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. 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. (2012). the effect of different learning styles on developing writing skills of efl, saudi learners. british journal of arts and social sciences 5(2), 220-233. retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6267/a0911a77d92c2ce8ac24901996c0d69c6121.p df barsch, j. (1991). activity: barsch inventory. the iris center peabody college vanderbilt university nashville. https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/udl/cresource/q1/p01/activity-barschinventory/. accessed december 27th 2017 brown h.d. (2000). principles of language learning, fourth edition. new york: addison, wesley, longman burns, a. (2010). doing action research in english language teaching: a guide for practitioners. new york: routledge. carr, w., & kemmis, s. (1986). becoming critical education: knowledge and action research. new york: routledge falmer. harmer, j. (2001). the practice of english language teaching. addison wesley publishing company: longman. harmer, j. (2004). how to teach writing. harlow, united kingdom: pearson education limited. heaton, j. b. (1988). writing english language tests. new york: longman group uk limited. huda, m., hafifah, g. n., & wijaya, a. (2016). the implementation of flash games in teaching writing descriptive text to the seventh grade of smp muhammadiyah 10 surabaya. tell: teaching of english language and literature journal. 4 (2), 99116. doi:10.30651/tell.v4i2.2104 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6267/a0911a77d92c2ce8ac24901996c0d69c6121.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6267/a0911a77d92c2ce8ac24901996c0d69c6121.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.30651/tell.v4i2.2104 eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ ramadian, cahyono & suryati 149 kazemi, s., zafarghand, a., & tahriri, a. (2016). the relationship between learning styles and vocabulary recall among sensorineural hearing loss efl learners. journal of applied linguistics and language research, 3 (4), 325-346. retrieved from http://www.jallr.com/index.php/jallr/article/view/360/pdf360 lista, l., atmowardoyo, h., & salija, k. (2015). the effects of visual auditory kinesthetic learning style as technique in improving students’ writing ability. elt worldwide, 2 (2), 62-76. nawawi, m.b. (2011) improving students' writing skill of descriptive text through guided questions (a classroom action research at viii-8 class of smp pgri 1 ciputat-kota tangerang selatan). (unpublished thesis). department of english education. faculty of tarbiyah and teachers training. uin syarif hidayatullah jakarta. rambe, h. h., & zainuddin. (2014). the effect of using visual, auditory, kinesthetic (vak) learning model on students’ achievement in writing recount text. register 3 (4), 340-351 retrieved from https://jurnal.unimed.ac.id/2012/index.php/eltu/article/download/1385/1144 reid g. (2005). learning styles and inclusion. london: paul chapman publishing. richards, j. c., & renandya, w. a. (2002). method in language teaching an anthology of current practice. new york: cambridge university press. spratt, m., pulverness, a., & williams, m. (2005). the tkt course: teaching knowledge test. london: cambridge university press. 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. doi: 10.12928/eltej.v1i1.265 suhara, a.m. 2013. keefektifan model vak (visualization auditory kinestetic) dalam pembelajaran menulis deskriptif (studi eksperimen pada siswa kelas x sma negeri 1 lawang kidul sumatera selatan (unpublished thesis) universitas pendidikan indonesia. the decree of minister of education and culture of indonesia number 24, year 2016. warda, e. g. & wijaya, a. (2019) the effectiveness of teaching writing descriptive text by using social media “instagram” to improve students’ writing ability at junior high school students. tell: teaching of english language and literature journal. 7 (1), 16-24, doi: 10.30651/tell.v7i1.2696 wong, w.l.h. (2015). a study of language learning style and teaching style preferences of hong kong community college students and teachers in english for academic purposes (eap) contexts (unpublished thesis). school of teacher education. college of education, health and human development university of canterbury. wood, g. (2000). how to study second edition use your personal learning style to help you succeed when it counts. new york: learning express, llc. wulansari, y. (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. 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 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. (2005). teaching english through literature. journal of language and linguistic studies, 1(1), 53-66. retrieved from https://www.jlls.org/index.php/jlls/article/view/6/7/ hutchinson, t and waters, a. (1987). english for specific purpose. cambridge: cambridge university press. ismail, i. (2019). the impact of interactive reading using local folktales stories in supporting students’ vocabulary achievement in indonesian efl learners. majesty journal, 1(2), 25-37. doi:10.33487/majesty.v1i2.119 keshavarzi, abdollah. (2012). use of literature in teaching english. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 46, 554 – 559. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.05.159 khodabakhshi, s. c., & lagos, d. c. (1993). reading aloud: children’s literature in college esl classes. the journal of the imagination in language learning and teaching, 1, 53-55. retrieved from http://coreilimagination.com/books/v1.pdf#page=55 shazu, i. r. (2014). use of literature in language teaching and learning: a critical assessment. international journal of african and asian studies an open access international journal, 5(61), 61-66. retrieved from https://iiste.org/journals/index.php/jaas/article/view/12079/12419 subhan, bustami. (2006). understanding literary appreciation. yogyakarta: lppdmf. viswanath, k., mohanty. s. (2019). tribal folklore as elt material for first-generation learners. advances in language and literary studies, 10(2). 19-26 doi:10.5054/tj.2011.259957 wellek, r and warren, a. (1995). theory of literature. new york: harcourt, brace, and world, inc. wu, y. (2001). english language teaching in china: trends and challenges. tesol quarterly, 35(1), 191-194. doi: 10.2307/3587867 yadav, shalini. (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 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. 1-12 e-issn: 2621-6485 apology strategies in harry potter movie series 1 intan khoirun nisa, 2 adi sutrisno universitas gadjah mada, indonesia 1intan.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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(september 11th, 2007). harry potter and the order of the phoenix [motion picture on vcd]. indonesia: pt. vision interprima pictures. yates, d. (director), & heyman, d., barron, d., & rowling, j. k. (producers). (march 21st, 2011). harry potter and the deathly hallows part 1 [motion picture on vcd]. indonesia: pt. vision interprima pictures. yates, d. (director), & heyman, d., barron, d., & rowling, j. k. (producers). (september 8th, 2011). harry potter and the deathly hallows part 2 [motion picture on vcd]. indonesia: pt. vision interprima pictures. yule, g. (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 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. 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 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. 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. 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/ 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 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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(2011). the relationship between the individual and the collective learning process in drama. in s. schonmann (ed.), key concepts in theatre/drama education (pp. 23-27). rotterdam: sense publishers. van blankenstein, f., dolmans, d. j. m., van der vleuten, c. m., & schmidt, h. (2011). which cognitive processes support learning during small-group discussion? the role of providing explanations and listening to others. instructional science, 39 (2), 189204. doi:10.1007/s11251-009-9124-7 yaman ntelioglou, b. (2011). drama and english language learners. in s. schonmann (ed.), key concepts in theatre/drama education (pp. 183-188). rotterdam: sense publishers. zulkifli, a. a. & fatimah. s. (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 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 information given in this research may inspire the teachers to do better and more in the teaching learning process. references aziz, s., mahmood, m., & rehman, z. 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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. 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). 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. 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 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. (2012). intercultural rethoric and intercultural communication. in j. jackson (ed.), the routledge handbook of language and intercultural communication. london and new york: routledge. dick, w., carey, l., & carey, j. o. (2005). the systemic design of instruction (6th ed.). boston: pearson. doganay, y., ashirimbetova, m., & davis, b. (2013). making culture happen in the english language classroom. journal of english language teaching; vol. 6, (10), 11-15. dudley-evans, t., & st john, m. j. (1998). developments in english for specific purposes: a multi-disciplinary approach. cambridge: cambridge university press. graves, k. (2001). a framework of course development process. in d. r. hall, & a. hewings (eds.), innovation in english language teaching: a readers. new york: routledge. hariyantina, a., arifuddin, & djuhaeni, e. (2015). the relevance of the english textbook to the syllabus of curriculum 2013 at grade viii smp n 1 gunungsari (2015/2016). mataram: university of mataram. ho, s. t. (2009). addresing cultural in efl classrooms: the challenge of shifting from a traditional to an intercultural stance. journal of foreign language teaching, 6 (1), 63–76. eltej issn: 2621-6485  afifah, zuchdi 96 kanoksilapatham, b. (2014). developing young learners local culture awareness and global english: integrated instruction. international journal of information and education technology, 5 (9), 676-682. kramsch, c. (1993). context and culture in language teaching. oxford: oxford university press. lorenzutti, n. (2014). beyond the gap fill: dynamic activities for song in the english foreign language classroom. english teaching forum, 52 (1), 14-21. mursyida, n. 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(2012). instructional material for writing in the discipline. international scientific research journal, 4 (3) 158-170. tomlinson, b. (2008). english language learning materials. london: continuum international publishing group. tomlinson, b. (2012). materials development for language learning and teaching [electronic version]. cambridge journal, p.143-179. zuchdi, d. (2009). humanisasi pendidikan: menemukan kembali pendidikan yang manusiawi. jakarta: bumi aksara. 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, 2dedy.subandowo@ummetro.ac.id, 3evafaliyanti1980@gmail.com, 4fenny.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 29th, 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. 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. 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. 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(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. 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(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 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, 2yuniatias@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. 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. (2014). an analysis of the tenth grade english language textbooks questions in jordan based on the revised edition of bloom’s taxonomy. journal of education and practice, 5(18), 139–151. assaly, i., & igbaria, a. k. (2014). a content analysis of the reading and listening activities in the efl textbook of master class. education journal ibtihal assaly education journal, 3(2), 24–38. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.edu.20140302.11. boraie, deena. (2013). 8 current trends in teaching and learning efl/esl. http://blog.tesol.org/8-current-trends-in-teaching-and-learning-eflesl/ accessed on 18/1/2016 at 5.56pm bouzid, h. a. (2017). an evaluation of selected moroccan elt textbooks: a standards-based approach perspective. indonesian journal of applied linguistics, 7(1), 229. https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v7i1.6879 brown, h. douglas. (2001). teaching by principle (an interactive approach to language pedagogy, second eeition). san francisco: addison wesley longman,inc. cunningsworth, alan. (1995). choosing your coursebook. oxford; macmillan publishers. departement pendidikan nasional. (2003). sistem pendidikan nasional. in undang-undang ri no. 20 tahun 2003. fatimah, n. (2018). students’ needs for academic writing at the english education department. english language teaching educational journal, 1(3), 161-175. 20 ◼ e-issn: 2621-6485 grabe, william and stoller, l. (2002). teaching and researching reading. london: pearson education longman. gulzar, s., & multan, n. (2017). an evaluation of english textbook at matriculation level in multan division, pakistan. european journal of english language teaching, 2(4), 114–134. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.835635 hanifa, r. (2018). efl published materials : an evaluation of english textbooks for junior high school in indonesia. advances in language and literary studies, 9(2009), 166–174. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.2p.166 harmer, jeremy. (2009). how to teach english; new edition. saffron walden; pearson longman. 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. ismail, y. m. a. r., & hanim, h. (2018). analyzing the reading questions of ap12 textbook according to analyzing the reading questions of ap12 textbook according to bloom’s taxonomy. international journal of education, psychology and counseling, 3(22), 84–94. krathwohl, d. r. (2002). a revision of bloom’s taxonomy : an overview benjamin s. bloom, university of chicago. theory into practice, 41(4), 212–218. mayer, richard, e. (2002). rote versus meaningful learning, theory into practice, volume 41, number 4, autumn, 226-232. murray, denise e. and christison, maryann. (2011). what english language teachers need to know volume ii: facilitating learning. new york; routledge. nordquist, richard. (2015). reading glossary of grammatical and rhetorical terms. http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/readingterm.htm accessed on 30 january 2016 at 1.45 pm putri, m. a., & komariah, e. (2018). a content analysis of activities in english textbook “when english rings a bell.” research in english and education (read), 3(2), 147–153. raths, james. (2002). improving instruction. theory into practice, volume 41, number 4, autumn, 233-237. eltej issn: 2621-6485 ◼ sucipto, s., cahyo, s. d. 21 richards, jack c. (2001). curriculum development in language teaching. cambridge; cambridge university press. soleimani, h., & kheiri, s. (2016). an evaluation of tefl postgraduates’ testing classroom activities and assignments based on bloom’s revised taxonomy. theory and practice in language studies, 6(4), 861–869. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spa.2013.01.004 soo, k. y., hasan, n. h., jangga, r., & mat, k. s. n. i. (2015). innovating with hots for the esl reading class. english language teaching, 8(8), 10. tarman, b., & kuran, b. (2015). examination of the cognitive level of questions in social studies textbooks and the views of teachers based on bloom taxonomy. educational sciences: theory & practice, 15(1), 213–222. https://doi.org/10.12738/estp.2015.1.2625 tomlinson, brian. (2011). materials development in language teaching: second edition. cambridge; cambridge university press. wen-cheng, w., chien-hung, l., & chung-chieh, l. (2011). thinking of the textbook in the esl/efl classroom. english language teaching, 4 (2), 91. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v4n2p91 zareian, g., davoudi, m., heshmatifar, z., & rahimi, j. (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 (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 1fitripalupi85@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. 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. 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 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 (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. 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. (2016). discourse functions of will and shall in christian prayers. international journal of humanities and cultural studies, vol. 2, issue 4: 1096—1107. baker, paul. (2010). sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics. edinburgh: edinburgh university press. biber, douglas, susan conrad. (2009). register, genre and style. cambridge: cambridge university press. biber, douglas. (2004). “modal use across registers and time”. curzan, anne and kimberly emmons (ed.). studies in the history of the english language ii. berlin/new york: mouton de gruyter. biber, douglas, stig johansson, geoffrey leech, susan conrad, edward finnegan. (1999). longman grammar of spoken and written english. london: longman. brezina, vaclav, tony mcenery, and s. wattam. (2015). collocations in context: a ew perspective on collocation networks. international journal of corpus linguistics, 20(2), 139—173. brezina, vaclav. (2018). statistics in corpus linguistics. cambridge: cambridge university press. brinton, laurel j. 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(2014). quasi-modals and modals in australian english. journal of english linguistics, 42 (1): 7—30. crystal, david. (2003). english as a global language. cambridge: cambridge university press. davies, mark. (2008). the corpus of contemporary american english (coca): 560 million words, 1990-present. available online at https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/ de haan, ferdinand. (2012). the relevance of constructions for the interpretation of modal meaning: the case of must. english studies, 93 (6): 700–728. facchineti, roberta. (2000). “the modal verb shall between grammar and usage in the nineteenth century”. kastovsky, dieter and arthur mettinger (ed.). 2000. the history of english in a social context. berlin: mouton de gruyter. 115—134. francis, w. nelson, henry kučera. (1982). frequency analysis of english usage: lexicon and grammar. boston: houghton mifflin. halliday, m.a.k. (1990). spoken and written language. geelong, vic.: deakin university press. hardjanto, tofan dwi. 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(2013). “folklinguistic explorations of modals and quasimodals in australian englishes”. gawne, lauren and jill vaughan (ed.). selected papers from the 44th conference of the australian linguistics society. machová, dagma. (2015). the degree of grammaticalization of gotta, gonna, wanna, and better: a corpus study. topic in linguistics, issue 15. millar, neil. (2009). modal verbs in time – frequency changes 1923-2006. international journal of corpus linguistics 14 (2): 191-220. eltej issn: 2621-6485  oktavianti 147 oktavianti, ikmi nur. (2016). quasi-modals in british and american english. lingua scientia. 8 (2): 257—272. palmer, f.r. (2001). mood and modality. cambridge: cambridge university press. payne, thomas e. (2011). understanding english grammar. cambridge: cambridge university press. perkins, michael. (1982). the core meanings of the english modals. journal of linguistics 18 (2): 245—273. poedjosoedarmo, soepomo. (2006). perubahan tata bahasa: penyebab, proses dan akibatnya. unpublished. universitas sanata dharma, yogyakarta. pullum, g., wilson, d. (i977). autonomous syntax and the analysis of the auxiliaries. language 53.74i—788. quirk, randolph, sidney greenbaum, geoffrey leech, jan svartvik. (1985). a comprehensive grammar of the english language. london: longman. rubinstein, aynat. (2012). roots of modality. dissertation. amherst, ma: university of massachusetts amherst. seggewiß, friederike. (2012). current change in the english modals. dissertation. freiburg: universität freiburg. van gelderen, elly. (2004). grammaticalization as economy. amsterdam: john benjamins publishing. van gelderen, elly. (2011). the linguistic cycle: language change and the language faculty. oxford: oxford university press. warner, anthony r. (2009). english auxiliaries: structure and history. cambridge: cambridge university press. zipf, george. (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. 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 1universitas muhammadiyah pontianak 2universitas 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. (2007). ctl menjadikan kegiatan belajar-mengajar mengasyikkan dan bermakna. bandung: mizan learning center. agustina, s., et. al, (2016). pengaruh model pembelajaran sinektik terhadap hasil belajar fisik pada siswa kelas x sma negeri 4 palu. jurnal pendidikan fisika tadulako (jpft) vol. 4 no. 2. aunurrahman. (2014). belajar dan pembelajaran. bandung: alfabeta. brown, h. d. (2001). teaching by principles. new york: longman. burns, a. (2010). doing action research in english language teaching. a guide for practitioners. london: routledge taylor & francis group. dunifa,l. (2016). the effect of holistic and discrete tasks on english writing performance of students with different learning style. international journal of english language teaching. vol.4 no.9, pp1-13 november 2016. estes, t. h., mintz, s. l. & gunter, m. a. (2010). instruction: a models approach. london: pearson. fulwiller. (2002). the oxford essential guide to writing. new york. gordon, j.j. william. 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(2014). penerapan media audio visual dalam pembelajaran bahasa inggris. jurnal teknologi pendidikan dan pembelajaran vol.2, no.1, ,hal 79 – 92. https://doi.org/10.4225/03/58b7763874bf3 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://monash.figshare.com/articles/exploring_indonesian_learners_beliefs_about_language_learning_strategies_through_reflection/4711927 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 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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(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. 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 (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. 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. (1988). evaluating elt textbooks and materials. eltj, 42(4), pp. 237-46 tomlinson, b., dat, b., masuhara, h. and rubdy, r. (2001). efl courses for adults. elt journal, 55(1), pp. 801-101. tomlinson, b. (2008). english language learning materials: a critical review. london, uk: continuum. ur, p. (1996). a course in language teaching: practice and theory. cambridge: cup. van dijk, t.a. (2001). critical discourse analysis. in d.tannen, d. schiffrin & h. hamilton (eds.), handbook of discourse analysis. pp. 352-371. oxford: blackwell. williams, r. (1989). hegemony and the selective tradition. in s.c. de castell, a. luke & c. luke (eds) language, authority and criticism: readings on the school textbooks. pp. 56-60. london: falmer press. wodak, r. (1995). critical linguistics and critical discourse analysis. in verschuren, j., ola-ostman, j. and bloomaert, j. (eds.), handbook of pragmatics, amsterdam, netherlands: john benjamins, (204-210). 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. 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(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. 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(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 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 abst ract 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 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 le in f o abst ract 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. 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 le in f o abst ract 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 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 le in f o abst ract 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. 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(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. 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(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 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 abst ract 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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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 le in f o abst ract 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. 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%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%23leech file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber16 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23deng file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23moon file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23wang 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%23yilmaz file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23zarifi 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%23biber12a 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%23bentz file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23criado file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23feltzgen 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%23hardjanto file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23bonyadi 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%23bell 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%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 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23burkette 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%23baker03 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23biber06 file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23ismail file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23kranich file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23makamani file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23moon file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23mots 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%23wright file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23akıncı file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23arellano file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23astika file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23kim file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23kizil file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23lin file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23poo file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23yanto file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23yanto file:///d:/2020/eltej%202020/proses%20v4%201/cr%20v3%202%202020/cr%20ikmi%232158%20vol.