metaverse environments, students can take command of their education by selecting activities that align with their individual needs and motivations. 5.1.4 increased motivation engaging virtual environments, gamification elements, real-world relevance, a sense of community, immediate feedback, and self-reflection all contribute to increased motivation in metaverse environments for english language instruction. self-determination theory and research on second language acquisition (deci & ryan, 2000) emphasize the significance of intrinsic motivation, autonomy, and competence. metaverse environments provide visually appealing and interactive virtual settings that encourage originality, zeal, and participation. the incorporation of gamification elements is consistent with motivational theory, as it offers extrinsic rewards that positively influence engagement and perseverance (dornaiei, 2001). the development of a supportive community fosters motivation and inclusivity (macintyre & legatto, 2011), while real-world relevance helps students perceive the practical applications and value of language skills (lambert & gu, 2014). in addition, immediate feedback and self-reflection allow students to monitor their progress, increase their selfefficacy, and promote metacognitive awareness (macintyre & legatto, 2011). recent research validates the pedagogical implications of employing metaverse environments in english language education. according to research on virtual reality (vr) in language acquisition, vr-based activities improve immersion, motivation, and language performance (wang & sun, 2021). the use of gamified elements in a virtual environment increases students' motivation, engagement, and appreciation of language learning (li & lan, 2021). (chen & lin, 2023) virtual social interaction in a metaverse environment has positive effects on language development, collaborative skills, and intercultural communication skills. these results highlight the significance of metaverse environments for immersive language learning experiences, proficiency enhancement, and student engagement. 5.2 impacts of metaverse environments on intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning the second research question aimed to explore the impacts of metaverse environments on intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning. the findings revealed two overarching themes: immersive cultural experience and promoting cross-cultural collaboration. this discussion section will delve into these themes, providing an analysis of the participants' perspectives and the implications for language education. 5.2.1 immersive cultural experience previous research has demonstrated that cultural immersion in metaverse environments is feasible. kim et al. (2021) highlight the capacity of immersive features to boost presence, engagement, and learning efficacy. pham and tran (2020) emphasize experiential learning and cultural comprehension through virtual cultural activities and interactions. lee and park (2022) highlight the significance of cultural authenticity and its impact on the growth of intercultural competence. 26 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) kim et al. (2021) state that metaverse environments offer authentic learning environments where students can interact with authentic settings, avatars, and cultural artifacts. virtual cultural activities facilitate experiential learning, active participation, and intercultural communication, according to pham and tran (2020). by engaging in genuine interactions and observing authentic cultural practices, comprehension, cultural sensitivity, and empathy are enhanced (lee & park, 2021). 5.2.2 promoting cross-cultural collaboration the research's findings are consistent with the existing literature on the effect of metaverse environments on intercultural communication and cultural comprehension. a significant aspect of utilizing metaverse environments for english language acquisition is cross-cultural cooperation. (kim, lee, & lee, 2021) metaverse environments facilitate global connections and real-time conversations with individuals from various cultures, thereby enhancing intercultural comprehension and communication skills. students' linguistic competence is enhanced by engaging in dialogues and collaborative projects with native or proficient speakers in virtual environments (lee & park, 2021). the literature provides additional evidence for the function of metaverse environments in fostering cultural awareness. exposure to various cultural norms, values, and traditions in virtual reality promotes cultural understanding and competency (pham & tran, 2020). metaverse environments facilitate the development of collaboration and interpersonal skills by providing a collaborative space for intercultural interaction and cooperation (chen & chiang, 2021). the literature and analysis corroborate that metaverse environments provide transformative opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration, intercultural communication, and cultural and linguistic skill development in english language learning. 5.2.3 incorporation of cultural awareness activities aligned with language education objectives, the study highlights the significance of cultural awareness activities in metaverse environments for intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning (kim et al., 2021; lee & park, 2022). these activities promote cultural competence, reflective thought, language proficiency, and global consciousness among students. through simulated scenarios, reflective assignments, and digital cultural portfolios, students acquire intercultural communication skills, develop an appreciation for cultural diversity, and contribute to the education of global citizens (kim et al., 2021; lee & park, 2022). in addition, the accessibility of remote or marginalized cultures through the metaverse broadens the worldviews of students and promotes inclusivity (pham & tran, 2020). therefore, incorporating cultural awareness activities into metaverse environments is essential for intercultural communication and cultural comprehension in english language learning. these activities foster intercultural communication skills, reflective thought, the creation of digital cultural portfolios, global citizenship education, and access to marginalized or remote cultures. the metaverse provides a transformative platform for language educators to cultivate students' cultural competence, language proficiency, and global awareness. 5.2.4 opportunities for reflection metaverse environments offer valuable opportunities for reflection, thereby promoting intercultural communication and cultural awareness in english language learning. participants emphasize self-reflection, cultural reflection, language reflection, critical reflection, and reflective writing, among other forms of reflection. literature emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and development (kim et al., 2021), intercultural competence and an appreciation for diversity (pham & tran, 2020), metacognitive awareness (lee & lin, 2018), critical thinking skills (chen & chiang, 2021), and written communication proficiency (lee & park, 2022). in addition, feedback and assessment within metaverse environments play a crucial role in fostering reflective practice and continuous improvement among learners (pham & tran, 2020). opportunities for reflection in the metaverse contribute to the development of language proficiency, intercultural competence, critical thinking, and written communication skills (kim et al., 2021; pham & tran, 2020; lee & lin, 2018; chen & chiang, 2021; lee & park, 2022). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 27 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) there are significant pedagogical implications of incorporating metaverse environments into english language instruction. these environments align with task-based language teaching (tblt) and communicative language teaching (clt) and provide authentic and immersive language learning experiences. consistent with sociocultural theory and intercultural comprehension, they facilitate social interaction, cooperation, and cross-cultural interactions (pham & tran, 2020). collaboration and peer feedback promote language development and a sense of community (pham & tran, 2020). in addition to personalized learning experiences, immediate feedback, and adaptive techniques, metaverse environments permit learners to advance at their own pace (kim et al., 2021). by implementing elements such as gamification, relevance to the real world, and a sense of community, these environments enhance motivation, intrinsic motivation, autonomy, and language proficiency (lee & park, 2022). through immersive cultural experiences and cross-cultural collaboration, they also improve intercultural communication and cultural awareness (pham & tran, 2020). the use of metaverse environments in english language instruction is consistent with current research, offering innovative methods to foster immersive language learning, boost motivation, and promote intercultural communication and cultural understanding (kim et al., 2021; pham & tran, 2020; lee & park, 2022). 6. conclusion the findings of the study shed light on the pedagogical implications of using metaverse environments in english language teaching. the integration of metaverse environments promotes immersive language learning experiences by incorporating real-life contexts, meaningful language practice, and authentic cultural materials. this aligns with task-based language teaching (tblt) and communicative language teaching (clt) principles, emphasizing the importance of authentic and purposeful language use. in addition, metaverse environments adopted in english language teaching also enhance interaction and collaboration, personalized learning, engaging virtual environment and immersive cultural experiences. various recommendations can be implemented to improve language acquisition in metaverse environments. encourage immersion by incorporating real-world scenarios, simulations, and role-playing activities to promote authentic language use. include authentic cultural materials to increase cultural sensitivity. enhance interaction and collaboration by developing collaborative assignments and virtual conversation exchanges to encourage social interaction and language practice. personalize learning experiences by customizing learning paths, employing adaptive techniques, and creating visually appealing and interactive virtual environments with gamification elements to boost motivation. promote intercultural communication and cultural comprehension by connecting learning activities to real-world relevance and keeping abreast of the most recent research and professional development programs in order to effectively integrate metaverse environments into language teaching practices. on the basis of the discussion and conclusion of this study regarding the pedagogical implications of using metaverse environments in english language instruction, a number of recommendations and implications for future research can be made. several important areas should be the focus of future research in the field of language-learning environments in the metaverse. there is a need for longitudinal research to examine the long-term effects of these environments on motivation, language proficiency, and skill transfer. studies comparing metaverse environments to traditional teaching methods or other technology-enhanced approaches can aid in understanding the distinct advantages of these environments. examining learner factors such as language proficiency and prior experience with virtual environments will cast light on individual differences in the effects of metaverse environments. in addition, research should investigate the requirements for teacher training and the various pedagogical approaches utilized within metaverse environments. future research can advance our understanding of the potential of metaverse environments for language education by addressing these areas. the field of english language teaching can advance evidencebased practices and technology-enhanced language learning by addressing these recommendations and implications for future research. 28 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 14-31 hatmanto et.al (metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential……) acknowledgment the researcher extends the gratitude to all parties who helped in the process of this research project, data collection, data analysis and provided feedback so that this paper could be completed. therefore, the researchers would like to thank and appreciate to all parties who have supported and encouraged the researchers to complete this manuscript. declarations author contribution : endro d. hatmanto was responsible for the entire research project. he also led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the second author. bambang w. pratolo revised and proofread the final draft. mariska i. participated in the data collection, transcription and analysis. all the authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research did not receive any funding from any party. conflict of interest : all authors declare that they have no competing interests. ethics declaration additional information : we as authors acknowledge that this work has been written based on ethical research that conforms with the regulations of our university and that we have obtained the permission from the relevant institute when collecting data. we support english language teaching educational journal (eltej) in maintaining high standards of personal conduct, practicing honesty in all our professional practices and endeavors. no additional information is available for this paper. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references byram, m., & feng, a. 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(2018). doing task-based teaching. oxford university press. metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential and transformative effects on intercultural communication in english language teaching endro dwi hatmanto a,1*, bambang widi pratolo b,2, mariska intansari c,2 a,c universitas muhammadiyah yogyakarta, jl. brawijaya, geblagan, tamantirto, kec. kasihan, kabupaten bantul, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55183 b universitas ahmad dahlan, jl. pramuka no.42, pandeyan, kec. umbulharjo, kota yogyakarta, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55161 1 endrodwihatmanto@umy.ac.id*; 2 bambang.pratolo@pbi.uad.ac.id; 3 mariska.intan@umy.ac.id *corresponding author how to cite: hatmanto. e. d., pratolo. b. w., & intansari, m. (2023). metaverse magic: unveiling the pedagogical potential and transformative effects on intercultural communication in english language teaching. english language teaching educational jo... 1. introduction the english language is widely used as a second or foreign language throughout the globe and is regarded as a crucial element for international communication and education. in recent years, technological advancements have created new opportunities for... multiple theories influence language acquisition in metaverse environments, including social constructivism, intercultural communication, and autonomous language learning. according to vygotsky's (1978) social constructivism, language acquisition is a... gudykunst (2003) defines intercultural communication as the exchange of information and messages between people of diverse cultural backgrounds. language learners can engage in intercultural communication through the use of metaverse environments, as ... willis and willis (2007) define autonomous language learning as the process of assuming charge of one's own learning, establishing goals, and selecting strategies for language development. the use of metaverse environments can facilitate independent l... prior research on the use of metaverse in english language teaching and learning has focused predominantly on the use of virtual environments for language instruction (liu, 2014; yu, 2015; kuo & tsai, 2011). however, research on the effect of metavers... figure 1. density of the issue on the use of metaverse in english language teaching and learning by keywords, source: vosviewers, (2023) the vosviewer software was utilized to identify research gaps in prior studies. the vosviewer software visualizes with the fundamental colors red, green, and blue (rgb). the density visualization enables the examination of a topic's research density o... the research gap in the topics of foreign language and metaverse teacher areas is highlighted by the green node in figure 1. additional research is needed in these areas. the blue node contains keywords related to teaching and education effectiveness,... the purpose of this research is to explore the potential of metaverse environments for supporting intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning. the research questions are: 1. what are the pedagogical potential of incorporating metaverse environments in english language teaching and how can they be best utilized in language education programs? 2. how does the use of metaverse environments affect intercultural communication and cultural understanding in the context of english language teaching and learning? this research will contribute to the understanding of how metaverse environments can support intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning, as well as provide strategies for language teachers and students to enhan... 2. literature review 2.1 metaverse the term "metaverse" alludes to a virtual world or shared space in which users can interact in a virtual environment (johnson, 2012). in recent years, the concept of the metaverse has received a great deal of attention, as technological advancements h... numerous studies have investigated the potential advantages and difficulties of utilizing metaverse environments for education and training. for instance, kim et al. (2021) discovered that metaverse environments can offer students a sense of presence ... research has also focused on the use of metaverse environments for intercultural communication and cultural understanding. lee and park (2022) found that metaverse environments can provide a secure and supportive environment for intercultural communic... research has also focused on the function of technology in promoting learning and interaction in metaverse environments. chen et al. (2021) discovered that the use of advanced technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial int... literature suggests that metaverse environments have the potential to provide a variety of advantages for education and training, including increased engagement and motivation, improved learning outcomes, and opportunities for intercultural communicat... 2.2 intercultural communication and cultural understanding the exchange of knowledge, concepts, and attitudes among people with various cultural origins constitutes the complicated process known as intercultural communication (gudykunst & kim, 2017). according to byram and feng (2008), cultural understanding ... extensive research has highlighted the importance of intercultural communication and cultural awareness in english language instruction. various strategies, including the integration of metaverse technology, have been explored to promote international... according to a separate study conducted by pham and tran (2020), the inclusion of native speakers as language tutors in online settings has the potential to enhance cultural awareness by affording learners exposure to diverse cultural perspectives and... scholarly research has also focused on investigating the significance of formative feedback in promoting cross-cultural understanding and communication. in a study conducted by chen and chiang (2021), it was found that providing students with formativ... 3. method the interviews were the primary mode of data collection for the study. the study included ten participants, one of whom (participant 1) was the rector of a cyber-university with expertise in metaverse development and experience implementing metaverse ... interviews allowed for an in-depth examination of the experiences, perspectives, and insights of participants regarding the use of metaverse environments in english language teaching and learning (kim et al., 2021). semi-structured interviews provided... the interview data was subjected to thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns, themes, and categories related to the research questions (chen & chiang, 2021). this method of analysis enabled the systematic organization and interpretation of qua... this study's findings contributed to our understanding of how metaverse environments can facilitate intercultural communication and cultural awareness in english language learning. the incorporation of recent research literature (kim et al., 2021; lee... 4. findings and discussion 4.1 pedagogical potential of using metaverse environments in english language teaching the data findings guided by the first research questions pertain to the pedagogical implications of incorporating metaverse environment in english language teaching (elt). based on the participants’ responses, there are four pedagogical implications, ... figure 2. concept map for pedagogical potential of incorporating metaverse environments in english language teaching, source: nvivo 12 plus, (2013) 4.1.1 immersive language learning experience table 1. immersive language learning experience as shown in table 1, participants interpreted immersive language learning experience as pertaining to the learning process, learning materials, and feedback. using learning activities such as games, simulations, and role plays, students should be enco... to my point of view, metaverse enables the incorporation of immediate feedback mechanisms, such as automated grading or real-time corrections, to assist language learners in recognizing their strengths and shortcomings and advancing rapidly. 4.1.2 enhanced interaction and collaboration table 2. enhanced interaction and collaboration according to the data presented in table 2, enhanced interaction and collaboration is the second pedagogical benefit of employing a metaverse environment in language instruction. participants connected this concept to fostering communication. for exam... metaverse promotes communication because it encourages students to communicate with each other and native speakers to practice their speaking and listening skills, such as through virtual conversation exchanges or chat rooms. moreover, participants acknowledged the importance of interactive presentations and debates for enhancing active listening skills and fostering an appreciation of diverse perspectives (p10). in addition, participant p4 viewed enhanced interaction and ... 4.1.3 personalized learning table 3. personalized learning as indicated in table 3, personalized learning is an additional pedagogical potential associated with the use of the metaverse environment in english language instruction. p9 and p2 interpreted the concept of personalized learning as pertaining to lea... teachers may have more opportunities to provide personalized support, such as virtual one-on-one tutoring or small-group instruction, to assist language learners in addressing their unique requirements and receiving targeted feedback. 4.1.4 increased motivation table 4. increased motivation as depicted in table 4, integrating metaverse environments into english language instruction has the potential to increase student motivation. participants viewed metaverse as more engaging than other platforms, despite its virtual nature, due to its ... 4.2 the impacts of metaverse environments to intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning figure 3. concept map of the impacts of metaverse environments to intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning, source: nvivo 12 plus, (2023) 4.2.1 immersive cultural experience table 5. immersive cultural experience as illustrated by the data in table 5, the incorporation of metaverse environments into english language instruction, as stated by the interviewees, facilitated immersive cultural experiences, thereby fostering intercultural communication and cultural... 4.2.2 promoting cross-cultural collaboration table 6. promoting cross-cultural collaboration as observed in table 6, cross-cultural collaboration is the second effect of metaverse environments on intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language acquisition. participants associated this concept with various aspects, i... the metaverse provides a collaborative space where students from diverse cultural backgrounds can collaborate on projects, duties, and problem-solving activities. this encourages coordination, cooperation, and the development of interpersonal skills e... 4.2.3 incorporation of cultural awareness activities table 7. incorporation of cultural awareness activities based on the information in table 7, several major findings emerge from the responses of participants regarding the pedagogical potential of the metaverse in english language instruction. according to p6, "students can enhance their intercultural comm... 4.2.4 opportunities for reflection table 8. opportunities for reflection as can be seen in table 8, utilizing the metaverse to encourage self-reflection and personal development (p1) revolutionized english language learning. "interacting with diverse characters in the metaverse and interacting with virtual environments all... 4.2.5 the use of localized language and cultural resources table 9. the use of localized language and cultural resources from the data shown in table 9, utilizing localized language and cultural resources to teach english in the metaverse had proved to have a significant impact on language acquisition. one participant, p1, stated, "integrating virtual novels, newspapers... 5. discussion 5.1 pedagogical implications of using metaverse environments in english language teaching the findings of the study reveal several pedagogical implications of using metaverse environments in english language teaching. to deepen the academic discussion and incorporate recent literature, let's explore each implication in relation to relevant... 5.1.1 promotion of immersive language learning experiences through the incorporation of considerable language practice and real-world circumstances, the usage of immersive metaverse environments in english language training fosters language learning immersion (willis, 2018). by including real-world scenarios,... additionally, in metaverse contexts, personalized learning experiences are essential, including individualized feedback and assessment (pane et al., 2017). these learning environments adhere to the tenets of individualized learning by adjusting to the... 5.1.2 enhanced interaction and collaboration metaverse environments offer learners enhanced opportunities for interaction and collaboration, in accordance with vygotsky's sociocultural theory (1978). collaboration, peer-to-peer feedback, cross-cultural interactions, and virtual networking are id... in addition, peer-to-peer feedback in metaverse environments is consistent with the principles of peer-assisted learning, which improve language proficiency, learner autonomy, and self-reflection (cheng et al., 2019). engaging in peer-to-peer feedback... 5.1.3 personalized learning the pedagogical implications of personalized learning in metaverse environments include the customization of learning paths, adaptive learning techniques, self-directed learning approaches, instant feedback, personal reflection, personalized support, ... recent research supports the effectiveness of individualized language instruction. learners can select activities and materials based on their interests and preferences (benson, 2017). in metaverse environments, students can take command of their educ... 5.1.4 increased motivation engaging virtual environments, gamification elements, real-world relevance, a sense of community, immediate feedback, and self-reflection all contribute to increased motivation in metaverse environments for english language instruction. self-determina... recent research validates the pedagogical implications of employing metaverse environments in english language education. according to research on virtual reality (vr) in language acquisition, vr-based activities improve immersion, motivation, and lan... 5.2 impacts of metaverse environments on intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning the second research question aimed to explore the impacts of metaverse environments on intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning. the findings revealed two overarching themes: immersive cultural experience and... 5.2.1 immersive cultural experience previous research has demonstrated that cultural immersion in metaverse environments is feasible. kim et al. (2021) highlight the capacity of immersive features to boost presence, engagement, and learning efficacy. pham and tran (2020) emphasize exper... kim et al. (2021) state that metaverse environments offer authentic learning environments where students can interact with authentic settings, avatars, and cultural artifacts. virtual cultural activities facilitate experiential learning, active partic... 5.2.2 promoting cross-cultural collaboration the research's findings are consistent with the existing literature on the effect of metaverse environments on intercultural communication and cultural comprehension. a significant aspect of utilizing metaverse environments for english language acquis... the literature provides additional evidence for the function of metaverse environments in fostering cultural awareness. exposure to various cultural norms, values, and traditions in virtual reality promotes cultural understanding and competency (pham ... 5.2.3 incorporation of cultural awareness activities aligned with language education objectives, the study highlights the significance of cultural awareness activities in metaverse environments for intercultural communication and cultural understanding in english language learning (kim et al., 2021; lee... therefore, incorporating cultural awareness activities into metaverse environments is essential for intercultural communication and cultural comprehension in english language learning. these activities foster intercultural communication skills, reflec... 5.2.4 opportunities for reflection metaverse environments offer valuable opportunities for reflection, thereby promoting intercultural communication and cultural awareness in english language learning. participants emphasize self-reflection, cultural reflection, language reflection, cr... there are significant pedagogical implications of incorporating metaverse environments into english language instruction. these environments align with task-based language teaching (tblt) and communicative language teaching (clt) and provide authentic... 6. conclusion the findings of the study shed light on the pedagogical implications of using metaverse environments in english language teaching. the integration of metaverse environments promotes immersive language learning experiences by incorporating real-life co... various recommendations can be implemented to improve language acquisition in metaverse environments. encourage immersion by incorporating real-world scenarios, simulations, and role-playing activities to promote authentic language use. include authen... on the basis of the discussion and conclusion of this study regarding the pedagogical implications of using metaverse environments in english language instruction, a number of recommendations and implications for future research can be made. several i... acknowledgment the researcher extends the gratitude to all parties who helped in the process of this research project, data collection, data analysis and provided feedback so that this paper could be completed. therefore, the researchers would like to thank and appr... declarations references byram, m., & feng, a. 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(2018). doing task-based teaching. oxford university press. english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 225-239 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.8011 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id public school teachers’ perceptions of students’ diversity, cultural, and linguistic needs in the united states sedighe zamani roodsari auburn university, department of education, auburn 36830, u.s. szz0041@auburn.edu a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 11 september 2022 revised 18 november 2022 accepted 29 november 2022 the need for culturally and linguistically sustaining teaching has become more apparent as school communities across the united states continually grow in cultural and linguistic diversity. this study investigated equity-based instruction for culturally and linguistically diverse (cld) students by examining public school teachers’ perceptions of preparation for diversity and inclusion of cld students. a cld research-based survey was designed and administered to 200 elementary and secondary school teachers in ten public schools in the united states. the study examined teachers’ perceptions, attitudes, selfawareness, and preparation toward cld students’ cultural and linguistic needs. the analysis of the data uncovered evidence related to the themes of cld instructional awareness and preparation in participants regarding their gender, race, age, esl experience, highest degree, and years of teaching. the major findings of the study revealed the role of cldrelated training and awareness on the effectiveness of teacher preparation and their perceptions of the diversity of the students. the study concluded by providing implications for teachers, schools, educators, and policymakers on providing an equity-based educational environment for all students including the cld ones. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords culturally and linguistically diverse teachers’ perceptions teacher awareness teacher preparation teaching resources how to cite: zamani roodsari, s. (2022). public school teachers’ perceptions of students’ diversity, cultural, and linguistic needs in the united states. english language teaching educational journal, 5 (3), 225-239. 1. introduction teachers’ perceptions of teaching cld students play a significant role in their curriculum and assessment design (bryan & atwater, 2002; johnson & atwater, 2014; irvine, 2003). unfortunately, many teachers are not aware of their misconceptions or negative attitudes toward the diversity of students. in many cases, teachers believe they have positive or neutral attitudes to the diversity of the students that are not reflected in their curriculum and assessment design (mellom et al., 2018; russell et al., 2014). extensive discussions exist in the literature on diversity, multiculturalism, and globalization. many countries have welcomed the demographic changes and their impact on education as widely reported in american schools (batt, 2008; bodur, 2012; edwards, 2011; flores & smith, 2008). numerous demographic changes are reflected in schools as they are also changing rapidly including the population of english language learners (ells) (hodgkinson, 2002). indeed, america’s public schools are increasingly faced with the complex task of addressing the needs of cld students (samson & collins, 2012), which makes the research in this area considerable. 