%203%20no.%202,%202020.doc%23baker10 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%23biber09 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 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 le in f o abst ract 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 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 abst ract 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. 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 abst ract 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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(2017, april 20). higher order thinking skills (hots) in education. retrieved, from https://www.thoughtco.com/higher-order-thinking-skills-hots-education-3111297 young, c. (2011). enablers and constraints of an effective and sustainable mother tongue-based multilingual education policy in the philippines. ph.d. thesis bangor university 136 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) 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. 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 abst ract 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. 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 le in f o abst ract 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 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 abst ract 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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achievement shahrbanoo joulide a,1,*, akram faravani* b,2, ali akbar boori b,3 a, b, c english department, islamic azad university, razavi khorasan province, mashhad, kuy-e-honar, تقاطع, ostad yousefi boulevard, iran 1 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 abst ract 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 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 abst ract 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. 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 abst ract 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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(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 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 abst ract 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 e-issn 2621-6485 vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 25-33 25 10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3336 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id integrated task on students’ writing quality: is it more effective? hieronimus canggung darong universitas katolik indonesia santu paulus, jalan ahmad yani 10 manggarai ntt tenda, watu, ruteng, kabupaten manggarai, nusa tenggara tim. 86511, indonesia hieronimusdarong@gmail.com how to cite: darong, h.c. (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 abst ract 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. 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 abst ract 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 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 abst ract 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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(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 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 abst ract 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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(1986). thought and language. cambridge: mit press. yeung, s. s., ng, m. l., & king, r. b. (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. 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 abst ract 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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(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. 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 le in 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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(2003). from input to output: a teacher's guide to second language acquisition. boston, ma: mcgraw hill. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-010-9133-8 https://www.researchgate.net/deref/http%3a%2f%2fdx.doi.org%2f10.1016%2fj.jml.2009.01.004?_sg%5b0%5d=cnp5yidchb5sgu0vs_pmrbtrsqo1zzugzex_m1hw6pecd0j1syslhhwvmo7vx3ybpv3rwhejlg_8syruq5skj34e-a.eylfebopi8-vb_lbqhj56me2t4wtzaecckfjoit1plinpbqyr1y_klvebkwr12asepq2sgz3yb-ld4cneqpfma https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.4.8.1665-1674 http://www.ijls.net/ https://doi.org/10.32038/ltrq.2020.18.03 https://doi.org/10.17323/jle.2019.9691 http://dx.doi.org/10.15446/profile.v17n1.43957 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0272263100011931 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439880902923622 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38834-2_16 https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532690xci1203_1 https://www.researchgate.net/deref/http%3a%2f%2fdx.doi.org%2f10.13140%2frg.2.1.3296.6885?_sg%5b0%5d=_v-vmcbvfd1pspv5fjbgcpasqfbjbwg-n3glllse0ou4hhy-aiy0f-xjhacbxjaynzauqdgiqwnltwmj6o9o1vs6va.qfcdfmi1yj4qvia82unhsyfgtfx6acmuorysgale5hh5hort_4z2fezug53sufrmlvgrjtt7cpsxl5avuw-yra issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 129 vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, pp. 118-132 rashtchi and yazdani (intentional vocabulary learning via whatsapp...) vanpatten, b., & leeser, m. (2006). theoretical and research considerations underlying classroom practice: the fundamental role of input. in m. r. salaberry (ed.), the art of teaching spanish: second language acquisition from research to praxis (pp. 55-77). washington, dc: georgetown university press. webb, s. (2020). incidental vocabulary learning. in s. webb (ed.). the routledge handbook of vocabulary studies (pp. 225-239). oxon: routledge. zimmerman, c. b. (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 issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 143-156 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i2.2806 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id on the interrelationships between iraqi efl learners’ classroom environment, foreign language classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate: a sem approach alyaa abdulkareem obaid a,1 , mitra zeraatpishe b, 2*, akram faravani c,3 a, b, c english department, islamic azad university, mashhad branch, mashhad, iran. 1 aalyaa585@gmail.com ; 2 mitra.zeraatpishem1398@gmail.com*; 3 afaravani@yahoo.com * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 16 june 2022 revised 12 august 2022 accepted 15 august 2022 different factors play their roles in communication especially when the concern is a foreign language such as classroom environment, foreign language classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate. the purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship among efl iraqi learner’s classroom environment, foreign language classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate. first, from among the available 260 english university students at babylon university, 204 efl intermediate language learners who studied english language were selected. the selection was based on their score in cambridge quick placement test 2004(qpt). the participants, then filled three questionnaires of anxiety, classroom environment, and willingness to communicate. the three questionnaires were filled out by the participants. to consider the extent of the interrelationships among classroom environment, willingness to communicate and speaking anxiety, a model of associations among them was proposed. to analyze the obtained data, structural equation modelling (sem) was used and the model was probed using amos. results of sem indicated a complete fit and significant interrelationship among the variables were found. the findings have several implications for efl teachers and learners. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords classroom anxiety foreign language learning environment willingness to communicate second language learning how to cite: obaid, a. a., et.al. (2022). on the interrelationships between iraqi efl learners’ classroom environment, foreign language classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate: a sem approach. english language teaching educational journal, 5(2), 143-156. 1. introduction to learn english, students are taught the english language in schools and institutes. as for school they learn it from the first grade of elementary school up to their diploma. english is considered as a foreign language in many countries and most of the teaching and learning of the language happens in the context of the classroom (scager, et al., 2017; soruç, et al., 2021; curle, et al., 2020). so, factors related to classroom such as its environment and the anxiety which can happen may also influence students’ learning as well as their willingness to communicate in english. there is always one challenging idea why some students are so willing to participate in classroom communication activities, while others try to keep away from such participations. many language teachers have been thinking about this question and they need to know more about the real factors which affect the willingness of their learners to communicate in communications. however, in most cases, second language students are not willing to communicate in the second language and as a result remain silent (macintyre, 2007; smith, 2003; soifah, & pratolo, 2020). https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i2.2806 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:aalyaa585@gmail.com mailto:mitra.zeraatpishem1398@gmail.com mailto:afaravani@yahoo.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 144 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 143-156 alyaa abdulkareem obaid et.al(on the interrelationships between…..) 1.1 importance of willingness to communicate according to macintyre and charos (1996) the most important reason for learning a second/foreign language is using it for communication whether one’s reason for language learning is to meet other people, to go to journey, to acquire more information about cultures, or only to utilize it for one’s profession. especially since the development of communicative language teaching (clt), “authenticity, real world and meaningful tasks” have become the main features of language classrooms (khajavy, 2016; chan, 2017). therefore, willingness to communicate is the key factor to learn a foreign language. learners have to be willing to communicate in the foreign language in order to learn it, and their participation in oral tasks is very important. willingness to communicate, developed as a model by macintyre, dörnyei, clement, and noels (1998), is defined as “a readiness to enter into discourse at a particular time with an especial individual or people, through the use of a second language” (p.547). the model consists of influential factors such as personality traits and situation-specific influences such as desire to communicate in a specific situation. therefore, willingness to communicate is a multi-dimensional trait which depends on many other factors. khajavy (2016) emphasizes that it is generally a basic concept for reaching effective communication and language production. in countries where english is learned as a foreign language, learning the target language occurs only in the classroom in a formal way, and thus willingness to communicate plays a very important role as learners are bound to have fewer opportunities to use the foreign language outside the classroom (charos, 2015; jin, et al., 2021; khajavy, et al., 2016; khodarahmi & nia, 2014; zarrinabadi et al., 2021). however, foreign language learners sometimes miss this golden opportunity and this is one of the deficiencies learners faces. using foreign language communication in the class is a great benefit. mccrosky (1990) believed that the first, most obvious and bestestablished reason for getting language learners communicate is that communication practice in the classroom is pedagogically useful because it represents a necessary and productive stage in the transfer of classroom learning to the outside world (ito, 2022). moreover, classroom environment includes a wide variety of learning issues, like the physical atmosphere, the psychological setting made by social setting, and some other educational factors related to teacher characteristics and behaviors (fraser, 2002; neff & rucynski, 2021; ahmadi-azad, et.al., 2020). 1.2 classroom environment and anxiety impacts on wtc speaking is the most significant skill for foreign language learners who are keen on becoming real speakers of a second or foreign language. with this regard, investigating willingness to communicate (wtc) in efl contexts, seems to be an important concern for elt practitioners, and is of great importance for a number of reasons. first, a great amount of tendency to communicate probably develops higher amount of motivation among learners to start finding new chances to use english in the classroom (peng, 2012; zhang, et al., 2020). second, it is important for language teachers to understand the social interaction and interdependence among individual, environmental and linguistic factors underlying wtc since it is a direct indicator of amount of communication in the foreign or second language in the classroom (cao, 2011; fielden-burns & piquer-píriz, 2022; cao, & wei, 2019). furthermore, recognizing the role of wtc in language learning as an important learner factor will help elt practitioners attend to their students’ wtc behavior more appropriately. macintyre (2007) believes that success in language learning is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the target language. charos (2001) believes that fl learners usually have little chance to use their communicative abilities to speak english outside the classroom setting. perhaps this situation for foreign language learners causes them to feel anxious and to remain silent in the classroom. so, anxiety has a negative effect on students’ capability to reach academic goals (chowdhury, 2014; rajitha, & alamelu, 2020; walker, 2004). according to dörnyei (2005), the fear of having communication with other individuals in foreign/second language causes anxiety; so, removing this anxiety should be regarded as a very important concern. an individual may not be willing to communicate because of the anxiety he/she has in regard with communication (mccrosky, 1990). since 1990, many studies have been done on the role of willingness to communicate and the success of the efl learners. in addition to the wide variety of investigation in relationship to classroom environment, this area of study has also been of interest to language teachers and researchers (zhang, et al., 2018; 2019). many different methodologies, research methods including issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 145 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 143-156 alyaa abdulkareem obaid et.al(on the interrelationships between…..) surveys, observations, and interviews have been used to study different aspects of the classroom environment from students’, teachers’, and observers’ views. the importance of such an obstacle, classroom anxiety, in the way for the iraqi efl learners calls for more research in this area to shed lighter on the potential problems that students face in learning a foreign language in iraq. the researcher made an attempt to study the role of classroom environment and foreign language classroom anxiety towards the willingness to communicate among iraqi intermediate efl learners (dryden, 2021; liu, et al., 2021; pratolo, & solikhati, 2020). therefore, this study aimed at proposing and fitting a model based on the existing interrelationship among classroom environment, foreign language classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate. the present study findings contribute to add to the available body of knowledge on the interrelationships among willingness to communicate, classroom environment and anxiety in the context of iraq in particular and for language teaching in general. secondly, the findings will be of use to language teaching stakeholders including researchers in the field of language teaching, language teachers, and teacher trainers. 1.3 purpose of the present study as communication is one of the most important skills that most programs in language teaching focus on, willingness to communicate can be a determining factor in one’s success in learning a language. thus, it is and has been the focus of research in language teaching. findings of the present study can enlighten the researchers in this field to gain more knowledge of its relationship with two of the important factors of anxiety as well as classroom environment. thus, based on the findings, researchers can set future research on the probable results of the present study. moreover, language teachers will benefit the findings of the present study. classroom environment is known as a key aspect in a teacher’s success. on the other hand, teachers always aim to lower the students’ anxiety especially if the focus is on language communication. knowing the probable relationships among these variables can be a contributing element for teachers to promote communication among their learners. having a broader knowledge of these relationships can help teachers in caring for the variables than can either lower or raise willingness to communicate among the language learners. 2. review of the related literature in a scholarly study, prihartanti (2017) focused on indonesian university student’s readiness to communicate and participate in english language learning and how they reported their anxiety in such interactions. the goals of this study were to find the exact definition of the willingness to communicate among indonesian language learners of english, and to find the relationship between classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate in english language classes. those who participated in this study were 426 students of bachelor’s degree in muhammadiyah university of surakarta (ums). in that study, about half of the students (51%) showed low readiness to communicate in english. more than half (68%) of students showed that their language anxiety affected their willingness to communicate in english, it was while 12% of them does not show that their anxiety had any impact on their willingness to participate in classroom interactions. in that research, the searcher found a significant relationship between language anxiety and willingness to communicate. another study from murtiningsih (2016) revealed students’ anxiety and willingness to communicate in vocational program universitas brawijaya. she studied 67 participants and used foreign language classroom anxiety scale (flcas) and willingness to communicate (wtc) scale. the research findings showed that english students of vocational program universitas brawijaya have high level of anxiety and low level of willingness to communicate. in addition, this study showed that there was a meaningful negative correlation between students’ anxiety and their willingness to communicate. cao (2011) studied the willingness to communicate (wtc) in second language and studied the features that remain stable in different contexts and its nature. this multidimensional study focused on the dynamic and stable nature of wtc in second language classrooms was structured with an ecological dimension in second language learning. data were collected through classroom observations, interviews, and reflective diaries, it was found that willingness to communicate which is situation related second and foreign language classrooms appeared from the 146 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 143-156 alyaa abdulkareem obaid et.al(on the interrelationships between…..) common attempts of personal features like self-image, personality, emotion and simulated opportunity to interact, classroom environmental situations such as discussion topic, communicative task, discussion group, teacher and the number of the participants, along with some linguistic factors. the outcomes showed that language teachers should be careful of the interrelationship of all these factors that create students’ wtc in class. according to worde (2003) the primary goal of his study was to identify those factors that may cause anxiety, and those factors that may decrease anxiety in the process of research to understand the role that anxiety may play in learning a foreign or second language. this study used the qualitative research method, an interview, along with a quantitative part of the study. the participants' ideas, personal experiences, and feelings were under focus in order to create a clear explanation of the participants' views of foreign language anxiety. the participants also filled the "foreign language classroom anxiety scale" questionnaire (flcas) made by horwitz, horwitz, and cope (1986). the flcas is a 33-item, self-report questionnaire, scored on a five-point likert scale, expressing from strongly agree to strongly disagree, and was created to get the specific nature of foreign language anxiety in a classroom environment and to provide the researchers with a standard measure. the interviews presented highly negative experiences with the language class. several participants expressed their feelings and gave examples of how anxiety can lead to embarrassment and even disappointment. both the interviews and the answers to the flcas questions revealed that 73% (11) of the sample of 15 participants would be regarded anxious learners with 34% (5) of these regarded very anxious. this was a small group of 15 participants and only limited generalization may be made on that base, but several conceptions for removing anxiety in the classroom were concluded from the ideas of the participants and other outcomes of the study. these suggestions encompassed enlarging awareness of foreign language anxiety and some recommendations regarding educations practices. léger, and storch (2009) studied the learners’ conceptions of their speaking abilities and their participations in oral class activities (whole class and small group discussions) and their ideas about these activities, and how classroom environment and such conceptions and ideas affected the learners’ willingness to communicate in the l2. the study used a variety of data gathering means, but the main source of data came from prepared questionnaires. in this study, thirty-two students of french language took part in this study. the questionnaires which were filled by the students showed their learning environment at different points in the semester and self-assess their speaking skills. this study showed that the students’ conception of the speaking activities and their conceptions of themselves as learners in the foreign language classroom influenced their willingness to communicate in different ways. in summary, as learners’ self-image increased in the course of time, their willingness to use the second language in class increased. although, the learners’ willingness to communicate with fellow students in small groups was not stable and was affected by friendliness reasons. 3. method 3.1 sample the participants or the target population of this reported study were students who were studying english as a foreign language in the babylon university in the city of hillah; because there was no access to the target population of all university students of iraq, only accessible population were selected including students in hillah city of iraq. therefore, the researcher used sampling for selecting the sample of the study. the target population for the present study consisted of 204 efl intermediate language learners (102 female students and 102 male students) who studied english in babylon university and were selected from among the available 2000 english university students at babylon university. the selection was based on their score in cambridge quick placement test 2004 (qpt). according to the qpt manual those participants who score 3947 were categorized as intermediate language learners and were selected to participate in this study. 3.2 instrument in order to study the interrelationships among classroom environment, foreign language classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate researcher used different questionnaires as follows: issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 147 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 143-156 alyaa abdulkareem obaid et.al(on the interrelationships between…..) 1) the quick placement test the quick placement test (qpt) (syndicate, 2001) is a test of english proficiency made by cambridge universities to measure efl level of proficiency (syndicate, 2001). in this study the researcher used the paper and pencil version. according to the manual accompanying the test, those test takers who score between 39 – 47 out of 60 were called intermediate efl learner and chosen as the intermediate participants. 2) anxiety questionnaire the anxiety questionnaire of zarei, & aghamohamadi (2018) measures the anxiety level of the learners in the classroom. it had 25 items based on likert scale. it was developed by zarei, & aghamohamadi (2018). the questionnaire includes 25 items based on likert scale from entirely agree to entirely disagree. the reliability index was reported as 0.85 by zarei, & aghamohamadi (2018). the needed time for the participants to fill the questionnaire was 10 minutes. they reported the validity of anxiety questionnaire of classroom anxiety of zarei, & aghamohamadi (2018). in this study the reliability was calculated as .74. 3) classroom environment questionnaire the classroom environment questionnaire used in this study was a modified version of the what is happening in this class (wihic) which was developed by hill, & epps (2010). it includes 20 items in likert scale from almost never to almost always. hill, & epps (2010) reported a reliability of 0.88 and the validity was measured by the researchers (hill, & epps, 2010). in this study the classroom environment questionnaire consisted of 20 items based on the likert scale which took 10 minutes for the participants to fill it. the reliability was calculated as 8.7. 4) willingness to communicate questionnaire this questionnaire which measures the willingness to communicate of english learners as a foreign language has 20 items based on likert scale. it was developed by ivana simic (2014). the questionnaire includes 20 items based on likert scale from completely agree to completely disagree. the reliability index was reported as 0.85 and the needed time for the participants to fill the questionnaire was 5 minutes. simic (2014) reported the validity of willingness to communicate questionnaire (2014). in this study the reliability was calculated as .91. 4. design first, from among the available 204 english university students at babylon university, 120 efl intermediate language learners who studied english in babylon university were selected. the selection was based on their score in cambridge quick placement test 2004 (qpt). the researcher explained about the procedure in order to avoid any anxiety on the part of the participants. the participants, then filled three questionnaires of anxiety, classroom environment, and willingness to communicate. the researcher collected the three questionnaires filled out by the participants to consider the extent of the interrelationship among classroom environment, willingness to communicate and speaking anxiety. the proposed study of the relationships among classroom anxiety and classroom environment and willingness to communicate was a quantitative correlational survey study. the researcher calculated the pearson correlation among the three variables in order to reach a conclusion about the relationship between classroom anxiety, classroom environment and willingness to communicate. 1.1 the researcher’s model the interrelationship among the variables of wtc and classroom environment and classroom anxiety could be easily observed based on what has been discovered already in this study and also studies of different scholarly works of research. rastegar and karami (2015) presented the results of their study on the interrelationships among foreign language classroom anxiety, willingness to communicate, and the learning environment and achievement of iranian efl learners. worde (2003) focused primarily on his goal of his study to identify those factors that may cause anxiety, and those factors that may decrease anxiety in the process of research to understand the role that anxiety may play in learning a foreign or second language and wtc in a foreign language. 148 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 143-156 alyaa abdulkareem obaid et.al(on the interrelationships between…..) fig. 1. the proposed model 5. result 1.2 data analysis to check the normality of data distribution, the kolmogorov-smirnov test was used to decide if a sample comes from a population with a specific distribution. table 1 presents the results of the normality test. table 1. the results of normality test df sig. willingness to communicate 204 .07 classroom environment 204 .06 classroom anxiety 204 .09 as it can be seen, 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. the present section reports the descriptive statistics of the sample. table 2 presents descriptive statistics of willingness to communicate. descriptive statistics shows the number of students, mean, standard deviation, maximum and minimum scores. the possible range of score for the willingness to communicate with 20 items with five-point likert scale (1-5) answers is between 20 and 100. table 2. descriptive statistics of willingness to communicate n minimum maximum mean std. deviation willingness to communicate 204 35.00 84.00 60.60 9.38 the first column of the table shows that 204 students participated in the present study. as table 2 indicates, minimum and maximum scores for willingness to communicate scale are 35 and 84 and the mean score is 60.60. table 3 presents descriptive statistics of classroom environment. the possible range of score for the classroom environment with 20 items with five-point likert scale (15) answers is between 20 and 100. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 149 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 143-156 alyaa abdulkareem obaid et.al(on the interrelationships between…..) table 3. descriptive statistics of classroom environment n minimum maximum mean std. deviation classroom environment 204 40.00 78.00 62.15 6.58 the first column of the table shows that 204 students participated in the present study. as table 3 indicates, minimum and maximum scores for classroom environment scale are 40 and 78 and the mean score is 62.15. table 4 presents descriptive statistics of classroom anxiety. the possible range of score for the classroom anxiety with 25 items with five-point likert scale (1-5) answers is between 25 and 125. table 4. descriptive statistics of classroom anxiety n minimum maximum mean std. deviation classroom anxiety 204 25.00 122.00 57.46 12.12 the first column of the table shows that 204 students participated in the present study. as table 4 indicates, minimum and maximum scores for classroom anxiety scale are 25 and 122 and the mean score is 57.46. table 5 summarizes the information obtained from cronbach alpha analyses for the main variables of the study. table 5. results of cronbach alpha indexes after reliability analysis scale number of items cronbach alpha willingness to communicate 20 .91 classroom environment 20 .87 classroom anxiety 25 .74 as can be seen, the utilized questionnaires gained acceptable indexes of cronbach alpha for all the variables. the reliability of the willingness to communicate scale with 20 items is .91, for classroom environment with 20 items is .87, and for classroom anxiety scale with 25 items is .74. to find relationship between foreign language classroom cnvironment and their willingness to communicate, pearson correlation was used. table 6. shows the results of pearson correlation between foreign language classroom environment and their willingness to communicate. table 6 shows that the correlation is significant. r mean the correlation amount which should be between -1 and +1 and if p is lower than .05, it means that the correlation is significant. in statistics, the pearson product-moment correlation coefficient is a measure of the linear correlation between two variables x and y, giving a value between +1 and −1 inclusive, where 1 is total positive correlation, 0 is no correlation, and −1 is total negative correlation (galton, 1885). table 6. results of pearson correlation between foreign language classroom environment and their willingness to communicate classroom environment wtc pearson correlation .271** sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 204 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 150 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 143-156 alyaa abdulkareem obaid et.al(on the interrelationships between…..) as it can be seen in table 6, there is a positive significant relationship between overall classroom environment and their willingness to communicate (r=.27, p<.05). therefore, the first null hypothesis was rejected. figure 2 shows the scatter plot of the relationship between classroom environment and willingness to communicate. fig. 2. the scatter plot of the relationship between classroom environment and willingness to communicate as shown in figure 2 the relationship between classroom environment and willingness to communicate in this study is presented. in order to find relationship between classroom anxiety and their willingness to communicate, pearson correlation was used. table 7 shows the results of pearson correlation between classroom anxiety and their willingness to communicate. table 7. results of pearson correlation between classroom anxiety and their willingness to communicate classroom anxiety wtc pearson correlation -.20** sig. (2-tailed) .003 n 204 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). as it can be seen in table 7, there is a negative significant relationship between overall classroom anxiety and their willingness to communicate (r=-.20, p<.05). therefore, the second null hypothesis was rejected. figure 3 shows the scatter plot of the relationship between anxiety and willingness to communicate. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 151 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 143-156 alyaa abdulkareem obaid et.al(on the interrelationships between…..) fig. 3. the scatter plot of the relationship between anxiety and willingness to communicate as shown in figure 3 the relationship between classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate is presented. to examine the structural relations, the proposed model (figure 4) was tested using amos 24 statistical package. fig. 4. the proposed model to check the strengths of the causal relationships among the components, the standardized estimates were examined. figure 5 shows the model of associations among classroom environment and foreign language classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate fit the context of iraq. 152 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 143-156 alyaa abdulkareem obaid et.al(on the interrelationships between…..) fig. 5. the model of associations among classroom environment and foreign language classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate fit the context of iraq as indicated in figure 5, an estimate is displayed on each path. this standardized estimate is the standardized coefficient or beta coefficients (β) resulting from an analysis carried out on independent variables that have been standardized. it explains the predictive power of the independent variable and the effect size. the closer the magnitude to 1.0, the higher the correlation and the greater the predictive power of the variable is (barrio, 2021). as indicated in figure 5, classroom environment positively and significantly predicts willingness to communicate positively and significantly (β= .25, p<.05) and negatively and significantly predicts classroom anxiety (β= -.16, p<.05). in addition, classroom anxiety is a negative significant predictor of willingness to communicate (β= -.19, p<.05). a number of fit indices were examined to evaluate the model fit: the chi-square magnitude which shouldn't be significant, chi-square/df ratio which should be lower than 2 or 3, the normed fit index (nfi), the good fit index (gfi), and the comparative fit index (cfi) with the cut value greater than .90, and the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) of about .06 or .07 (schreiber, et al., 2006). table 8 shows the goodness of fit indices. table 8. goodness of fit indices x2/df gfi nfi cfi rmsea acceptable fit <3 >.90 >.90 >.90 <.08 model 2.89 .93 .93 .90 .06 as demonstrated by table 8, all the fit indices lie within the acceptable fit thresholds: the chisquare/df ratio (2.89), rmsea (.06), gfi (.93), nfi (.93) and cfi (.90). therefore, it can be concluded that the proposed model had perfect fit with the empirical data. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 153 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 143-156 alyaa abdulkareem obaid et.al(on the interrelationships between…..) 6. discussion the present research attempted to study the interrelationships among classroom environment, foreign language classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate among iraqi efl learners. results of sem indicated a perfect fit of the model of associations among the three variables of classroom environment, foreign language classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate among iraqi efl learners. one of the main subfactors of willingness to communicate is communication anxiety which is a level of fear or anxiety with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons (mccrosky, 1990). as the analysis of data show clearly, language learners with higher communication anxiety tend to avoid communication because of their anxiety to communicate that influences their performance. the results of the data analysis are quite in line with mccrosky (1990) who believes that communication and classroom anxiety is one of the destructors of a person’s willingness to communication. in other words, higher levels of communication anxiety lower a learner’s willingness to communicate. the findings are also in line with von worde’s (2003) findings who found the negative effect of classroom anxiety on the willingness to communicate among iraqi efl learners. besides, the significant relationship among the variables of the study is also confirmed by rastegar and karami’s (2015) study which was conducted in the context of iran. they also proved the significant interrelationships among foreign language classroom anxiety, willingness to communicate, and achievement of iranian efl learners. 7. conclusion the researchers came to the conclusion that there was negative significant relationship between overall classroom anxiety and their willingness to communicate. therefore, the second null hypothesis which had stated that there was no significant relationship between overall classroom anxiety and their willingness to communicate among iraqi efl learners was rejected. the researchers came to the conclusion that the proposed model of association among classroom environment and foreign language classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate fit the context of iraq had perfect fit with the empirical data. communication is one of the most important human skills which plays important roles not only in fulfilling social functions but also in the process of learning a language. in the last decades, many different researchers have tried to study the basic factors related to the classroom communication which in itself influences learning and practice of language skills in the classroom environment. many researches have studied all aspects of classroom communication which are related to the learning and practice of different language skills. different methods have been made to increase the efficacy of classroom communication. one of the important factors affecting classroom communication are classroom anxiety and classroom environment. different performance levels in classroom communication lies on such factors as language learners are always under their influences. teachers can focus on such factors affecting classroom communication such as classroom anxiety and classroom environment. what they have to focus in class should be those negative factors like anxiety which should be eliminated and enhance those positive classroom environments. all teachers can play important roles in making appropriate learning environment in teaching classrooms. a language teacher is expected to know his or her students in order to establish better communicative environment in order to take his or her students to better levels of understanding. effective teaching methods and strategies can be applied in classrooms in order to eliminate anxiety factors which lead to negative classroom participation and increase stress among learners. focusing on positive classroom environment, a teacher can increase learners’ enthusiasm which leads to willingness to participate in class activities. teachers can manage happy and enthusiastic classes to increase willingness to communicate among learners. all psychological features which are considered as deterrent to learning and participation in classroom activities should be born in mind. teachers should decrease learners’ 154 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 143-156 alyaa abdulkareem obaid et.al(on the interrelationships between…..) anxiety as a basic cause of learning problems in class. instead, teachers should create happy learning environments for learners. syllabus designers should keep the negative effect of classroom anxiety in mind. the syllabus they design should focus more on the individual preferences and the impact such as negative factors on the decrees of learning excitement. in designing materials to be studied as lessons, syllabus designers should bear these negative factors of anxiety and under specific attention. also, classroom designers and school managers should pay especial attention to the negative and positive effect of classroom environment on the efficacy of learning a second or foreign language. finally, other researchers in the field of language teaching and testing should pay more attention to other factors which are effective on the communication process and willingness to communicate in order to reach the answers to many questions in the field of language use and willingness to communicate among efl learners. references ahmadi-azad, s., asadollahfam, h., & zoghi, m. 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(2020). contributions of (de) motivation, engagement, and anxiety to english listening and speaking. learning and individual differences, 79, 101856. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2020.05.154 https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0511.25 https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2016.1248392 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.3200/joer.99.6.323-338 https://doi.org/10.31838/jcr.07.09.181 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2021.102651 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.01.003 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2018.09.004 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 abst ract 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 and recount text. references ahmadi, a. & uhbiyati, n. 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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. 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 abst ract 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. 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 abst ract 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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(2018). sosyal bilimlerde nitel araştırma yöntemleri. ankara: pegem akademi. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070600572090 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0346-251x(88)90078-4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0346-251x(88)90078-4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-008-9139-5 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2007.tb00059.x https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2007.tb00059.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2009.09.002 https://doi.org/10.3102%2f0034654307313795 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2011.00674.x 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 abst ract 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-smirnova 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. 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 abst ract 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. 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 le in f o abst ract 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. 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 abst ract 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. microsoft word 2 jhoni & arfha.docx english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 3, december 2022, pp. 169-179 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.4874 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id shifting critical listening class to virtual learning during the covid-19 pandemic jhoni eppendi a,1,*, arfha rizky firdausya b,2 a, b universitas borneo tarakan, jl. amal lama no 1, tarakan and 77115, indonesia 1 eppendij@borneo.ac.id*; 2 arfhafirdausya@gmail.com * corresponding author arti cle i nfo abstract article history received 18 september 2022 revised 27 october 2022 accepted 25 november 2022 transforming the conventional face-to-face efl learning into virtual learning has been believed to be an ideal alternative to education access in the middle of the covid-19 outbreak. hypothetically, abrupt transitions will require adaptation and rising practical predicament since the necessary toolkit must be allocated individually to conduct the listening course. thus, this study's purpose is to examine students' perception of the functioning of remote learning for critical listening class due to a prediction for drawing divergent language acquisition. this study involved forty-six students of the english education department at the borneo university of tarakan as research respondents. the data was recorded by distributing questionnaires and closed-ended questions through google forms and interview, while mixed analysis methodologies were applied. the questionnaire and interview result showed that students claim they struggle hard in the transitional phase and developing their educational outcomes. most participants noticed an augmented listening performance in one teaching period, yet a higher chance of committing academic dishonesty than the prior learning circumstance. therefore, the learning performance still needs enhancement in providing universally supported audios and solutions to plagiarism. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords critical listening class virtual learning covid-19 how to cite: eppendi, j., & firdausya, a. r. (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. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 119-128 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i2.4989 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id conditions for teaching english to young learners: indonesian teachers’ perspectives diah royani meisani a,1* a universitas brawijaya, jl. veteran, malang 65145, indonesia 1 meisani_diah.r@ub.ac.id * * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 10 june 2022 revised 23 july 2022 accepted 15 august 2022 english teachers’ beliefs are one of the captivating topics to study as they contribute the quantity of input for reflection and the enhancement of english teaching and learning. this case study aims at investigating the teachers’ beliefs about the role of exposure, motivation, and practice in english class in elementary school and how they translate their beliefs into routine instructional actions. semi-structure interviews and classroom observations were conducted to collect the data involving three english teachers at a selected private elementary school in malang, east java, indonesia. the findings show that all of the participants were aware that the role of exposure was essential in learning a foreign language, motivation was a vital factor to achieve the objective of the learning and practice was a central part of proficiency development, and consistent with this, a great deal of effort has been conducted to provide exposure to english, to motivate students, and to create opportunities for students to use english. hence, the results of the study are expected to give a worthy contribution to teachers of english as a second language, especially at elementary schools and other researchers dealing with exposure, motivation, and practice in learning english. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords teaching english to young learners conditions teacher’s beliefs exposure motivation practice how to cite: meisani, d. r. (2022). conditions for teaching english to young learners: indonesian teachers’ perspectives. english language teaching educational journal, 5(2), 119-128. 1. introduction as the first foreign language taught in indonesia, english has been widely offered in indonesian schools from the elementary level. different from the secondary school curriculum, elementary schools do not include english as a compulsory subject, especially after the 2013 curriculum was applied. english which used to be compulsory for grades 4, 5, and 6, is now put in the extracurricular program for two reasons: students at elementary school are to be exposed more to local content, and subjects at the elementary level are considered overloaded. even so, many elementary schools, especially private ones still offer it as a subject (meisani, 2020a, 2020b). the consideration of introducing english as a second language (esl) to young learners is in line with hu (2007) and nunan (2003) who recommend a learning foreign language at an early age. the terms english as a second language and english as a foreign language are often used interchangeably. according to willans (2019), english as a second language or l2 means a language that a person hears and sees it used all around them in their daily lives but does not speak it much at home (borg, 2001). instead, english as a foreign language is considered the language in which a person’s exposure to the language is primarily restricted to the classroom. in the context of the present study, english as a second language refers to any language that is not a mother tongue of https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i2.4989 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:%20meisani_diah.r@ub.