1.1. linguistically and culturally sustaining pedagogy teachers’ awareness of cld students’ cultural and linguistic needs is important as the number of students classified as english language learners (ell) is still increasing in u.s. schools (mellom et al., 2018). linguistically and culturally sustaining pedagogy aims to maintain https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.8011 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:szz0041@auburn.edu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v5i3.8011&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8231-9984 226 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 225-239 zamani roodsari, s. (public school teachers’ perceptions of students’ diversity.....) linguistic and cultural diversity as a valuable part of the equity-based schooling system (paris, 2012). based on a linguistically and culturally sustaining pedagogy, the teachers should be wellprepared for the linguistic and cultural diversity of the students. in the face of current policies and practices that have the explicit goal of creating a monocultural and monolingual society, research and practice need equally explicit resistances that embrace cultural pluralism and cultural equality. in 2002, darling-hammond surveyed 3000 new teachers and found out teachers generally considered their training for teaching esl and cld students inadequate (darling-hammond, 2002). the findings in another study by walker and colleagues showed the possibility of increasing negative attitudes due to the increase in a diverse population, lack of cultural awareness, and professional expertise for mainstream teachers to teach culturally and linguistically diverse students (walker et al., 2004). later in 2010, durgunoglu and hughes declared in their study that teachers’ preparation had a direct relationship with their attitude; teachers with a greater sense of awareness and preparation had more positive attitudes to having cld students in classrooms and the ones with lower perceptions of their preparation held more negative beliefs. the teachers with more sense of preparedness for teaching esl students made higher scores on a knowledge test about esl pedagogy, and those who felt less prepared not only scored lower on the esl knowledge test but also, during classroom observations, were neglecting their esl students (durgunoglu & hughes, 2010). in 2016, in a study by taylor, kumi-yeboah, and ringlaben, pre-service teachers agreed on the need for training and practices to be more prepared to teach diverse students. the situation did not seem to have changed much in later years either (taylor, yeboah, & ringlaben, 2016), as in 2018, mellom and colleagues reported that in many parts of the united states, “esl and diverse students are enrolled in schools that do not have teachers experienced in serving the students” (mellom et al., 2018). similarly, in 2020, wright et al. reported on the high population of teachers who were ill-equipped or unprepared to address the rising population of cld students. they extended the notion that cld students are struggling through english language arts classes without proper support in scaffolding or differentiated instruction because teachers’ beliefs affect their classroom instruction, management, and culture (kibler & valdés, 2016; wright et al., 2020). the literature review reveals the fact that still after many years of discussions around diversity and the cultural and linguistic needs of diverse students, most teachers feel inadequately prepared to teach cld students and lack the necessary awareness of their diverse needs. many educators and teachers are not even aware of the differences and the jargon associated with teaching cld and bilingual students, and research shows that teachers across u.s. public schools still have negative attitudes, perceptions, and theories about mainstream cld students’ ability to learn the content (cummins, 1997; gándara et al., 2005; garcia, 2015; carley rizzuto, 2017). 1.2. teachers’ perceptions and awareness of their attitudes although schools are continually becoming culturally and linguistically diverse in the united states, the pre-service and in-service teachers still have different opinions and perceptions about the required awareness and training to teach cld students. to build cultural, linguistic, and social diversity in their classrooms, teachers should recognize their own beliefs, perceptions, assumptions, and experiences about teaching and learning to promote healthy discourse and culturally sustaining teaching (cochran-smith, 1995; kozleski & proffitt, 2020; lambeth & smith, 2016; sallı & osam, 2017; tonbuloglu et al., 2016). teachers’ awareness of multicultural education and diversity in school settings. eurasian journal of educational research, 64, 1-28). in a study conducted by walker, shafer, and liams (2004) at the university of north dakota, the relationship between teachers’ attitudes about language minority students and student outcomes was investigated and revealed a crucial role of the attitudes in teachers’ instructions and practices. the research reveals some negative attitudes toward the increase in the esl population, the lack of professional expertise for mainstream teachers to teach esls, and teachers’ accountability criteria (shah & coles, 2020; scott, 2019; mellom et al., 2018; walker, shafer, & liams, 2004). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 227 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 225-239 zamani roodsari, s. (public school teachers’ perceptions of students’ diversity.....) 1.3. teachers’ awareness of the need for cld-related courses and training in 2004, walker and her colleagues conducted research on the need for professional development in which 87% of the teachers stated that they had never received any eslrelated professional development and 20% of the participants directly objected to making modifications for cld students in the classroom instruction. in another study by reeves (2006), although 90.3% of teachers had not received training to work with esl students, they were still not sure or disagreed to participate in professional development or any eslrelated courses. according to hansen-thomas and his colleagues, only twenty of the u.s. states require some esl-related training for teachers without even a clear definition for training (hansen-thomas et al., 2014). most teachers do not feel that professional development will provide them with any educational reform and see it as the responsibility of esl teachers to work with bilingual students (könig et al., 2017; reeves, 2006; siwatu et al., 2016). the findings of a survey conducted by batt (2008) revealed the mainstream teachers’ awareness of their lack of training and knowledge to understand cld needs in instruction and assessment. in another study conducted by hansenthomas et al., (2014), only 3.4% of their participants were holding a degree or certificate in bilingual education, while 25% of the teachers indicated their lack of knowledge in literacy strategies for esls, and 28% of teachers introduced themselves not being competent to teach cld students. in recent studies, in-service and prospective teachers found cld practices significant for their teaching preparation and cultural awareness and professed a crucial need of training to increase teachers’ awareness and preparation to work effectively in culturally and linguistically sustaining education context (miller & mikulec, 2014; moore et al., 2021; özüdoğru, 2018; thomassen & munthe, 2021; yıldırım, 2019; yuan, 2018; zorba, 2020). 1.4. teachers’ awareness of the cld students’ resource needs although student diversity is increasing, the eurocentric curriculum and pedagogy are still the dominant curriculum design in the education system. in eurocentric curriculum and pedagogy, the students should accept the dominant ideologies, political patterns, economic norms, and social structures that may lead to the gradual loss of the values of their home country and identity. they learn and practice the values and norms of the target language in a community that seldom would consider providing any resources in their native language and culture. the backlash pedagogies do not accept or welcome diversity and differences as a resource for learning but regard them as a problem in the education system that should be eliminated or remediated (gutierrez et al., 2002). bilingual students need access to rich opportunities and resources to learn in meaningful ways and think critically to succeed academically (foulger & jimenez-silva, 2007; lachance et al., 2018). cld students should not lose their identity but gain knowledge from their cultural values to keep them as a part of their identity (nieto, 1999). teachers and policymakers should avoid the assumption that whatever works for one segment of student populations will necessarily support another (coady et al., 2003) 1.5. teachers’ awareness of the importance of home language and parental involvement families can provide a rich resource of cultural and personal experiences to the educational system that should be noticed and valued (protacio & edwards, 2015). according to the united states department of education, districts and schools should value all cld parents and families as partners in education and involve them effectively in the education of their children (usde, 2014). unfortunately, in many educational programs, the importance of parental involvement in cld’s academic, cultural, and social success is neglected. in 2020, herrera and her colleagues presented a recent review of over 100 mission statements of school districts across multiple states, where “only nearly 20% of the statements were found to incorporate the word family” (herrera & porter, 2020). one of the important elements is the lack of communication and partnership between teachers and parents and the teachers’ lack of awareness of the ways they can support newcomers to the u.s. community (good et al., 2010). turner (2007) reported two specific blind spots that may limit teacher effectiveness with cld students: classroom management assumptions and beliefs about cld parental involvement. results of their study indicated that emergent teachers believed that classroom management difficulties would be eradicated if 228 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 225-239 zamani roodsari, s. (public school teachers’ perceptions of students’ diversity.....) culturally responsive pedagogical practices were in place, and 85% of respondents perceived cld parents to be “unsupportive and lacking strong educational values” (p. 82). teachers’ awareness of the importance of the native language and parental involvement will provide a safer community for the students. teachers’ transition of information to school staff about their students will assist schools to demonstrate a safe and caring culture to all members of this educational community (good et al., 2010; zimmerman-orozco, 2011). teachers usually make pre-judgment or have misconceptions about cld parents and recognize them as nonproficient in english, uneducated, or unknowledgeable about education. when teachers misinterpret the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students and see them as incapable of learning or think students’ parents do not care about their children, teacher education will encounter holes that will take years to fill (milner, 2011). research shows that improving connections between students’ homes and schools can create a positive learning community that certainly impacts learning outcomes in the school environment (nieto, 1999). cld families immigrate to the u.s. to provide better opportunities for their children, and this is a sign of parents’ awareness as mentioned in zimmerman-orozco’s (2011) research about hispanic families. 2. method the study aimed to explore teachers’ perceptions of their preparation to teach culturally and linguistically diverse students by analyzing the research questions focusing on the relationship between teachers’ demographics and their perceptions of esl students’ diverse, cultural, and linguistic needs. research centered on examining public school teachers at both elementary and secondary levels to investigate teachers’ perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes toward the inclusion of clds in the mainstream classroom through a quantitative study. the research focused on mainstream teachers because most of the former studies focused on esl teachers, esl students, or esl programs (guerrero, 2004; umansky and reardon, 2014). in a few studies, the lack of ell resources and school-supported programs were examined, though they described the impact of teacher beliefs and perceptions about the inclusion of ells in the mainstream classroom, not cld students (leavitt & ahn, 2013; mohr & mohr, 2007). the field of study needs more research to explore the perceptions and attitudes of the teachers toward the inclusion of clds in the mainstream classroom (reeves, 2006), so the study focused on mainstream teachers and their perceptions of the inclusion of these invisible groups in schools. 2.1. context and participants the study examined public school teachers’ perceptions of the inclusion of clds in the mainstream classroom through a quantitative study. the data collected by the surveys examined teachers’ perceptions of the diverse, cultural, and linguistic needs of cld students. a consent form was prepared and approved by institutional review board (irb) and the school district stating that participation was voluntary, and teachers could decide not to participate or leave the study at any time. the irb and the school district approvals were emailed to each school principal with the invitation letter including a link to the survey. each participant received an email from the school principal with the link to the survey and consent information at the beginning of the survey. the quantitative approach of the study lead to collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and recording the outcomes of the data (creswell, 2003). the study applied descriptive statistics to analyze public school teachers’ perceptions of the diversity of the students and their cultural and linguistic needs. participants in this study were 200 public school teachers of all content areas in elementary and secondary schools in the united states. as a top-rated public school district, it included 8,738 students in grades k-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 18 to 1. the school district was ranked within the top 10% of all 138 school districts in the state based on the recent data for the 2019-2020 school year (usde, 2020). the study targeted 499 participants in 13 schools with a total number of 8,738 students. all content area teachers were invited to participate in this study with the assumption of having cld students randomly in their classes during their years of teaching. the school district teachers were 69% white, 17% black or african american, 9% hispanic or latino, and 4% asian. there were 42 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 229 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 225-239 zamani roodsari, s. (public school teachers’ perceptions of students’ diversity.....) languages spoken by the students. the most common languages were hispanic or latino (50%), asian or native hawaiian (21%), and a diverse population of other languages (7%). more than 27% of the district’s students qualified for free or reduced lunch (nces, 2020). 2.2. data collection instrument the survey of the study investigated teachers’ perceptions of cld students’ cultural and linguistic needs. the survey consisted of five dimensions with 20 likert-style questions, six demographic questions, and a section for comments. the survey dimensions were: (a) diversity [4 questions], (b) cultural needs [4 questions], (c) linguistic needs [6 questions], (d) teachers’ awareness [2 questions], and (e) teachers’ preparation [4 questions]. the survey was conducted using qualtrics software and the teachers could have access via the anonymous link, or qr code from any device. the survey questions exploring teachers’ perceptions of diversity (questions 7, 8, 15, 23) were inspired by gay (2002), pereira and oliveira (2015), and gollnick and chinn (2017) and their theoretical framework. the survey questions investigating teachers’ perceptions of students’ cultural needs (10, 14, 17, 26) were inspired by curtin (2005), turner (2007), flores and smith (2008), reyhner and cockrum (2016), and their theories on cultural values. the survey questions exploring teachers’ awareness of the linguistic needs of cld students (11, 12, 13, 16, 24, 25) had evolved from garcia and cuellar (2006), lucas and villegas (2008), and o’neal et al. (2008). the questions surveying teachers’ awareness of cld students’ diverse needs (21, 22) were inspired by darling-hammond et al., (2002), lambson (2010), and wilder (2019). the survey questions studying teachers’ preparation to teach cld students (9, 18, 19, 20) were inspired by boyd et al. (2009), dunst et al. (2013), and sleeter et al. (2011). the instrument was constructed on a likert scale with 20 statements and five possible answers (strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, and strongly disagree). the survey was validated by a pilot study on a group of prospective teachers to ensure construct and content validity. all questions were analyzed carefully to align with the five dimensions of the study, and the researcher checked the clarity of the questions by peer debriefing. table 1. dimensions of survey questions dimension questions research diversity 7, 8, 15, 23 gay (2002), pereira & oliveira (2015), gollnick & chinn (2017). cultural needs 10, 14, 17, 26 curtin (2005), turner (2007), flores & smith (2008), reyhner & cockrum (2016). linguistic needs 11, 12, 13, 16, 24, 25 garcia & cuellar (2006), lucas & villegas (2008), o’neal et al. (2008). awareness of diverse needs 21, 22 darling-hammond et al., (2002), lambson (2010), wilder (2019). teachers’ cld preparation 9, 18, 19, 20 boyd et al. (2009), dunst et al. (2013), sleeter et al. (2011). 2.3. data analysis research questions were analyzed using mann-whitney u and kruskal-wallis h for each domain of gender, race, esl experience, age, highest degree, and teaching experience. the data were analyzed in descriptive statistical methods with an alpha level of .05. descriptive statistics were applied to better examine the basic features of the data in the study with the participants (fraenkel, wallen, and hyun, 1993; peatman, 1947). the frequency of distributions, awareness, and preparation was also analyzed in descriptive statistics reflecting the target domains of the study. 3. findings as presented in tables 2, 3, and 4, the mean rank scores showed that female teachers had slightly more positive attitudes than male teachers (mr =107.19 versus mr = 84.51) indicating the relationship between the teachers’ demographics and their perceptions of the diversity of the students. to analyze the relationship between teachers’ age and their perceptions of the diversity of the students, the researcher divided them into three groups (group 1: 22-34, group 2: 35-47, and group 3: above 47); there was no statistically significant difference of the teachers' perceptions towards diversity of the students regarding the teachers' age (mr = 0.672; p > 0.05), race (mr = 1473; p = 0.267; p > 0.05), and highest degree (mr = 0.516; p > 0.05). 230 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 225-239 zamani roodsari, s. (public school teachers’ perceptions of students’ diversity.....) to analyze the relationship between the years of teaching and teachers’ perceptions of the diversity of the students, the researcher divided them into three groups based on the years of teaching (group 1 < 10, group 2: 10 – 20, group 3 > 20). there was no significant difference between the years of teaching and teachers’ perceptions of the diversity of the students (mr = 0.323; p > 0.05). to analyze the relationship between the teachers’ esl background and their perceptions of the diversity of the students, the participants were divided into two groups: the teachers with esl background and the teachers without esl background. the esl background was defined as their past experiences with any esl workshops, esl certificates, esl conferences, or any eslrelated programs. the mean rank scores indicated that the teachers with esl backgrounds had slightly more positive perceptions of the diversity of the students than the other group (mr = 106.22 versus mr = 82.99). the data analysis of the relationship between teachers’ demographics and their perceptions of the diversity of the students presented that the female teachers and the teachers with some esl background had a more positive perception of student diversity. the findings on the relationship between teachers’ demographics and their perceptions of the diversity of the students confirmed the previous research on the critical role of esl training and professional development (batt, 2008; flores, 1996; wright et al., 2020), and revealed that more teachers participate or are interested in cld-related activities than the past (69 %). table 2. teachers' demographics and their perceptions of students' diversity variable n mr test statistic (mw) sig gender male female 59 141 84.51 107.19 5103 0.01* race white african american 180 20 98.48 84.18 1473 0.267 esl experience esl background no esl background 151 49 106.22 82.89 4562 0.012* age 22-34 35-47 above 47 68 79 53 102.03 103.13 94.61 0.795 0.672 highest degree bachelor master ph.d. 53 137 10 98.15 102.79 82.55 1.324 0.516 years of teaching < 10 yrs. 10-20 yrs. > 20 yrs. 76 69 55 92.89 104.22 106.34 2.260 0.323 note: n = 200 * p < .05 as presented in table 2, female teachers and teachers with esl background had slightly more positive attitudes towards the diversity of the students than the other groups (107.19 versus 84.51), (106.22 versus 82.89); however, there was no statistically significant difference of the teachers' perceptions towards diversity of the students regarding the teachers' race, age, the highest degree, and years of teaching. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 231 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 225-239 zamani roodsari, s. (public school teachers’ perceptions of students’ diversity.....) table 3. teachers' demographics and their perceptions of students' cultural needs variable n mr test statistic (mw) sig gender male female 59 141 95.82 102.46 4435 .454 race white african-american 180 20 98.70 82.32 1436 .209 esl experience esl background no esl background 151 49 103.09 92.51 4091 .260 age 22-34 35-47 above 47 68 79 53 102.03 107 88.05 3.426 .180 highest degree bachelor master ph.d. 53 137 10 91.71 104.79 91 2.337 .311 years of teaching < 10 yrs. 10-20 yrs. > 20 yrs. 76 69 55 99.92 96.75 106 .814 .666 note: n = 200 * p < .05 as presented in table 3, there was no statistically significant difference in the teachers' perceptions towards the cultural needs of the students regarding the teachers' gender, race, esl background, age, highest degree, and years of teaching. table 4. teachers' demographics and their perceptions of students' linguistic needs variable n mr test statistic (mw) sig gender male female 59 141 84.94 107.1 5077 .014 * race white african-american 180 20 99.76 73.10 1462 .042* esl experience esl background no esl background 151 49 106.74 81.29 4641 .007* age 22-34 35-47 above 47 68 79 53 100.54 110.94 84.89 6.482 .039* highest degree bachelor master ph.d. 53 137 10 89.38 104.93 101.85 2.337 .240 years of teaching < 10 yrs. 10-20 yrs. > 20 yrs. 76 69 55 100.38 100.92 100.15 .006 .997 note: n = 200 * p < .05 as presented in table 4, female teachers, teachers of white ethnicity, the teachers with esl background, and teachers of the second age group (group 2: 35-47) had slightly more positive attitudes toward the linguistic needs of the students than the other groups; however, there was no statistically significant difference of the teachers' perceptions towards linguistic needs of the students regarding the teachers' highest degree, and years of teaching. 232 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 225-239 zamani roodsari, s. (public school teachers’ perceptions of students’ diversity.....) table 5. teacher awareness of cultural, linguistic, and diverse needs of students n minimum maximum mean std. deviation awareness mean 200 1 5 4.13 .777 awareness frequencies responses percent of cases n percent 1 5 1.3 2.5 2 21 5.3 10.5 3 30 7.5 15.0 4 204 51.0 102.0 5 140 35.0 70.0 total 400 100 200.0 as presented in table 5 through a descriptive analysis, 70 % of the teachers (n = 140) demonstrated awareness of the cultural, linguistic, and diverse needs of cld students. by answering survey questions of teacher awareness (questions 21 & 22), they declared they are aware of the cld students’ needs and they ask assistance from esl teachers and experienced colleagues regarding the diverse needs of the cld students. table 6. teacher preparation for cultural, linguistic, and diverse needs of students n minimum maximum mean std. deviation preparation mean 200 2.00 10.00 7.625 1.47658 preparation frequencies responses percent of cases n percent 1 15 1.9 7.5 2 77 9.6 38.5 3 143 17.9 71.5 4 373 46.6 186.5 5 192 24.0 96.0 total 800 100 400.0 as presented in table 6 through a descriptive analysis, more than 90 % of the teachers (n = 192) demonstrated awareness of the preparation for cultural, linguistic, and diverse needs of cld students. by answering survey questions of teacher preparation (questions 9, 18, 19, and 20), they declared they are aware of the need for preparation, and they showed interest in participating in esl training and practices regarding the diverse needs of the cld students. 4. discussion teachers’ perceptions and attitudes to teach cld students play a significant role in their curriculum and assessment design. in a culturally and linguistically sustaining education system, teachers’ attitudes, awareness, and perceptions of the student’s cultural and linguistic needs are essential (gay, 2002). by the survey questions of the study, teachers could revisit their perceptions of the diversity of the students and include cld students in their curriculum design and instructions. while the literature review of the study echoed some negative attitudes and perceptions of inclusion and diversity (cummins, 1997; gándara et al., 2005; garcia & weiss, 2015; carley rizzuto, 2017), the current study designated a growing interest in teachers’ stance for pre-service and in-service preparations for cld students. as summarized in tables 5 and 6 regarding teachers’ awareness and preparation for the diverse needs of cld students, the current study highlighted the role of esl programs and professional developments in teacher education as was established by the previous researchers (wright et al., 2020). the current study endorsed the former research on the role of teachers in validating cultural values and providing resources for their diverse groups in keeping their backgrounds, culture, and identities alive (gay, 2002; ladson-billings, 2009). the current findings also ratified the previous studies on the role of teachers’ awareness of parents’ linguistic needs and parental involvement in assisting teachers and students (cooley, 2014; garcia & cuellar, 2006; lucas & villegas, 2008; o’neal et al., 2008). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 233 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 225-239 zamani roodsari, s. (public school teachers’ perceptions of students’ diversity.....) the findings did not demonstrate age as a key element in teachers’ perceptions of the diversity of the students which was heightened in previous research as well (sharma et al., 2007). the results indicated that teachers with esl backgrounds were more inclined to be positive towards inclusion than participants without any esl backgrounds. the positive perceptions of the teachers with esl background in the findings and teachers’ awareness and willingness for esl preparation confirmed the need for effective professional development as was expressed by many researchers in the review of the literature (flores, 1996; mellom et al., 2018; paine et al., 2016; reeves, 2006; walker et al., 2004; wright et al., 2020) 5. conclusion every year educators meet and teach students with diverse backgrounds and cultures. the increasing change in demographics demands a system in which all teachers are prepared to teach culturally and linguistically diverse (cld) students. teachers should be aware of the cultural and linguistic needs of their diverse students. with the increase of cld students in public schools, teachers must be prepared to provide multiple learning modes and quality instruction to support academic success for all students including diverse groups. teachers’ awareness of their sociolinguistic consciousness, acceptance, and appreciation for linguistic and cultural diversity is critical (pereira & oliveira, 2015). teachers are the primary advocates for cld students through culturally and linguistically sustaining teaching. the results of the study indicated that the participants demonstrated some awareness of the cultural and linguistic needs of the diverse students by declaring their respect and interest in the diversity of the students through survey questions. the participants stated they enjoy teaching cld students, prepare to understand diverse cultures, value parental involvement, and try to communicate with cld students’ parents in a variety of strategies. they also showed interest in taking more actions toward the preparation of the cultural and linguistic needs of their diverse students through dynamic esl professional developments and productive workshops. the teachers stated they value cultural and linguistic differences and apply different strategies for teaching diverse students as well as asking esl teachers’ assistance but also needed more opportunities to be well-prepared for a culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy. the effect of esl training on the positive perceptions of diversity reveals the advantage of esl courses, programs, and workshops. as the world is changing into a virtual system and technology integration is being intertwined into education, future research can focus on more virtual modes of training for prospective and in-service teachers. more cld courses can be included in teaching programs to increase the level of global competence of the teacher candidates. mainstream teachers and esl instructors can cooperate on various platforms to create a more efficient curriculum and assessment for the education systems. the number of cld students in public schools will continue to increase throughout the united states. policymakers, professional development designers, and teacher educators can integrate innovation and technology to ensure that prospective teachers are provided with culturally and linguistically sustaining instruction for all content areas. lack of effective training and the mismatch between professional development and need assessment will bring more challenges to teacher education, cld students, public schools, and the entire society. there should be an increase in collaboration and partnerships between policymakers, teacher educators, university administrators, mainstream teachers, esl teachers, and parents. the course protocols provided for teacher candidates can be revisited for reflecting the cld needs of the students. prospective teachers should find opportunities to practice cld instructional methods and access cld resources. teacher trainers and professional development designers should evaluate the need assessment in each step based on the scope of training and create multiple modes for different needs. policymakers, teacher educators, professional development trainers, mainstream teachers, and esl instructors should work as a team to preserve time and energy to create the most productive programs. 234 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 225-239 zamani roodsari, s. (public school teachers’ perceptions of students’ diversity.....) acknowledgment i would like to express my special gratitude to dr. maria witte for her support throughout all aspects of this study and to all teachers who voluntarily participated in the study. declarations author contribution : sedighe zamani roodsari was responsible for the entire research project. she led the writing of the manuscript, data collection, data analysis, and the final revision. funding statement : this research did not receive any funding. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflict of interest. ethics declaration : i as author acknowledge that this work has been written based on ethical research that conforms with the regulations of my university and that i have obtained the permission from the relevant institute when collecting data. i support english language teaching educational journal (eltej) in maintaining high standards of personal conduct, practicing honesty in all professional practices and endeavors. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references batt, e. 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(2020). personal and professional readiness of in-service teachers of english for culturally responsive teaching. eurasian journal of educational research, 20(88), 41-66. https://doi.org/10.14689/ejer.2020.88.2 https://doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2011.627045 https://doi.org/10.31686/ijier.vol3.iss9.434 https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1758661 http://dx.doi.org/10.14689/ejer.2016.64.1 https://doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2007.10463456 https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831214545110 http://nced.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=96 https://doi.org/10.22158/elsr.v1n1p101 https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.631557 https://doi.org/10.5539/hes.v8n1p9 https://doi.org/10.14689/ejer.2020.88.2 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 10.12928/eltej.v4i3.5000 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id developing material for english for holiday program soviyah a,1,*, nur fatimah b,2 a, b universitas ahmad dahlan, jalan jend. ahmad yani (ringroad selatan), tamanan, banguntapan, bantul, daerah istimewa yogyakarta, indonesia 1 soviyah@pbi.uad.ac.id *; 2 nur.fatimah@pbi.uad.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 15 october 2021 revised 06 december 2021 accepted 30 december 2021 an english program like english for holiday (efh), is concerned with helping children to learn english. in relation to english education department of universitas ahmad dahlan, the department has employed an efh program to help children with english learning during their school break. to accomplish the continuous improvement of the program, it needs research related to it, as these kinds of research provides meaningful data and product, which are important for the improvement of the program’s quality. generally, the ultimate aim of the research is to contribute to the establishment of a better efh program, especially of english education department, universitas ahmad dahlan. specifically, this research aims to develop syllabus and material for efh program of eed uad. this research started in may and was complete in november 2020 at english education department of universitas ahmad dahlan (uad). it utilized research and development (r&d) type with addie model initiated by mcgriff (2000) which endeavors a development process encompassing five major stages i.e., analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluation. the research results show that the efh material is developed to fulfil the children’s needs of material for efh program. the developed product offers an alternative solution to fill the children’s needs. based on the evaluation, it is found out that the developed material is considered very good. through this material, children participating in efh program can learn english in an enjoyable way. although the major target is to improve children’s speaking skill, through this material, children can learn and develop their other skills i.e., listening reading and writing as the developed material is written in an integrated way involving all four skills of english. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords english for holiday (efh) teaching english to young learners (teyl) research and development (r n d) how to cite: soviyah & fatimah, n. (2021). developing material for english for holiday program. english language teaching educational journal, 4(3), pp. 235-250. 