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 120 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 119-128 diah royani meisani (conditions for teaching english to…..) the speaker and is learned later at school or at any other formal and informal setting (stefansson, 2013). discussing about english teaching and learning practices at schools, it is evident that language teachers’ decisions about how and what to teach should considerably rely on learners’ differences in terms of their age, aptitude, personalities, learning styles, language levels, and motivations (harmer, 2001). furthermore, concerning either internal or external factors affecting second language learning, spolsky (1989) progresses seventy-four conditions that may determine the achievement of the various possible outcomes. among those conditions, five aspects had been taken for further study within the indonesian context by musthafa and hamied (2014), are the exposure condition, the motivation condition, the opportunity for practice condition, the communication condition, and the learning goal condition. a national survey that involved 55 indonesian secondary school teachers of english was conducted to investigate their beliefs towards those conditions and what they do to promote students’ learning. the findings show that indonesian 3 teachers of english considered those factors to be important and indirectly trigger them to do significant efforts during teaching and learning activities. related to the above findings, it is undeniable that the interaction and integration of a large number of factors affect the results of language learning. there are both internal and external factors that may become the conditions by which the success of language learning is influenced (jin et al., 2014). for this reason, spolsky (1989) states that good language teachers are the ones who are able to be eclectic; language teachers should be able to accept new proposals and be flexible to the students’ needs and learning objectives. related to the above previous research, it is without a doubt important to count on teachers’ beliefs since they act as a kind of informative framework through which they make sense of what they do in their classrooms. according to larenaz et al. (2015), beliefs are a frame of reference around which many classroom decisions are made and pedagogical practices are decided. beliefs affect practices and some practices affect beliefs causing reorientation. moreover, as the link between beliefs and practice in teacher education is central to understanding the quality of language teaching and learning (farrell & bennis, 2013), it is noteworthy to conduct further studies to investigate teachers’ beliefs in teaching-learning english, especially in the indonesian context. seeing the learners’ differences from any aspect, teaching english as a second language to children or young learners requires teachers to use certain approaches by pointing out particular characteristics of children that teachers should be aware of and take into account in their teaching (scott & ytreberg, 1990). besides the factors that come from the learners and the policy of teachinglearning english in indonesia, it cannot be avoided that the problems that occurred from the teachers’ side also affect the teaching-learning process and its outcomes. mismatched academic backgrounds, lack of academic qualifications, and inadequate english proficiency are the problems related to teachers’ quality (hamied, 2012). lengkanawati (2014) adds by pointing out that indonesians’ perspective on the teaching-learning process paradigms is still in the form of transferring knowledge by the teacher to the 4 learners; learners are still being spoon-fed and not yet accustomed to finding needed information by themselves. in addition, as students spend most of their english learning time at school with their english teachers and see their teachers as models in learning the language, the teachers’ role becomes very consequential. however, if the class is not appropriately designed, it may increase students’ dependency on teachers. responding to the disagreement among decision-makers about the idea of teaching english at elementary schools (meisani, 2020a, 2020b; setiasih, 2012), seeing the challenges of teaching english as a second language for children, and seeing the teachers’ knowledge and ability in teaching esl, this study aims at investigating what elementary school teachers of english think is important related to the exposure, motivation, and practice (spolsky, 1989) of teaching esl for elementary schools students and how they translate their beliefs into routine instructional actions. besides, it will see whether any other conditions are underlying the teaching of english to children in the indonesian context (tseng, y., 2014). the studies examining the teachers’ beliefs as well as their instructional efforts to promote conditions in language learning have been conducted by several researchers. within the indonesian context by musthafa and hamied (2014), they are the exposure condition, motivation condition, the opportunity for practice condition, communication condition, and learning goal condition. a issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 121 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 119-128 diah royani meisani (conditions for teaching english to…..) national survey had been conducted involving 55 indonesian secondary school teachers of english to investigate their beliefs towards those conditions and what they do to promote students’ learning. the findings demonstrate that indonesian english teachers see those aspects as vital and, as a result, make great efforts during teaching and learning activities. the second related previous study was done by qadir and riaz (2014) who did a comparative study on private, public, and madrasa institutions in pakistan. they wrote that a lot of pakistani students become proficient in english and achieve high standards of academic excellence due to the importance and prestige associated with the use of english supported by the educational policies; this has motivated the students a lot to acquire proficiency in english. in addition, in 2015, larenaz et al. did a case study on efl teachers’ beliefs about the teaching and learning of english in public education. the findings of this study show that beliefs were entrenched in teachers’ semantic retention as cognitive as well as affective constructs that embrace diverse degrees of fixation relying upon the teachers’ experiences on academic, professional, or personal activities. different from prior research mentioned in the previous section, this study focuses on scrutinizing teachers’ beliefs about the role of exposure, motivation, and practice in english class and what they do in the classroom related to those beliefs. the level of education which becomes the center of attention in this study is elementary school. thus, it is intended to investigate the beliefs of english teachers at a selected indonesian elementary school which includes english as a compulsory subject related to the mentioned conditions. thus, the problems of the study are formulated as follows: 1. what do english teachers at elementary school believe about the roles of exposure to english, motivation in learning english, and practice using english? 2. what efforts do english teachers at elementary school make to promote students’ english learning given the learning conditions which are related to exposure to english, motivation in learning english, and practice using english? referring to the objectives of the study, the results of this study are theoretically expected to document and provide data about elementary school teachers of english towards their beliefs as well as their efforts in english classrooms related to promoting students’ exposure, motivation, and practice in english. on the practical side, the results of the study are expected to give a worthy contribution to efl teachers, especially at elementary schools and other researchers dealing with exposure conditions, motivation conditions, and practice conditions in learning esl. due to the limited scope and coverage of the present study, it is suggested that future researchers conduct a further study involving both teachers and students to capture teachers’ inner workings of instructional decision-making and students’ language learning processes. 2. method this part describes how the research was conducted. it contains some points related to research methodology on how to investigate teachers’ beliefs on the role of exposure, motivation, and practice in esl class. the research design, data collection, subjects, instrumentations, procedure of data collection, and data analysis are as follows. 2.1. research design the present research is a case study focusing on investigating the beliefs of elementary school teachers of english about the role of exposure, motivation, and practice in efl class. it is a rounded study as it approaches the participants and the backgrounds in which they teach. (mackey & gass, 2005; sealey, 2010; wei & moyer, 2008). figure 1 below shows the overall research design implemented in this study and is further explained in the following sections. 122 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 119-128 diah royani meisani (conditions for teaching english to…..) fig. 1. research design framework. 2.2. participants this case study involves three female elementary school teachers who teach english at a private elementary school in malang, east java, indonesia. teacher, i graduated from english department and have been teaching english to young learners for almost 24 years. at the present, she teaches grades 4, 5, and 6. teacher ii has gone through five years of formal training at a university level majoring in english and has been teaching english to young learners for about four years. at the school, she teaches grades 3 and 5. teacher iii had finished her bachelor's degree majoring in agriculture. she did not have experience in teaching english before finally being assigned to teach english to the second graders starting the academic year when the research was being undertaken. besides teaching english, the participant teachers are also homeroom teachers in grades 2, 3, and 6 who are given the responsibility to teach all subjects offered for the class and assigned some other responsibilities, like being the class coordinator, extracurricular facilitator, and treasurer in the foundation under which the school is organized. the table 1 below summarizes the data of the three participants, their teaching hour responsibility, and their usual used methods while teaching english in the classroom. table 1. participant teachers’ data teachers’ data teacher 1 teacher 2 teacher 3 educational background bachelor degree in english bachelor degree in english bachelor degree in science age 46 years old 33 years old 36 years old length of teaching experience 25 years 10 years 8 years length of english teaching experience 17 years 4 years less than 1 year homeroom teacher at grade 6 3 2 total teaching hour responsibility (@35 minutes) 29 hours 24 hours 24 hours english teaching hour (@35 minutes) 16 hours 8 hours 6 hours other responsibility teaching extra lessons for sixth graders cooking club facilitator treasurer at the school foundation methods used in teaching english mind map, doing the workbook, cooperative learning mind map, classroom language, tpr, quizzes, songs, games, doing the workbook cooperative learning mind map, songs, doing the workbook 2.3. research setting this study was administered at a selected elementary school in malang, east java, indonesia— one of the private schools that offer english subjects as a compulsory subject starting from grade 2. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 123 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 119-128 diah royani meisani (conditions for teaching english to…..) this school which was founded in 2003 has become one of the favorite elementary schools in the municipality and earned predicate ‘a’ from the national elementary school accreditation board. although english was not explicitly mentioned in the curriculum, the school initiated offering the subjects and hired two teachers who graduated from english department to teach the subject. as the school grew and its classes expanded, the two english teachers could not keep up with the english teaching load. as a result, the school assigned a homeroom teacher to assist with english instruction. given the circumstances, the current study sought to document the teachers’ beliefs and efforts in english classrooms related to promoting students’ exposure, motivation, and practice in english, as well as to determine whether their different educational backgrounds and length of experience in teaching english influenced their teaching practices. 2.4. data collection this study collected data on teachers’ beliefs as well as their instructional efforts to promote conditions in language learning. this was done via the use of teacher interviews and classroom observations. 2.4.1. semi-structured interview semi-structured interviews are frequently employed for classroom research (wragg, 1999). in collecting the data, written questions from the questionnaire modified from larenaz et al. (2015) and lin (2008) were given to the interviewees to encourage engagement between the researcher and respondents in natural conversation while having the interview. the interview that involved two parts concerned the participant teachers’ background in the first section and the second addressed their perspective on the role of exposure, motivation, and practice in language learning. the questions were all pre-designed. the focal purpose of the interviews was to discover the teacher’s beliefs related to the mentioned conditions in english learning. the interview was held to understand the teacher’s educational background and their beliefs concerning the mentioned conditions in language learning. besides using the voice recorders, notes were also made to gather data on how the teachers felt about the role of exposure, motivation, and practice in english learning. the participants were allowed to talk openly about how they felt relating to a certain question. the interview with teacher i took 1 hour 10 minutes and 50 seconds, with teacher ii 25 minutes and 39 seconds, and with teacher iii 14 minutes and 45 seconds. further information was collected through online messages with three teachers. 2.4.2. classroom observation in observations, data are obtained by solely watching the participants teaching english in the classroom. classroom observation is conducted to understand the participants in their natural environment, without changing or deploying it (gay et al., 2006). field notes were used to record the observation results. there were around 25 students in each observed class. field notes were undertaken to capture all relevant aspects of the situation observed. the aspects consisted of two elementary types of information. they were descriptive information that contained what the observer has precisely seen or heard while teaching and learning activities were being conducted and reflective information that captured the researcher’s personal reactions, experiences, and thoughts during the observation session. 3. findings and discussion this section presents the detailed results of teacher interviews and direct classroom observations. a cross-case analysis was employed to summarize and classify the characteristics of the three teachers. furthermore, as indicated before that three major propositions have been selected to serve as a focus for this study. the following parts present detailed explanations of the participant teachers’ beliefs about each of the learning conditions and are followed by the explication of the kind of instructional efforts made by those teachers under each condition. 3.1. the role of exposure to english based on the interview results, it can be stated that the participant teachers are mindful that english should be used during the improvement of their classes and that language learning relies 124 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 119-128 diah royani meisani (conditions for teaching english to…..) upon the time students are exposed to english. they also admit that once-a week-class for not more than 70 minutes is considered insufficient for students to be exposed to english. furthermore, each participant teacher’s educational background, english teaching experience, and grade at which they teach do affect their perception and point of view about english learning at the elementary level. all of the participants admit that their responsibilities as homeroom teachers who should teach other subjects besides english have made them hardly focus on developing materials and providing as much english language exposure to their students. in terms of english skills, they, themselves, feel that their english skills do not improve as they teach very basic english (yildirim, 2008). while teacher i whose teaching hour responsibility is the most of all is inquired to prepare the sixth graders for the national examination in which english subject is not included, the other two younger teachers whose teaching hour responsibility is lesser are supposed to develop better materials and design better learning tasks promoting exposure in the english language. in fact, as both the school and the regional education department provide professional development in the general subject for elementary school teachers, not by the subject they are majoring in, these english teachers undergo a lack of exposure to their own english skill development. dealing with this, teacher i initiates taking an english course to enhance her english skills in order to be able to develop both her pedagogical and content knowledge of english. she felt that her language proficiency has weakened to the point that she did not feel comfortable with her speaking. she, then, joined the course twice a week after school hour with the expectation that she could enhance her english skills, progress information, especially about english, and be able to gain new knowledge on english teaching-learning. the updates that she obtained through the course have advanced her english teaching skills and been very useful to be implemented in her class; she does not limit her teaching to what is in the workbook given by the local education department. the use of songs to enrich students’ vocabulary and games to introduce topics and materials is a part of the tasks that she has designed to encourage students’ use of english skills. this is supported by ghosn (2019) and kirkgoz (2019) who suggest that songs, chants, and stories help improve listening and speaking skills. they also assist young learners in gradually internalizing foreign language structures and patterns, as well as learning specific vocabulary items. in addition, as teacher i teaches the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders who have been exposed to english since they were in the second grade, she always tries to demonstrate to use english in functional communication activities in the classroom and encourage students to bring a dictionary and teaches them how to use it. not too different from what has been done by teacher i, teacher ii who also graduated from english department, shared that she always implements the classroom language, useful phrases, and expressions in the english language to accustom students to hear. this is supported by ching & lin (2019) and scott & ytreberg (1990) who posit that the use of classroom language potentially brings benefits to the process of learning language since pupils are encouraged to learn to communicate using simple, meaningful expressions in the target language. here, teacher ii is aware that using as much of the target language as possible is a part of second language teachers’ responsibilities. in addition, as the materials and exercises provided in the students’ workbook are considered not enough to enhance students’ communicative english skills, she, therefore, has designed various activities in her class, such as mind mapping the topic learn to brainstorm the students, applying total physical responses (tpr) approach, conducting both written and oral quizzes to evaluate students’ comprehension and improve their confidence, creating songs, and applying cooperative learning to develop social interaction among peers. in addition, she considers that sometimes it is required for the students to see and listen to how english is spoken and used by the natives. since it is not easy to have native speakers in the classroom, she instigates appropriate related-topic videos of native speakers to be exposed to the students. it is in line with what donaghy (2014) writes on the bbc site that films, tv shows, as well as videos, are an essential part of students’ lives so it makes impeccable sense to bring them into the language classroom. besides making the language learning process more amusing and pleasant, they also offer a source of authentic and wide-ranging language as examples of english used in actual situations outside the classroom, predominantly interactive language–the language of real-life conversation. through videos and films, students are also exposed to natural languages and the natural flow of speech (meisani, 2021). in addition, as these students are not living in an english-speaking setting, english films and videos can provide them with this real-life language input. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 125 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 119-128 diah royani meisani (conditions for teaching english to…..) on the other hand, teacher iii whose major is not english and is assigned to help the other two english teachers to teach english to second graders considers that her english is quite enough for teaching this level. she studies the students’ workbooks to improve her english and does not essentially use methods in teaching. the students’ workbook is her focus and during the english class, the students are busy doing the exercises in the workbook. although in some topics she creates songs for the students and sings together in the class, she does not surely expand the teaching-learning activities. she considers that vocabulary building should be done first among others; unfortunately, the tasks designed to expose students to vocabulary are not done meaningfully—vocabulary is not given with the context, within meaningful activities, or students’ related experiences. furthermore, she claims that in the second grade, learners’ academic and social backgrounds in english are so limited, it is impossible to use english as a means of instruction and communication. it is a surprising contradiction to know that even though teacher iii does not use the target language, she considers the language as a tool that benefits students’ learning. 3.2. the role of motivation in learning english good teachers are the ones who are aware that they play essential roles as teachers and have the important task of convincing learners that they always have to learn beyond what is taught (larenaz et al., 2015). teachers should understand that they are not the central agent in pedagogical practices. based on burns & richards (2009), teachers act as role models, guides, facilitators, prompters, and mediators in the classroom. dealing with this, all of the participant teachers agree that students need to have motivation both personal and external ones to trigger them to learn english. all of them reported that the students are highly motivated in learning english with them. this is a very good point since it can be said that students, at a very early age, have built personal enthusiasm for learning a second language. from the class observation and field notes, this occurs because of teachers’ openness to welcome any of the students’ questions, complaints, and sharing. in the class, three of them are very helpful and patient in assisting students’ learning. as the most experienced, teacher i always help the students to see the useful things in what they learn in english class, especially the sixth graders who are going to secondary school in the upcoming year. she encourages the students to see the value in using english as much as possible to prepare them for the higher level of english at the secondary level. the most interesting part about her belief related to motivation is she believes that every child is unique. for this, when the students get stuck, face difficulties, and do not feel confident with their english, this teacher supports them by convincing them that english is not our language, as we are learning, difficulties and mistakes normally exist. if they feel that they are not good at english, she motivates them by saying that they must be good in other subjects, and that is fine. she said that these words work a lot to trigger and induce the students to be positively interested in learning english. teacher ii motivates the students by demonstrating to the students that they can benefit much from being proficient in english. she enthusiastically uses english as much as possible in the class, provides videos of native speakers to enhance students’ listening and speaking skills, and designs interesting tasks to attract students’ engagement in class activities. it is also very interesting to know from the interview that teacher ii has identified students in her classes who are highly motivated are the ones whose parents are actively involved in learning. this positively correlates with meisani (2018) and setiasih (2012) who state that not only school and educational facilities, but parents’ support also determines the success of students’ english literacy. on the contrary, teacher iii, who is not truly experienced in teaching english, does not make any momentous efforts related to motivation in learning english. in general, she believes that the students are fully engaged and interested in studying english with her, even they always look forward to having the english subject that is taught once a week. she considers that this is because english is a new subject for the second graders; they did not have it in the former grade. 3.3. the role of practice using english practice is extremely important for learning english. the point is teacher should provide the opportunity for the students to practice what they have learned in learning english. similar to the previous conditions, all of the participant teachers agree that the role of practice is major. in terms of the actions, all of them reported that they assign students to do the exercises in the workbook that can be done both in and outside the classroom during the english subject or after school. furthermore, through songs, games, and other cooperative learning activities they design, students 126 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 119-128 diah royani meisani (conditions for teaching english to…..) are given opportunities to speak, listen, read and write in english. although most of the students at the elementary level need guidance from their teachers, students should still be given space to practice and appreciated for any efforts they make in learning the language. 