1. introduction in indonesia, english as a foreign language has been introduced to elementary school students as one of the subjects they study. this policy is in line with the statement of the regulation of the government of the republic of indonesia number 32 the year 2013 about the modification of the government regulation number 19 the year 2005 about national standard of education stating that english as a foreign language becomes one of three languages to be taught in schools because it is imperative in global relationships. however, through the regulation of the republic of indonesia number 21 the year 2016 about primary and middle/secondary education, the republic of indonesia's minister removed english from the list of elementary school main subjects. hence, english is no longer a local content subject at the elementary school level. instead, it is offered as an extracurricular subject. it suggests that english language learning for young learners is still considered necessary. in practice, since english is removed as a local content subject at the elementary school level, young learners are likely to have little english learning access. moreover, the learning time in school http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:soviyah@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:nur.fatimah@pbi.uad.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i3.5000&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4154-6942 236 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) is also limited. therefore, in many cases, parents of the young learners would send their children to private english courses, hire private teachers to teach them english, or send them to various out of school english programs such as english for holiday (efh), summer camp, english camp, summer coursework, and so on. these programs are specifically designed to facilitate learners in learning. in regards to these specially designed english programs, many researches claim on the advantages of them towards the children’ s development. summer camp, for example, is quite popular among parents and children. it is widely used and found to garner many benefits in different areas such as computer science, psychology (adams & savahl, 2017; collado, corraliza, staats, & ruiz, 2015), languages (lee & curran, 2009; melhuish, ,ereky-stevens, petrogiannis, ariescu, penderi, rentzou & leseman, 2015; bus, takacs & kegel, 2015; bialystok, 2018) and other areas (brusseau, hannon & burns, 2016); he, xiang, zeng, mai, chen, zhang & morgan, 2015; mccoy, et.al., 2017). zooming into english learning context, language programs like english for holiday and language summer camp are known to be beneficial in contributing to the children’s development has long been acknowledged. based on the existing research, many outside of school language programs such as english for holiday and other programs of the kind are identified to be able to provide rich contexts for learning and development (e.g, garst, browne, & bialeschki, 2011). these programs are reported to contribute not only to children’s language aspect but also their psychological aspect. testimonies from those attend the program report that they experience powerful, even life changing experiences (anghel, cabrales, & carro, 2016). moreover, these programs are frequently described as setting for socialemotional learning (e.g., wilson & sibthorp, 2018) and even some researches often report such children’s and youth prominent development aspects are found out to be listed among the program outcomes as friendship skills, relationship building, and working with others (sepúlveda & hutton, 2019). in relation to english language teaching (elt) context, english for holiday and summer camp programs that are designed to enhance students’ knowledge and confidence in using the language is considered a quite novel way among researchers in elt field. among many researches in the field, the study conducted by rugasken and harris (2009) could serve as an example. this research revealed the results that children joining english summer program has been observed to able to help them achieve the goal for them to gain knowledge of the english language and acquire confidence in their speaking skills, with an additional benefit for participants (both children and instructors) to develop a deeper appreciation of the people and the new culture to which they were exposed to. in addition to the research, in sum, many other researches in the field agree that english for holiday and summer camp programs are beneficial in developing children’s english mastery because they are able to break the resistance the children usually experience when learning a new language and to provide a casual setting for communicative learning experiences to take place. thus, it’s just acceptable to state that children can get much benefits from out of school programs such as english for holiday and language summer camps as the process they provide them make them able to appreciate and enjoy a fun learning experience within a short duration rather than formal, traditional, instruction-based classroom settings. with these considerations in mind, the researchers, who made up the material for english for holiday program, set out to achieve similar goals in designing the materials that fit the goals and elements of learning english as a foreign language. universitas ahmad dahlan (uad) is one of the private universities in yogyakarta indonesia. one of the faculties it houses is faculty of education and teacher training in which english education department becomes a part of. english education department has been tasked with designing a short english program intended for children. this was initiated in 2010 under the name of english for smart holiday and continually conducted in 2019 using uadventure program as its name. practically the program is conducted during school summer break as a non-formal english learning for children aged between 7 to 12 years old. the program's participants learned inside the classroom and outside the classroom, such as campus library, observatory, and other areas of the campus. the program offers a fun way of english learning with possibly much less pressure as compared to the regular learning inside classrooms. this program usually lasts 6 days. it starts at 08.00 a.m. and ends at 16.00 p.m. this program's agendas are various, starting with english learning (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), cooking class, market day, library visit, observatory visit, and class performance. so far, the issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 237 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) program has received positive feedback from those involved, such as the teachers, the learners, the parents of the learners, the executives, the department, and the university itself. moreover, they wish that there would be a similar program to be held regularly in the future. based on the early observation, the chief executive of the program said that with lots of enthusiasts, various activities, and positive feedback from those involved, the program has a chance to be held annually. however, there were some areas of the program that need to be improved, still. one of them was the absence of a fixed syllabus and ready-for-use materials. this was acknowledged by some teachers involved in the last program. they said that in spite of the fact that the lessons were always enjoyable and engaging for the children there were not a syllabus and ready-for-use materials yet. as a result, the teachers felt overwhelmed because they had to prepare the learning guideline and the possible materials in a short time. therefore, some aspects of the program need to be improved. the purpose of the improvement is to increase the program's quality so that the learning process can be more meaningful and engaging. the aspects meant are the syllabus and the materials. therefore, the primary purpose of this research is developing syllabus and materials for efh program. the ultimate aim of the research is to contribute to the establishment of the better efh program, especially of english education department, universitas ahmad dahlan. 2. method this research started from may 2020 and was complete in november 2020 at english education department of universitas ahmad dahlan (uad). it utilized research and development (r&d) type with addie model initiated by mcgriff (2000) as it endeavored to develop material for english for holiday program. the development process encompassed five stages i.e. analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluation as depicted in figure 1: figure 1. development process of english for holiday as for the analyze stage, the researchers used surveys and interviews proposed as data collection techniques (rahman, 2015; ramírez, 2015). in collecting the data, the researcher used two instruments, namely questionnaire and interview guidance and involved 30 parents of the efh participants last year. in addition, it also invited some related parties such as teachers, english teachers of primary school, program coordinator, and head of english department uad. table 1 displays the detailed information regarding instruments and subjects of the need analysis stage. 238 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) table 1. instrument of data collection instruments descriptions and aims subjects questionnaire it contains 46 closed-form questions and uses the likert scale with four alternative answers: strongly agree (4), agree (3), disagree (2), and strongly disagree (1). it is to collect quantitative data (main data). 30 parents of the efh children interview guidance it contains 13 open=ended questions. it is to collect quantitative data (supporting data). efh program’s teachers and coordinators, teacher of elementary school. the head of english education department of uad. the questionnaire was used to collect the main data related to target needs and learning needs of the efh program participants. the target needs included necessities, lacks, and wants, whereas the learning needs included learning style, media, and activities. to support the main data, the researchers asked 13 open-ended questions listed in the interview guidance to the subjects. the organization of the questionnaire is presented in the table 2. table 2. organization of the questionnaire the data obtained from the questionnaire were analyzed quantitatively using a calculation model (patten, 2016; curle & derakhshan, 2021). the researchers analyzed the data by frequency and processed the data by calculating the mean score. then, the data were presented using tables in percentages and interpreted in the form of paragraphs. in addition, an open-ended interview was used as the supporting data to strengthen the quantitative data. the supporting data were analyzed using a qualitative approach (miles, huberman, 2020; creswell, 2012; creswell, 2014). finally, the supporting quotes from each participant were listed and discussed. meanwhile, for evaluation stage, a focused group discussion (fgd) was conducted to evaluate the developed product. the discussion involved english teachers of elementary schools in yogyakarta, lecturers of english education department and primary school education department (pgsd), efh coordinator as well as the head english education department of uad. aspect item aim necessities 1-20 to analyze purposes of joining efh program and learning english lacks 21-23 to analyze the children’s level of english proficiency wants 24-24 to analyze topics that want to be learned learning style 34-37 to analyze the children’s learning style media 38-40 to analyze media that should be included in the materials activities 41-43 to analyze activities that should be included in the materials assessment 44-46 to analyze assessment that should be implemented issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 239 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) 3. findings and discussion 3.1. analyze stage 1) efh children’s target needs the analysis of the target needs is divided into three points; necessities, wants, and lacks. necessity in this part of the analysis, there were 20 questions related to the children's necessities. the questions include the purposes of joining the efh program and the goals of learning english. in terms of purposes of joining the efh program, the results showed that respondents strongly agreed that their children could master english was the reason they participated in the efh program (89%). the respondents also strongly agreed that their children participated in the efh program because they like to learn english (90%). furthermore, respondents strongly agreed that their children participated in the efh program because they want to spend their time on holiday (91%), and the respondents did not agree that the purpose of their children participated in the efh program was because of their friends (56%). these data were supported by the result of the interviews. here are some results of the interview on the respondent. ri3: “they will understand more about english, not only about speaking, but also about how to write, how to read, and how to listen. besides, through the program, the children can add friends and spend their spare time on holiday.” ri4: “in order to know about english related to vocabulary and also to spend the spare time on holiday.” regarding the purpose of learning english, the results showed that respondents strongly agreed (90%) that the children were able to learn the four skills of english, which are listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and be able to get the sub skills under each of these four skills. these data were supported by the result of the interviews. here are some results of the interview with the respondents: ri2: “in my opinion, if they can learn listen in english lesson and get used to it, they will learn how people speak, pronounce, and then they can imitate what they learn.” ri5: “they can communicate with correct pronunciation, or when they use expressions, they are not nervous and doing only little mistakes.” ri1: “for the reading, it is about understanding the texts. they can also get vocabularies from the texts especially simple texts.” ri2: "in my opinion, the highest skill of english skills is writing skill because they have to construct a word to make a sentence in correct tenses. the sentence should be correct and easy to hear. when the children understand how to write, they are in the final stage of learning english. so, in essence they will certainly add vocabulary and practice what they already understand.” lacks ‘lacks’ is the gap between what children have already known and what they have not known (hutchinson & waters 1987; brown, 2016). from the questionnaire distributed, it can be summarized that most of the respondents said that the children were at the beginner level (83%). some children were at the intermediate level (57%) and only a few children were at the advanced level (42%). wants ‘wants’ cover what children want to know (hutchinson & waters 1987; hyland, 2019). the data showed that the respondents stated the children wanted to learn english through the topic of school 3.50/88%, the topic of living creatures (87%), the topic of space (85%), the topic of food and drink (89%), the topic of transportation (86%), the topic of social (93%), the topic of public places (93%), the topic of technology (88%), the topic of dream job (93%), the topic of basic concept (89%), the 240 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) topic of introduction (88%). these data were supported by the result of the interviews. here are some results of the interview on the respondent. ri7: "the children in learning english may need the topics, but the dictions to name the topics should be considered so that the children understand the topics, then the order of the topics should be appropriate with their level of difficulty. 2) children learning needs the learning needs are related to what students need to learn (hutchinson & waters, 1987; brown, 2016; hyland, 2019). the analysis was focused on learning styles, media, and activities. from the result of the questionnaire, it can be seen that most of the children tended to learn english using the visual learning style (85%). some of them tended to learn with an auditory style (80%), and others tended to learn english using the kinesthetic learning style (81%). the questionnaire’s results showed that the respondents stated that they wanted their children to learn using visual-based media because the visual-based media was suitable for their children (86%). the other respondents also agreed that audiovisual-based media (85%) and authentic and real media (84%) were suitable for learning english. these data were supported by the result of the interviews. ri7: “now, the trend is multi-model. it means that the media is not only from visual sources but also audio and audiovisual sources, so maybe all of the sources need to be combined.” further, the result showed that the respondents stated that they wanted their children to learn english through direct practice activities while learning english (91%). they also wanted their children to learn by playing/gaming activities (85%), and drawing, singing, moving, and singing activities (84%). these data were supported by the result of the interviews. the following is a quotation of transcriptions of interviews with (ri7): ri7: “the basics of developing the four skills, in my opinion, is vocabulary. the richer the vocabulary that the children have, the easier it is for them to speak, write, and understand any written and oral texts printed in english.” 3.2. syllabus development after the data on the children’s needs were collected and analyzed, the process was taken further into syllabus development process. in developing the syllabus, it was developed taking topic based syllabus type (rangel & pernett, 2020; knezović, 2016). the following explanation presents the description of the designed syllabus. general consideration the results of the need analysis revealed that the children were group of young learners (7-12 years old). the results also revealed that, mostly, they were in beginner level of english. related to grammar complexity, the children were expected to learn to use expressions in english conversation and use more complex word forms. while related to the vocabulary, the children were expected to learn vocabulary related to their daily life. topics the topics included in the designed syllabus were social, public places, dream jobs, food and drink, base concept, and introduction. these topics provided information on what language target, knowledge of grammar and vocabulary were needed to be taught and practiced. english skills based on the need analysis, children wanted to be able to respond in english when they were asked about their name or their friend’s name, description of their families or friends, their future intentions, issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 241 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) and directions to go to some places. they also wanted to be able to speak in english when they ask someone’s name, describe a friend, name objects, buy food and drinks, talk about future intentions, and give directions. learning media and activities from the needs analysis, it is found out that visual-based media and handson practice activities had the highest mean score. therefore, the expected material should be more emphasized on these kinds of activities. in light of the result of the need analysis and the theoretical framework for syllabus design, as discussed, the researchers considered a topic based syllabus as the most appropriate syllabus for the efh program. it’s because this syllabus is based on learners’ communication needs and purposes for everyday social interaction. it specifies language topics, knowledge of grammar, and vocabulary that learners need for communicative tasks as well. besides, it’s usually graded to help children progress gradually at a comfortable pace. table 3 shows the brief overview of the syllabus developed. table 3. english for holiday syllabus topic lesson topic grammar and vocabulary topic language target 1 personal introduction: asking for name, age to be + noun wh question name, old, address what is your name? how old are you? my name is … i am … years old. 2 naming objects: asking and answering to be + noun singular and plural nouns common objects: pen, cup, chair, etc. what is it? what are they? it is a book. they are chairs. etc. 3 describing people: hair, nose, eyes, body use of ‘has/have’ adjective + noun short, long, tall, fat, etc. he is fat. he has a short hair. he has a round eyes, etc. she is thin. she has a long hair. she has small nose, etc. 4 eating out: ordering food and drink in a restaurant to want + noun partitive + noun a glass of, a cup of, a bowl of, etc i want salad. he wants milk, etc. i want a bowl of salad. he wants a cup of milk. etc. 5 my dream job: talking about future intentions to want + to + be wh question teacher, doctor, nurse, pilot, etc. what do you want to be? what does she want to be? i want to be a teacher. she wants to be a doctor. 6 going to the park: giving directions imperative sentences preposition go straight, turn left, turn right, etc. in front of, behind, etc. go straight. turn left. the park is in front of the school. it is behind the restaurant. etc. notes: age: 7 – 12 years old, level: beginner, meetings: six meetings for the purpose of this research, due to the consideration of research feasibility, only three most chosen topics out of six listed that would be developed. the three said topics developed were social, 242 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) public places, and occupation/jobs. furthermore, after the topics were decided, then the syllabus was modified and made more complete as shown in table 4. table 4. details of english for holiday syllabus lesson topic syllabus grammar and vocabulary language target activity 1 social: greetings someone, introduction myself and others students are able to read vocabulary/text aloud correctly. students are able to identify simple pictorial text. students are able to identify the information in the text. students are able to examine the explicit and implied meaning in the text related topic. students are able to comprehend the text related topic. to be + noun w + h question this is name, old, address, etc. hi, good morning what is your name? how old are you? where do you come from? my name is… i am … years old i come from… her / his name is… read the vocabulary aloud. arrange the letters into correct vocabulary. complete the blank dialog/text with the correct vocabulary. answer the questions with the correct information based on the dialog/text. circle true/ false the correct information based on the text/dialog 2 going to the park: giving directions students are able to read vocabulary/text aloud correctly. students are able to identify simple pictorial text. students are able to identify the information in the text. students are able to examine the explicit and implied meaning in the text related topic. students are able to comprehend the text related topic. imperative sentences preposition school, library, bakery, park, etc. go straight, turn left, turn right, etc. beside, between, across from, next to, etc go straight turn left where the school is? the park is a cross from the school. the library is between the school and the bakery. read the vocabulary aloud. arrange the letters into correct vocabulary. complete the blank dialog/text with the correct vocabulary. answer the questions with the correct information based on the dialog/text. circle true/ false the correct information based on the text/dialog 3.3. design stage the design stage included the process of designing the material of english for holiday (efh) program. the detailed explanation of the process starts with arranging the material. based on the data obtained in the analysis step and the decided topics, the most three topics that the children wanted to learn were social, public places, and my dream job. the material would be arranged systematically following the levels of difficulty. each topic had three stages; pre – activity, while – activity, and post – activity. during pre-activity, most activities would be focused on arousing children’s motivation and interest towards the topic as well as exposing them to the relevant vocabulary. this is following the procedure that pre-activity has several benefits to children, namely; providing an example to the children of the learning process in positive way, exposing the children to enrich their vocabulary, giving new information, giving the children opportunity to listen and use their imagination, and improving the skill demanded in the activity. meanwhile, for while – activity, it would be focused on exposing the children to activities that provide them with opportunities to use the target language to achieve communicative function (noguchi, 2019; bao & du, 2015; sholeh, 2020; yufrizal, 2017). as for the post – activity, it would be focused on providing the children with comprehension and writing activities (wigfield, gladstone & turci, 2016). the children should examine, understand, and gain the meaning of the text as kendeou, mcmaster, and christ (2016) stated that reading comprehension is an ability to identify those skills needed to understand and gained information contained in written materials. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 243 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) next was selecting pictures. based on the needs analysis results, as the material was mainly for children, it would contain a lot of pictures. for this, the researchers collected and selected pictures that were relevant to the targeted three topics. these pictures covered pictures of boys and girls, places, sceneries, landscapes, and other related ones. in selecting these pictures, the researchers did that very carefully involving making consideration of the possible theories and philosophical values underlying them. for example, in the social topic, to introduce greeting vocabulary such as ‘good morning’, ‘good afternoon’, ‘good evening’, and ‘good night’ the researchers used a hillside picture with the sun which was located differently. as seen in figure 2, for good morning expression it’s used a picture of the situation in the morning where the sun was located in the left in yellow color, for good afternoon, the sun was located over the top of the hill in yellow color, good evening was represented by the sun which was located in the right but the color was changed to orange and good bye expression was delivered by the picture of the night situation when the sun was gone and there was only hill with the stars and the moon. this way the pictures became relevant and suitable with what the children saw in their daily life, and thus making it easy to understand. figure 2. relevant pictures of english for holiday after selecting pictures, the next activity in the design stage was making storyboard of the material. in this activity, among things designed were front cover for whole material, cover for each lesson, vocabulary section, and activity section. in addition, type and size of the font, color, header and footer and other needed aspects were also designed rigorously. figure 3 depicts one example of the design of the cover of each of the lessons. figure 3. design of cover of the lessons 3.4. develop stage the third stage is the development stage. in this stage, the researchers developed the outline and story board made previously in the design stage. the first part developed was the front cover. it’s simple containing the title, a picture, and the name of the author. the researchers chose the picture with the nuance of children who looked excited with a book in front of them. figure 4 nuance complied with the whole concept of the material, i.e., fun and enjoyable learning english with friends. indicators lesson title picture lesson number 244 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) figure 4. realization of whole concepts of english for holiday materials for these two pictures in figure 5, they are representing two sections i.e. the table of contents page and cover of lesson 1. as informed previously, as the material was for children, it was made to suit children’s characteristics such as rich in visual like colorful and full of pictures. in addition, it also presented simple language. on the left is the table of content page. it presents the three topics developed i.e. social, public places, and occupation/jobs. meanwhile, the picture on the right is the cover of each lesson, in this case it’s for lesson 1. for the cover of the lesson, it contained lesson number, lesson pictorial illustration, lesson title, and list of indicators. presenting lesson number and title clearly at the beginning helps children get the point from the start, while listing the indicators set for the lesson unit will help children and their parents be informed and aware of what kind of competencies the children will get after learning the unit/topic. figure 5. realization of presentation of competencies to achieve for the development of the activities, as explained previously, the material was developed following the level of difficulties starting from easy to difficult. meanwhile, the activities were issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 245 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) arranged from pre-activities, while-activities, post-activities. other than that, the activities were also covering all four skills i.e., listening, speaking, reading, and writing. although speaking was considered the main skill developed, other three skills got the same proportions. furthermore, these four skills weren’t presented in isolation. instead, they’re made integrated and supported one another. by so doing, it’s expected that children will find this book helpful to improve their english. the pictures in figure 6 depict the pages of pre-activities. the activities of pre-activities are focused on vocabulary building. the purpose is that by being exposed to the needed vocabulary, it’s expected that the children will be able to cope with the exercises and task that follow. as explained previously, the vocabulary is presented in monolingual way with no translation but there’s plenty of pictures accompanied so that from these pictures, the children will be able to get the vocabulary more easily and in context. figure 6. presentation of monolingual materials as for the while-activities and post-activities, the researchers developed various activities (in figure 7) such as making simple conversation based on the given situation (top left picture), filling in the bubbles (top right picture), reading and answering orally (bottom left picture), and other activities of the kind. these activities were developed in order to improve the children’s english. interestingly, though at a glance, the activities look like they’re reading activities, they’re basically speaking focused. it’s because in doing these activities, the children will communicate a lot with their friends. and that means they’re on their journey of improving their speaking ability. furthermore, they need to write here and there while doing these activities. therefore, it can be said that the while-activities are developed in an integrated way integrating the four skills of english. 246 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) figure 7. activities to develop language skills in addition to the three topics developed, the material was also completed with an evaluation section. this section was presented at the end part of three topics. it assessed all topics provided. this was meant to help children, teachers and also parents to measure the attainment of the indicators. the types of the evaluation were also various, such as word matching, true false, multiple choice, giving short answer and some performance one. figure 8 depicts the evaluation section. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 247 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) figure 8. evaluation sheets 3.5. implementation stage for the implementation stage, it was originally planned to be tried out to the children participating in the efh 2020 in july 2020 during school break when efh 2020 program conducted. however, due to the covid19 pandemic, this became impossible because the efh 2020 program was canceled. therefore, the implementation stage only involved several related parties in a focused group discussion (fgd). it was conducted in beginning of november 2020. the invited parties were english teachers of some elementary schools in yogyakarta, lecturers of english education department and primary school education department (pgsd), efh coordinator as well as the head english education department of uad. in addition, a few representatives from parents were also invited. from this fgd, some feedback and input were obtained. the feedback was used as a basis to do revisions to the product before it’s finally evaluated. 3.6. evaluation stage for the evaluation stage, another focus group discussion was held. it’s conducted in mid november 2020. it involved an expert in teaching english to young learners (teyl) field, an expert in media development field, an expert in primary education field, and a senior english teacher. the instrument used was a checklist taken from bnsp. the checklist evaluated four main aspects with the score varied from 1 to 4 indicating the level from low to high. the first aspect is the appropriateness of the content, this aspect reach mean value is 3.4. it means that the aspect falls into the category of “very good.” the second aspect is the appropriateness of the language. this aspect fell into “very good’ category by reaching mean value of 3.4. the third aspect was the appropriateness of the presentation. this aspect reached mean value of 3.28 which was into “very good” category. the fourth aspect was the appropriateness of the graphic. this aspect fell into the “good” category by reaching mean value of 3.23. in sum, the evaluation result indicated that the developed material was considered “very good” as it reached the average mean score of 3.3. in addition, there’s few comments given such as minor mistakes with spelling and the typing issue. 248 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 235-250 soviyah & fatimah, n.( developing english material) 3.7. limitation of the research despite the success of the study, it has got some limitations and constraints, too. the main limitation of the research is the absence of the direct involvement of the children who are the most relevant party of the efh program both during needs analysis stage and implementation stage. ideally, the children are involved in these two crucial stages. however, because of the covid19 pandemic situation, it was very difficult to do it. one of the ways utilized to fill in this missing point is that the researchers decided to invite parents’ participation as much as possible with the consideration that parents are the ones who know the children best. as a result, parents were involved in this study during both needs analysis and implementation stages. 4. conclusion an english program, such as english for holiday (efh), is concerned with helping children to learn english. in relation to english education department of universitas ahmad dahlan, the department has employed an efh program to help children with english learning during their school break. to accomplish the continuous improvement of the program, it’s needed research related to it, as these kinds of research provide meaningful information and a developed product which is important for the improvement of the program’s quality. the research results show that the efh material is developed to fulfill english children’s needs of material for efh program. the developed product offers an alternative solution to fill the children’s needs. being developed under addie development model, the product evaluation revealed that the developed material is considered very good. through this material, children participating in efh program can learn english in an enjoyable way. although the major target is to improve children’s speaking skill, through this material, children can learn and develop their other skills i.e. listening reading and writing as this book is written in integrated way involving all four skills of english. referring to the overall evaluation of the developed material, there is one major lack of the whole process of developing it. that’s because it doesn’t involve the targeted children directly due to the pandemic situation. consequently, recommendation for further researchers to address this point would be worth contributing. acknowledgment the authors would like to extend their gratitude to the lppm (lembaga penelitian dan pengabdian kepada masyarakat) universitas ahmad dahlan for their support to this research. declarations author contribution : the main author carried out the study together with the co-author. both authors discussed the results of the study and contributed to the final version of the manuscript. funding statement : the research is funded by lppm universitas ahmad dahlan conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references adams, s., & savahl, s. 