4. conclusion and recommendation this present case study has discussed the results of the research focusing on investigating elementary school teachers of english about the role of exposure, motivation, and practice in esl learning. based on the data presented and analyzed in the previous sections, the conclusions are formulated as follows. although this study involved only three indonesian teachers of english at a selected private elementary school and the results are not obviously generalizable, they are valuable to other teachers in the sense that each individual esl teacher has a teaching approach; each individual esl teacher acts out her beliefs in the classroom and each individual is by some means involved in change as the language curriculum proposes innovations to apply. in terms of belief, the three participant teachers provide support to the theoretical propositions made by spolsky (1989) especially those related to exposure, motivation, and practice. they are aware that the role of exposure is essential in learning a second language, motivation is a vital factor to achieve the objective of the learning and practice is a central part of proficiency development. consistent with this, regardless of their different educational background and their length of experience in teaching english, three of them have made a great deal of effort to compensate for the number of boundaries they face in their own instructional situations. although many believe that early language learners do not understand the purpose of learning english, the participant teachers seem to feel a strong sense of concern to motivate students, which may refer to their willingness to expend a good deal of energy in planning and teaching a range of activities in the classroom. in the classes which were observed, teachers worked very hard in preparing the lesson before the class and ensuring the lesson was well-organized, engaging, and intensive. besides that, the classroom language which is applied by the teacher is advantageous to provide students with simple and meaningful expressions in english. designing tasks and activities to create opportunities for students to use english at their level and providing continuous supports in various forms by understanding that their students are early english learners therefore they need to ensure that every one of them learns interestedly and meaningfully are also other important efforts made by the teachers. it is also necessary to know that the literature on teaching english to young learners has identified a number of unyielding encounters. the case in this school where the research was conducted is that english is introduced as a compulsory subject without due consideration of who will teach it. the overwhelming duties have made the school assign a mathematics teacher (teacher iii) to help the two english teachers teach english. as a result, as a severe deficiency of trained teachers of english, the mathematics teacher did not teach the language meaningfully like the other two. as professional development to enhance teachers who teach english is not supported, the teachers may find themselves teaching english either without sufficient preparation in teaching young learners, specifically in teaching english to young learners (meisani et al., 2020a, 2020b). nevertheless, it is good to see what has been done by teacher i and teacher ii dealing with the development of english proficiency and teaching skills. it is their own willingness and awareness to see the importance of improving both their pedagogical and content knowledge of english that indirectly brings advantages to enhance what they can do in their english class with the students. hence, it is obvious that the efficient reflection of the association between beliefs and practices can help teachers cultivate an understanding of both what they want to do in their classrooms and the changes they want to apply to their approaches to teaching and learning (farrell & bennis, 2013). due to the limited scope and coverage of the present study, it is suggested that future researchers conduct a further study involving both teachers and students to capture teachers’ inner workings of instructional decision-making and students’ language learning processes. in-depth interviews with both teachers and students might also be conducted to uncover the motives and reasons behind both their observable and covert decision-making activities during the class. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 127 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 119-128 diah royani meisani (conditions for teaching english to…..) references borg, m. 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(2008). a case study on the use of materials by classroom teachers. educational sciences: theory and practice, 8(1), 305-322. retrieved may 12, 2020, from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej796263 http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2020.17.4.1.1158 https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.v24i2.3080 https://doi.org/10.15341/jmer(2155-7993)/06.04.2014/003 https://doi.org/10.15341/jmer(2155-7993)/06.04.2014/003 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315623672-33 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej796263 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 abst ract 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 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 abst ract 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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(1995). reexamining the affective advantage of peer feedback in the esl writing class. journal of second language writing, 4(3), 209–222. https://doi.org/10.1016/1060-3743(95)90010-1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2016.08.004 https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v9n8p73 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2014.01.012 https://doi.org/10.1016/1060-3743(95)90010-1 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 91-102 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i2.6687 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id meta-evaluation of research in the usage of gamification method in english language teaching hasan burak i̇nanç a,1 , emine akkaş baysal b,2, * a elt teacher, national ministry of education, afyonkarahisar and 03030, turkiye b assist. prof.dr., afyon kocatepe university, sandıklı school of applied sciences, child development department, afyonkarahisar and 03030, turkiye 1 hbi_24@hotmail.com; 2 akkasemine85@hotmail.com;* * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 05 june 2022 revised 10 august 2022 accepted 15 august 2022 this study aimed to evaluate the research in the use of the gamification method in english language teaching. in this study, thirty-eight researches were evaluated. for this purpose, the council of higher education national thesis center and google academic databases were used to reach research in the use of the gamification method in english language teaching. the sample of this study consisted of twenty-two master's theses, fourteen articles, and two dissertations. the studies were classified and analyzed regarding the type of research, year of publication, method of research, sample, data collection tool and duration of research. findings show that studies in our country about the subject were primarily at the master's level, and they were carried out using quantitative methods. findings also show that the number of studies about the subject has been rising only in recent years, and university students were mostly chosen as a sample. different data collection tools were found to be used in future studies. this is an open-access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords gamification educational methods meta-evaluation how to cite: i̇nanç, h. b., & akkaş baysal, e. (2022). meta-evaluation of researches about the usage of gamification method in english language teaching. english language teaching educational journal, 5(2), 91102. 1. introduction as the 21st century moves forward, the field of second language learning and instruction has become more technology oriented. this adjustment in the teaching strategies is in accordance with the learners the educators are receiving in their classroom. different theories and strategies have been introduced to make learning more attractive according to the learner's needs. games are an innovative way to learn a language that has been gaining popularity. gamification for language learning is very motivating and inspiring for the learner as it has many challenges to be covered, goals to be achieved, and many rewards. using gamification in educational settings toward l2 learning involves pedagogical approaches, methodologies, and strategies (flores, 2015; prathyusha, 2020). the teaching methods determine how and what to teach during the education period. teaching method refers to teachers' use of teaching objectives, materials, and subject teaching techniques to achieve the teaching goals. it is the shortest path to reach the target (köksal & atalay, 2017). from the first ages to the present, as human life has changed, the skills to be taught and the gains to be acquired have also changed. this difference has led to the development and change of the teaching methods used in the lessons. with the advancement of technology, new methods such as virtual reality (vr) teaching computer assisted instruction, which enable the latest technology to enter classrooms and educational environments and even make educational environments completely https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i2.6687 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:hbi_24@hotmail.com mailto:akkasemine85@hotmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v5i2.6687&domain=pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 92 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 91-102 hasan burak i̇nanç & emine akkaş baysal (meta-evaluation of research in the usage of…..) virtual, have been added to the methods such as the lecture method, which has kept its place since the early ages. one of these methods, gamification, is so widespread today. different instructing strategies are utilized in english language training: total physical reaction, quiet way, language framework concentrated on assignments and helpful strategy for learning. gamification uses game components and strategies for the game plan in non-game settings (werbach & hunter, 2012). gamification takes portions of games, including focuses, prizes, challenges, sheets of executives, rewards, openings, etc., and applies them to teaching methods to rouse understudies to higher and increasingly critical degrees of association (flores, 2015). therefore, gamification is a strategy that makes the language learning process efficient by using them. 1.1. gamification traditionally, the concept of play is known only as a method that people often resort to in childhood at the stage of development. with the advancement of technology, the concepts of "video games, mobile games, computer games, console games" have entered our lives and our smartphones. we can carry them with us almost every day and every moment. the concept of "game" has gone beyond being just a process that children are involved in and needs daily, and has turned into a leisure activity, a means of entertainment, a source of income for people, and even a type of sport called e-sports. it is now possible to see people of any age playing game. the fact that people spend so much time on games and enjoy it has revealed the idea of transforming a building into a game (yıldırım & demir, 2014). in this way, it is aimed to make any concept that people usually find boring and that does not interest them more enjoyable and understandable. zichermann and cunningham (2011) gave the name of the concept of gamification. they defined the concept as "using the way of thinking and game rules in games to attract people's attention and solve problems". dealing with the things that are difficult for people, that they will not be happy to deal with, and that have become a problem by means of the gamification method may cause the situation to be more acceptable and even enjoyable for people. in another definition, gamification is the game's thought ideas and mechanics to improve learning, continuity and motivation in problemsolving (kapp, 2012). so, gamification is not a concept used only in education to convey difficult or boring subjects. on the contrary, it has a structure that can be used in almost every area of life and can develop many functions, especially problem-solving. with these aspects, it is seen that the concept of gamification is used in many different fields, especially in information technologies and economics, in the literature review. 1.2. gamification in education gamification in education is an approach that is being developed rapidly to engage and motivate students by incorporating game design elements in educational institutions (prathyusha, 2020). the usage of gamification in education has started to become widespread, especially with the development of technology. games have become more accessible. it has been accepted that a game is not only an activity used by children but also a structure in which people of almost all ages and walks interact daily. it has been observed that games attract people's attention as they become a more standard structure in daily life. based on this observation, games and gamification have begun to be highlighted as concepts that can be used to transfer learning outcomes and subjects to students differently and bring a new breath to the lessons. o'donovan, gain, and marais (2013) emphasize that education resembles games in nature. they have said that students start school as first-year students and after completing specific course tasks, they "skip the level" and move on to the next class. their main goal is to get the right to win the "end of the department monster" university. based on this analogy, it can be said that the gamification method can also be applied to school life in general. students can be directed to do things necessary for their development, such as "tasks" in a game. another benefit of the gamification method is that it increases motivation. the lack of motivation that students have today can lead to many adverse situations, such as low academic achievement and even psychological problems. in one of the studies related to this, lee and hammer (2011) stated that today schools have problems with student motivation and sense of duty. gamification allows schools to solve these challenging problems using game-related components in non-game situations. the concept of gamification is also a test platform that offers rewards and feedback and aims to issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 93 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 91-102 hasan burak i̇nanç & emine akkaş baysal (meta-evaluation of research in the usage of…..) internalize the extrinsic motivation of people (gökkaya, 2014). it is possible to use this test platform to enable students to evaluate themselves and see their shortcomings, to help them discover their strengths, and to support the acquisition of subjects and achievements by increasing their motivation. considering the place and importance of motivation in education, it was predicted that using games in education would be productive. many researchers and educators aimed to increase motivation by applying the concept of gamification in their lessons and subject areas and transferring their achievements. the attractiveness of games can be shown as one of the reasons why gamification has become widespread in education. today, games are accessible in different genres and from almost every device and are used by all age groups, which has changed the view on games. games are made for specific age groups, and certain genres are now divided into different genres to appeal to different age groups. the common point of all these different genres and different age groups games is the attractiveness of the games. games that can be short or long can be made in genres such as action or sports and attract the attention of almost every one of our age. this attractiveness has led to the emergence of gamification, and attractiveness, which is among the foundations of the concept of gamification, has led to the use of gamification in education. the attractiveness of gamification is also a frequently mentioned concept in the literature. in the concept of gamification, game mechanics and game dynamics are used. points, gifts and virtual items earned in the game are examples of game mechanics. game mechanics are also used to improve the experience and interest of the user (sarıtaş & yıldız, 2015). in gamification, using game mechanics and game dynamics and making games attractive can make the lessons and achievements more interesting for the student. in the education-teaching process, considering that students are more successful in the courses and subjects that attract their attention (i̇nan kaya, 2016), it is essential to carefully examine gamification and apply it in different educational fields. 1.3. gamification in english education the general changes in education have affected foreign language teaching techniques and approaches used in this process. they have also been shaped depending on the increased need for foreign language teaching. with the increasing global globalization, the necessity of speaking a common language with other countries and communities has emerged, both culturally and commercially. this requirement has become a goal for individuals in matters such as having a job or increasing their living standards. foreign language learning has ceased to be educational only for those interested. it has become an indispensable part and necessity of most professions that people should have to maintain their lives. english has become "the common language accepted all over the world". it is called "lingua franca" because both technologies are made by english-speaking people, especially in english-speaking countries. the countries that determine the world's economy, politics, and cultural agenda are also english-speaking countries. with all these developments, english teaching has become widespread all over the world. while some countries have adopted english as their mother tongue, it has been decided to teach english as the primary foreign language or second language in some countries. this situation still holds today. when the process is evaluated this way, it is revealed that the importance of english education has increased. with this increasing importance, the methods and techniques used in the realization of english teaching have been arranged by current developments. parallel to all these findings, our country's interest in english has increased. knowing english has become power and status in our society (aktuna, 1998). gamification, on the other hand, has found a vast place in english as in other fields of education. in a way, it can be said that it has more place in english education than in other fields. one of the main reasons for this is that the concept of "mobile game" is a concept that emerged and developed in other countries of the world before our country. moreover, like other globalized concepts and objects, it is made in english to reach everyone. it is possible to reach studies that state that this situation indirectly contributes to english education (arkün kocadere & samur, 2016). games and english have been intertwined over the years. educators and researchers have predicted that this close relationship may also be beneficial in the education of english. researches also confirm this prediction. one of these researchers, iaremenko (2017), stated that students do not worry much about grammar forms and their correctness while they play. they focus on the given message and its function, reducing their stress. 94 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 91-102 hasan burak i̇nanç & emine akkaş baysal (meta-evaluation of research in the usage of…..) the most significant problems encountered in foreign language education are shyness towards foreign language use, low interest and motivation, stress, fear of making mistakes, and feelings (özdemir, 2016). one of the critical concepts in foreign language education is interaction. language exists for communication between people and has a living structure in its essence. this living structure is shaped, changed and evolved within the framework of the interactions between people and communities. it is possible to witness the disappearance of languages that have not undergone this change. this interaction also plays an essential role in language learning. like the evolution of language, the language learner can advance his knowledge and make it permanent as he uses it and is exposed to it. games are one of the most critical places where this interaction can be achieved today. people who meet with players from different countries for a common purpose use a common language (almost entirely english today) to achieve this goal. games allow people to interact as if they were in a natural social game environment (flores, 2015). in this respect, games offer a unique opportunity for educators and researchers to expose their students to english and interact with and through english. when gamification is combined with all these features and opportunities, it continues to be one of the primary methods to make english education versatile and more efficient. learning a second language is currently a vital process that every human being meets in their educational process. the importance of learning new languages has become an essential process in a globalized world. within the scope of this study, both the concept of gamification and the works related to the use of this method in english education were evaluated according to different criteria. in this way, it was aimed to help researchers aware of the usage of gamification method in language teaching. thus, researchers can contribute to the realization of new studies that will increase the efficiency of english education and help solve the problems encountered. english teachers will be possible to have more detailed information about the gamification method with this systematic review. they will be able to examine the studies carried out using this method and benefit from the results obtained from these studies in their classes. it was aimed that teachers will realize a more effective english education process with the use of gamification techniques. by this way of teaching can conclude monotonous and boring learning experiences for students, and they can keep motivation to learn second languages, especially english. 1.4. purpose of the research acquiring a new language is no easy task, not for a busy grown-up with a busy life ridden with responsibilities nor for a young student sitting in class for days. lack of time, money, instruction and motivation may hinder the learner. engaging, available and affordable learning aids are required to overcome these obstacles. gamification is one of these ways. gamification has strengthened its place in language learning education especially in english. this study aims to investigate the literature on gamification in english learning as a second language. this study contains a systematic review of published articles about gamification in english from 2012 to 2022. it was limited to articles and thesis studies with quantitative and mixed methods. 1.5. statement of problems 1what is the distribution of studies in the usage of gamification method in english education in terms of species? 2what is their distribution in terms of publication year? 3what is their distribution in terms of research method? 4what is the distribution in terms of sample selection? 5-what is their distribution in terms of data collection tools? 6what is the distribution in terms of the duration they are conducted? 2. method 2.1. research design in this study, the meta-evaluation method was used. meta-evaluation is a systematic review (scriven, 1991) that examines and analyzes different studies in a specific subject area and reaches new results in this direction. research on gamification in english education conducted in turkey issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 95 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 91-102 hasan burak i̇nanç & emine akkaş baysal (meta-evaluation of research in the usage of…..) was examined in the study. the purpose of meta-evaluation is to improve the evaluation process or future evaluations on the same subject, to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the evaluation, and to provide information about the quality of the evaluation to those who will benefit from the evaluation (cooksy & caracelli, 2009). 2.2. participants the research sample consisted of thirty-eight studies in the national thesis center of the council of higher education and the google academic databases, made between 2012-2022, on using games and gamification in english education. since they are the most up-to-date databases in the field, the searches are carried out through these databases. the national thesis data system was especially used because the first data entry of the theses was made through it. at the same time, they were determining the universe of the research in the years 2010-2019. during these years, the strategic plan of the ministry of national education regarding the updating of the curriculum was carried out. when the studies between these years were examined, it was decided that the studies before 2012 should not be included in the scope of the research universe to keep the number of studies on the use of gamification in english teaching insufficient. the studies after 2019 were examined within the scope of the study to keep the research universe up-to-date and determine the usage of the gamification method in the implementation of the updated curriculum and determine the effects of this method. the studies examined within the scope of the research consist of master's/doctorate theses, articles, and papers. these studies were reached with the keyword’s "games", "gamification", "game in education", "game in the curriculum", "games in english education", and "gamification in english education". 2.3. data collection and analysis the study determined articles, papers, and master's and doctoral theses published in games and gamification in english education. it aimed to present the defining features of these studies. in order to achieve this aim, it was decided to benefit from the studies published in turkey from the studies that could be accessed from the national thesis center of the council of higher education and the google academic database. the studies were included in this study by being eliminated from specific criteria following the subject of the study. the textual analysis was used to determine which studies would be included in this study. in this method, written materials containing information about the investigated cases are analyzed (yıldırım & şimşek, 2021). during the data coding, studies determined to be suitable for inclusion in this study were classified by giving a number and using the authors' names. among the studies in the field of education in which the gamification method was used, those not related to english education were excluded from the sample pool. likewise, studies related to english education but not using games or gamification were not included in this study. 