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(2017). teachers and students perceptions of communicative competence in english as a foreign language in indonesia. educational research and reviews, 12(17), 867-883. https://doi.org/10.5897/err2017.3243 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x17737739 https://www.lib.purdue/ https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429423963-1 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315265858 https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2015.030104 https://doi.org/10.17226/25546 https://doi.org/10.15294/lc.v15i1.26004 https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12184 https://doi.org/10.5195/jyd.2018.563 https://doi.org/10.5897/err2017.3243 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 199-212 10.12928/eltej.v4i3.4974 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id identifying english language needs among administrative support staff in a malaysian public university: a preliminary study mohd zulfadli mat husin a,1,*, noor raha mohd radzuan b,2 a registrar office, universiti malaysia kelantan, 16310 bachok, malaysia b centre for modern languages, universiti malaysia pahang, 26600 pekan, malaysia 1 zulfadli.mh@umk.edu.my *; 2 nraha@ump.edu.my * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 08 october 2021 revised 28 october 2021 accepted 09 december 2021 english skills particularly in conversation are essential in workplace situations especially in the context of higher learning institutions. little attention is being given to examining the needs of english communication skills and issues related to administrative support staff at their workplace particularly at public universities. a questionnaire was adopted to gauge the english language needs of support staff, their english skills perception as well as usage at the workplace. data were collected from a group of 40 support administrative staff from universiti malaysia kelantan (umk) involving three administrative departments. the findings were gathered using survey and analyzed using content descriptive analysis. the results of the study revealed that the majority of the respondents strongly agreed that having a good english ability will increase their chance of being promoted to a higher position. data also revealed that staff use english mostly during interaction with foreign staff and students. in addition, staff perceived that they need to improve their english writing skills the most. this study hopes to give better insight towards english proficiency among administrative support staff and explicit policy on english language at workplace. therefore, english continuous professional development programmes should be developed and introduced to assist in improving their english language abilities. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords esp need analysis english workplace communication english how to cite: mat husin, m.z. & radzuan, n.r.m. (2021). identifying english language needs among administrative support staff in a malaysian public university: a preliminary study. english language teaching educational journal, 4(3), 199-212. 1. introduction english has been known to be one of the main important elements towards the development in terms of education and business especially in the south east asian countries. english is used as a lingua-franca of the business world and has been assigned to be the “working language of asean countries” (kluensuwan et al., 2019). in malaysia, english has been recognized as the second language in malaysia beside malay as the official language (afip et al., 2019). english language has been taught since preschool and has become a compulsory subject for students to pass both in primary and secondary school (afip et al., 2019). due to this early exposure to english language, employers expect their employees to be able to communicate in english effectively to serve in different communicative tasks. the role of the english language in the employment sector, whether in public or private, is very significant as organizations rapidly embrace more and more foreign stakeholders into their environment (hassan & ong, 2019). http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:zulfadli.mh@umk.edu.my mailto:nraha@ump.edu.my http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=0.12928/eltej.v4i3.4974&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7418-6360 200 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 199-212 mat husin, n.z. & radzuan, n.r.m. ( identifying english language needs) based on the importance of english language at the workplace, numerous studies were conducted on the needs for malaysian students to have good english communication ability (jalleh et al., 2021; diana & su-hie, 2017; isarji et al., 2013; miskam & saidalvi, 2018; ngah et al., 2011; singh & harun, 2020; singh et al., 2021; su-hie et al., 2017; talif & noor, 2009; vicky et al., 2016). these studies concluded that a malaysian graduate’s employability is being influenced by academic performance as well as their communicative competence, especially using the english language effectively. however, as higher education institutions develop their programmes on employability and providing the necessary platforms for undergraduates to have good english competencies, little attention is paid on its administrative staff’s english language needs. the staff in higher education institutions such as in public universities need to have a better grasp on using english as communication tools so that together with academic staff, they can create a blended and conducive environment that encourages the use of english language inside and outside the workplace as well as attracting outstanding overseas talents. universiti malaysia kelantan (umk), the 19th public university in malaysia established in the year 2006 under the ninth malaysia plan proposal. its first campus was situated in pengkalan chepa, kota bharu and umk focused on entrepreneurship and enterprise education. currently, umk has three (3) campuses situated in kota bharu, bachok and jeli with an estimated 1300 staff from academic and administrative. out of those administrative staff, 450 are support staff who are placed in various schemes such as n for administrative, f for information technology and w for finance. the administrative support staff can be considered as one of the backbones behind the implementation and ensuring the general management and human resource management of umk up and running smoothly. hence for umk, not only the graduates need to be proficient in english with the purpose of employability, the staff who are part of the ecosystem of tertiary education also need to be able to converse in english. as the internationalization process rapidly takes place in umk, the university starts to employ more foreign staff and students. consequently, umk has started to focus on ensuring all staff are able to communicate in english effectively. the institutional policies have been put forth by umk top management such as introducing and implementing english as the medium of instruction in all academic and research settings. however, little attention has been given towards improving administrative staff english communication skills and this internationalization issue can be regarded as an important issue which will influence higher education institutions significantly (yonezawa, 2018). over the years, needs analysis has been identified by researchers as well as educators to be one of the important elements to be considered in improving learners’ competence or performance either in the context of education or workplace (jalal, 2016; singh & harun, 2020). in defining the term needs, three (3) elements should be looked into which are necessities, lack and wants (hutchinson & waters, 1987). within the context of the workplace, what staff need to know in order for them to communicate better in english are necessities. the gap that exists between the english proficiency of the staff and their employer’s or superior’s target are defined as lacks. administrative staff's subjective needs such as to improve their english writing skills are known as wants. in addition to that, berwick (1989) gave definition to the term needs as “the gap between the current situation and the anticipated future state” (p. 52). brown (1995) defined needs analysis as the activities involving collecting information that will cater the needs of identified learners. needs can also be defined as the gap that is required to be filled which refers to the knowledge that learners know or do not know about a certain language (robinson, 1991). hutchinson and waters (1987) explained that need analysis include the target and learning needs. considering those definitions and concepts, needs in the workplace in this study can be referred to as the gap between an employee's current english competency level and the employer’s expectations. furthermore, target english needs can be viewed as the employees’ needs and what they should do in certain english communicative contexts within workplace environment. in addition, learning needs in this study can be described as actions that employees need to do in their english learning process at workplace. several studies on english language needs at the workplace have been conducted, for instance, in banking sectors (muthiah, 2003), supply chain (puteri zarina et al., 2020), engineering industry (hiranburana, 2017; kassim & ali, 2010; kluensuwan et al., 2019; ngah et al., 2011; subramaniam et al., 2020; tinh, 2018) and graduates’ employability (lee & koo, 2015; singh & harun, 2020). in order to design english for specific purposes courses within the context of occupational context, issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 201 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 199-212 mat husin, n.z. & radzuan, n.r.m. ( identifying english language needs) several studies which were conducted within the south east asian countries were worth to be considered although the employees were in different fields. a study by karachedee (2017) explored the needs of english communications skills of thai employees as perceived by their superiors who were at management level in a selected thailand’s multinational company. the findings suggested that as most of the employees were perceived to have insufficient english communication skills and, their unsatisfactory performance in dealing with foreign customers, suppliers and visitors due to low level of english proficiency, would negatively affect not only themselves but also the company’s reputation. listening and speaking skills in english were found to be the most needed skills by those diploma-holder employees as perceived by their superiors, however, based on the data from the employees themselves, it was reported that listening skill was the skill that they needed to improve the most. nevertheless, it was highlighted that the english communication skills needed differ according to several factors such as the employee’s working experiences, education levels and job description (karachedee, 2017). the scope of the current study is different from a study by karachedee (2017). the current study focuses on administrative staff of a malaysian public university whereas karachedee (2017) focuses on selected thailand’s multinational employees. the difference in english requirements at the respective population’s workplace between thailand and malaysia greatly influence their perceptions of english usage at the workplace. a study conducted by jusoh et al. (2018) examined the level of apprehension in four (4) settings which were during group discussion, meeting, interpersonal and public speaking among non-academic officers at a malaysian public university. they found out that public university non-academic officers showed moderate levels of apprehension and the highest level of apprehension was found in english public speaking context. the study also concluded that female officers were more apprehensive in all those four communicative settings compared to men (jusoh et al., 2018). in contrast to the study by jusoh et al. (2018) which focused mainly on the four settings, the current study expanded the communicative settings at the workplace to 15 tasks that administrative support staff may involve in and use english. in addition to that, jusoh et al. (2018) proposed to have continuous in-house training to reduce the level of anxiety among staff, especially the non-academic staff. a study by hee and zainal (2018) which was conducted in a malaysian pest control industry shared some insights on the understanding of communication requirements of employees at the workplace. the study focused on english communication needs of service technicians and it was found that those technicians were often involved in communication activities in their working life especially in giving suggestions, providing advice to customers, making and answering phone calls, and writing and replying to emails (hee & zainal, 2018). therefore, the study suggested that speaking, listening and writing skills were the essential skills to be considered as part of the proposed syllabus for english courses for these service technicians. in addition, the study highlighted that having good english communication skills may bring a positive impact on customers which eventually improves the business. a qualitative case study was carried out by gaspar and hartanto (2019) to identify the english training program design, implementation and evaluation among administrative staff at the university of surabaya. the program was conducted starting from january until august 2017 with the aim to equip administrative staff with english communication competency (gaspar & hartanto, 2019). the study concluded that the english language training program which had been modelled based on the addie course design was successful. the study justified that finding based on the participants' satisfaction level and level of attendance which were above the target. other findings from the study suggested that university administrative staff showed positive perceptions towards the implementation of english language training courses. one noticeably limitation from this study was that the testing instrument needed to be improved in order to measure the progress of the participants as the study’s measurement tool using pre and post-test was not consistent thus unreliable. a recent study related to administrative staff use of english language in a northern malaysian public university was conducted by jassim (2020). the study used questionnaires and interviews in investigating the english language use and needs among the public university administrative staff and international students. based on the findings, jassim (2020) concluded that administrative staff used 202 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 199-212 mat husin, n.z. & radzuan, n.r.m. ( identifying english language needs) english language in both administration and non-administration related tasks. from the interviews with two international students, it was reported that effective communication occurred between them and the administrative staff. even though sometimes hiccups did occur during the interaction, the administrative staff claimed that they applied a variety of pragmatic strategies such as repetition, pronunciation adjustment, and clarification to ensure successful communication. the study also highlighted that administrative staff put high priority on the needs to improve their english grammar and enrich vocabulary repertoire. administrative staff also expressed that more chances should be given to them to practice their conversation skills in english (jassim, 2020). hassan and ong (2019) carried out a study with the aim of investigating english usage and sources of difficulties in using english among island tourism staff at hotels situated in perhentian and redang islands. the study revealed that respondents perceived english is very important as they need to communicate with international tourists. the findings also showed that respondents agreed that their two main sources of difficulties in using english were tourist’s accents and english grammar (hassan & ong, 2019). based on those studies mentioned, it is notable that only a few studies are being conducted to explore english usage within the context of malaysian public universities. to date, only a few studies (abdullah, 2014; jassim, 2020; jusoh et al., 2018; yuit & imm, 2009) were carried out focusing on english usage among malaysian administrative staff of public university, thus it is essential to conduct a needs analysis on the use of english language among administrative support staff especially in the context of umk. the findings of this study will provide insights among administrative staff who are also involved in interaction with foreign stakeholders. furthermore, this study will yield data on the language needs, particularly by the administrative support staff and may be useful in designing a syllabus for a professional development course, focusing on enhancing their english communication skills. the following research questions were formulated to achieve the objectives below; 1. what are the perceptions of the administrative support staff towards the use of english at their workplace? 2. which communicative workplace tasks do administrative support staff use english language the most and the least? 3. what skills do staff require in an english competency course at workplace? 2. method the present study aims to obtain the perceptions of the administrative staff on the use of english of certain communicative events at their workplace. the selection of a quantitative approach for answering the research objectives in this study is due to its benefits of replicability and generalization (daniel, 2016). taking into account the samples, objectives and pattern found in this study, the results can reflect a wider population. moreover, taking into account examples of the use of samples, instruments, procedures and data analysis procedure in this quantitative method study, other researchers can replicate the study in different time and place but still will get the same data interpretation. non-probability convenience sampling was adopted in this study and a total of 40 respondents out of 168 administrative support staff (from grades n19 to n36) was selected. convenience sampling method was selected for this current study as it is uncomplicated and economical to gather data from the respondents. it is costly in term of expenses and time to adapt systematic or stratified sampling towards the whole populations (168 administrative support staff) (cohen et al., 2018). other than that, the use of convenience sampling in this study was based on the availability of the respondents to take part in the survey. as such, out of 168 administrative support staff, 40 of them were available and took part in this study. all respondents were currently working with 3 different departments, namely registrar office, academic department and students affairs and alumni department. differences between n19 and n29-n36 staff are as presented in table 1. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 203 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 199-212 mat husin, n.z. & radzuan, n.r.m. ( identifying english language needs) table 1. differences between n19 and n29-n36 staff grade minimum education requirement job description n19 (administrative assistant) malaysian certificate of education or sijil pelajaran malaysia (spm). malaysian certificate of education or spm is a public examination that students take at the end of 11 years of schooling (primary and secondary) responsible for clerical work involving filing systems, preparing and mailing letters and assisting officers or other staff with administrative tasks n29 – n36 (assistant officer) malaysian higher school certificate or sijil tinggi pelajaran malaysia (stpm) / matriculation certificate or diploma certificate responsible to assist administrative officers in respective departments to complete any tasks related to human resource, administrative, research, finance and academic to gather participants’ level of english proficiency, they are required to key in their malaysian university english test (muet) results in the survey too. muet is administered by the malaysian examination council and regarded as one of the predictors to check on one’s english language proficiency (othman & nordin, 2013). muet consists of tests in four (4) skills which are listening, speaking, reading and writing. muet results are mostly being used for university entrance for malaysian students with a minimum score of band 3 depending on the course applied (othman & nordin, 2013). for malaysian university undergraduate courses, the differences can be referred in the table 2. table 2. muet score requirement malaysia university undergraduate courses minimum muet score arts and social science band 2 science, technology, engineering and mathematics band 3 law and medicine band 4 five, four and three-point likert-scale questionnaire was employed to measure the respondents’ english language needs and different items used different scale ranges. item 6 used a 5-point likert scale which ranges from 1 – very weak to 5 – very proficient, item 7 and 11 used a 4-point likert scale which ranges from 1-sometimes to 4always. item 8 also used a 4-point likert scale ranges from 1little to 4 – tremendous and item 12 used a 3-point likert scale ranges from 1-low to 3-high. the scale had a high level of internal consistency as determined by a cronbach’s alpha of 0.95 (george & mallery, 2003). this questionnaire was adapted from kluensuwan et al. 's (2019) study because it explored the english needs for thai engineering workers which is similar to the objectives of this current study. the questionnaires used in the current study consist of 12 items (which are relevant to the aim of the study) out of 38 items from the questionnaires used in kluensuwan et al.’s (2019) study. in addition, the words in the items used in the questionnaires were also replaced from engineering discourse to human resource discourse to fit the context of this study. examples of the replacement items were “explain problems(faults) of machines/equipment” changed to “assisting in interview sessions”, “customers/professionals” changed to “foreign staff and students” and “work in overseas plants” changed to “work at another place/university”. the questionnaires were divided into 3 parts: part a on demographic information, part b on perception towards english use at the workplace and part c on english proficiency, self-rating and suggestion toward areas of improvement. the questionnaires were distributed via email to 40 respondents through google form. however, only 34 respondents answered and returned the questionnaire. the data were analyzed and presented in the forms of frequency and percentage. table 3 illustrates the respondent's demographic background. majority of the respondents were female (76%) and most of the respondents aged between 30 to 39 years old (68%). respondents for the current study mostly are from n19 (41%) and 204 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 199-212 mat husin, n.z. & radzuan, n.r.m. ( identifying english language needs) n29 until n36 (50%). surprisingly, most of the respondents in the current study hold bachelor degrees (56%) even though the academic requirements for the support staff job entry are spm and stpm/matriculation or diploma certificates. it is also worth noting that the majority of the respondents scored muet within the range of band 3 and below, with band 1 (6%), band 2 (35 %) and band 3 (23%). only 15% of the respondents scored band 4 and 3% achieved band 5 in the muet test. table 3. demographic information profile categories frequency percentage (%) gender female 26 76 male 8 24 total 34 100 age 20 and below 0 0 21 – 29 6 18 30 – 39 23 68 40 – 49 4 12 50 and above 1 2 total 34 100 jobs grade n19 14 41 n22 – 26 3 9 n29 – 36 17 50 total 34 100 education background spm 2 6 stpm/matriculation/diploma 12 35 bachelor degree 19 56 master degree 1 3 phd 0 0 total 34 100 muet results band 1 2 6 band 2 12 35 band 3 8 23 band 4 5 15 band 5 1 3 band 6 0 0 never took 6 18 total 34 100 3. findings and discussion descriptive analysis was carried out with the purpose of answering research questions in this current study. the data of administrative support staff’s english language usage at the workplace was analyzed using minitab software version 19. the data is then being presented in table form and arranged accordingly to answer the research questions of this study. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 205 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 199-212 mat husin, n.z. & radzuan, n.r.m. ( identifying english language needs) 3.1. research question 1: what are the perceptions of the administrative support staff towards the use of english at their workplace? table 4 shows the mean and sd on respondents’ perceptions towards their estimated english usage in daily life. the mean score which is 2.38 indicates that most respondents seldom use english in their daily life. this illustrates that respondents are reluctant to use english in their daily conversation either at the workplace or at home. one possible reason behind the low usage of english in administrative support staff was the dominance of malay which is the official language of the university administration. support staff mostly speak and write in malay which is also the national language of malaysia. table 4. perception on estimated use of english in daily life items m sd estimated use of english in daily life 2.38 0.49 furthermore, ethnic malays comprise the majority of the administrative support staff in most universities thus creating a monolingual environment at work (yuit & imm, 2009). on the contrary, jalal (2016) reported that managers from several industries (i.e. law, plantation, telecommunication, broadcasting, finance and engineering) claimed they always used english on communicating and interacting inside and outside of their workplace. in addition, the study reported only a small percentage of managers rated seldom used english in their daily life. one possible explanation was that being at the management levels, those respondents needed to deal and communicate with their respective company’s stakeholders from various countries and cultural backgrounds in which english is mostly being used as the main medium. as such they heavily used english compared to administrative support staff who heavily used malay in daily life. table 5. perceived impact of english on career advancement impact frequency percentage (%) little 1 3% fair 10 29% strong 18 53% tremendous 5 15% 53 percent of respondents believed that english proficiency strongly impacts staff career advancement (refer to table 5). 15 percent of them agreed that english proficiency has a tremendous impact on work advancement while only 3 percent said little impact and 29 percent claimed it was fair. the english language is being considered to be one of the critical aspects that can help staff in their career advancement particularly in the context of higher learning institutions such as umk. career advancement can be defined as the ascending movement of an individual’s career wherein an individual can advance by moving from support level to an officer level or change jobs scheme from administrative into academia within the same university or with another university. for example, a support staff can apply or get hired into higher grades (from n19 to n29) or a higher level such as officer level (from n19 to n41). referring to the findings, a significant high percentage of respondents perceived that english competencies strongly impacts career advancement. it is likely that the reason behind this high percentage is that the umk top management constantly highlighted the needs for staff to master the english language and due to the emphasis, several human resource policies have been implemented in relation to the english language issues in umk. similar results had been found in engineering sectors (kluensuwan et al., 2019; tinh, 2018), thailand’s multinational companies (karachedee, 2017), pest control industry (hee & zainal, 2018) and supply chain industry (puteri zarina et al., 2020). 206 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 199-212 mat husin, n.z. & radzuan, n.r.m. ( identifying english language needs) table 6. perceptions on work opportunities from having good english ability work opportunities frequency percentage (%) promoted to higher position 10 29% attend overseas training 7 21% work at other place 8 24% study abroad 6 18% earn better paid 2 6% others 1 3% table 6 above showed the frequency and percentage of respondents’ perceptions on work opportunities resulting from good english ability. work opportunities in this study refers to the chance of being promoted to a higher position, chance to attend overseas training with the aim of improving productivity, earning better pay grade, chances to get better jobs at another organization and chances to further study abroad. 29 percent of respondents perceived that by having good english ability, they may have better chances to be promoted to a higher position and another 24 percent claimed that they can apply for work at other companies or institutions, while 21 percent suggested they will have better opportunities to attend training abroad. 18 percent of respondents said with good english, they should be able to further their study abroad and another 6 percent said they can earn better pay as a result they have good english ability. only 1 percent mentioned they can communicate better. overall, administrative support staff agreed that by having good ability in english they can be promoted to higher positions. this finding is consistent with clement and murugavel’s (2018) survey which focused on indian corporate employees from it companies such as it administrators, project managers, system administrators and analysts. they found that the majority of respondents perceived that poor english communication skills can harm individuals’ chances of getting promoted (clement & murugavel, 2018). it is likely that from an administrative support staff point of view, those who have good ability in english will have more interaction and better engagement with foreign staff and students and eventually that ability can significantly assist in their promotion. 3.2. research question 2: which communicative workplace tasks do administrative support staff use english language the most and the least? table 7 displayed the respondents’ mean scores towards the frequency of using english in the communicative workplace tasks. the highest mean score indicates high frequency of english use whilst the lowest mean score indicates low frequency of english use. the highest mean score was revealed to be ‘socializing and entertaining foreign staff/students’ with 2.53 indicating that high frequency of english use in this communicative task at their workplace. this was followed by ‘giving and receiving explanations over the phone’ (m = 2.29, sd = 0.84) and ‘assisting in interview sessions’ (m = 2.00, sd = 0.95). the lowest mean score was ‘describing statistics/performance’ (m =1.59, sd = 0.70). majority of the tasks scored below average (m = 1.84). in relation to communicative workplace tasks, the findings found that most umk administrative support staff used english when they had to socialize and entertain foreign staff and students. human resource support staff, for example, need to be able to use english effectively in their communication with those foreign staff as they are going to interact with foreign staff regularly to explain about human resource procedures, benefits, performance and service. as umk is rapidly growing, there is an increasing number of international staff and students’ recruitment. as such the need for all umk staff, especially the administrative support staff to master the english language, particularly in speaking skill is becoming more significant. this finding is consistent with the claim by jusoh et al. (2018) that university administrative staff mainly use english when dealing with foreign staff or students. similarly, hassan and ong (2019) reported that within the tourism context, english is being used the most during inquiring about international tourist’s information and needs. in contrast, karachedee (2017) reported that most thai multinational employees required training in listening skills as they mostly used english during telephone communication with both internal and external customers. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 207 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 199-212 mat husin, n.z. & radzuan, n.r.m. ( identifying english language needs) table 7. list of communicative workplace tasks using english tasks m sd socialize and entertain foreign staffs/students 2.53 0.90 give and receive over the phone 2.29 0.84 assisting in an interview session 2.00 0.95 give instructions 1.85 0.78 give advices to staffs/students 1.82 0.76 describe causes and effects of problem 1.82 0.80 describe job responsibility/scope 1.82 0.76 make an appointment 1.76 0.74 explain procedures and guidelines 1.74 0.75 attending meeting 1.71 0.80 express opinions 1.71 0.72 define and clarify meaning 1.71 0.76 discuss problems 1.65 0.69 make an oral presentation or a report 1.62 0.74 describe statistics/performance 1.59 0.70 3.3. research question 3: what skills do staff require in an english course? table 8 showed respondents’ self-rated proficiency based on english language skills. most respondents rated their best english skill was reading with a mean score of 3.65 followed by listening (m =3.44), writing (m =3.18), conversation (m =3.15) and public speaking (m =3.06). moreover, most respondents rated their overall english skills scores above average (m =3.21). this indicates that although respondents were confident with their english ability in skills such as reading, listening and writing, they were still weak in public speaking. this overall score was in contrast with kluensuwan et al. (2019) study who reported that thai employees rated their english self-rating scores below average. administrative support staff rated their public speaking skills in english to be the lowest, indicating that they encountered problems whenever they needed to do public speaking in english at the workplace. the reasons behind this might be because of the lack of confidence and fear of making mistakes in front of other people. this public speaking skill finding was consistent with the results from studies by abdullah et al. (2017), hee and zainal (2018) and kluensuwan et al. (2019). the current study strongly suggests that support staff need to improve their english-speaking skills especially involving conversation and public speaking. table 8. the self-rated proficiency in english language skills skills m sd reading 3.65 0.77 listening 3.44 0.66 overall 3.21 0.69 writing 3.18 0.67 conversation 3.15 0.74 public speaking 3.06 0.65 208 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 199-212 mat husin, n.z. & radzuan, n.r.m. ( identifying english language needs) table 9. recommendations for english course contents contents frequency percentage (%) general english such as greeting and socializing 12 35% technical english relating to human resource and administration 11 32% business english such as discussion, negotiation, giving oral presentation, attending meetings 11 32% table 9 displayed respondents’ recommendations for the contents they wished to have in their english course. 