3. findings in this part, the findings of the research in the usage of gamification in english education are presented. they are shown in figures, graphs and tables. the findings about the first sub-problem, "what is the distribution of studies in the usage of gamification in english education in terms of species?" are shown below. the distribution of the studies in terms of research type is presented in figure 1. fig. 1. distribution of studies in terms of research type master's theses articles phd theses 96 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 91-102 hasan burak i̇nanç & emine akkaş baysal (meta-evaluation of research in the usage of…..) when figure 1 is examined, it is seen that the distribution of research in terms of research type consists of 22 master's theses, 14 articles, and two doctoral theses. based on this information, it is found that 58% of the total studies are master's theses, 37% are articles, and 5% are doctoral theses. this shows that most of the studies are at the level of master's thesis. the second sub-problem of the study is “what is their distribution in terms of publication year?”. the distribution of the studies examined according to the research year is given in figure 2. fig. 2. distribution of studies by research year when the distribution of studies in the usage of gamification in english education is examined in terms of publication year, it is seen that only one study was conducted in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2022. it is determined that eight studies were carried out in 2021, 5 in 2020, 10 in 2019, 7 in 2018, and 4 in 2017. considering that we are in the first half of 2022 when the study is carried out, it is seen that more studies have been carried out in recent years. this shows that the gamification method has started to attract attention in language education recently. the third sub-problem of the research is “what is their distribution in terms of research method?”. the findings related to the research methods used in the studies examined within the scope of the study are presented in figure 3. fig. 3. distribution of studies in terms of the method used when the studies are examined in terms of the method, it is determined that 18 of the 38 studies are carried out with the quantitative method (48%), nine of them with the qualitative method (24%) and 11 with the mixed method (28%). nine (50%) of the studies conducted with the quantitative method are quasi-experimental studies, four (22%) are descriptive studies, four (22%) are experimental studies, and one (6%) is weak experimental study. when we look at the studies 0 5 10 15 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 3 2 0 1 4 2 0 1 5 2 0 1 6 2 0 1 7 2 0 1 8 2 0 1 9 2 0 2 0 2 0 2 1 2 0 2 2 yı l number of research number of researches 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ex p er im en ta l s tu d ie s se m iex p er im en ta l s tu d ie s d e sc ri p ti ve s tu d ie s w e ak e xp er im en ta l… p h en o m en o lo gy s tu d ie s a ct io n r e se ar ch c as e st u d y m ix e d r es ea rc h n es te d m ix e d r es ea rc h se q u e n ti al m ix ed r e se ar ch em b e d d e d p at te rn … qualitative method quantitative method mixed method issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 97 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 91-102 hasan burak i̇nanç & emine akkaş baysal (meta-evaluation of research in the usage of…..) conducted with the qualitative method, it is seen that five (56%) of these studies are case studies, two (22%) are action research, and two (22%) are phenomenological studies. finally, when the studies carried out with the mixed method are examined, it is determined that six (54%) studies are conducted as mixed research, three (28%) as nested mixed research, one (9%) as sequential mixed design, and one (9%) as embedded design. this shows that the studies were carried out with various research methods. this diversity enriches the work carried out and the use of gamification. the fourth sub-problem of the study is “what is the distribution in terms of sample selection?”. when the studies within the scope of this study are examined according to the sample selection, the resulting distribution is given in figure 4. fig. 4. distribution of studies according to sample selection when the given figure is examined, it is seen that secondary school students are in 7 studies, university students are in 20, high school students are in 7, and teachers are in three studies. in one study, kindergarten students, teachers and parents are included as a sample group. based on this information, it turns out that middle school students are 19%, university students are 53%, high school students are 19%, teachers are 7%, and finally, kindergarten students, teachers and parents are 2% of the studies selected as samples. the fifth sub-problem of the research is “what is their distribution in terms of data collection tools?”. the results are presented in figure 5. fig. 5. distribution of studies according to data collection tools there are 23 researches using scales, 22 researches using achievement tests, 19 researches using semi-structured interview forms, and 17 researches using questionnaires as a data collection tool. when the number of data collection tools is compared to the total number of selected studies, it is seen that 60% of the studies use a scale, 57% use a success test, 50% semi-structured interview form and 45% use a questionnaire. it is noteworthy that in all the studies, one of these four methods is preferred. except for the mentioned methods, virtual tools (electronic, digital, etc.) are used in 4 studies (10% of total research), focus group interview forms in 3 studies (8% of total research), and note-taking in 2 studies (5% of total research). one study (2% of the total studies) uses the checklist. middle school students university students high school student s teachers kindergarten students, teachers and parents scal e achi vem ent tests semi stru ctu… que stion nair e virtu al tool s focu s gro up… note taki ng cont rol list data collection tools 23 22 19 17 4 3 2 1 0 5 10 15 20 25 fr e ka n s data collection tools 98 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 91-102 hasan burak i̇nanç & emine akkaş baysal (meta-evaluation of research in the usage of…..) the sixth sub-problem of the study is “what is the distribution in terms of duration they were conducted? “. the results obtained by examining the studies within the scope of this study in terms of the period in which they are carried out are given in figure 6. fig. 6. distribution of the studies according to the time they were carried out when the figure is examined, it is determined that six studies last in six weeks, which is the most preferred research period. among the studies examined within the scope of this study, the most comprehensive study last in five months, and the shortest one last in three weeks. the duration of the studies, divided by week intervals, is 6 to 12 weeks for 14 studies (37% of total studies), 1 to 5 weeks for ten studies (27% of total studies), 13 to 24 weeks for seven studies (18% of total studies)). 2 trials are completed in more than 24 weeks (5% of total trials). in 5 studies (13% of total studies), the duration of the research is not mentioned. 4. discussion this study aimed to analyze the studies in the usage of gamification in english education according to the research type, publication year, method, sample, data collection tool and duration of the research. when the research included in the study is examined according to their types, it is seen that the research consists of 22 master's theses, 14 articles, and two doctoral theses. choosing different types of research is very positive in terms of looking at the subject from different points of view and obtaining good results. however, the scarcity of studies on the use of gamification in english education in the type of doctoral theses draws attention. it is known that doctoral education is central to academic practices (pyhalto et al., 2012). based on this determination, it is necessary to consider the use of gamification in english education in new and different studies within the scope of the thesis process in doctoral education, which can be carried out in a broader time, allows to obtain more in-depth data, and to address the subject from many different aspects, to develop existing knowledge on this subject. it will be possible to say that it positively contributes to making the applications more efficient and disseminating. when the studies on the use of gamification in english education are analyzed in terms of publication year distribution, it is seen that only one study was conducted in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2022, and the number of studies starts to increase after this year. it is determined that most studies were carried out in 2019. when the place of the concept of gamification in the academic world of our country is examined, it is striking that the earliest determinations on this subject were made quite a long time before the mentioned years. yazkan (2000) says that it is necessary to use gamification as an effective teaching tool to make language learning interesting for children and to meet their needs. this determination was made in the first year of the millennium when the world is entering a period in which technological developments would progress at an incredible pace. it reveals the fact that the concepts of gamification and language learning are not concepts that have been recognized and started to be discussed in our country after 2012. despite this, it is pretty interesting that the studies on gamification in english education emerged only in 2012 and intensified in 2019 and beyond. it can be said that associating the concept of gamification and gamified education with technology and the development of technology has led to this situation. it can be evaluated that the 6 12 weeks 1 5 weeks 13 24 weeks more than 24 week not mentioned issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 99 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 91-102 hasan burak i̇nanç & emine akkaş baysal (meta-evaluation of research in the usage of…..) development of technology, the greater inclusion of technology in the classroom environment (interactive board, smartphones, etc.) and the accelerated hybrid/distance education during the pandemic increase the interest in gamification. however, gamification is not a process that is carried out only in the digital environment or through mobile applications. it is a step taken to learning, action and the basis of creativity, which allows the person to gain experience, success and selfconfidence (baştürk, 2004). gamification is an educational method that developed primarily in the shadow and weight of the drama method and can be carried out in many different ways, including virtual tools. the opportunities and positive aspects of the use of this method in english education, the limitations and problems that may be encountered during use, the necessity of examining the whole process and the results in detail and the necessity of dealing with it more frequently emerge when the distribution of the studies in terms of publication year is examined. when the studies were examined within the scope of the research method, it is found that 18 of the studies are carried out with the quantitative method, nine with the qualitative method, and 11 with the mixed method. based on this determination, it is seen that the quantitative method is predominantly used in the studies examined. it can be said that the reason for the use of the quantitative method in almost half of the studies is that the researchers examined the use of gamification in english education, mainly revealing the advantages of using this method in english education and the deficiencies that it may reveal. quantitative research aims to determine whether one of the variables affects the other (ocak, 2019). it can be concluded that the researchers preferred this method in their studies using the gamification method in english education. when the nature of quantitative research and the objectives aimed to be achieved in these studies are compared, it is possible to evaluate that this selection will be beneficial in achieving the objectives. the fact that the least used method among the studies examined within the scope of the research is the qualitative method can also be associated with the nature of qualitative research, and the research problems determined by the researchers in their studies are not suitable for this nature. although qualitative research does not have a single definition, it can be considered that this relationship is an accurate finding when it is considered that perceptions and events take place in the natural environment and are a holistic presentation (yıldırım & şimşek, 2021). in general, the advantages and disadvantages that will arise due to the use of the gamification method in english education, rather than the more personal and accordingly qualitative methods such as explaining the use of gamification in english education, gathering opinions on this subject, bringing together experiences with individual expressions, it is seen that it is aimed to present the deficiencies and suggestions for the improvement of these aspects. from this point of view, it will be possible to say that the predominance of the qualitative method compared to other methods in research and the fact that the quantitative method is less in number present a picture that is compatible with the nature of the research. although the frequency of using the mixed method in studies is higher than the quantitative method, it is noteworthy that it lags far behind the qualitative method. it is known that the studies examined are on gamification in english teaching. these studies include methods and suggestions that will improve english education in general, such as being more effective in teaching english at different levels, transferring the desired acquisitions more effectively, and providing students with all aspects of the primary skills; the fact that the action research design, which is perhaps the most effective design in increasing the quality of education, identifying and solving problems, applying the methods directly and seeing their deficiencies and advantages, and transferring them to other educators and researchers, and which is carried out as mixed research, can be considered as a significant shortcoming. providing the information that constitutes an essential part of the quality of education and professional development of teachers, action research critically considers education workers' schools and classrooms, the development and implementation of educational studies and initiatives, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of these practices. along with these qualities, action research reflects the teacher's effort to solve teaching and classroom problems (ocak, 2021). in the studies carried out on the gamification method, one of the methods used in english teaching to make education and training more efficient, the fact that the action research method was used very little due to the mentioned features is a shortcoming that the researchers should evaluate. by using the action research method and testing different approaches to gamification in english teaching, it will be possible to contribute to solving the problems encountered in english education and guide other researchers and educators. while it is known that research on gamification and its use in 100 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 91-102 hasan burak i̇nanç & emine akkaş baysal (meta-evaluation of research in the usage of…..) education is essential in determining the theoretical framework of the subject, it should not be forgotten that it is equally important to focus on the application of gamification in english education. as a result of the examination of the sample types preferred in the studies examined within the scope of the study, it was seen that secondary school students in 7 studies, university students in 20 studies, high school students in 7 studies and three teachers were selected as the sample group. one study determined that kindergarten students, teachers and parents were included as a sample group. when studies on language learning and english learning are examined, it is seen that the capacity to learn a language starts at a very high level at a young age and declines after a certain age (average of 17) (hartshorne et al., 2018). from this point of view, it can be evaluated that selecting preuniversity students, especially younger ones, as a sample will contribute to obtaining more effective results in improving english education. in the research examined within the scope of the study, the fact that university students were predominantly selected and the frequency of choosing early-aged students as samples was low (primary school students were not included in the sample, secondary school students were selected as the sample group in 7 studies and kindergarten students in 1 study) opens. researchers and teachers, who aim to present a more effective education and training process by using gamification in english education, prefer especially early age student groups as a sample, providing english education in a more qualified way from an early age, identifying problems that may arise in all levels and age groups and presenting solutions. it can be considered to yield positive. 5. limitations and recommendations this study was carried out in turkey with the keywords "game" and "gamification", "game in education", "game in the curriculum", "games in english education", and "gamification in english education" and included in the national thesis center of the council of higher education and google scholar databases. it was limited to articles and thesis studies with quantitative and mixed methods. for future work, it is advised that studies carried out on a global scale could be considered to get a better view of gamification and its usage in english language teaching. findings of possible work on using gamification method in english language teaching and results are beneficial for improving the efficiency of the english language teaching process. it is also advised to focus on the effects of using the gamification method in english on four skills, individually or collectively (reading, listening, writing, and speaking). this is a powerful strategy to help teachers and learners of english teach/acquire four primary skills of english efficiently. 6. conclusion when the studies were evaluated in terms of data collection tools, it was observed that more than one data collection tool was used in almost all studies. it can be said that the use of different data collection tools is quite favourable for issues such as the reliability and validity of the research. it can be concluded that the frequency of data collection with the scale tool is higher than the other tools since the research examined within the scope of this study is mainly carried out with quantitative methods. it is known that data collection tools such as scales and achievement tests are frequently used in studies conducted with quantitative research methods (ocak, 2019). when the duration of the studies is examined, the reason for this is that education and training a process that spans time. research related to this process must be carried out over a certain period. educational research should also plan appropriately for these qualities (creswell, 2017). from this point of view, it is a very appropriate choice that these studies related to english education and training were not carried out in a short period by the nature of education and training. in future studies, in order to increase the depth of data on the use of gamification in english teaching, the research period should not be kept short, the application of this method in different age and class groups, the use of student opinions on the use of the method, the gamification method's four basic skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) in the english language can be offered to students through activities supporting their active use. with the implementation of the suggestions mentioned above, the advantages of using the gamification method in english teaching will be determined, as well as the problems that may arise as a result of this method, and it will be possible to reveal possible solutions to these problems. at the end of this process, it aims to ensure the realization of english education activities with the characteristics of being more effective, efficient and permanent. issn 2621-6485 english language 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(2011). gamification by design: implementing game mechanics in web and mobile apps. o'reilly media, inc. https://doi.org/10.1145/2513456.2513469 https://doi.org/10.5402/2012/934941 https://doi.org/10.14687/ijhs.v11i1.2765 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 abst ract 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 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 abst ract 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. 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 abst ract 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 wami3 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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(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. 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 abst ract (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. 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 abst ract 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 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 abst ract 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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( 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. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 44-56 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7926 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id integrating global englishes activities in a regular english classroom sirinmas sangpetch a,1*, punwalai kewara b,2, denchai prabjandee c,3 a,b,c burapha university 169 long hard-bangsaen road, muang chonburi, chonburi, 2013, thailand 1 62920206@go.buu.ac.th *; 2 punwalai@go.buu.ac.th; 3 denchai@go.buu.ac.th * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 11 january 2023 revised 23 february 2023 accepted 14 april 2023 the purposes of this qualitative study were to integrate global englishes (ge) activities into a regular classroom and to explore how ge activities influenced: a) students’ attitude toward global englishes, b) respect for the variety of english, and c) the use of english in daily life. the participants were 31 grade 9 thai students. designed ge lesson plans, adapted from the global englishes language teaching (gelt) framework, video recordings, were used to explore the classroom environment and to observe each activity. the researcher’s reflections were used to see the participants’ attitudes and reactions toward ge activity. the findings revealed that integrating ge-oriented activities in a regular english classroom is possible. the participants respect and tend to have positive attitudes toward the varieties of englishes. the results, however, revealed that most participants hardly ever use english to communicate in daily life outside of what they learn in the classroom. furthermore, this study offers examples of ge activities and materials that teachers can use as a model for designing and implementing ge activities that are appropriate for various classroom settings. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords global englishes regular english classroom lower secondary student integrating how to cite: sangpetch, s., kewara, p., & prabjandee, d. (2023). integrating global englishes activities in a regular english classroom. english language teaching educational journal, 6(1), 44-56. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7926 1. introduction due to globalisation, english has spread around the world. english has taken over as the world's language. the global trend of elt (english language teaching) has been fueled by the popularity of english as a world language (galloway & rose, 2015). consequently, english users are becoming more diverse. since english is used all across the world, thus it is crucial to acknowledge that it belongs to everyone (boonsuk & ambele, 2020). it has been argued that the conventional efl (english as a foreign language) paradigm, which uses "native english" as the exclusive benchmark for evaluation, does not adequately capture the linguistic environment of the present (jenkins, 2014). one of the causes is that there are now more non-native english speakers (nnss) than native english speakers (nss) in this international language (fang & ren, 2018). similarly, nnss are more likely than nss to utilize english with fellow nnss (matsuda, 2019). the global spread of english presents teachers with a variety of challenges as they need to teach learners in different ways so that they can use english with a variety of people in multilingual contexts (prabjandee & fang, 2022). the traditional method of utilizing nes as the benchmark for learning is no longer sufficient since it does not equip students with the skills necessary for communication in the actual world (matsuda, 2018). furthermore, the needs of students learning english have quickly changed due to the expansion of english as a worldwide language (syrbe & rose, 2016). consequently, it emerged a new term, called global englishes (ge) (galloway & rose, 2015; jenkins, https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7926 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:62920206@go.buu.ac.th mailto:punwalai@go.buu.ac.th mailto:denchai@go.buu.ac.th http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7926 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0009-0002-3905-8456 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7773-7017 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2003-9925 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7926&domain=pdf issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 45 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 44-56 sangpetch, s. et.al (integrating global englishes activities …..) 