35 percent of them required general english contents and 32 percent suggested both technical english and business english. most respondents agreed on proposing ‘general english such as greeting and socializing’ contents in their english training courses. the recommendation corroborates the earlier claim in which respondents mostly used english when they socialize and entertain foreign staff. as such, they perceived the best content for the english training course is ‘general english’ in which the course will involve enhancing their skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking. furthermore, the general english course usually aims to assist staff to increase their vocabulary such as in socializing and greeting people as well as to increase their confidence in using english at the workplace (yunus et al., 2012). with these suggestions, the syllabus designers and course developers will be able to create the most relevant activities for the english courses. table 10. perceived english skills that need improvement skills m sd writing 2.59 0.56 speaking 2.56 0.66 listening 2.32 0.64 reading 2.29 0.63 from table 10, it was revealed that umk administrative support staff mostly need english writing skill with a mean score of 2.59, followed by speaking (m =2.56), listening (m =2.32) and reading (m =2.29). most umk administrative support staff claimed that they need to improve on their english writing skills. in contrast, karachedee (2017) reported that thailand employees perceived listening skills to be the skill most needed for improvement. however, the findings from the current study was consistent with saleh and murtaza (2018) study in which their respondents perceived the need to master english writing skills the most as most companies use english in written documents. the same explanation can also be interpreted towards public university administrative staff who need to write emails, reports and letters in english, besides communicating verbally with foreign staff and students. possible areas of improvement related to english writing skills would be structuring sentences, finding ideas, grammar and vocabulary (kluensuwan et al., 2019; singh & harun, 2020). 4. conclusion this paper has put some attention on the feedback from administrative support staff on the significance of english language use at higher learning institutions, particularly in umk and also their needs for the english language to perform effectively in their workplace. these administrative support staff strongly believed that being competent in english language may help them in career advancement and they acknowledged that their current english skills are not at an acceptable level which needs proper enhancement. furthermore, they agreed that they need to use english mostly with foreign staff and students at their workplace. it is also found that administrative support staff highlighted the needs to improve their english writing skill more than other skills. these findings could benefit the esp syllabus designers and materials developers to produce relevant training or course contents and materials for human resource staff in general and administrative support staff of umk specifically. there are several implications from this study and one of those is in terms of the language policy of the university. the top management of malaysian public universities should give priorities in introducing a policy to encourage more english usage among administrative staff at the workplace with the purpose of giving more opportunities for staff to practice their english language skills among themselves as well as to serve the international staff and students. furthermore, the human resource issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 209 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 199-212 mat husin, n.z. & radzuan, n.r.m. ( identifying english language needs) development department of malaysian public university also needs to put forth a comprehensive english continuous professional development curriculum to develop and assist all university staff to enhance their english competencies and eventually support the university’s internationalization agenda. the sample selected for this study was specifically administrative support staff who are currently working in umk; thus, the results obtained in this study may not be applicable to administrative support staff in other malaysian public universities. it is recommended that future studies to get better and deeper understanding of the english communication needs through observations on the interaction between administrative support staff interaction and their co-workers, students as well as lecturers. in addition, focus group discussion with supervisors made up of the officers and academicians to see their views on the use of english by the support staff at the workplace could also be used as one of the data collection methods in future studies. acknowledgment we would like to thank all participants and individuals who contributed to this study. declarations author contribution : the main author carried out the study with the guidance from the coauthor. both authors discussed the results of the study and contributed to the final version of the manuscript. funding statement : the research is non-funded conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references abdullah, a. t. h. 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(2018). needs analysis of english for mechanical engineers in the vietnamese context [victoria university of wellington]. http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/handle/10063/6973 vicky, c., ting, h. l., & yeo, j. y. (2016). investigating english language anxiety among uitm sarawak undergraduates. journal of creative practices in language learning and teaching (cplt), 4(1), 50– 62. yonezawa, y. (2018). management of internationalization in japanese universities: towards the development of collaborative relationship between academic and administrative staff. higher education forum, 15, 39–62. https://doi.org/10.15027/45646 yuit, c. m., & imm, l. g. (2009). needs versus wants: comparing job-related and personal needs of nonacademic university employees for english language training. pertanika journal of social science and humanities, 17(2), 187–203. yunus, m. z. m., raof, a. h. a., rahman, r. a., & amin, a. m. m. (2012). the need of english language training programs in continuing education. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 56(ictlhe), 396–404. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.668 https://doi.org/10.35940/ijitee.c9227.019320 https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.6n.3p.84 https://doi.org/10.24815/siele.v7i1.16064 https://doi.org/10.47836/pjssh.29.1.02 https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v7i2.8132 http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/handle/10063/6973 https://doi.org/10.15027/45646 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.668 212 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 199-212 mat husin, n.z. & radzuan, n.r.m. ( identifying english language needs) supplementary material proposed course syllabus by the end of the course, participants will be able to ● write clear and concise emails, memos and letters in english ● converse with co-workers, students, foreigner in english ● understand the meaning and application of work-related vocabulary the language components that will be taught by instructors in this proposed course design are as follow; ● reading ● writing ● speaking ● listening ● grammar (embedded) ● vocabulary the proposed course structure along with the topics are as follow; proposed course structure unit content task tools 1 ice breaking small introduction small talk 2 socialization giving introduction / farewell speech youtube 3 talking about favourite hobbies speaking small group interaction youtube, google translate 4 spell it right pronunciation vocabulary learning strategies online dictionary, kahoot! 5 superstar speaking acting google translate, youtube 6 reading at work reading report, notices, emails and memos technical texts on website, 7 business visit presentation of job description, department, future work youtube, umk website, chart 8 email and letters correspondence writing emails and letters email templates, letter templates in terms of assessments, after completion of each unit, learners will be assigned with a written/speaking task based on the contents that they learned. these tasks will then be collected and analyzed by instructors and being compiled toward the end of the course. from these completed assignments, instructors will be able to monitor the progress of learners. aside from that, instructors will collaborate with the human resource department in determining the supervisor for each learner taking the course. each supervisor for each learner who comes from support staff will then be asked to rate or give some assessment toward their staff' performance related to english communication ability. english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 48-59 10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5779 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id comparing the effectiveness of explicit eal feedback through slideshow (text+audio) and captioned video jonathan harrison nihon university, cst, 7-24-1 narashinodai, funabashi, chiba 274-8501, japan jon.harrison@nihon-u.ac.jp a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 20 february 2022 revised 23 april 2022 accepted 27 april 2022 research seems to show that captions and subtitles are generally beneficial to learners of english as an additional language (eal), but some research does contradict this. research on slideware and slide design seems to focus more on attractiveness of slides and less on educational effectiveness. however, research on slide design and specific approaches to slide design continue to become more detailed. this study compared comprehension of explicit feedback received through either slideshow (text+audio) video or captioned video on an eal writing task in an on-demand university setting. results (n=163) indicated that approximately 50% of learners clicked the feedback video to advance to the quiz without viewing it completely. of the learners with at least one full viewing (n=86), slideshow video seems to have engaged students for a longer duration than captioned video. the quiz items were easier for the slideshow video groups, and the quiz items performed better for these groups. the slideshow video groups had slightly higher means, but a significant difference between the effectiveness of slideshow video and captioned video to transmit feedback to students was not found. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords captioned video english as an additional language explicit feedback group feedback slideshow video how to cite: harrison, j. (2022). comparing the effectiveness of explicit eal feedback through slideshow (text+audio) and captioned video. english language teaching educational journal, 5(1), pp. 48-59. 1. introduction during the 2020 and 2021 academic years, the number of educational institutions engaged in online education substantially increased due to the coronavirus pandemic. video is an important component of many asynchronous, on-demand, lessons both for instructional and feedback purposes, and how instructors use video varies by course content, purpose, activity flow, access to technology, instructor technological skills and digital literacy, etc. for face-to-face instruction, slideware, such as microsoft powerpoint, has been popular for decades, and instructors use this for synchronous and asynchronous online instruction. also, for synchronous and asynchronous online instruction, zoom or other video conferencing software with recording functionality have become popular recently. with asynchronous online english as an additional language (eal) instruction, learners on occasion request captions or subtitles for videos. in this report the term eal will be used when discussing english as a foreign language (efl) and english as a second language (esl). although there are studies comparing the effectiveness of captions and subtitles in various educational settings, comparisons specifically focusing on slideshow video (text+audio) and captioned video could not be located. research on the effectiveness of captions and subtitles will be discussed further in the background sections as will the history of powerpoint, some powerpoint related research, and slide design research. in order to identify which practice is better when using video in the classroom, this report compares student performance on a quiz after students watched either a slideshow presentation with in-screen video of https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5779 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:jon.harrison@nihon-u.ac.jp http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/article/view/5779 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 49 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 48-59 harrison, j. (comparing the effectiveness of explicit eal feedback ….) the teacher speaking or a captioned slideware video of the teacher giving general feedback on a task regarding 10 common language mistakes on a previous task. the research questions were: 1. do eal learners engage longer with slideshow video or captioned video? 2. does either format garner more views from eal learners? 3. which format is more effective for transmitting feedback content demonstrated through quiz scores? 4. if eal learners are divided by quiz performance level, do all groups under both conditions perform similarly? 1.1 background on captioned video we will begin with research regarding research on captions and native speakers, in this case of english. first, a differentiation between captions and subtitles must be made. captions are in the same language as the audio, and subtitles are in a different language than the audio. captions used in nativespeaking education seem to be taboo or possibly have negative effects. ritzhaupt et al. (2015), studied the effects of captions on native speakers using time-compressed video at 3 speeds of accelerated playback. a negative significant difference was found, and a significant difference was found toward normal video speed. these results indicate that learners may be able to accelerate video speeds to 1.5 times the normal speed, but will probably be less satisfied with the experience. mayer (2021) suggested not adding captions that repeat spoken words. his article is on how to design effective instructional videos using evidence-based principles that are grounded in cognitive theories of learning and instruction. these principles include multimedia (present words and graphics), coherence (avoid extraneous material in slides and script), signaling (highlight key material), redundancy (do not add captions that repeat the spoken words), spatial contiguity (place printed text next to corresponding part of graphic), temporal contiguity (present corresponding visual and verbal material at the same time), segmenting (break a complex slide into progressively presented parts), pre-training (provide pre-training in the names and characteristics of key concepts), modality (present words as spoken text), personalization (use conversational language), voice (use appealing human voice), image (do not display static image of instructor's face), embodiment (display gesturing instructor), and generative activity (add prompts for generative learning activity). however, liu (2018, 2019) responded to mayer’s earlier work arguing that because mayer’s theory and principles were developed based on empirical studies of native english-speaking students, they may not be applicable to eal students. specifically, liu found issues with the modality and redundancy principles that involve text and audio saying that they could become compromised in the eal context as learners have difficulty fully comprehending the english text and audio. liu’s 2018 study sought to identify eal learners' optimum input mode (graphics and audio, graphics and text, or graphics, audio and text) and to test whether the modality and redundancy principles also applied to their multimedia learning. results indicated that when it came to knowledge retention, no statistically significant differences were found in eal students' learning outcomes from the three input modes. these findings demonstrated that mayer's modality and redundancy principles did not apply to content knowledge and vocabulary learning for eal students when certain multimedia learning principles were followed. some research supports that captioned video increases eal learner performance. hayati and mohmedi (2011) studied the effect of english captions, persian subtitles, and no captions or subtitles on listening comprehension of 90 eal learners. groups of learners watched 6 5-minute episodes of a dvd under 1 of these conditions, and after each viewing session, tests were administered to examine listening comprehension rates. the english caption group outperformed the persian subtitles group at a “considerably higher level,” and the persian subtitles group outperformed the no subtitle group at a “substantially higher level.” arndt (2014, 2018) in research comparing vocabulary acquisition via blog post reading and watching youtube video blogs reported that the caption group significantly outperformed the non-caption group. ashcroft, garner, and hadingham (2018) suggest that subtitles lead to incidental vocabulary learning, demonstrated through recall, after a single viewing of a movie. ketabi and sadeghi (2020) performed research with captioned and non-captioned video in regard to the comprehension of idiomatic expressions. in this research both groups saw the video twice, and the group that viewed video with captions performed significantly higher than the group without captions. zhang and zou (2021) performed a literature review of 41 social sciences citation index journal 50 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 48-59 harrison, j. (comparing the effectiveness of explicit eal feedback ….) articles regarding multimedia input, including text images, audio, animation, and captions/subtitles in eal learning and concluded that the effectiveness of three features were reported most frequently: audio-plus-animation-plus-captions/subtitles in developing vocabulary and grammar knowledge; audio-plus-animation in promoting listening comprehension; and text-plus-audio in facilitating reading comprehension and called for more research in these areas. these reports seem to demonstrate that for language learning captioned video leads to better comprehension of listening comprehension, idiomatic expressions, incidental vocabulary learning and vocabulary acquisition. in french and spanish as an additional language, similar results have been put forth by a number of researchers. fievez et. al (2020) studied incidental vocabulary learning with captions and subtitles with french learners, and results indicated that both subtitle and caption groups outperformed the control group in meaning recognition group but only the caption group outperformed the control group on meaning recall tests. camacho velez and pozo estévez (2021) in their research on vocabulary development concluded that audiovisual materials with captions have a positive effect on the development of second language vocabulary. cintrón-valentín and garcía-amaya (2021) investigated the effect of captioned video on grammar and vocabulary through form-focused instruction. in this research a randomized control design was used to investigate the effect of captioned media on the learning of vocabulary and grammar. through four data-collection sessions, participants (n = 369) were presented with a grammar-lesson video and a multimodal video with one of three captioning formats: textually enhanced target vocabulary, textually enhanced target grammar, or no captioning. results showed strong immediate effects of captioning on target vocabulary and on some, but not all, of the target-grammar structures. according to the authors, learning of some grammatical structures is more conducive to captioning than others. these studies suggest that for language learning captioned video was more conducive to vocabulary development and learning some, but not all targeted grammar structures. other research suggests that captioned video is better than non-captioned video, but results may vary by language of the caption and language proficiency level. winke, gass, and sydorenko (2010) concluded via results from t-tests and two-way anova, that captioned videos were more effective than non-captioned videos. however, they deduced that for performance on aural vocabulary tests captioning of the first showing of the videos was more effective. yet, results varied by language of the captions, for spanish and russian, captioning of the first showing was generally more effective than captioning of the second, and for arabic and chinese, captioning the second showing seemed to be more effective. learners revealed in interviews that they used captions to increase their attention, improve processing, reinforce previous knowledge, and analyze language. some learners stated that they used captions as a crutch, for support, as they got through the videos. further research by gass et al. (2019) used eye-tracking to gather data and describe how captions help people learn during captioned-video watching. this work confirmed previous work in which captions generally promoted second language comprehension, and it also discussed the possible role of working memory with results showing “the two working memory groups went in opposite directions: the high groups reduced their caption reading time, whereas the low-working memory groups increased their reading time” (p. 97). this corresponded with desjarlais (2017) who summarized first language research on multimedia learning and suggested that individual differences would account for variance in information processing during multimedia learning. these differences include working memory. the above research suggests that different proficiency groups may use captions in different ways. regarding the benefits of subtitles, only a single study was found. pujadas and muñoz (2020) investigated caption and subtitle use for tv dramas viewed by secondary school eal learners, and came to the seemingly obvious conclusion that subtitles led to significantly higher content comprehension than captions. regarding improvements in pronunciation, results were mixed. wisniewska and mora (2020) studied if extended exposure to captioned videos would affect adult second language pronunciation, and tests were run to determine effects on speech processing skills (segmentation, speed of lexical access, and sentence processing), phonological accuracy in perception (abx discrimination), and production (accentedness ratings). all control and non-control groups showed benefits in speech segmentation and speech processing skills irrespective of viewing mode. for phonological accuracy in perception, no significant differences were detected. in production, a focus on phonetic form improved pronunciation only in the absence of captions, whereas captioned viewing led to pronunciation gains as long as there was no focus on phonetic form. results, therefore, indicate that issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 51 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 48-59 harrison, j. (comparing the effectiveness of explicit eal feedback ….) improvements in pronunciation can take place either with captions or without captions when learners’ attention is focused on pronunciation. as with some other studies, the authors believed cognitive overload may be the reason no benefits were obtained when attention was directed to pronunciation when using captions. there is research that suggests captions and subtitles have no significant effect. gordon (2020) added captions to recorded lectures for eal learners in an e-learning environment and found no significant effects. korucu-kis (2021), researching captioning as a scaffold for l2 listening to discover if the dual coding of aural and written stimuli may lead to more comprehensible input and in-depth processing, stated that the effectiveness of captioning does not have a significant impact of listening. this narrative literature review concluded that captions do not necessarily lead to improved comprehension, and caption effectiveness is influenced by learner, material, measurement, task, and l1/l2 characteristics. kruger et al. (2014) in a study on eye movement found that in terms of attention distribution, subtitle language and comprehension, the language or presence/absence of subtitles did not have any significant impact on comprehension of a work discussed in a recorded lecture. however, the three groups in this study distributed their visual attention resources differently in tests that were indicators of short term and long term retention of knowledge respectively. the findings for one of the groups suggested that captions resulted in a higher retention of knowledge in the longer term. 1.2 background on slideware and slide design research specifically comparing slideshow video with captioned video was limited or not able to be found in searches perhaps because slideshows are multi-modal including text, images, audio, video, etc. therefore, a brief, limited summary of some of the research in the field will be given in chronological order. from powerpoints debut in 1987, slideshows, overwhelmingly powerpoint slideshows, became standard for face-to-face classroom situations, conferences, and business meetings. it was, and perhaps still is, generally accepted that slideshows support lectures, but the support is more related to aesthetics, attractiveness and entertainment than to effective learning. although dated, bartsch and cobern (2003) explored the effectiveness of powerpoint versus overhead transparency use in lectures. results indicated that during semester transparencies were preferred but by end of term preferred powerpoint and that students performed worse on quizzes when powerpoint presentations included non-text items such as pictures and sound effects. in a second study participants were shown powerpoint slides that contained only text, contained text and a relevant picture, or contained text with a picture that was not relevant. students performed worse on recall and recognition tasks and had greater dislike for slides with pictures that were not relevant. they concluded that powerpoint could be beneficial, but irrelevant material could interfere with learning. craig (2006), in a well-researched and witty article, decries the lack of studies between 1987 and 2006 (less than 20) on the effectiveness of powerpoint and the mountain of articles touting powerpoint’s catchiness and entertainment value. he states, “generally, the available studies lack substance and internal and external validity and adopt rather constrained characterizations of the concept effectiveness” (p. 149). during this time, it appears that researchers wanted to say that a product, in this case powerpoint slideware, could create a statistically significant difference in learning; however, slideshow software has many different aspects and uses. therefore, educators have been using it in many different ways that are complex and difficult to quantify. however, some researchers and designers realized this and have done research and offered advice on how to design better slides. a couple of these authors were duarte (2008) and reynolds (2012), and an internet search will offer quite a selection of books on presentation and slide design. even now, ten years later the research focuses on a mix of aesthetics, attention-holding, and educational aspects. lefebvre (2022) investigated two different powerpoint slide designs for multimedia learning, presentation and teleprompter. differences in participant fixations were assessed via eye tracking measures. participants demonstrated greater fixation counts for teleprompter slides, measures of aesthetic liking evidenced that slides incorporating imagery resulted in more pleasurable learning experiences, and visually-based slides influenced more reflective learning and greater activation of information processing. one case study in scientific presentation slide design from this era is that of the assertion-evidence approach which uses a single sentence and a highly relevant graphic on each slide to ensure attention is drawn to the most important points in the presentation. this case demonstrates how researchers realized that slideware needed a slide design approach that would lead to educational gains for the 52 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 48-59 harrison, j. (comparing the effectiveness of explicit eal feedback ….) audience (and the presentation creator) and have tried to bring about change in the way presenters communicate information to audiences. research on this approach seems to focus on audience comprehension and recall as well as slideshow presenter depth of content understanding. garner et al. (2011) wrote about assertion-evidence slide design and how it may lead to better comprehension and recall of more complex topics within presentations. in this experiment two groups of roughly 55 audience members each watched a 6-minute presentation with either a topic-subtopic or an assertionevidence slide structure, and they were tested immediately afterward and then again one week later. the authors reported that on comprehension items and items related to retention of more complex concepts, learners using assertion-evidence slides achieved higher scores than learners from topicsubtopic slides. this reportedly occurred on both tests, and some items achieved statistical significance. the authors point out that although learners of topic-subtopic slides viewed more written information during the presentation, those learners did not understand and remember that material. the authors go one to reiterate the importance of that point, referring to “additional benefits” of the assertion-evidence approach, and citing themselves (garner et al., 2009; alley, 2003) for theoretical support that presenters creating a presentation with this approach will develop “a more focused and overall stronger presentation” than if they used the traditional topic-subtopic approach. garner and alley (2016) compared “open” student-created slide presentations with assertion-evidence structured slide presentations, approximately equal groups, for 120 undergraduate engineers. they argue that students usually create topic-subtopic structure slides dictated by the default settings of powerpoint or other slideware and support that indicating that over 80 percent of the “open” group created topicsubtopic slides. an unannounced post-test of comprehension was given 1 day later, and results revealed a statistically significant advantage (p < 0.05) for participants who created assertion-evidence slides. it appears that the assertion-evidence structure slide creation led to a statistically significant increase in the presenter’s understanding of the content, which seems to support earlier research by these authors. independent research on assertion-evidence slide design audience comprehension and recall indicated significant gains for both slideware formats but better retention of information. root kustritz (2014) reported on a study of third-year veterinary students in a required theriogenology diagnostics course who blindly self-selected to attend either a presentation with powerpoint slides in a traditional format or one with powerpoint slides in the assertion-evidence format. students took a pre-test, a takehome assignment, an online post-test, and another online post-test after one month to evaluate retention. groups did not differ on pre-test, assignment, or post-test scores, and both groups showed significant gains from pre-test to post-test and from pre-test to retention test. however, the traditional group showed a significant decline from post-test to retention test, while the assertion-evidence group did not. miraldi (2021) published a dissertation investigating the reasons that the assertion-evidence approach has not been more widely implemented. miraldi writes, “despite the theoretical guidance from cognitive psychology and multimedia learning, the common practice of plugging text into the default template of powerpoint persists throughout educational and professional settings” (p. 14). later, gaskin (2012) is cited, but i will include more of the quote here. gaskin, the co-inventor of powerpoint, reflects on powerpoint saying, “since the defaults can easily be changed (any presentation made in powerpoint can be set as the default style), and a single default can be augmented with unlimited libraries of templates constructed in any style desired, i’ve often wondered myself why users don’t change and replace the defaults more often.” (p. 417) miraldi’s results indicated that two innovation attributes, compatibility and trialability, were significantly and positively associated with implementation. first, re-invention was a significant moderating variable, and, second, that workplace norms play a significant role in the diffusion of this innovation. in other words, it is hard to get people to rally around new slide design formats that are not defaults, and it is hard to change office/education/scientific community culture. in eal research, some studies indicate that content comprehension is better when powerpoint is used and that learners prefer powerpoint with audio to other means of on-demand instruction. gordani and khajavi (2020) investigated the effect of powerpoint-supported lectures on immediate comprehension and longer term retention of content by eal university students. participants (n=69) were randomly assigned into three groups: a. powerpoint-supported lectures with slides’ contents being read out, b. powerpoint-supported lectures with slides at propositional level, and c. oral presentation with no multimedia. during each of the twelve 1-hour sessions, the students were issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 53 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 48-59 harrison, j. (comparing the effectiveness of explicit eal feedback ….) presented with a lesson followed by a posttest of immediate recall, and they sat for the 1-month delayed posttest after the last session. results indicated that learners’ comprehension improved significantly both immediately and after a 1-month delay when they are provided with powerpointsupported lectures with slides at propositional level. the authors offer a caveat stating that for efficiency, the content of the slides “must be selected and designed with great care so that key terms, issues and main ideas are covered. copying course material into slides and including too much explanations and details will have an adverse effect on students’ retention and recall.” oh (2021) in a report on blended learning writes that students preferred on-demand instruction (non-real-time online instruction) to real-time online instruction. regarding content presentation, the students preferred class video containing a powerpoint presentation and the instructor’s audio explanation to real-time instruction via zoom, powerpoint and instructor’s face, and powerpoint only. this is by no means a complete review of the literature, but the gist of the research indicates there some researchers are vaguely researching powerpoint while others are doing more detailed research on how aspects of slideware, slide design, and approaches to presentation making affect educational outcomes. the latter approach is where future researcher should concentrate their efforts. 2. methods 2.1 setting and participants this study was conducted at a private university in japan. students (n=163) in 8 courses of english communication ii completed all three stages of an introduction task. due to the coronavirus situation, all of the lessons concerned with this project were in an online, on-demand format on a moodle lms. 2.2 research instruments a quantitative design was used with 2 videos acting as variables and a quiz to measure the results. students watched either a video of a powerpoint slideshow with text on the slides recorded in zoom which showed the teacher speaking in the upper-right corner (without captions) or a video of the teacher speaking with captions (no slides). there was not a control group with only audio and no written aspect as from an ethical standpoint all students were to receive the same content. therefore, both videos had the same content and the same length. the common mistakes detailed in the videos are given in table 1, which also includes the time each point began and the total time spent on each point. the quiz on the common english errors discussed in the videos contained 2 items for each of the 10 common errors. contact the author for details. table 1. points of general feedback and duration order feedback point start time duration opening comments 0:00 1:32 1 paragraph writing vs. sentence writing 1:33 1:40 2 use of spaces after punctuation 3:13 1:33 3 use of "in" for affiliation, e.g. i am in the x department. 4:46 1:23 4 general capitalization: first word, abbreviations 6:09 2:24 5 "what x do you like?" vs. "what do you like x?" 8:33 1:06 6 name order in english and japanese 9:39 2:41 7 name capitalization and use of title and punctuation 12:20 1:23 8 comma use before conjunctions when joining sentences 13:43 1:24 9 use of "because" when joining sentences 15:07 1:01 10 plurals/use of s 16:08 1:12 closing comments 17:20 0:20 total 17:40 17:40 54 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 48-59 harrison, j. (comparing the effectiveness of explicit eal feedback ….) 2.3 student tasks, data collection procedures, and data anaalysis the student task was to be completed in 3 stages (1 stage per lesson for 3 lessons). the first part of lesson 1 focused on self-introductions, and meeting others, and asking questions, and the second part of the lesson focused on health and health during the pandemic. one of the final tasks in the lesson was for each student to post 1 new discussion in a forum. the directions were: “introduce yourself to the other people in the course. write or speak at least 5 good self-introduction sentences, and end with a question to the other students.” scoring criteria and instructions on how to add a discussion, add audio and videos files, etc. were also given. the second stage of the task was in lesson 2 where students were asked to reply to 2 other students’ questions with responses of at least 3 sentences each. again, scoring criteria and instructions on how to reply were given. during this stage, the teacher edited student self-introductions from the first stage by putting asterisks where errors occurred and offering private feedback on posts that were lacking in amount of content or off-topic. the third stage of the project was the review and feedback stage. first, students were instructed to watch a 17-minute 40-second video of general feedback on common mistakes. half (4 courses) of the students watched a video of a powerpoint slideshow, and the other half of the students (4 courses) watched a video of the teacher speaking with captions. second, students were asked to review their posted discussion and the replies from other students to their discussion questions and to notice the asterisked marked areas. finally, students were asked to review the video again before taking a 1attempt online quiz which consisted of 20 items. regarding data collection, data was downloaded at the beginning of the sixth week. therefore, students who had not completed the tasks due to late registration, absences, etc. were excluded from this study. data from the quiz was analyzed to check for differences between the slideshow group and the caption group. an item facility analysis and item discrimination analysis were also conducted for each group to compare how the items performed for both groups. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 results for all participants results for all students, shown in table 2, suggested that both the slideshow and caption groups were similar. the minimums and means (m) were slightly higher for the slideshow group. for example, out of 20 total points, the mean score was .4 higher for the slideshow group, but with rounding to the nearest whole number the quiz score means and standard deviations (sd), the mean quiz time, and the mean of actual views were the same. the most noticeable difference was the mean time on video was 114 seconds (approx. 2 minutes) longer for the slideshow group. the p-values were high and did not denote significance. regarding distributions, the slideshow scores were 61% within 1 sd and 100% within 2 sds, and the caption scores were close to normal but with 75% within 1 sd. table 2. comparison of scores, views and time on video by slideshow and caption groups slideshow (n=76) captions (n=87) variable range m sd range m sd t df p quiz score 5-19 12.20 4.21 5-20 11.78 3.84 0.65 153 0.51 quiz time (s) 296-1201 849 243 239-1201 831 259 0.45 160 0.65 views (clicks) 1-4 1.51 0.7 1-4 1.53 0.74 -0.14 160 0.089 actual views 0-2 0.73 0.61 0-2 0.7 0.51 0.62 148 0.054 time on video (s) 26-3301 1010 973 928-3567 896 727 0.84 137 0.04 3.2 results for all participants with at least 1 complete view one issue with this analysis was that students clicked to view the video but many students clicked only as a means to open the quiz and expedite advancement through the lesson. therefore, a second issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 55 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 48-59 harrison, j. (comparing the effectiveness of explicit eal feedback ….) analysis was conducted after removal of participants with 0 actual views, a view ending before the first feedback point ended (1 min. 40 sec.). this removed exactly 45% of each group. therefore, 42 students from the slideshow group and 48 students from the caption group remained with .1 or more views, .1 representing the viewing of 1 feedback point from the video. when students with less than 1 full view of all 10 feedback points were removed (views under the duration of the video). this removed another 5% of the slideshow group from the data set but the caption group remained the same. what remained was 50% (n=38) of the slideshow group and 55% (n=48) of the caption group who had viewed the full video at least once. the results, shown in table 3, indicate that for the caption group the range is one point higher and the views are negligibly higher. however, for the slideshow group the mean quiz score is .15 points higher, the mean of actual views is .1 higher, and the mean time on video is higher by 605 seconds (approx. 10 mins). a glance at the raw data showed that most students in the slideshow group were taking 1-2 minutes longer for viewing and were watching the video longer the second time. the distributions of the slideshow and caption groups were nearly identical with 81% and 79% within 1 sd and 100% within 2 sds. table 3. comparison of scores, full views and time on video by slideshow and caption groups slideshow (n=38) captions (n=48) variable range m sd range m sd t df p quiz score 5-19 13.22 4.15 6-20 13.06 3.69 0.17 74 0.86 quiz time (s) 326-1201 843 222 326-1201 859 259 -0.14 83 0.89 views (clicks) 1-3 1.49 0.68 1-4 1.56 0.77 -0.06 83 0.95 actual views 1-2 1.18 0.4 1-2 1.10 0.26 1.39 61 0.17 time on video (s) 970-3301 1501 908 928-3567 896 535 1.13 57 0.26 3.3 item facility and item discrimination the quiz had 20 items, 2 items for each common error addressed in the feedback video. item facility (if) analysis and item discrimination (id) present a picture of what items were difficult for students and how high and low proficiency students perform compared to each other. the feedback video lead to a quiz which was meant to be a criterion-referenced test; however, the quiz will be evaluated as a as a norm-referenced test as pre-tests and post-tests were not given as part of this feedback exercise. for the analysis if and id values were calculated for the entire slide group (n=76) and caption group (n=87) as well as the full view slide group (n=38) and caption group (n=48), shown in table 4. considering many students did not have a full view, item facility can be used as if for a norm-reference test. the lower the if, the more difficult the item was for students. when an if of .6 is used as a cut off to mark “difficult” items, meaning less than 60% of students correctly answered the item, the full slide group had 10 difficult items, and the 1-view group had 6 difficult items. the caption groups had more difficult items as the full caption group had 12 and the 1-view caption group had 10 difficult items. therefore, the slide groups seem to have had less difficulty with the items. when the ifs for all 20 items are summed, the caption groups had lower if totals (11.79, 13.05) than the slide groups (12.01, 13.22) suggesting that in total the slide group found the items easier. regarding the feedback items and areas where these efl students struggled even after the feedback video, looking at the ids in table 4, lower ids represent items where the item both groups struggled with defining a paragraph (1a), capitalization of proper nouns (4ab, 7ab), comma conjunction (8a), connecting sentences with “because” (9ab) and plurals (10ab). the item description indicates the degree to which an item separates the students who performed well for those who did poorly on the test as a whole. an id of .29 or lower indicates that the item performed poorly and may need adjustment (brown, 2005). none of the items performed poorly for all four of the groups. however, the full slide group had 3 items and the full caption group had 7 items which performed badly. the 1-view slide group had 4 poorly performing items and the 1-view caption group had 5. when the ids for all items are summed the full slide group and 1-view slide group total id sums are higher (9.83, 9.76) than those of the caption groups (7.50, 8.47) suggesting that the items 56 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 48-59 harrison, j. (comparing the effectiveness of explicit eal feedback ….) perform better with the slide groups. also, the items performed better for the full slide group than the full caption group on 14 items, and they also performed better for the 1-view slide group on 13 items. items 2b, 6a, 6b, and 9a performed better for both caption groups, but it is unclear why this is the case. table 4. item facility and item discrimination for groups item feedback point slide if (n=76) cap. if (n=87) slide id (n=76) cap. id (n=87) slide if (n=38) cap. if (n=48) slide id (n=38) cap. id (n=48) 1a paragraph 0.49 0.45 0.69 0.27 0.53 0.58 0.83 0.50 1b paragraphs 0.64 0.69 0.62 0.21 0.74 0.79 0.58 0.38 2a spaces after punctuation 0.85 0.83 0.38 0.23 0.92 0.90 0.25 0.19 2b spaces after punctuation 0.86 0.80 0.23 0.27 0.95 0.79 -0.08 0.31 3a statement "in" department 0.72 0.77 0.65 0.35 0.84 0.85 0.42 0.19 3b interrogative "in" department 0.68 0.74 0.73 0.39 0.79 0.75 0.50 0.31 4a capitalization of proper nouns 0.42 0.32 0.77 0.57 0.53 0.50 1.00 0.63 4b capitalization of proper nouns 0.51 0.45 0.77 0.78 0.61 0.54 0.67 0.81 5a imperitive: tell me what x you like 0.63 0.56 0.69 0.44 0.71 0.58 0.75 0.56 5b interrogative: what x do you like? 0.72 0.67 0.38 0.39 0.76 0.71 0.58 0.44 6a capitalization of names, name order 0.63 0.56 0.31 0.34 0.68 0.65 0.25 0.38 6b capitalization of names, name order 0.79 0.78 0.15 0.32 0.82 0.83 0.25 0.38 7a capitalization of proper nouns 0.41 0.45 0.31 0.24 0.37 0.44 0.50 0.25 7b name order, cap. of proper nouns 0.54 0.59 0.42 0.40 0.66 0.67 0.68 0.38 8a comma conjunction 0.59 0.52 0.62 0.42 0.68 0.52 0.33 0.69 8b comma conjunction 0.78 0.77 0.46 0.28 0.87 0.81 0.33 0.44 9a connecting because 0.35 0.41 0.38 0.64 0.26 0.56 0.50 0.69 9b connecting because 0.41 0.45 0.62 0.38 0.42 0.54 0.67 0.56 10a plurals 0.41 0.43 0.42 0.32 0.45 0.46 0.42 0.13 10b plurals 0.58 0.55 0.23 0.26 0.63 0.58 0.33 0.25 4. discussion this research focused on how 2 groups of learners performed on a 20-item grammar quiz after watching a feedback video regarding an online writing task. to briefly discuss the results, significant differences were not found between slideware groups and caption groups. these results are similar to liu (2018) who did not find statistically significant differences when trying to identify an optimum input mode for eal learners. the findings in this report, therefore, add to the existing literature that captions have no significant effect (kruger et al, 2014; gordon, 2020; mayer, 2021; korucu-kis, 2021). that being said, there are caveats in the research; for example, findings for one of the groups in research by kruger et al, (2014) suggested that captions resulted in a higher retention of knowledge in the long term. a caveat in the findings of this study is that although significant differences were not found between slideware and caption groups, eal learners engaged longer with slideshow video, mean scores on quizzes were slightly higher for the slideshow groups, and quiz items performed better for the slideshow groups. these results also seem to support that learners prefer or are more comfortable issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 57 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 48-59 harrison, j. (comparing the effectiveness of explicit eal feedback ….) with the slideshow format with audio, e.g. powerpoint, to other means of on-demand instruction (gordani & khajavi, 2020), in this case captioned video. to consider this more deeply, one area requiring more inquiry is regarding the length of learner engagement with the video and the quiz results. the point of view discussed in the previous paragraph is that the learners engaged longer with the slideshow video and this is a positive factor as it may have led to slightly higher mean scores for that group. however, it must also be considered that as the differences in mean scores between sideshow and caption groups were not significantly different that the excess time spent viewing the slideshow video was perhaps inefficient as it did not lead to significantly better quiz scores. returning to the opening point of the discussion, if captions do not hinder learners as significant differences were not found in this study or in studies by the above mentioned researchers, then educators in eal settings should include captions as research by other researchers seems to demonstrate that for language learning captioned video leads to better comprehension of listening comprehension, idiomatic expressions, incidental vocabulary learning and vocabulary acquisition (wink et al., 2010; hayati & mohmedi, 2011; arndt, 2014, 2018; ketabi & sadeghi, 2020). for educators teaching pronunciation, captions do not hinder learners as long as there is not a focus on phonetic form (wisniewska & mora, 2020). limitations of this study are numerous as it was a short-term study focused on feedback comprehension of a variety of grammar points and long tern retention was not considered in the research design. the study also merely focused on the comprehension of text and audio and did not include graphics or animation as in other studies. thirdly, slideshow text and captions were compared; therefore, first language subtitles were not a variable in this study. lastly, some research suggests that different proficiency groups use captions in different ways, but proficiency level as measured by a standardized test or other means was not a part of this study. research (desjarlais, 2017; gass et al., 2019; wisniewska & mora, 2020) does suggest that the proficiency levels of learners should be a consideration in future research regarding captions and working memory. the findings in this report add to the existing literature, but more specific, detailed studies are needed. as stated earlier, some researchers are vaguely researching powerpoint while others are doing more detailed research on how aspects of slideware, slide design, and approaches to presentation making affect educational outcomes. the latter approach is where future researchers should concentrate their efforts as technology continues to be developed and integrated for educational purposes. 5. conclusion the goal of this research was to compare the effectiveness of explicit eal feedback between slideshow video and captioned video. this research was carried out at a university in an on-demand (asynchronous) educational setting, and in this setting approximately 50% of the learners clicked the feedback video to advance to the quiz without watching it. to answer the research questions based on the learners who did partake of at least 1 full viewing of the video, q1. eal learners engage longer with a slideshow video (text+audio) than with a captioned video. q2. regarding which format garnered more views, views (clicks) and actual views were almost exactly the same for all groups. q3. the format that was more effective for transmitting the feedback content demonstrated via quiz scores seems to be slideshow video as the mean scores are slightly higher than those of the captioned video group. however, a significance difference was not demonstrated. q4. when eal learners were divided by quiz performance level, the slideshow group seems to have benefited more. the results of the item facility analysis suggested that the slideware group found the items easier. the areas where these eal students struggled even after watching the feedback video were defining a paragraph, capitalization of proper nouns, comma use before conjunctions separating sentences, connecting sentences with “because,” and use of plurals. item discrimination analysis suggested that the items performed better with the slideshow video groups. to conclude, slideshow video seems to have engaged students for a longer duration than captioned video. the quiz items were easier for the slideshow video groups, and the items performed better for these groups. the slideshow video groups had slightly higher scores, but a significant difference between slideshow video and captioned video to transmit feedback to students was not found. 58 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 48-59 harrison, j. 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(2021). a state-of-the-art review of the modes and effectiveness of multimedia input for second and foreign language learning. computer assisted language learning, 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2021.1896555 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.01004.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.01004.x file:///c:/users/muhammadwildan/downloads/ketabi,%20s.,%20&%20sadeghi,%20a.%20the%20effects%20of%20captioned%20slides%20on%20learning%20of%20english%20idiomatic%20expressions%20among%20efl%20intermediate%20learners.%20international%20journal%20of%20advanced%20studies%20in%20humanities%20and%20social%20science,%209(1),%201-20.%20https:/doi.org/10.33945/sami/ijashss.2020.1.1 https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.7.5.4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.08.025 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2021.03.007 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0272263120000042 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.12.020 https://doi.org/10.3138/jvme.0114-004r https://doi.org/10.1017/s0272263120000029 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2021.1896555 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 174-186 10.12928/eltej.v4i3.4904 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id beyond the written word: newspapers as critical literacy teaching tools in the south african classroom rockie sibanda university of johannesburg, department of languages, cultural studies and applied linguistics rsibanda@uj.ac.za a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 22 september 2021 revised 10 december 2021 accepted 30 december 2021 this paper provides the rationale and purpose for a critical literacy awareness strategy, implemented to 20 english second language students at a township secondary school in south africa. this empirical study provides insight into using newspapers as a pedagogical tool to develop students’ language and critical literacy skills. using different classroom activities and class discussions, the teacher helped the students to read beyond different texts and raised their awareness of different ideologies that inform texts. working in pairs and groups, the learners engaged with different genres of texts. in this study, special emphasis is promoting critical thinking for social justice where critical literacy is used as a tool to better understand and improve the world. findings of the study show students engaging in critical conversations without being directed into one way of thinking, which leads to significant improvement in their critical thinking. this further shows that texts that raise questions about different discourses can create an inclusive critical curriculum. it can be concluded that students can learn best when presented with a context they can identify with and are able to tap to their everyday experiences. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords critical literacy inclusive critical curriculum newspapers social justice south african township how to cite: sibanda, r. (2021). beyond the written word: newspapers as critical literacy teaching tools in the south african classroom. english language teaching educational journal, 4(3), 174-186. 1. introduction all over the world, newspapers provide people with valuable information. they can influence people’s way of thinking and modify their views. however, abbas and talaat (2019, p. 400) argue that “news printed is not a reality; it is a reality constructed and recapitulated”. newspapers are an ideological phenomenon underpinning reality and employ discursive means of power to do it (kress, 1985). as kress (1985) observes, in newspapers language is assigned certain linguistic terms, like lexes, phrases and sentences, by the one who uses it. the form it appears in newspapers is always assigned in a convincing way (kress, 1985). researchers have highlighted newspapers’ ability to shape peoples’ perceptions, manipulate and change beliefs (pratiwi, nofrahadi, pendri, komalasari & sumarlam. 2020). with prevalence of fake news all over the world, it is essential for teachers to equip students with critical tools and thinking skills to ask potent questions about texts’ accuracy, authority, attribution and purpose (the general teaching council for scotland, 2018). the term “fake news” is not new (tandoc, lim & ling, 2017). modern discourse, particularly media reporting, define fake news as viral posts based on fabricated accounts made to sound like genuine news reports (tandoc, et. al., 2017). according to allcott and gentzkow (2017), fake news can be defined as “news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead readers” (p. 213). a case in question is the current reporting on covid-19, as the world is still in grips of the pandemic. there is a lot of fake news in http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:rsibanda@uj.ac.za http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v4i3.4904&domain=pdf http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9578-6031 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 175 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 174-186 sibanda, r. (beyond the written word) circulation regarding how the virus is spread, particularly in africa (ahinkorah, ameyaw, hagan, seidu & schack, 2020). although media plays an important role to connect governments, health workers, and the public by reporting the news and information (mintarsih, kodrat, & emiliasari, 2020), rigorous education campaigns are required to dispel myths surrounding covid-19. students in particular need to be equipped with analytical and critical thinking skills to enable them to make informed decisions on what is credible news. a survey conducted on 12 to 15 year old children in uk found that 20 per cent of [them] placed complete trust in the accuracy of the news sources reported online (ofcom 2016). in addition, picton and teravainen (2017) found that children in england lack “critical literacy skills to enable them to analyse, problematise or ‘read between the lines’ of on-line and off-line texts”. as luke (2014) advises, critical literacy should encourage critical engagement with texts, discourses and modes of information, which stone (2017) describes as ‘vital aspect of the literacy skillset’. consequently, critical literacy should go beyond mere thinking. entrenched in “critical social theories” of paulo freire (1972), critical literacy should teach students to question and challenge general assumptions made in texts by analysing language and power. shor, matusov, marjanovic-shane and cresswell (2017) advocate critical pedagogy that goes beneath surface meaning as students reflect instead of expecting the educator to explain for them what things mean and what to believe. critical literacy should help students develop to active, knowledgeable citizens who are able to “read both the word and the world critically” (freire, 1972). in the classroom, we should promote a critical literacy approach in which students strive to analyse texts for bias. it is vital for students to be able to identify bias because it is a key aspect of being critically literate, which is more than merely identifying stereotype (gtc, n.d). being able to analyse facts to form a judgment is the core of critical thinking when students develop the ability to critique the logic of texts. this study draws on some interesting activities for promoting critical thinking in the language classroom suggested by hughes (2014), including: 1) developing a critical mind set; 2) evaluating the reliability of sources; 3) stance; 4) fact or opinion; 5) reading between the lines; 6) writing headlines and 7) predicting the content of the text. there is an assumption that texts, as constructions, contain points of view of the writer or producer, which should be understood by the reader. as gainer (2012) advises, individual readers should unpack the socially constructed nature of literacy, to assist them uncover the profound meaning of texts. as a tool to achieve social justice, it is hoped that by applying the frameworks of inquiry, reflection and action, marginalised students can be transformed to critical thinkers who can voice their struggles (luke, 2012). equally and lightly, as lankshear and mclaren (1993, p. xviii) put it: in addressing critical literacy, we are concerned with the extent to which, the ways in which, actual and possible social practices and conceptions of reading and writing enable human subjects to understand and engage the politics of daily life in the quest for more truly democratic social order. this study embraces lankshear and mclaren’s notion of critical literacy with special attention to social practices. by problematizing the texts read in class, students can embark on a path of social consciousness that examines texts beyond surface impressions, traditional myths, and clichés. for comber (1993), the objectives of reading media texts as social practice focus on (1) helping students reposition themselves as researchers of language; (2) pushing students to understand and respect their resistance to mainstream interpretations of text and exploring minority culture constructions of literacy and language use; and (3) problematizing classroom and public texts. by linking texts to their life experiences, the students provide evidence of this being put into practice in the teaching/learning experiences addressed in the paper. for isabel braadbaart, “critical literacy can be used as a tool for understanding and improving the world” (gtc, n.d). as vasquez (2017) suggests, “reading of any text is mediated through our day-to-day experience and the places, spaces, and languages that we encounter, use, and occupy”. critical reading should help students to unpack “myths and distortions and building new ways of knowing and acting upon the world” (luke, 2014, p. 22). according to janks (2014), “different times and different places have their own inequities and iniquities that merit critical interrogation and intervention because interpretations reflect social inequities”. there is growing global interest in critical interest as shown in the work of janks (2019) in south africa, comber (2015; 2016) in australia and vasquez (2017) in canada. seminal works of these scholars have significantly shaped current understanding of ‘doing’ critical literacy. though there is rising classroom-based research to support learners’ development of criticality, not much has been done about teaching critical literacy in south african classrooms. few classroom-based studies have 176 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 174-186 sibanda, r. (beyond the written word) been conducted, with most available classroom research focusing on school literacy practices and what occurs outside the classroom (lloyd, 2016; mckinney, 2011; makoe, 2014; janks, 2014). notably, janks (2014) has argued that teachers should connect the text they bring to class to students' daily lives. this paper reports on how secondary school students begin to develop critical literacy as part of a larger teaching critical literacy awareness project. the critical reading intervention strategy was implemented to grade 12 english second language students, at a township school in south africa. the project aimed to add to pedagogical developments in teaching critical literacy and language skills. though critical literacy is recommended in the south african school curriculum, there is ambiguity on its implementation. lack of official direction for south african language teachers is problematic because it limits potential for critical literacy teaching. therefore, students miss on acquiring critical literacy skills. by choosing the newspapers as pedagogical tool, the study aimed to uncover how students view the world and understand how newspapers “link to the real-life” (braadbaart, 2017). the expected conclusion of this study is demonstrate that students can potentially develop to active readers in the esl classroom. from a critical literacy perspective, (freire, 1972) students are invited to read beyond the texts. thus, on their reading and writing students should reflect various viewpoints and possibilities as they scrutinise “texts and their discourse structures as principle means for representing and reshaping possible worlds” (luke, 2014, p. 10). 1.2 theoretical frameworks different frameworks are suggested to create critical literacy awareness. luke and freebody (1999) suggest a ‘four resources model’ for classroom practice. one of luke and freebody’s suggested roles for the reader is that of ‘text analyst’ that they describe as central to critical literacy development. this critical view recognises how “cultural dimensions of meaning are ascribed to texts and their production” (kalir & garcia, 2019). in addition, this study uses fairclough’s (2013, 2014) critical discourse analysis (cda). in this approach to text analysis, fairclough (2013) offers one of the most influential frameworks for studying media language that interrogates language and power relations in texts, which is useful in teaching critical reading to language learners. cda critiques assumptions about power and how language can provide a deeper understanding of power relations in society (bogum, 2017). one main subject of investigation in cda is the presence of ideology in texts, which emanates from critical linguistics. when interrogating language we analyze the imbalanced powers found in texts (roberge, 2013). several scholars view power as central tenet of critical literacy (freire, 1972; gee, 2015; morrell, 2017). for luke (2012, p. 5), critical literacy is “concerned with teaching learners to understand and manage the relationship between language and power by focusing on how texts work and in whose interests”. critical literacy is inherently political because of its main concern with language and power (farrar & stone, 2019). notably, janks’ (2014) framing of critical literacy integrates language and power. 1.3 classroom applications of critical literacy luke (2014) views critical literacy as an “overtly political orientation to teaching and learning and to the cultural, ideological and sociolinguistic content of the curriculum” (p. 22). as jordao and fogaca (2012) note, critical literacy awareness should be more about understanding texts, rather than adapting readers to texts. this can develop students to active participants in the meaning-making process of reading texts, not simple passive replicators of norms. the benefit of critical literacy, as jordao and fogaca (2012) see it, is developing students’ ability to see themselves, as well as seeing others, in a given text and thus gaining a deeper, more critical understanding of the way the world and how they are positioned in the world. in this regard, research on critical reading is vital for advancing the field of critical literacy awareness. therefore, this study engages the concern that critical reading can equip students with critical literacy skills. notably, the present study focuses on the use of different genres of texts to promote critical literacy awareness. specifically, it attempts to answer the following questions: issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 177 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 174-186 sibanda, r. (beyond the written word) 1. how does language position the readers and their construction of meaning? 2. how does the students’ critical reading influence their understanding of the world and their position in the world? 2. method 2.1. critical discourse analysis this article aims to demonstrate how critical discourse analysis (cda) can be applied as a conceptual framework for exploring teaching critical literacy using media discourse. however, this study is not predominantly aimed at demonstrating the application of cda but presenting results of the research project focusing on critical reading of selected texts. it explores how conventional and unconventional texts can used as pedagogical tools in the english classroom. here, the researcher explores mainly how newspapers can be used as pedagogical tools to teach students to be critical readers. the rationale is that newspapers are far reaching to different communities and, as a result, this accessibility and familiarity can have profound effect to students. 2.2. setting and participants the study was carried out with english second language students at a secondary school in topville township1, a former coloured2 residential area, west of johannesburg. townships are often underdeveloped segregated urban areas that were reserved for non-whites during the apartheid era (huchzermeyer, 2011). township schools are inherently poorly resourced. the 20 students in this study were aged between 17 and 19 years old. they were in grade 12, which is a high school exit level in south africa. 2.3. data collection and analysis procedure data were collected through class reading activities and students’ reflections on them. in this learning and teaching project, the students did several class activities in pairs and groups. in these activities, the students were given the opportunity to think critically about language and question authors’ intents as they read and analysed different texts including headlines, articles and a cartoon. the analysis process started with the researcher demonstrating how different newspaper headlines reflect different points of view and bias. after modelling the process, the students analysed newspaper headlines in pairs and constructed their own headlines, which they shared with the class. second, in groups of four, the students read articles from different local newspapers and identified salient discourses in them, which they reported to the whole class. this was followed by critical response to the same articles as the students wrote ‘letters to the editor’. last, the students analysed a political cartoon. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. newspaper headlines and bias when introducing critical literacy awareness, i aimed to teach my students to read beyond mere words in a text. to achieve this aim, i presented them with newspaper headlines from different south african newspapers. headlines are a valuable source for teaching because their distinctive syntactic properties determine a newspapers’ grammatical peculiarity (tabbert, 2015). of particular interest are their lexical choices (tabe & fieze, 2018) and “definable set of linguistic features” (bednarek & caple, 2012, pp. 100-104). apart from being studied for their clipped forms and conventional puns (molek-kozakowska, 2014), headlines have been noted for their potential to construct newsworthiness (bednarek & caple 2012). to answer the question, how does language position the reader and their construction of meaning?, the students read headlines from different local newspapers such as ‘daily sun’, ‘mail & guardian’, ‘sowetan’, ‘sunday times’ and ‘the star’. the main aim of the activity was for students 1 not real name 2 mixed race 178 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 174-186 sibanda, r. (beyond the written word) to identify linguistic features such as ellipsis, metaphor, pun and establish tone and point of view, including fact and opinion. first, the students inferred meanings of headlines when some words were added or omitted. second, they analysed metaphor as a linguistic device used to compress meaning in headlines (molek-kozakowska, 2014). despite metaphor being a linguistic feature, the students highlighted its potential to manipulate facts as one group noted: “the word ‘crucifiction’ in the headline pertaining to mr zuma, creates an impression of innocence, meant to win him public sympathy”. further, the students conceived the south african press as highly polarised around ethnicity. they revealed that the citizen mainly reported on cricket and rugby, which are popular among the south african white population, whereas sowetan mainly reported on soccer, which is popular among the black population who make up the majority of its readership. the students noted that newspapers such as ‘mail & guardian’, with a predominant white readership, mainly used complex language as compared to sowetan. this demonstrates how different newspapers use different lexes, forms and grammatical structures when reporting an event (abbas & talaat, 2019). important studies by huang (2011) and kumagai and iwasaki (2011) concluded that when students analysed choice of words and themes in texts, they developed critical responses by questioning worldviews and power relations implied therein. at the time this study was conducted, the most prominent news particularly related to rape allegations, which were made against mr jacob zuma, the deputy president of south africa at that time. mr jacob zuma was accused of raping a 31-year-old family friend who was hiv positive. however, he was later acquitted of the charge in a highly publicised controversial decision. the case dominated headlines of leading local and international newspapers. the students found the news on the zuma case most captivating because it was timeless. according to bell (1991), “the best news is something which has only just happened” (p. 156). the following selected sample of headlines in table 1 from different newspapers elicited interesting comments from students: table 1. sample of newspaper headlines relating to zuma case newspaper headlines relating to zuma case 1. zuma walks free from rape, corruption charges, sowetan, 22 december 2006 2. protesters clash at zuma trial. sowetan, 14 february, 2006 3. apologise to zuma. sunday times, 19 february, 2006 4. zuma supporters fan fires of ethnicity and disrespect. sowetan, 24 february 2006 5. supporters bay for blood. sowetan, 8 march 2006 6. 100% zuluboy. mail & guardian, 7–12 april 2006 7. i’m like christ – zuma. sowetan, 24 march 2006 from the above headlines, the students identified emotive words such as ‘walks free’, ‘clash’, and ‘fires’. when commenting on the simile, ‘i’m like christ’, they dismissed it as ‘zuma being carried away with cheap popularity’. on the headline ‘zuma walks free from rape, corruption charges’ the students observed “it creates an impression that the case was just nothing. typical of our politicians. they can get away with anything”. when analysing the headline, ‘zuma supporters bay for blood’, they noted, “the metaphor creates an image of blood-thirsty supporters who can kill for their leader”. after analysing the newspaper headlines, the students constructed ‘their own’ headlines expressing pro and anti-zuma sentiments as illustrated in table2. table 2. students’ newspaper headlines relating to zuma case students’ headlines anti-zuma pro-zuma 1. zuma to blame 2. zuma justly accused 3. zuma to face the music 4. it never pours but rains for zuma 5. zuma knocking at the jail’s door 6. the rise and fall of zuma 7. zuma is a fallen zero 8. zuma blamed again 9. zuma falsely accused 10. zuma sings his way to court 11. all will pass for zuma 12. zuma will never see the jail’s door 13. zuma rises from the ashes 14. zuma, the people’s hero issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 179 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 174-186 sibanda, r. (beyond the written word) the selected sample of headlines shows students’ attempt at criticality and demonstrate how different points of view can create bias. most of the headlines were metaphorical idioms and clichés with pun. for example, they described the headline zuma knocking at the jail’s door as pun to randy crawford’s version of the song, knocking on the heaven’s door. the different lexical choices in the students’ headlines portray different points of view. 3.2. newspaper articles after working with newspaper headlines, i assumed that my students were ready to deal with longer texts – newspaper articles. this was an attempt at answering the question, how does the students’ critical reading influence their understanding of the world and their position in the world? the newspaper articles were meant to expose the students to more media language. according to bell (1991), media language can be studied sociolinguistically, in ways that illuminate the sociocultural analysis of news. although bell’s work is typical ‘variationist’ sociolinguistics, it illustrates connections between linguistic features and capricious aspects of social context. the main contribution of this perspective is about news discourse (bednarek & caple, 2012). some researchers conceive news discourse in purely linguistic terms, focusing upon semiotic codes and conventions which other analysts consider as multimodal or “multisemiotic” (drid, 2019). as drid (2019) observes, inclusion of semiotic system of images contributes to the construction of reality as additional cardinal constituents. in groups of four, the students analysed news articles from the local press. they chose articles, which, in news industry context, have news values (bell, 1991; bednarek & caple, 2012, 2014; potts, bednarek & caple, 2015). the students engaged with word choice, commonly termed ‘political correct’ language as one group noted: “at times journalist use language that does not hurt our feelings. for us who live in shacks, they call them ‘informal settlements’”. to broaden their criticality, the students chose different newspaper articles relating to the zuma case in order to establish different points of view. they identified pro and anti-zuma sentiments conveyed in the articles. because some of the articles were written before the case went to trial, the students speculated the outcome of the case. those written after mr zuma was acquitted of the rape charges provided impetus for students to debate the merits and demerits of the case. in an open class discussion, the students made very interesting comments. i found the following comments very interesting: extract 1: comments on jacob zuma articles mandy: i think that zuma is not a good example to us youngsters. he must be punished for his crime. he betrayed the trust of a poor woman who is hiv positive. nono: i think there is more to this case than just rape. the writer of the article i read seems to think that zuma is guilty because she hates him. let’s wait for the court outcome the students’ different points of view demonstrate some critical thinking. for example, when expressing strong conviction that mr zuma is guilty, mandy uses the modal verb ‘must’, which acts as an imperative in her utterance. janks (2010) provides examples of how choice of modal can help students express themselves imperatively or tentatively. however, nono is critical of an article that she believes was biased against mr zuma. the students’ contrasting views illustrate different reading positions (janks, 2010). they develop to “autonomous thinkers who can engage in a constructive scepticism” (daniel & auriac 2011, p. 420). the researcher’s aim in article reading activity was to teach students to read ‘with’ or ‘against’ texts (janks, 2010). as janks (2019) advises, to read with the text, is more than decoding a text but requires the reader to understand the rhetorical context, which includes knowing when, where, why, and to whom the utterance was addressed. after reading and analysing newspaper articles, the students developed their own texts. they wrote letters to the editor in response to particular articles they read. some researchers have underlined the importance of not only analysing texts but also designing and producing them (luke, 2013; janks, 2010) as well as understand the position(s) from which we design and produce them (janks, 2010; vasquez, 2017). janks (2010) highlights the need for students to “produce texts that matter to them in different formats and for different audiences and purposes [and] allow them to draw on and extend their range of semiotic resources” (p. 156). 180 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 174-186 sibanda, r. (beyond the written word) 3.3. the political cartoon studies on media discourse have emphasized the importance of the political cartoon to express points of view or ideas (marín-arrese, 2019; mondry, 2017; hasanah, & hidayat, 2020). a). cartoons often have exaggerated, entertaining and informative content (hasanah, & hidayat, 2020). the cartoon provides a link between image and text, what fairclough (2014) terms ‘intertextual analysis’ of news discourse within the paradigm of cda. according to hammett (2018), political cartoons provide literary spaces in which negotiations of power and resistance are expressed. research has shown that using a cartoon in the classroom can have significant impact on critical thinking and student learning (yin & fitzgerald, 2017). in doing critical literacy, janks (2014) presents classroom strategies to demonstrate how images can re/produce ideologies/discourses. her model of critical literacy creates space for readers to start to question things that they took for granted and notice things they used to ignore. for textual and semiotic analysis of images, the students chose the jacob zuma cartoon (figure 1) because of the controversial ‘reading’ they anticipated it would invite. the controversial zuma cartoon appeared in a johannesburg newspaper, the star, on 9 may 2006, after mr jacob zuma was acquitted of the rape charges. mr zuma maintained his innocence throughout the trial and it was reported that he was suing leading newspapers and radio stations for 63 million rands (approx. us$4m), claiming that their coverage and satirising of his trial was defamatory and biased (the guardian, 2006). during the zuma trial, a lot was speculated about the outcome of the case. many people felt that mr zuma should have been found guilty. on the contrary, his supporters alleged that he was falsely accused. some students like lebo, viewed zapiro, the cartoonist, as prejudiced against zuma, “i don’t like the tone in zapiro’s cartoon. it shows disrespect for the president”. a caption on a photo in one newspaper read, “crucifiction: zuma insists that the media and his detractors want to nail him to the cross” (sowetan 24 march 2006). commenting on the caption the students equated it to propagandistic journalism (benkler, faris, & roberts, 2018) meant to sensationalise the case, which hasanah and hidayat (2020) consider as just portraying the view of cartoonists about a specific topic or current issues. the students made interesting comments regarding the showerhead on the cartoon, which depicted what was reported zuma said in his defence for having unprotected sex. they quizzed, “we think mr zuma is out of touch with reality. how can he think that taking a shower after having unprotected sex can prevent him from getting hiv?” the showerhead was conceived a lexicon of humour, as one student suggested, “zapiro’s showerhead will haunt him for life”. as students’ comments demonstrate, although the alleged rape was mr zuma’s private life, it was inextricably linked to his public life, which was a concern to south africans. the cartoon (see fig.1) seemed to fascinate the students because of their prior knowledge of the case that it satirised. as mondry (2017) asserts “the power of the political cartoon lies not in the specific artist's intent or success at fostering change but in the degree to which, and how, the cartoonist taps the collective consciousness of readers” (p. 79). in this activity, the students examined how the semiotic aspect of the cartoon complimented or replaced the linguistic texts. they further demonstrated how satire in cartoon can be used as news commentary, exemplifying intertextuality (nordquist, 2021), as texts ‘rub up against one another’ (newfield, 2011). the ability to analyse satire demonstrated the students’ ability to engage with widespread themes such as gender-based violence. in their textual and semiotic analysis of the cartoon they reflected how it profiled the account of events surrounding mr. zuma’s case: 1) zuma emerges victorious from the high court and brandishing two fingers as a sign of victory – is this victory? we think the judge set zuma free because of fear that his imprisonment would cause a civil war. he is a powerful man with a lot of influence on his supporters who follow him blindly 2) although zuma believes that his image is credible, we question his credibility. in addition to his infidelity, how can he have unprotected sex at this day and age? 3) the gun signifies violence. the positioning of the gun is interesting – it is positioned in front of his private parts. it has a double meaning. the machine gun is part of zuma’s mantra song umshini wami 3 4) the shower-head signifies what zuma said about having a shower to prevent him contracting hiv after having unprotected sex. we think that taking a shower may also mean that he was trying to wash away his sin/ crime. it is like pilate in the bible 5) the cartoon depicts zuma/ zulu culture as a manifestation 3 my gun issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 181 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 174-186 sibanda, r. (beyond the written word) of male chauvinism. this last point demonstrates the students attempt at locating the discourse of gender relations within distorted zulu culture. fig. 1. jacob zuma cartoon. (source: http://www.mg.co.za/contentimage/2561/09-may06x.gif ) the class discussion shifted from the cartoon to the case itself as the students expressed great concern with finding mr zuma not guilty. they perceived the south african law as condoning the abuse of women. important, they were highly critical of the reported conduct of zuma’s supporters (mostly women) who were demonstrating outside the johannesburg high court during the trial and chanting ‘burn the bitch!’ meanwhile, inside the courtroom, zuma’s lawyers were ‘grilling’ khwezi4, the woman who brought the case against mr zuma (dempster, 2006). it was reported that mr zuma’s lawyers questioned the accuser’s sexual history – making public ‘the prurient details for the whole world to hear’ (dempster, 2006). one student questioned the ‘double standards’ of the ruling african national congress (anc) women’s league, “the women’s league is usually vocal on sexual abuse matters. why did they treat another woman this way?” the class queried mr zuma’s supporters for not questioning his moral indiscretion of infidelity and having unprotected sex. for the students, mr zuma’s controversial life seemed to spill over to the scenes of his supporters outside the court. thando, the most opinionated girl in the class, scorned, “i think those clowns who were dancing in the street in support of zuma have blind faith like boxer in ‘animal farm’”. reference to the docile character in george orwell’s allegory, reflects criticality of lack of reasoning. another girl, lusanda, presented a controversial divergent view, “with a rape case, no one will ever know the real truth except the two, the alleged rapist and the victim”. this thought-provoking view may remind us of conception of witchcraft, in arthur miller’s the crucible, as ipso facto because the witch cannot accuse herself (sic) so the court relies on the victim. an interesting view on gender-based violence emerged in a strong worded letter to the editor written by thembi, one of the most outspoken students in the class: what we read in the newspapers is an example of how men misuse their libido and power. they just let it run amok as they abuse powerless women. all these fat cats are the same. look at how goniwe harassed his 21-year-old secretary for refusing to sleep with him. and bill clinton too, how he took advantage of poor monica. for thembi, ‘fat cats’, refers to rich people, particularly politicians, who amass wealth through dubious means. this reminds me of an interesting poster, which i saw at botswana-south africa 4 not her real name http://www.mg.co.za/contentimage/2561/09-may06x.gif 182 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 174-186 sibanda, r. (beyond the written word) border post. the poster bore an image of handcuffs and a stark warning message, one size fits all, even the fat cats. the ‘goniwe’ case, involved mbulelo goniwe, a prominent member of the anc, whom it was alleged wanted to sleep with his 21-year-old parliamentary intern. when the intern refused, he allegedly scorned her, “i thought you were a real xhosa girl. how can you say ‘no’ to your chief whip as if i am an ordinary man?” (commission on gender equality report, 2006). the students condemned goniwe’s actions, as based on distorted xhosa culture where a woman is not expected to refuse any man’s sexual advances as rose moteme, a famous south african actor notes “many men think it’s fine to grope a woman’s bum, lick someone’s cleavage or make sexist jokes. and women are often too scared to stand up for themselves” (sunday times, 11 december 2005). similarly, one student in the class made a worrying remark, questioning the ‘normalisation’ of rape, “in our community rape is like a common culture. many girls are violated and nothing happens to rapists. boys don’t take ‘no’ for an answer”. such comments demonstrate that sexual violence is a widespread sociocultural problem within south african communities. mbuyiselwa botha of ‘south african men’s forum against violence’ has uncovered two divergent views about the discourse of sexual violence: a worrying social issue and the belief that it is a eurocentric idea with no place in african context where a man can decide how, when and where to have sex. according to rachel jewkes5, “rape is more common in countries with more pronounced gender hierarchy and in a culture where violence is used to exert dominance”. as these views suggest, the abuse of women lies in a complex mix of factors, more to do with gender inequality and distorted cultural perceptions of what ‘no’ means. as slovenian philosopher slavoj žižek, reminds us, “[the] point here is not that sometimes no doesn’t mean no. it always means no” (bulajewski, 2020) [emphasis not in original text]. the prominent cases of sexual and gender-based violence (sgbv) cited by the students suggest awareness that the discourse of sgbv is much bigger than their township. comparing the goniwe case with the prominent clinton-lewinsky affair demonstrates familiarity with world affairs. in the goniwe case, the 21-year-old intern was reported to have snubbed goniwe’s advances, whereas the then 22-year-old lewinsky was alleged to have ‘consented’ to president clinton’s advances. however, controversy surrounds the perception that the lewinsky affair was a case of two consenting adults as one boy in the class remarked, “how could monica say no to the president, the most powerful man in america”. in this regard, labelling lewinsky a ‘consenting adult’, seems to underplay the disproportions between the president and an intern (lewinsky, 2018). in lewinsky’s (2018) view, “given the power differential at play, it is not clear that such a relationship could ever be truly, fully consensual”. for lewinsky, her relationship with clinton was “littered with inappropriate abuse of authority [and] privilege”. in 2018, a similar high profile sexual abuse case that dominated south african headlines and gender violence discourse involved nigerian-born pastor omotoso and 23-year-old cheryl zondi. cheryl described in harrowing detail how the 60-year-old pastor allegedly sexually groomed and molested her several times, from the time she was 14 years old (biyela, 2019). what emerged from the case was the lack of sensitivity by the courts towards gender-based violence victims. the adversarial tactic used by defense lawyers, which was witnessed at the zuma trial, resurfaced at the cheryl zondi case. in an attempt to discredit cheryl’s credibility, the defense lawyers asked her how ‘deep’ omotoso penetrated her, a tactic not only meant to humiliate and scare her but likely to make her relive the traumatic experience of the alleged molestation. the rudimentary treatment of sexual abuse victims in south african courts and low conviction rate of perpetrators is likely to send messages of hopelessness to several women. for many south africans, particularly women and children who are victims of sexual violence, the message is clear “silence might be a better option” (dempster, 2006). in south africa, the extent of sgbv is not exactly known because only a few incidents are reported to authorities (jewkes & dartnall, 2017). results of a 2017 survey conducted in gauteng showed that only about 1 in 23 women who were sexually abused reported the cases to the police (rsa 2020). after undertaking the critical reading activity, menzi wrote a letter to the editor, which partly read, ‘all these stories tell of the sick and miserable life we face in the townships. it’s scary, these killings, 5 the institute of war and peace 6 may, 2006 report issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 183 vol. 4, no. 3, 2021, pp. 174-186 sibanda, r. (beyond the written word) rapes, theft […] they are like daily bread”. menzi’s views are epitomic to crime prone south african townships. in addition, the students were empathic to the plight of khwezi, the woman who brought the case against mr zuma. one girl, nosizwe, wrote, ‘people in high office abuse women and get away with it’. another student, giddy was more emotive, “when doing these activities, i was able to identify the sad mood and tone in the emotive language the reporters use. i real feel that i am a helpless victim of crime. it’s sad and it makes me cry”. findings of this study mirror the students’ everyday experiences. reference to prominent sgbv cases do not necessarily mirror previous studies but demonstrate the students’ ability to articulate their thoughts and feelings in critical engagement with social events resonating with their personal experiences. the students demonstrate awareness of how deep-seated is the problem of sexual abuse, globally, and attempt to locate the discourse of sexual abuse within township culture. 4. conclusion in this study, the researcher hoped to encourage critical reading of newspapers and other texts in and outside the classroom. although the students seemed to deviate from the primary aim of the critical reading project, lessons can be drawn on their critical discussion of social problems they encounter in their lives. as pedagogical tools, newspapers express controversial issues that students can examine from different perspectives. the activities carried out by the students proved productive in introducing them to critical reading. every experience the students gained in each activity influenced their performance in the next one. the activities helped them understand the broader narrative of news. it can be concluded that the activities encouraged criticality because they related very closely to the students’ experiences and scope of understanding. the students were even able to analyse the cartoon, a highly abbreviated literary genre. drawing on fairclough’s (2014) concept of dialectical relationship between discourse and society, the students’ responses reveal that their critical literacy was developed. they were able to challenge deep-rooted discourses of male chauvinism and cultural misrepresentation. it is recommended that effective teaching should create an inclusive critical curriculum. central to this curriculum is teaching what students may find relevant to their life experiences. as such, topics, issues and questions they may raise should spark interest in learning and further research. declaration author contribution : the author was in charge of conceptualization, data collection, data transcription. funding statement : the research is funded under no research project. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information: no additional information is available for this paper. references abbas, m. a., & talaat, m. 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https://www.gtcs.org.uk/news/teaching-scotland/72-critical-literacy.aspx http://education.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore%20/9780190264093.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264093-%20e-20 http://education.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore%20/9780190264093.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264093-%20e-20 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5131 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id “don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl among hearing/speaking-impaired netizens venus r. parmisanaa,1* and cristine grace badillab,2 a,b department of english, mindanao state universityiligan institute of technology, philippines 1venus.parmisana@g.msuiit.edu.ph* * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t article history received 13 november 2021 revised 3 january 2022 accepted 16 february 2022 negotiating meaning can be difficult for the deaf-mute people when being in the hearing and speaking world. social media offers a platform where the deaf and the mute can engage in meaningful conversations among themselves and between people with hearing and speaking abilities. this paper determined the paralinguistic signals that the deafmute students employed in their facebook posts. using descriptivequalitative research design, the study analyzed the lexico-semantic features of their language and how both paralinguistic and linguistic aspects contribute to the negotiation of conceptual meaning. the results revealed that paralinguistic signals are found in emojis, punctuation mark repeats, onomatopoeic spelling, accent stylization, intensification, hashtag and combinations. these signals function to give emphasis or intensify intonation. an emoji is the predominant paralinguistic signal used to compensate the lack of words to express feelings. in addition, distinct lexico-semantic features observed in the data include the incorrect position of words, incorrect lexical choice, redundancy, and insertion of prepositions or the lack thereof. these features do not carry a specific function in negotiating meaning because understanding the semantic content of a message is possible either with or without comprehension of the syntax. semantic comprehension is not expected to help in the acquisition of the syntactic system because it may be accomplished through the recognition of isolated lexical items and interpretation of non-linguistic cues. finally, paralinguistic signals and computer-mediated communication for the deaf-mute across generation and race can be considered for future directions of the study and appropriate technological tools may be designed to automate errors found in the social media posts of the deaf-mute. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords deaf-mute paralinguistic signals negotiation of meaning lexico-semantic features english as a second language computer-mediated communication how to cite: parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (2022). “don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl among hearing/speaking-impaired netizens. english language teaching educational journal, 5(1), 75-90. 1. introduction a deaf and mute person communicating with another person of the same disability, either schooled or trained, has no problem expressing his thoughts as they can understand each other. research shows that when a person without a hearing or speaking disability tries to communicate with a deaf-mute, he or she faces communication issues that either one or both can try to use many ways to express intended meaning; otherwise, negotiate meaning. brice and strauss (2016) postulated that the deaf are often faced with the additional challenge of managing these adaptations in a hearing world, where communication and access to information, especially about their social world, are incomplete at best and nonexistent at worst. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5131 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0203-2949 about:blank http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5131&domain=pdf 76 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) the deaf uses strategies to reach his or her communication goals or targets. these strategies can be observed in the use of sign language, body language and facial expressions. all over the world, a widely used type of sign language is the american sign language (asl). the national institute on deafness and other communication disorder (nidcd) of the united states espoused that american sign language is a complete, natural language that has the same linguistic properties as spoken languages, with grammar that differs from english (nidcd, 2019). asl is expressed by movements of the hands and face. it is the primary language of many north americans who are deaf and hard of hearing and is used by many hearing people as well. in recent years, studies have shown that deaf-mute people have wanted to integrate fully into the larger society (marschark, m., & knoors, h., 2012) by communicating, for example, to accommodate an audience (pizer, walters, & meier, 2012). cabalfin, et al (2012) reported that “the deaf community remains widely marginalized from the mainstream of society, lagging behind recognized disadvantaged groups such as peasants, urban poor, fisher folk and indigenous peoples”. for many years, deaf-mute people have struggled to find their place in a hearing world. one of these struggles is that deaf people cannot easily be discerned from the hearing majority so they can choose to assimilate and try to blend in with the speaking and hearing community. in trying to assimilate, they would use platforms that can make them blend with the mainstream and where they can communicate like people without disabilities. one of the platforms is the internet, specifically the social media. saunders (2016) posited that scholars in deaf studies also took notice of how the internet and social media interacted with the lives of deaf people in society, academic environments, the workplace, and at home. moreover, communication recently has evolved from personal to virtual interaction and which interest many researchers especially in the field of language (quindala & omongos, 2018). communication can be done through social media. there were numerous channels that deaf-mute used to express or convey their messages. deaf-mute individuals might lack the ability to hear and speak, but these disabilities could not hinder them from learning how to communicate in social media where most of the individuals nowadays are inclined to. this study sees the need to explore the mainstream media, that is facebook, used by majority of the people to communicate including the deaf and the mute. the relevance of the study lies in understanding the paralinguistic and linguistic aspects of how the deaf-mute communicate as they try to negotiate meaning when communicating within their peers in their community. this study, therefore aimed to contribute to the existing literature in the field of language strategies and language negotiation of the deaf-mute. the result of the study shall serve as basis of information as well as motivation for creating instructional materials for the students with special needs, especially in line with unesco’s “education for all” campaign (unesco, 2015) 1.1.research questions: the study sought to identify the paralinguistic signals found in the facebook status of the deaf-mute individuals. also, it sought to recognize the peculiarity of their language through examining its lexico-semantic features and analyzed how these paralinguistic and linguistic features function as to how meaning is negotiated in the filipino deaf-mute community on facebook. specifically, these questions guided the study: 1. what paralinguistic signals are found in the facebook status of the deaf-mute individuals? 2. what are the lexico-semantic features of the deaf-mute language? 3. how does each paralinguistic and linguistic feature function in the negotiation of meaning among the deaf-mute speech community? 1.2.theoretical and conceptual framework this study employed grice’s theory of conversation which was deliberated in thurlow and poff’s (2013), the three key pragmatic maxims of text message style. from these theory and maxims, the categories for the patterns of paralinguistic signals were based on the related studies of elizondo’s issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 77 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) (2011): not 2 cryptic 2dcode: paralinguistic restitution, deletion, and non-standard orthography in text messages and balgoa and embradura’s (2014): restitution in computer-mediated communication: encoding paralinguistic signals in facebook posts. these studies postulated that like in text messaging, facebook users apply paralinguistic restitutions in their posts to compensate for the loss of paralinguistic signals such as facial expressions, gestures, and pitch, among others. these paralinguistic signals can be classified into the use of (1) emoticons, (2) punctuation mark repeats, (3) non-conventional spelling, (4) onomatopoeic spelling, (5) markers, and (6) combinations (elizondo, 2011). fig. 1. venn diagram showing the theories grounded for the paralinguistic restitution of deaf-mute fb users fig. 2. schematic diagram showing the categories of the paralinguistic signals the following paralinguistic signals are conceptualized and defined in the said previous studies and were employed in the present study. 78 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) 1. emoticons are facial expressions represented by a combination of punctuation mark, letters or other characters, that when viewed resembles a facial expression or, more rarely, gestures (amaghlobeli, 2012). 2. punctuation mark repeats which are used as markers on when to stop, to pause, and to emphasize, among others. aside from facial expressions and gestures, people speak with sound level variations; both tone of voice and rate change; while punctuation repeats are used to achieve similar effect 3. non-conventional spelling deals with accent stylization, euphemization, and intensification. elizondo (2011) argued that non-conventional spelling as a paralinguistic cue is used largely because people wanted to embed their accent in written discourse, for accent stylization. (a) accent stylization refers to words that are spelled in accordance with informal regional speech; e.g. "wanna/want", "gonna/going to" and "dat/that" (crystal, 2008 cited in balgoa & embradura, 2014); (b) euphemization uses non-standard spelling to weaken or neutralize a somewhat strong and harsh word; (c) intensification intensifies normal text by (a) vowel/consonant extension or (b) capslocking. 