2014). canagarajah (2013) also stated that global englishes is the diversity of english used around the world. moreover, the ge concept takes a multilingual approach to language diversity (widodo, fang & elyas, 2020). therefore, it is time to shift the paradigm of english language teaching from the past to the present; the new paradigm of english language teaching in the age of global englishes is called global english for language teaching (gelt). the gelt framework situates the learner's demands in a multicultural environment with a diversity of english users who adhere to various cultural standards (fang & ren, 2018). english has always been identified as a foreign language in thailand or the thai educational system. according to the three concentric circles of kachru (1992), thailand is positioned in the expanding circle as english was introduced as a foreign language. phongsirikul (2017) revealed that not many students could speak english fluently or flawlessly if they were not educated in a native english-speaking country or had not studied with native english-speaking teachers. moreover, native english accents were favored and desired to be the target model of english accents in the thai education system (ambele & boonsuk, 2020; snodin & young, 2015; saengboon, 2015; buripakdi, 2012). tananuraksakul (2017) found that thai students had negative attitudes and felt ashamed of their non-native english accents and they were reluctant to speak english since they could not communicate with a native accent. furthermore, most of the secondary school teachers in thailand are supposed to teach the english language to follow the policy of the ministry of education. according to one of the main contents for the foreign languages in the thailand basic core curriculum b.e. 2551 (moe, 2008, p. 253), mention that “language and culture: use of foreign languages harmonious with culture of native speakers. moreover, panyang and phusawisot (2022) claimed that the textbooks used in the lower secondary levels in thailand primarily represent the target interlocutors from the native speakers of english. this makes the knowledge about the varieties of english limited in the english language in thailand. these statements caused a limitation to teaching and learning of english as the native norms. there are no varieties of englishes, which do not respond to changes in the present world. for these reasons, to prepare thai students for the reality in the globalization outside classroom that english becomes more varieties, english language teachers should bring varieties of english awareness into the english classroom and shift the paradigm from using the native english speaker as a model to using intercultural speakers as models in english teaching. in order to improve students' english language proficiency and prepare them to participate in a range of global contexts, it is crucial that english language teaching (elt) classes raise students' knowledge of global englishes (ge) (galloway & rose, 2018). boonsuk, ambele, and mckinley (2021) identified that ges-oriented pedagogies should be integrated into english language learning and teaching in thailand to the changing sociolinguistic landscape of english use today. consequently, it is time to implement and prove that global englishes for language teaching (gelt) is implementable. limited research has integrated ge on the lower secondary level, mostly among undergraduate students. furthemore, most of the researchers have developed a new course, and they teach ge as content. conversely, in this study, the researcher integrates ge on the lower secondary level by integrating ge into the existing english curriculum. that means the content in each lesson follows the regular curriculum. still, the researcher integrates five ge activities into the lessons to introduce about the ge strategies that are important for this global context based on the gelt framework. 1.1 global englishes language teaching according to the globalization trend, the purpose of learning english is to prepare for the real world, which is in line with the goals of global englishes language teaching (gelt). the global englishes language teaching (gelt) framework was created firstly by galloway (2013), providing a practical conceptual framework to inform english language curriculum development. gelt was developed to raise students' awareness of english diversity and to challenge native speaker-oriented elt. ge places less emphasis on native speaker english as. it emphasizes the diversity of english, looking at the linguistic, sociolinguistic and sociocultural diversity and fluidity of english use and users in real-world communication (galloway & rose, 2015). hence, it is recommended that english language teachers and educators should shift their perspective of language and encourage a movement from the traditional elt to global english language teaching. due to the changes in elt, galloway and rose (2015) have grouped the six key themes referred to as the gelt proposals. these are: 46 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 44-56 sangpetch, s. et.al (integrating global englishes activities …..) 1. increasing world englishes and elf exposure in language curriculum; 2. emphasizing respect for multilingualism in elt; 3. raising awareness of global englishes in elt; 4. raising awareness of elf strategies in language curriculum; 5. emphasizing respect for diverse cultures and identities in elt; 6. changing english teacher hiring practices in the elt industry. this study uses the gelt framework for integrating ge in regular english classrooms, adapted from rose and galloway (2019) for curriculum evaluation and design. gelt framework shows the diversity of english and promotes a move away from the norms of the native english language in elt. the classroom activities focus more on non-native english speakers and the diversity and flexibility of englishes. the differences between traditional elt and gelt are as below. table 1. the global englishes language teaching framework adapted from rose and galloway 2019 factors framework traditional elt gelt target interlocutors native english speakers all english users ownership inner circle global norms standard english diverse, flexible, and multiple forms role model ne speakers expert users source of materials ne and ne speakers salient english-speaking communities and contexts needs inner circle defined globally defined goals of learning native-like proficiency multicompetent user ideology underpinned by an exclusive and ethnocentric view of english underpinned by an inclusive global englishes perspective orientation monolingual multilingual/translingual the gelt framework offers a new perspective on how to view language, encouraging practitioners and curriculum planners for elt today that shift from the traditional elt to gelt. furthermore, the gelt framwork can guide and measure the innovation in course curriculum and materials, where innovation occurs within various teaching contexts. to summarize, gelt's goals and objectives differ from traditional elt. they are not focused on accuracy like the native norms but on raising learners’ awareness about intercultural competence and intelligibility to communicate. 1. 2 activities that raise awareness of ge the activities that can raise the learners’ communicative assessments include role-play, interview, presentations, and group work because these activities enhance students’ ability to use english to communicate with others and understand the language in terms of its uses not its form (widdowson, 2012). moreover, materials are essential to expose learners to variation in english. galloway and rose (2015) stated that elt classrooms should expose learners to englishes or elf contexts that are salient to them, and thus an analysis of the learners’ needs is essential. lu and and buripakdi (2022) stated that the development of english materials should take into account the diversity of english usage and reflect the culture and values of both native and non-native english speakers. matsuda and friedrich (2012) identified three possible options to increasing ge and elf exposure in language curriculum including teaching a particular variety of english, using the speakers’ varieties of english, and using an established variety of english. furthermore, schildhauer, schulte and zehne (2020) found that the use of audio-visual materials is recommended as a highly effective method for exposing pupils to global englishes in the classroom. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 47 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 44-56 sangpetch, s. et.al (integrating global englishes activities …..) 1.3 previous studies about implementing ge in classroom previous research studied in the field of implementing ge in elt classrooms. the researchers integrated global englishes into learning activities for students and teachers, such as courses, lessons and listening activities. sung (2016) studied a group of 25 students in hong kong, where the curriculum implements global englishes awareness-raising activities. the result showed that the activities were received positively and raised students’ awareness of ge activities. rajani na ayuthaya and sitthitikul (2016) studied with the first-year university students from nonenglish major faculties in thailand. the participants participated in an eight-week world-englishes lesson plan that comprised various forms of world englishes-based materials, such as films. results of a questionnaire and an interview showed that students had more faith in their ability to communicate in english, which reduced their anxiety in foreign language classes. eslami, moody, and pashmforoosh (2019) designed six activities to promote understanding of we and english as an international language (eil) that pre-service teachers completed during one undergraduate course. the data indicated that all activities were beneficial for raising participants’ awareness, tolerance, and respect for we. the findings indicated that the eil methodology and instructional activities employed in this study provide practices that increase pre-service teachers' awareness and proficiency in using the abilities required to fulfill the requirements of various english language users in their future teaching. galloway and numajiri (2020) designed an eight-week elective course including lectures and workshops. this tesol setting made use of the gelt framework. the participants came from a master's program, which drew both preand in-service tesol practitioners. the purpose of the project is to provide knowledge regarding the potential for gelt-related curriculum innovation. the outcome proved that they agreed with every gelt idea. moreover, interest in global englishes was the main driving force behind and "interest" in the course. prabjandee (2020) provided five activities in a 16-hour workshop to the gelt teacher professional development. the purpose of this study is to change teachers’ attitudes toward gelt. the result showed that the participants reported positive feedback toward all five ge activities. the activities are helpful for the participants to understand more about gelt. these studies have integrated ge into undergraduate settings. the researchers have developed a new course, and they teach ge as content in their courses. 1.4 implementing global englishes into classroom implementing global englishes into classrooms means that students simultaneously learn english and raise their awareness of the varieties of english. this means knowing what is to be taught, and how it will be taught and assessed to meet particular goals or specific needs. to implement ge into the classroom, it is vital to prepare the learners to participate in elf communication in a wide range of contexts, creatively balance teaching communication skills, and raise learners’ awareness of linguistic diversity (rose, mckinley & galloway, 2021). 1.5 how the activities are evaluated? language assessment is essential for evaluating how learners attain the curriculum goals. mcnamara (2000, p. 8) stated that the construct in assessment is the language’s ability in the real world as it is a simulation of the “relevant communicative behavior”. the global englishes research argues that good assessment practice must be able to infer learners’ future performance according to the evolved criterion. the good assessment should focus on the communication form, not the language form. on the other hand, poor assessment occurs when the assessment practice isn't in line with the target criterion. galloway and rose (2018) stated that the criterion for the gelt assessment construct should be measured against the elf setting rather than the native benchmark. to evaluate that gelt meets the changing needs of learners and is effective. the evaluation may involve the assessment result of the learners, whether they meet the goals or objectives. the evaluation focuses on students’ attitudes toward english and on elt teaching feedback on the course itself. 48 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 44-56 sangpetch, s. et.al (integrating global englishes activities …..) 2. methodology 2.1 context of the study qualitative design was used in this study. the qualitative data were collected through the researcher’s reflections after each activity of integrating ge into the regular english classroom and video recordings in the classroom. then, the data were analyzed using content analysis to understand learners’ participation in each activity. in this study, the researcher designed five ge activities to raise students’ awareness about gelt by integrating ge into the curriculum of the lower secondary level. the activities were designed based on some aspects adapted from the gelt framework by rose and galloway (2019) and were integrated into a regular english classroom. the teacher studied teaching content and then saw the alignment of the selected ge activities, possibilities, and potential to design lesson plans that match the content of the semester. these are the process of developing lesson plans 1. consider the existing curriculum from the official curriculum, 2. study the learning content for one semester, and 3. design the lessons based on the gelt framework. the contents that the researcher designed to integrate global englishes activities were analyzed by considering the content from the official curriculum and the concepts of global englishes. for the whole semester, the researcher divided the lessons into eight units. in all eight units, the researcher integrated the five concepts of ge activities into specific lessons. there were three experts who validated all lesson plans. all of the experts have been an english teacher in the school at least five years. after the experts’ validation, the researcher modified the lesson plans. this research studies in the regular english classroom refers to english as a foreign language classroom where the teacher should strictly follow content from the core curriculum of the ministry of education in thailand. that differs from other classes. they are electives such as clubs where the content and activities can be designed alternatively. therefore, in the regular english classroom, english is a compulsory subject at this level. the participants typically study english for three periods (50 minutes per period) per week. in this program, the participants study english following the core curriculum under the ministry of education, which is integrated with global englishes. the study integrates ge approaches into the existing english course. the content of each lesson is the same. still, it integrates more ge approaches to introduce learners to five ge activities about communicative strategies that are important for this global context based on the gelt framework. research questions 1. how is global englishes integrated into a regular classroom in a lower secondary classroom? 2. how does integrating global englishes into the regular classroom influence a) students’ attitude toward global englishes, b) respect for the variety of english, c) the use english in daily life? the participants in this study were thirty-one students in one classroom of the lower secondary level (grade 9), 14-15 years old. the school is located in the east of thailand. students learn english following school policies of the core curriculum by the ministry of education in thailand that native speakers influence. the textbook selected by the school are likely to be imported from native englishspeaking countries, and elective courses or clubs in english are limited. the teacher who implemented ge in this study is the researcher who are an english teacher at this school. the researcher was participated in this studied without any potential biases. the researcher used three research instruments to collect the data and answer the research questions. the researcher used lesson plans, video recordings, and researcher’s reflection. the descriptions of each instrument are as below. 1) lesson plans the five global englishes lesson plans were used to implement ge into the english classroom. there were three learning objectives in each lesson plan: issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 49 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 44-56 sangpetch, s. et.al (integrating global englishes activities …..) 1. learners have a positive attitude toward global englishes 2. learners respect the variety of englishes 3. learners can use english as a language-communication medium in their daily life the researcher designed five ge activities based on the gelt framework by rose and galloway (2019). for the whole semester, the researcher divided the lessons into eight units. in all eight units, the researcher integrated the five concepts of ge activities into specific lessons. then all five ge activities were integrated into a regular english class. lesson plans were designed based on an activity-based learning (abl) by david horsburgh. the five ge activities included: the history of english language; british english, and american english; intercultural; accuracy or understanding; and conversation in a global context. 2) video recordings the video recordings were used to explore the classroom environment for integrating ge in a regular english classroom and to observe participants’ attitude toward english and their reactions to the implementation of ge. the video were recorded in every session of integrating ge activities in the classroom to see learners’ reaction and any struggles found along the way of implementation. the recordings were recorded into six the sessions, each lasting fifty minutes. the duration is roughly five hours. the videos were recorded using a phone camera by the researcher. the camera was put on a tripod at the back of the classroom to see the environment while integrating each activity. 3) researcher’s reflections this research instrument is the researcher’s reflections on the participants’ attitude toward english and their reactions to the implementation of ge. after finishing each activity, the researcher immediately took notes in every activities to see the participants’ reactions during implementation ge in each activity. the researcher noted what the researcher found in each activity based on the three components of attitude structure by allport (1935): 1) cognitive: an attitude object's belief or knowledge. 2) affective: sentiments or feelings in relation to the attitude object 3) behavior: how we act or behave is influenced by the attitude we hold. 2.2 data collection researcher’s reflections and video recordings were conducted in the sessions where the researcher organized and designed to see the class interaction during the teaching process. the video recordings were conducted in the sessions. the researcher reflections were collected after each activity to see the researcher’s reflections on the participants’ attitude toward english and their reactions to the implementation of ge during the teaching process of each global englishes activities. the researcher immediately took notes after finishing each activity. 2.3 data analysis qualitative data, including the classroom observation in video recordings and the researcher's reflections, were transcribed and analyzed by content analysis as to how participants engaged in each activity, how they use english to communicate with their friends and teacher, and their attitudes and reactions toward the varieties of englishes. 2.4 ethical considerations the consent forms were given to the school's director prior to the data collection in order to obtain his or her approval. the school director received a thorough explanation of the study's objectives and the time duration for data collection. the participants were asked to sign the "informed consent for participation in research" form after the school's director gave his or her approval. they were informed of the study's objectives, its methodology, and how long it would take to collect the data, and their identities were kept confidential. furthermore, they perceived that they had opportunities to express their perspectives freely, and this did not have an impact on the outcomes. 50 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 44-56 sangpetch, s. et.al (integrating global englishes activities …..) 3. findings and discussion 3.1. findings after analyzing the classroom observation in video recordings and the researcher's reflections in each activitiy, the result showed that ge is the quality of being new for english learners and engaging in a way different from the original english that existed before. all five activities are included: activity one: the history of english language the activity began with questions about english in general. for example, in your opinion, who is the owner of english? why? the participants' answers were 1) american and british. in your opinion, where is the origin of the english language? the responses were england and the usa. they showed that their perception of english ownership is narrow only to the inner circle speakers. some participants perceived that the british are the only owners of the english language, the same as thais own the thai language and lao people are the owners of the lao language. then, the participants got nine pieces of paper about parts of the history of the english language from the past to the present. the participants got five minutes to reorder those events from past to present. all of the events were separated into nine pieces. each part was replaced by the english letters "a to i". after reordering the story, the participants were asked to share their completed story by saying the letters from the first to the last event. after that, the teacher presented the roadmap and the spread of the english language with a picture to describe more about each event via powerpoint presentation. the impact of this activity on participants’ attitudes toward global englishes showed that they gained more knowledge about the history of the english language and its influences on the english language. overall, this activity sought to introduce the beginning of english, prompted them to think about their english stereotypes based on their experience and background knowledge and prepare them to perceive the history and the spread of the english language in the same direction. the observation from the video recordings and the researcher’s reflection found that the participants tended to have the positive attitude and reactions with the activity. it can be seen from their expressions of pride when they can answer the questions and tell the history of english language correctly. activity two: british english and american english this activity presented the vocabulary of native english speakers (american and british english), including how american and british english vocabulary affect their real-life communication. the teacher introduced the differences between 24 british and american english words about clothes, 12 british and 12 american english words. also, the teacher presented the pictures of the clothes category with a powerpoint presentation to explain the meaning of the vocabulary words. after presenting, each participant got twenty pieces of vocabulary clothing composed of be and ae words, ten words for the americans, and ten words for the british. then, the participants were asked to match the ten words of the clothes given with the picture presented on powerpoint. for example, if the teacher showed a picture of “sweater/jumper”, the participants had to match the words they got, which were “sweater” for the ae and “jumper” for be. at the end of the activity, some participants realized that they were more familiar with american english and some with british english depending on how teachers or other media treated them since they were young. furthermore, they are familiar with and use a mix of two terms to communicate in their real life from american english and british english vocabulary. it can be seen from the activity that the teacher presented a picture of “trousers/pants” and asked the participants what they called this picture. some participants answered “pants”, and some answered “trousers”. this activity is a beneficial introductory activity for raising students’ awareness, recognition, and respect for the variety of english languages. the observation from the video recordings and the researcher’s reflection found that the participants’ reactions tended to have the positive attitude toward the varieties of englishes. they don't discriminate against one accent. they were familiar with both british and american english that used in their daily life. furthermore, to point out that perceiving only one standard is not enough to communicate in this globalization. activity three: intercultural the third activity was titled "intercultural" as it aimed to offer participants information about each group of people's different cultures and identities through music styles. the teacher presented eight issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 51 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 44-56 sangpetch, s. et.al (integrating global englishes activities …..) types of music including reggae, hip hop, heavy metal, blues, jazz, classical music, pop, and rock. this activity suggested the origin and the identity of each type of music. the participants were asked to analyze each kind of music, their identity, culture, and origins through the song's tone, intonation, pitch, melody, rhythm, etc. the participants learned about cultural aspects through the songs they listened to. the accent and sound of a song can represent the intercultural of the person or community from the origin of each music style. then the teacher presented the types of music, their history, and the origin of each music type through the songs and the pictures about the clothes, instruments, accessories, etc., of each music type via powerpoint presentation. after the presentation, the participants played a game by identifying the type of music from the eight types of music they had listened to. this activity offers the opportunity to the participants to know about the different intercultural types of music that are close to them. the intercultural communication is all around us, even the music we listen to. this activity showed that the participants knew about the origin and the identity of different styles of music. although, they need to meet the objective of this activity that learners respect the variety of englishes because they just identified each type of music through their identity and other symbols such as tone, intonation, pitch, clothes, instrument, and accessory. they have just raised their awareness that there are varieties of cultural differences. until that moment the participants did not notice the variations in the english variations. activity four: accuracy or understanding the fourth activity, accuracy or understanding, presented the flexibility and understanding of the english language to communicate in a real-life situation. the teacher started the lesson by showing the different english accents by letting the participants watch a video from youtube in which people around the world were interviewed about their interests and hobbies in the english language. after watching the video, the participants were asked questions about the hobbies and interests of the people in the video. for example, what is their hobby or interest? how many hobbies or interests were talked about in the video? and what are those? (listening to music, playing outdoor sports, boxing, playing football, writing, biking, painting, hanging out with friends, travelling around the world, shopping, eating, dancing, etc.). then the teacher asked more about the participants’ interests, whether similar or different from the people in the video. this allowed them to exchange their experiences and explain more about themselves. the participants listened to the eight english accents explaining about themselves, including hobbies, interests, and personal information in both native and non-native english accents (american, british, german, italian, chinese, korean, indian, and russian) from the recordings on the “from text to speech” website. the teacher picked these accents to represent kachru's three concentric circles model of english language, including the us and uk are from the inner circle, indian is from the outer circle, and german, italian, chinese, korean and russian are from the expanding circle. then let them guess and analyze those accents. after watching the video, these were their answers: 1. german english accent; the participants guessed it was a british or american english accent. they said this accent was easy to listen to and understand, but the speaker spoke relatively fast. 2. american english accent; the participants could guess the accent correctly. they understood what the speaker said. they said this accent was easier to understand than the first accent, the german accent. 