4. onomatopoeic spelling endeavors to reproduce sounds by means of written language; 5. markers comprising (a) the asterisk (*) which functions to signal an action being done or present a character in a post; (b) the hashtag (#), used to prefix names of channels and groups for convenient searching and to group related subjects and facebook later adapted its use; (c) parentheses ( ) are used to include material to de-emphasize something or include otherwise that which does not normally fit into the flow of your text; and, 6. combinations occur when two or more paralinguistic cues are employed simultaneously. under the use of combinations, we have (1) capslocking and onomatopoeic spelling, (2) capslocking and vowel/consonant extension, (3) capslocking and punctuation marks, (4) capslocking and accent stylization, (5) onomatopoeic spelling and punctuation marks, and (6) vowel/consonant extension and accent stylization, among others. fig. 3. fig. 3. conceptual framework in analyzing the negotiation of meaning of the deaf-mute fb users 1.3. filipino deaf-mute and their language use in computer-mediated communication there are only several recent milestone studies on the visual-spatial language of the filipino deaf community (i.e., filipino sign language or fsl) initiated by filipinos themselves. in the seventies and eighties, publications by north american writers, drew largely from american sign language (asl, n.d.) and artificial sign systems to publish highly prescriptive material. the earliest descriptive works are comprised by the pioneering research of liza martinez on the sociolinguistics and structure of fsl beginning in the early nineties. to date, the most comprehensive linguistics reference was initiated by martinez herself (martinez, 2012). past studies in de la salle university, for example, with potential contributions to sign language recognition and its applications are strongly motivated by the presence of a large tertiary level program for deaf students in its academic system. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 79 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) sign linguistics research in the country is at a young state that filipino sign language (fsl) has only recently begun to be documented. the philippine government is yet to officially recognize fsl in the language domains of schools, courtrooms, the workplace, hospitals, and mass media. in the community, both deaf and hearing filipinos may still disregard fsl as an authentic linguistic entity and that despite the considerable research efforts for nearly two decades, the language and its users remain at the periphery of filipino society. the philippine deaf resource center espoused that language policy is virtually non-existent for sign language use (pdrc, n.d.). thus, this study also showed their use of language specifically in written communication and computer-mediated communication. hearing loss or deafness does not affect a person’s intellectual capacity or ability to learn. however, as quoted in the study entitled deafness and hearing loss: a publication of nichcy disability (2010), “children who are hard of hearing or deaf generally require some form of special education services to receive an adequate education”. in addition, people who are hard of hearing will find it much more difficult than those who have normal hearing to learn vocabulary, grammar, word order, idiomatic expressions, and other aspects of verbal communication. laugen, jacobsen, rieffe, and wichstrøm (2017) claimed that children who are deaf or hard of hearing (dhh) are at greater risk for developmental delays and difficulties than their peers with typical hearing (th) for children who are deaf or have severe hearing losses, early, consistent, and conscious use of visible communication modes (such as sign language, fingerspelling, and cued speech) and/or amplification and aural/oral training can help reduce this language delay. by age four or five, most children who are deaf are enrolled in school on a full-day basis and do special work on communication and language development. it is suggested therefore that teachers and audiologists to work together to teach the child to use his or her residual hearing to the maximum extent possible, even if the preferred means of communication is manual. people with hearing loss use oral or manual means of communication or a combination of the two. oral communication includes speech, lip-reading, and the use of residual hearing while manual communication involves signs and fingerspelling. one focus of researchers has been the syntactical structure of sentences written by d/hh students. regardless of students’ educational placements, researchers have reported positive changes in measures of syntactical structure with increasing age; however, deaf students or sign-only children make slower progress than hearing children (yoshinaga-itano & snyder, 1985, in bornstein 2018; antia, 2020), and the frequency of production of several syntactical structures differs significantly from that of the hearing comparison group (yoshinaga-itano et al., 1996, as cited in bronstein, 2018). in addition to the syntax of written language, authors have found that deaf students exhibit difficulty with the cohesion of ideas in writing. yoshinagaitano and her colleagues (yoshinaga-itano et al., 1996, in bornstein 2018) analyzed the written essays of deaf children and reported that they were able to communicate main ideas but did not elaborate or provide details in their writing. the text they produced had few redundancies and a few cohesive devices to tie text together. maxwell and falick (in hartman, nickolarakis & wang, 2019), examining written essays of deaf-mute students between grades four and eight in special schools, found that although both deaf-mute and hearing students increased their use of cohesion as grade level increased, the deaf-mute students’ lexical cohesions consisted mainly of word repetition. these authors also found that the deaf students’ compositions were less frequently conceptually linked than those of hearing students. therefore, it is important to consider where we have been, what progress we have made in these domains, and how they fit with the reality of deaf children today most especially that some of these individuals are also engaging themselves in communicating into social media and other online activities, also known as computermediated communication (cmc). the internet becomes a platform for communication and exchange of ideas, social and cultural values, political beliefs, expressing opinions and attitudes, and promoting civil activism (kostic & vilic, 2016). the internet is indeed an interactive and dynamic world that it has enormously and significantly changed our behavior in communication (balgoa & embradura 2014). 1.4.negotiation of meaning ellis (2008) regarded negotiation as a kind of discourse management strategy that can be exploited to address both communication and linguistic issues. accordingly, he distinguished between negotiation of meaning and negotiation of form and described the different objects these two strategies 80 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) were targeted at: while negotiation of form attempted to resolve the linguistic problem in the speech of a learner, negotiation of meaning was “the collaborative work which speakers undertake to achieve mutual understanding when there is some kind of communication problem” (p. 224). more recent accounts for negotiation of meaning, on the other hand, have clearly included the grammatical aspect of the target language and affirmed its positive role in promoting learners’ l2 development. for example, long (1996, in cook 2015) defined negotiation of meaning as a process in which learners made adjustments to linguistic form, conversational structure, message content, or all three until an acceptable level of understanding was achieved. swain (1995, 1998, in loewen & sato, 2018) attributed the positive role that negotiation of meaning played in promoting incidental acquisition of certain features of l2 to the condition in which learners attended to both the form of l2 features and the meaning they convey. 1.5. paralinguistic restitution numerous studies of deaf students’ attainments in the acquisition of english language and literacy skills have been conducted over the past century and showed that most prelingually deaf children enter adolescence and young adulthood without having achieved proficiency in english. balgoa and embradura’s (2014) argued the non-verbal or paralinguistic cues complement oral communication. there are many possible ways a certain message could mean depending on the varieties of non-verbal cues that accompany it. areas such as syntax, phonetics, among others have already been widely studied for some decades that they have been considered as “central” in verbal linguistics, and there has not been much focus on non-linguistic forms of communicative behavior, posited by crystal (cited in schuller, 2013). crystal adds that paralanguage serves to be a bridge of these aspects that are considered before as mutually exclusive. paralinguistics is the part of communication outside of the words themselves – the volume, speed, intonation of a voice along with gestures and other non-verbal cues. according to elizondo (2011), “paralinguistic restitution consists of ways of ways of writing that compensate for the lost prosodic and visual cues found in face-to-face interaction”. it may be considered as a non-standard or informal way of written language but it does the job of communicating significant social information to be decoded the way the encoder intended it to be because these are “socially shared meanings” (lea & spears, 1992 in elizondo, 2011). in the world of deaf-mute individuals, they needed to be understood specifically their language, much more their paralinguistic restitution in today’s technological world because that is where they are heard and given attention for. considering recent research and fully recognizing the historical background of the language of these individuals, the researcher sought to describe their language through analyzing its and paralinguistic and linguistic aspects—identifying the paralinguistic signals and the lexico-semantic features of their language. 1.6. lexico-semantic analysis of sign language in the oxford research encyclopedia of linguistics (n.d.), lexical semantics is defined as the study of word meaning. descriptively speaking, the main topics studied within lexical semantics involve either the internal semantic structure of words or the semantic relations that occur within the vocabulary. 2. method this study used a descriptive qualitative research design as facebook posts are qualitative in nature. anchored upon two previous studies of elizondo (2011), balgoa and embradura (2014), and the theoretical lens of thurlow and poff (2013), the study used these frameworks in qualitatively analyzing the paralinguistic signals and linguistic features of status and comments of the deaf-mute. conducted in the special education (sped) program of maranding elementary central school in the province of lanao del norte, northern mindanao, philippines, the researchers verified and validated the informants’ identities by conducting an interview with the grade level adviser. since personal information were confidential, the researchers sought permission from the informants’ parents. then the researchers visited their classroom and explained the purpose of the research. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 81 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) the collected materials are screenshots of the students’ facebook statuses (n= 45) and 74 screenshots (n=74) of comments or a total of 119 screenshots. no consideration was given for a specific theme or discussion in these statuses or comments for the collection of the corpus. the fb statuses were written in english only and a few sinugbuanong bisaya (the mother tongue). however, considerations about matters of privacy and free access on their posts were disregarded as facebook allows its users to choose who can see their posts based on their personal preferences. moreover, to protect the subjects of the study, their names were not revealed. following balgoa and embradura’s (2014) criteria consideration, a status should have 1) presence of unusual typography not seen in formal texts; 2) use of either english and binisaya languages in such posts; 3) facebook post must be seen with a significant amount of unusual typography at an initial glance, and 4) post must be recent. each fb post was thoroughly analyzed according to categories from the given existing study. a frequency count was applied to count the percentage of the patterns found in the posts. the researchers categorized the patterns or the paralinguistic cues from that of elizondo’s (2011) and balgoa and embradura’s (2014) studies. additionally, the researchers analyzed and observed how the filipino deaf-mute facebook users negotiated meaning through examining the lexico-semantic features present in their fb posts and comments. finally, to stylize the presentation and analysis of the corpus, this example coding is used: [p1s4] means person 1, status 4. [p1cs4] means person 1 comment to status 4. each referent for a particular post or comment was given a specific code for easy understanding. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. paralinguistic signals used by filipino deaf-mute facebook users 3.1.1. emoticons/emoji during the analysis of the corpus, a significant number of occurrences of the use of emoticons/emoji have been observed. it has a total of 133 occurrences against the total of 263. table 1. emojis/emoticons found in the data reference example posts emojis/emoticons texts [p1s4] i’m very over seriously sun [p1s9] i’m i can’t laugh stop very my classmates. happy fool’s day…haha still seriously not don’t hurt idk [p3cs6] kulit block messenage blue alway…ugly me idk accept bad you not good in the examples shown in table 1, p1s4 used emojis like sun, broken heart, and hearts to describe his/her situation and feeling. also, still p1s4 used the heart emoji to express and represent his/her feeling in a certain situation. on the other hand, p3cs6 used a lot of angry emojis to restitute and express his/her anger. this shows that aside from representing facial expressions, filipino deaf-mutes 82 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) normally use emoticons/emojis in representing objects, feelings, people, color, among others. the role of emoji in the first, second and third example, is to add a feeling or emotion toward the communicative act as a whole (feeling or emotion in parallel to the communicative act). this is in corroboration to yus’s study (2014) on the 8-function economy of emojis. 3.1.2. punctuation mark repeats in computer-mediated communication (cmc), researchers noted punctuation mark repeats as one of the many paralinguistic cues used by the majority of people. in the case of the filipino deafmute facebook users, from the analysis of the corpus, it has the second most number with a total of 35 occurrences observed. table 2. punctuation mark repeats found in the data reference example posts pmr text [p4s3] !!!!!! hi everyone please may i help at do chat to sadness me [p3cs6] ????? igat [a flirt] in the examples shown in table 2, p4s3 repeatedly used exclamatory points. an exclamation point is a punctuation mark that expresses a strong emotion. in the second example from p3cs6, repetition of the question mark is observable which entails that something about the comment is uncertain or not understandable by the owner of the status/post. corroborating the study of balgoa and embradura (2014), the data revealed that just like how the speaking and hearing persons speak, the deaf-mute students also speak with varying degrees of emotions using repeated punctuation marks. in addition, balgoa and embradura (2014) posited that aside from facial expressions and gestures, people speak with sound level variations, the tone of voice changes, and the rate changes. for us to deliver these orally, we need punctuation marks to serve as our “markers” on when to stop, to pause, and to emphasize, among others. but computer-mediated communication (cmc), in its very nature, is written discourse. since then, these typographical symbols have been used differently. however, there are instances that punctuation marks are just used as figurative expressions or markers but have no semantic role in their language. the study shows a recurring pattern in the use of punctuation marks as a paralinguistic cue used by the filipino deaf-mute facebook user observed below. 3.1.3. onomatopoeic spelling onomatopoeic spelling ranked third with a total of 34 occurrences in the paralinguistic cues used by filipino deaf-mute students. it endeavors to reproduce sounds by means of written language. the examples below show from person 1 (status 9) as well as its comment (also from another deafmute facebook user) that the word “haha” is also used by a significant number of filipino deaf-mute facebook users to restitute the sound of laughter. data in table 3 show the deaf-mute students’ use of ‘haha’ and ‘mwaaa’ to express laughter and restitute the act of smooching or kissing. balgoa and embradura (2014) emphasized that either we are happy, frustrated, or angry---these can be expressed through sounds. in the case of the filipino deafmute netizens, they use their knowledge of sounds, because according to the deaf and native asl speaker, michele westfall, “deaf people are not mentally blind to the concept of sound. most of us can hear something, provided it is loud enough. there are other ways to listen, to collect information, to communicate and to learn, most of them do not require sound”. this is what happens in the use of issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 83 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) onomatopoeic spelling as a paralinguistic cue; a successful attempt to express sound features in a solely textual environment. table 3. onomatopoeic found in the data reference example posts onomatopoeic spelling text [p1s9] haha i’m i can’t laugh stop very my classmates. happy fool’s day…haha still seriously not don’t hurt idk hahaha why laugh you mwaaa thankyou mwaaaa nah, no more than ya 3.1.4. accent stylization (subcategory: stylized words) next to onomatopoeic spelling is accent stylization, with a total of 24 occurrences observed in the paralinguistic restitution of the filipino deaf-mute netizens. it is a subcategory of nonconventional spelling as discussed in the theoretical framework of this study. it refers to words that are spelled in accordance with informal regional speech, for example, “wanna/want to”, “gonna/going to”, and “dat/that” (crystal, 2008 cited in balgoa & embradura, 2014), shown in table 4. table 4. accent stylization found in the data reference example posts accent stylization text [p1cs6] sissy bro i look like it so pretty my sissy thank you my bro [p2s7] wanna didn’t don’t it’s okay i don’t really mind! i didn’t wanna see you anymore from the data, it is noticeable that the words “sissy” and “bro” are stylized from the words “sister” and “brother”. in addition, the use of ‘wanna’, ‘didn’t, ‘don’t’ in the second example from person 2 (status 7), shows a characteristic of non-conventional spelled words of want to, did not, and do not. this is seen as in corroboration to elizondo’s (2011) finding that the use of non-conventional spelling like accent stylization as a paralinguistic cue is largely due to people wanting to inject their accent in written discourse. in this study, accent stylization is found as a discursive strategy that entails informality during a conversation with friends. 84 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) 3.1.5. intensification being the fifth most used paralinguistic cue in this study, with a total of 23 occurrences, intensification functions to intensify normal text by (a) repeated vowel/consonant or (b) caps-locking. the data showed a significant number of occurrences shown in table 5. table 5. intensification found in the data reference example posts intensification text [p1cs1] caps-locked wow nice please profile react love comments [p3cs1] repeated vowel thankyouuuuuuu mwasss! ha, no more than ya in the first example, we noticed that all the words are written in capital letters (caps-locking). this gives an impression of loudness, emphasis, and importance to the text (balgoa & embradura, 2014). while in the second example, we notice that the phrase “thank you” is prolonged by repeating the vowel “u”. there is lengthening of the /u/ sound if we read it aloud because it was spelled to be pronounced in the same manner. in this sense, the phrase “thank you” is intensified using an informal spelling to compensate for the loss of sound in computer-mediated communication. the use of repeated vowels or consonants and caps-locking function to highlight important points that the deafmute wanted to emphasize. 3.1.6. hashtag and combinations hashtag, with 9 occurrences during the analysis, is a kind of marker used by the filipino deafmute facebook users to help the readers to further understand what the writer is talking about. the occurrence of hashtag also aims to add intensity to the post. while combinations are two or more paralinguistic cues used simultaneously. the occurrence of such is reminiscent of the co-temporality and simultaneous use of verbal and non-verbal cues (kalman & gergle, 2014). the example from p3s1 in table 6 shows combination of emoticons/emojis and intensification which implies that for a deaf-mute student to create a more expressive post, he or she tends to use more than one paralinguistic cue. 3.2. lexico-semantic features of the deaf-mute language filipino deaf-mute language has its distinct features as discussed in the previous section of this paper. however, there is also a need to analyze these features in a different level of analysis especially in the lexico-semantic aspect of their language specifically in terms of the grammatical errors— syntactical and lexical found. in this study, the researcher observed the occurrences of lexical semantic features that are common in the facebook posts of the deaf-mute individuals who participated in this study. the features include: 3.2.1 syntactic errors. the english language follows a standard position of words in a sentence such as noun/subject followed by a verb and followed by an object or a compliment. in normal communication, the utterance “i can’t stop laughing” follows the order subject-verb-gerund which acts as a compliment. however, the sample excerpt “i’m can’t laugh stop” [p1s9] is an illustration that deaf-mute follows this order: subject-initial verb-complement-main verb. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 85 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) table 6. hashtag and combinations reference example posts hastag & combinations text [p4s5] # and emoticons i’m be happy so proud to smile your thank god of blessed [p2s6] # and emoticons i’m alone” i’ve never celebrated a vaelntine’s day [p2s9] # and emoticons i wish, i just think so seriously! i not have to let go! and i can’t i just can’t do it. and i want to continue to stay in this house..i’m never gonna see him again. and i can’t believe it has to be him. i don’t want to talk to her but i don’t know, how he was going to feel or react to it. [p3s1] emoticons combined with words kind just to place simple 3.2.2. redundancy redundancy is a common feature in the language of the deaf-mute from the data. redundancy, generally refers to any feature of a language that is not necessary in order to identify a linguistic unit. basically, it is the repetition of the same idea or item of information within a phrase, clause, or sentence as in the example “don’t never no”. the word ‘don’t’, ‘never’ and ‘no’ are examples of negations, which is put together in a clause that makes them redundant. findings corroborated maxwell & falick’s (1992) study showing that repetition happens in the language of those hard in hearing. it also corroborated the study of yoshinagaitano and her colleagues (bornstein 2018) that a few redundancies are found in dead-mute language. another example is the use of “i’m i” which is redundant if read or written by normal speakers but for the dead-mute this may sound a normal way of saying something one would want to emphasize 86 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) or make sure that he is understood. this corroborates to the point ellis (2008) said on negotiation of meaning which is “the collaborative work which speakers undertake to achieve mutual understanding”. for the dead-mute, this is their way of securing they are understood or that their points are “heard well”; thus, compensating the loss of prosodic cues and repeating the word with a slight modification is a way of “carry over a message: or what elizondo (2011) calls as “to compensate for the lost prosodic cues”. 3.2.3. incorrect lexical choice it was observed that the deaf-mute exhibit more incorrect lexical choice. the performance of the deaf students is significantly below that of their hearing peers in terms of lexical and syntactic development at the sentence level. the example below shows the wrong use of adjective, confidence for confident, and the use of beautifully instead of beautiful. prepositions form a small but very important word class. in this study, the researcher found the deaf-mute students’ use of preposition, either lacking or inserted, is observable in their posts. for instance, the preposition ‘in’ should not be inserted in “you have heart in very strong”, instead, the sentence should be written like this: “you have a very strong heart”. table 7 shows extracted samples from the data. 3.3. functions of the paralinguistic signals and lexico-semantic features in the negotiation of meaning by way of using paralinguistic signals in the fb posts, the filipino deaf-mute netizens have shown that they are also capable of communicating the way hearing people do as evidenced in emojis, punctuation marks, stylized words, onomatopoeic spelling, intensification, hashtag, and the combinations of these signals. these paralinguistic signals contribute to extending the level of understanding in terms of how the deaf-mute negotiate meaning in facebook. some posts were difficult to comprehend but with the help of these paralinguistic signals, interpretations can be made easier, and comprehension can be facilitated. in this study, they function as facilitators of meaning through giving emphasis, intensifying intonations, among others. table 7. grammatical errors on deaf-mute people’s fb posts incorrect position of words redundancy incorrect lexical choice insertions of/lacking prepositions “please profile react love comments” “i’m very over” “you don’t ugly’ “…don’t love of you” “why me send” “i’m i” “you are so beautifully” “god of blessed” “face cute” “….seriously not don’t” “seriously confidence” “you have a heart in very strong” “jacket blue” “see not don’t never no” “yes, i’m are” “sunlight brighter” “never not feeling” “i am seriously” “style simple” “you can’t never” “good very” “not don’t understand” “style nice” “very you’re so pretty” “face gay” “i know yes” issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 87 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) moreover, in the linguistic aspect of the deaf-mutes’ negotiation of meaning, the characteristics of the posts revealed lexico-semantic features such as grammatical errors at the syntactical and lexical level. the posts were understandable despite that, either constructed in sentences or in fragments, they do not follow the standard rules of grammar but were recognizable by the help of lexical items perceived to be common among their population. the lexico-semantic features, which are the deficit in grammar---incorrect positioning present in their posts do not have a specific function in the negotiation of meaning for a reason that, according to teng (2010), understanding of the semantic content of a message can be accomplished either with or without any comprehension of the syntax because it may be accomplished through the recognition of isolated lexical items and interpretation of non-linguistic cues or paralinguistic signals. it is remarkable in the analysis of this study that deaf-mute facebook users exhibit paralinguistic signals which are also present in the computer-mediated communication used by hearing people. but one integral thing that is observable in this study was the deficiency in grammatical knowledge employed by the deaf-mute facebook users when it comes to written discourse. writing is one of the most complex and difficult tasks for the challenged people like deaf-mute. several authors (robinson & henner, 2017; yunbao & huayin, 2008) corroborate to the difficulty that deaf people have in writing english. the texts they produce have deficiency in cohesive devices to tie text together. because of difficulty accessing and learning english on its syntactical and morphological structures, either auditorily or visually, they make numerous errors at the sentence level. in addition, because many deaf have difficulty with reading, their exposure to models of good writing may be limited. this has to do with the study that typicality in the sign modality shows many of the same characteristics as linguistic deficits in hearing people. deaf people often struggle with complex morphology; their lexical processing is less efficient (pozos, et al., 2017) and that deaf people make slower progress than hearing people; however, there is little evidence that sign language interferes with the development of spoken language and, in fact, it may support spoken language development according to yoshinag-itano (in sass-lehrer, 2014). moreover, meaning is still negotiated and being responded by fellow deaf-mute facebook users as observed in the data gathered and despite that their syntactic skills employed in their comments did not conform to the standard rules of grammar. evidently, commenters also committed syntactical errors in writing their comments but were still able to negotiate and being responded by fellow deafmute. interestingly, it demonstrated that this group of deaf-mute who belong to a similar and familiar community, have understood each other. according to teng (2010), comprehension represents the hypothesis that understanding of the semantic content of a message can be accomplished either with or without any comprehension of the syntax. semantic comprehension is not expected to help in the acquisition of the syntactic system because it may be accomplished through the recognition of isolated lexical items and interpretation of non-linguistic cues. when comprehension takes place through a combination of semantic and syntactic processing, the linguistic characteristics of the input can become an intake, that is, comprehended language that holds the potential for developing the students’ linguistic system. to summarize, the written language of deaf-mutes differs from their hearing peers on several dimensions. their writing continues to improve with age. however, students with severe and profound hearing losses, like the informants of this study, remain considerably delayed when compared with their hearing peers and their use of the social media is a great equalizer as they tried to assimilate in communicating with anyone. it is then a common observation of the deaf-mute facebook users to have grammar which does not conform to the standard rule but is still negotiated because comprehension of meaning can function between this group of challenged individuals with or without the comprehension of syntax, which also means that paralinguistic cues and other features in their written discourse are essential in the negotiation of meaning. 4. conclusion the study sought to determine the paralinguistic and linguistic signals that deaf-mute students used in their facebook posts as they negotiate meaning. the study found that most predominantly used paralinguistic restitution of signals include emoticons/emoji, punctuation mark repeats, onomatopoeic spelling, accent stylization, intensification, hashtag and combination. these linguistic units have distinctive functions as the deaf-mute tried to understand and to be understood. 88 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 75-90 parmisana, v. r., and badilla, c.g., (“don’t, never no”: negotiating meaning in esl …..) just like normal hearing people, they also restituted facial expressions through emoticons or emojis. as balgoa and embradura (2014) stated, this explains why emoticons seemed to complete the message of a text: the person encoding an emoticon/emoji is or would be expressing the same facial expression in face-to-face interaction for a certain situation because emojis represent the feelings, place, object, etc. it either complements or supplements what the text cannot supply. in addition, yoshinaga-itano (in bornstein, 2008) argues that deaf-mute facebook users make slower progress than hearing people and the texts they produce have a deficiency in cohesive devices to tie text together. in relation to this, there are recurring patterns of lexico-semantic features in terms of grammatical errors which were found in the language of the deaf-mute in facebook. these include (1) incorrect position of words, (2) redundancy, (3) incorrect lexical choice, and (4) insertion of prepositions/lacking prepositions. however, meanings were still negotiated and being responded by fellow deaf-mute facebook users as observed in the data. in addition, the study has shown their deficiency in grammatical knowledge, that is, not conforming to the standard rules of grammar; however, this does not hinder comprehension since the understanding of the semantic content of a message is possible with or without any comprehension of the syntax. semantic comprehension is not expected to help in acquiring the syntactic system because comprehension may be accomplished through recognizing isolated lexical items and interpreting non-linguistic cues. in recommendation, the study hopes that future researchers can generate more categories or themes on the functions of paralinguistic and linguistic features in the negotiation of meaning by and between deaf-mute individuals. for future directions of the study and for researchers who would want to replicate this study, the following may be considered: (1) paralinguistic signals and computermediated communication for the deaf-mute across generations and races can be considered for further study; and, (2) collaborators or researchers from other fields can design appropriate technological tools that can automate found errors in the posts of the deaf-mute in social media in order to mainstream people with special needs. acknowledgment we would like to express our sincere gratitude to the panel members of this thesis, assistant professor helen betonio-abucay and retired professor rosemarie b. purganan whose efforts in thoroughly examining the manuscript is commendable. declarations author contribution : cristine grace was responsible for the entire research project. the second author is mainly responsible in re-shaping and rewriting the manuscript for publication purposes. both authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research did not receive any funding. conflict of interest : both authors declare that they have no competing interests. additional information: venus parmisana, ph.d., is currently the chairperson of the department of english of the college of arts and social sciences of the mindanao state university-iligan institute of technology (msu-iit), iligan city, philippines. while cristine grace badilla is currently working as an administrative services assistant in a government-owned corporation in lanao del norte, philippines. references american sign language. 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