3. russian english accent; the participants could not guess the accent. it was difficult to understand, the speaker spoke in a low-pitched sound, and it was fast. 4. british english accent; the participants could not guess the accent. they assumed that it was a spanish or canadian english accent. they said this accent was more challenging to understand than american english. 5. korean english accent; they first answered with japanese and chinese english accents. some participants responded correctly because of the identity of the korean accent. some students said this accent is challenging to understand. in some words, the speaker did not pronounce the english word they know; for example, in the word “boyfriend”, the sound /“f”/ in korean english will change to /“p”/, and in the word “six”, the sound of /“s”/ will change to /“sh”/. these reasons made them challenging to understand. 52 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 44-56 sangpetch, s. et.al (integrating global englishes activities …..) 6. indian english accent, they could answer correctly. they said this accent was clear and easier to understand than they thought. the speaker spoke slowly and they understood what the speaker said. 7. italian english accent, the participants could not answer this accent. they could not understand even the key message. the accent needed to be more explicit. 8. chinese english accent. the participants could answer correctly because they said the identity of the chinese accent was apparent, and they were also familiar with this accent. they knew this was the chinese accent, but the key needed to be understood. the result shows that the participants need more knowledge of the variety of english. the participants’ perception of english is narrow only to native english speakers. that is why they guessed only american and british english accents. however, they also gradually tend to have a positive attitude toward non-native english; as shown in the video, they tend to be accustomed to the indian accent. this activity offers the opportunity for the participants to encounter a variety of english accents, both native and non-native, by listening to the presented recordings. it is helpful for the participants in terms of the flexibility of using english to communicate with interlocutors from different parts of the world. activity five: conversation in global context this activity, conversation in global context, offered the participants the opportunity to listen to various english accents from the conversations from the recordings from the “from text to speech” website which is a technology that converts text into spoken audio using natural ai voices. the researcher put the text into the box and chose the various english accents to convert and create them into the full conversation. the teacher began with the questions about english language communication in general. the students were asked, “when do they use english language to communicate in a real-life situation?” as shown in the video, the answers are as below. 1. they use english language to communicate when they play online games with foreigners. 2. they use english to communicate when they meet foreigners at a restaurant near the school. this indicated that some participants had opportunities to encounter the interlocutors and used english to exchange information in their daily life. then the teacher convinced them from a lesson by presenting a conversation about ordering food at a restaurant where people speak in different accents (chinese, japanese, and british accents). to evaluate whether they understood the conversation, the participants were asked to answer the questions after listening to the recording in the production process. most of the participants could answer correctly. that means they understood what the interlocutors talked about. afterwards, the teacher presented the conversation in text and let the participants read it together to check their answers and study the conversation about ordering food. this activity is helpful for the teacher to raise students’ awareness of how the variety of english language perceptions affects their life or career in the future. to conclude, the researcher found that most of the activities provided a forum for the participants to challenge their understanding of the status of english in globalization. however, some still require the content and objectives to be adjusted. for example, activity three did not meet the objective of the study. the lesson was separated from the understanding of the varieties of english. for activities one, two, four, and five, the participants learned and acknowledged the variety of native and non-native english. 3.2. discussion 1) how is global englishes integrated into a regular classroom in a lower secondary classroom? the findings confirmed that all five ge activities could be the guideline for english teachers to provide lessons for ge activities and to promote students' awareness toward varieties of english and respect for the variety of englishes. the participants reached the objectives for activities one, two, four, and five. on the other hand, activity three did not work. this finding shows that learning to analyze the origin of each music style cannot measure the awareness of respect toward the diversity of the english language. this activity is unsuitable for this group of participants to raise awareness about the variety of english language because music is not related to the language variations. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 53 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 44-56 sangpetch, s. et.al (integrating global englishes activities …..) there are examples of teaching styles and various materials that can adequately guide the teacher to properly design ge activities in a regular english classroom properly. it is helpful for the teachers to integrate global englishes into the english curriculum and to promote uses in each activity are one of the approaches teachers can apply in teaching ge in regular english classrooms. it is essential that english teachers strengthen learners’ knowledge and improve their understanding of ge in order to remove the nativeness, ownership, and idealized pedagogical standard from the students’ perception (blair, 2015). furthermore, the findings reveal that the recording from the "from text to speech" and the video are valuable materials to integrate ge in a regular english classroom and let the participants have the opportunity to listen and encounter the varieties of english. these materials help teachers to design future activities. galloway and rose (2014) used the listening task to expose students to non-standard english varieties and elf exchanges. passakornkarn and vibulphol (2020) developed and used “hello, world englishes!”, which is the listening instructional materials in english classes to increase awareness of the english varieties for thai secondary school students. furthermore, bamroongkit and aowsakorn, (2021) claim that thai learners' english listening comprehension can be improved by using listening materials created using the principles of global englishes. moreover, asking questions is an integral part of each activity that can motivate them to participate in each activity, evaluate students' perceptions, and investigate their attitudes toward global english. rajprasit (2022) stated that the questions asked in this task inspired the participants' learning, increased their understanding, and helped them practice english. this would indicate the acceptability of integrating and adopting global englishes norms into english lessons and the thailand curriculum. 2) how does integrating global englishes into the regular classroom influence a) students’ attitude toward global englishes, b) respect for the variety of english c) the use of english in daily life? the finding shows that the students tend to have a positive attitude toward varieties of englishes when they are treated more about the varieties of english. the reaction of the participants were surprised by the non-native english accent and the indian accent. they said that ‘it is clear and easy to understand more than they thought’ indicating that they tend to have a positive attitude toward some non-native english accent. however, the result showed that a few participants had the opportunity to interact with the interlocutors outside of the english classroom without grammatically correct. they used their intelligibility competence to communicate understand each other. the vast majority of participants only speak english inside classroom with english teachers. the participants rarely use english to communicate in their daily life. 4. conclusion and recomendations the ge activities used in this study, benefited english language teaching since they focus on developing and raising the students’ awareness about the concept of global englishes and respect for the variety of englishes. the activities in this study are the guidelines of teaching styles and the varieties of materials could guide the teachers to integrate ge activities in a regular english classroom properly. furthermore, asking questions was an integral part of each activity that can motivate the participants to engage in each activity, evaluate students’ perceptions, and investigate their attitudes toward global english. previous studies have implemented ge on teachers and undergraduate students. they have developed a new course and teach ge as content. still, for this study, the researcher continues the actual practice, yet integrating ge into the english curriculum for lower secondary level students. furthermore, the researcher designed activities that are implementable for lower secondary students to promote students’ awareness of the varieties of english. however, some things could be improved in this study. firstly, during the covid-19 pandemic, the participants could not attend school and could not participate in this activity through online channels for several months. so, this study had only two months left of the semester when they could learn on-site, which needed more to integrate the ge activities with the participants. the time was limited and too short, which affected the participants’ attitudes that were not changed before integrating ge into the classroom. in this case, it was difficult to analyze the data and it also affected the study result. 54 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 44-56 sangpetch, s. et.al (integrating global englishes activities …..) to conclude, integrating ge-oriented in a regular english classroom is possible. this is the paradigm to integrate global englishes in the english classroom for lower secondary level students. the recommendation for further studies should present more varieties of ge activities that can introduce more about the varieties of english to the participants to raise their awareness about global englishes. acknowledgment the researcher expresses appreciation to everyone who participated in the study effort, from data collecting and analysis, and offered valuable comments and feedback. sincere appreciation to all participants and parties who made it possible to finish this paper. declarations author contribution : the first author was responsible for the entire research project. she also led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the second author. the second and third author participated in the data collection, transcription and analysis as well as text revision. the completed manuscript was accepted by three authors. funding statement : the research did not receive any funding conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. ethics declaration : 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 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. additional information : the authors declare no conflict of interest. references allport. 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(2023). the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction on enhancing writing proficiency of thai university students. english language teaching educational journal, 1(1), 109-123. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.7872 1. introduction sentential writing is considered a prerequisite to other types of writing. possessing strong mechanical and fundamental writing is advantageous to acquire more advanced levels of writing skills. in higher education, writing is manifested in a more academic fashion, and students are expected to demonstrate their ability to construct a variety of sentence structures, use a variety of word choices, and execute grammatical accuracy. however, a rudimentary writing skill negatively influences students’ academic achievement accordingly. in second language writing instruction, corpora have been widely integrated due to their ability to enhance vocabulary repertoire, sophisticated word choice, collocations, and awareness of writing errors (yusu, 2014; daskalovska, 2015; mansour, 2017; harb, 2018). this data-driven learning (ddl) regards students as language detectives who investigate the language resource and cultivate language learning individually while teachers provide guidance. ddl evokes inductive learning that allows students to identify input, generate patterns, and summarize their language learning (phoocharoensil, 2012; friginal & hardy, 2014; li, 2015). hence, it shifts writing pedagogy from a teacher-centered approach to a learner-centered one. by utilizing corpora, students can rely on https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.7872 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id http://pat.satchayad@gmail.com/ file://///users/macbook/downloads/sasima@mfu.ac.th http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.7872 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i2.7872&domain=pdf 110 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 109-123 satchayad, p., & charubusp, s. (the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction…) sentence models when they perform their own writing (ashouri, 2015; li, 2015). besides, effective writers need to acquire collocational competence to exhibit fluency in second language writing. they write more automatically and fluently as they recall words in chunks and are able to avoid unnatural combinations of words (ӧrdem & paker, 2016; dokchandra, 2018; boers & webb, 2018; deisslo’meara & tinkel, 2021). to this end, obtaining collocational ability is an important element to improve target language competence resulting in effective second language acquisition in thai university students. unfortunately, the teaching of collocations has been neglected in the thai efl contexts, and writing instruction has relied mainly on traditional writing materials and activities such as textbooks and a teacher’s sentence models. according to o’keeffe et al. (2007), the language used in a textbook is frequently based on intuition. in addition, language models displayed in textbooks are often oversimplified (khojasteh & shokrpour, 2014), and thus are unrealistic for real-life communication. by contrast, a corpus is a systemic collection of authentic and naturally occurring language in different real-life communication settings. numerous studies have remarked on the significance of using corpora (cobb & boulton, 2015; boulton & cobb, 2017) to inform material developers of second language teaching. in addition, a corpus is regularly updated and continually tracks ongoing changes in the english language whereas other types of language references such as printed dictionaries do not. regarding mismatches in english language use, teachers may not be able to solely rely on textbooks and dictionaries. rather they are obliged to develop and update instructional materials to teach effectively. chambers (2010) pointed out two ways of corpora application in a classroom: direct and indirect. the former involves situations where students have opportunities to directly access the selected corpus and make their own language learning discoveries. the latter entails students learning from the inputs that the teacher modifies or prepares in advance. to effectively implement corpus-based instruction, both applications should be adopted. students’ exposure to collocations should not be limited to the teacher-prepared materials. students should be provided opportunities to discover more about language use resulting in the enhancement of inductive learning and self-discovery skills. nonetheless, yusu (2014) pointed out significant limitations in the direct application of the corpora with non-native students. for example, a search query may generate a huge number of entries that would require a great deal of time to analyze. plus, some entries might be too difficult for students to comprehend if they possess lower levels of english proficiency. therefore, to facilitate student learning, input modifications play significant roles. it is suggested that non-native students learn from modified input rather than from original pre-modified input (ortega, 2009; chambers, 2010; gass & mackey, 2015). based on krashen’s input hypothesis, students learned better with comprehensible input which is slightly above their current proficiency level. when the students process the input for meaning, grammar learning naturally occurs. hence, the essence of learning second language writing using corpus-based instruction is to customize the learning materials that correspond with students’ proficiency to motivate them to learn. several existing studies have revealed the effective implementation of corpus-based activities in various efl contexts (yoon, 2008; vyatkina, 2016; harb, 2018; du, et al., 2022), while corpusbased instruction to enhance the writing proficiency of thai university students with regards to sentential writing and collocational competence has been underexplored. to elevate students’ writing proficiency and prepare them for academic achievement, teachers should integrate corpus-based instruction into efl writing pedagogy. the instruction shifts a student’s role from language learners to language researchers who investigate language input and draw conclusions about the language. hence, the present study has highlighted the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction on enhancing the writing proficiency of thai university students as well as the impacts on students’ attitudes towards the instruction. the study aimed to answer the following research questions: is there a significant difference between the research test scores before and after the implementation of blended corpus-based instruction? what are the students’ attitudes towards the implementation of blended corpus-based instruction? this study contributes to an understanding of challenges in efl writing and suggests a new method in teaching english writing. the suggested instruction could directly benefit efl teachers who are new to designing and implementing corpus-based instruction in their teaching practices. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 111 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 109-123 satchayad, p., & charubusp, s. (the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction…) 2. method this study was conducted after being granted approval by the mae fah luang university ethics committee on human research (no. ec 20111-10). the study was designed based on a mixedmethods experimental design using one-group pre-test and post-test. the population of the study was first-year english majors in the school of liberal arts at the university of phayao, thailand. the sample group was an intact group of 43 first-year english majors who enrolled in the ‘english sentences’ course in the second semester of the academic year 2021. the participants were homogeneous in terms of language proficiency and number of english courses taken in the previous semester. they voluntarily consented to take part in the study. 2.1 research instruments to assess students’ writing proficiency, the pre-test and the post-test were utilized before and after the blended corpus-based instruction with respect to collocation knowledge and sentential writing. the tests consisted of 20 items and covered five writing aspects including verb tenses, subject-verb agreements, types of sentences, word choice, and collocations. the tests were designed on google forms in both multiple-choice format (17 items) and short written answers (3 items). to investigate the students’ attitudes towards the implementation of the bcbi, the attitude questionnaire was designed on google forms using a four-point likert scale, and the scores descend from 4 (strongly agree), 3 (agree), 2 (disagree), and 1 (strongly disagree). moreover, the semistructured interview was conducted to obtain qualitative data on the students’ perspectives towards the instruction. the interview form consisted of a set of seven open-ended questions. to avoid any bias imposed by the researcher, this study utilized a third person who was not involved in the instruction of the course to conduct the interviews. this interviewer was a thai lecturer from the department of english, school of liberal arts, university of phayao with more than five years of english teaching. 2.2 data collection procedures the blended corpus-based instruction (henceforth, bcbi) was implemented with the sample group for eight weeks. this instruction consisted of 40% face-to-face teaching (three hours per week) and 60% online learning (five hours per week). since the data of this study was collected during the covid-19 pandemic, the face-to-face instruction occurred via microsoft teams. at the beginning of the course, an orientation and a training session were conducted to familiarize students with the course, computer programs, and related learning materials. the teacher employed different tools to present the information; for example, powerpoint presentations and real-time demonstrations. the students learned and completed assignments using their personal learning devices, such as mobile phones, computers, laptops, or tablets. following the initial orientation, students took a 30-minute pre-test. for the face-to-face instruction, this study maintained the use of an assigned writing textbook in the classroom, with the corpus of contemporary american english (coca) selected as supplementary material. the coca was intended to facilitate students’ learning by avoiding confusion about word choice and spelling because the assigned textbook of the target writing course portrayed american english as one of the standard english varieties. another reason for utilizing the coca was its user-friendliness, which enabled students to use it easily with adequate training. thus, the first lesson of the course began with a demonstration of how to use the coca to retrieve collocations and sample sentences from concordance lines. the students then completed different inclass writing tasks and acquired essential writing skills with the teacher’s guidance. at this stage, the students initially learned using the teacher-modified corpus inputs before being required to access the corpus directly. two techniques were used to make the corpus-based data more comprehensible for the students: input simplification and text enhancement. for example, the teacher simplified the input by cutting sample sentences from concordance lines and rearranging them so that the students could recognize the language patterns more easily. in addition, colored tags were used to enhance words with different lexical properties to help the students understand word forms and word choices. during the online learning mode, the students primarily managed online writing exercises which were delivered through google sites. they reviewed the contents that they had acquired previously in the classroom and completed online individual writing tasks each week. the online activities 112 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 109-123 satchayad, p., & charubusp, s. (the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction…) focused on enhancing the students’ mastery of writing, so they resembled the in-class activities. these hands-on activities aimed to enhance the students’ understanding of essential writing aspects, raise their awareness of using collocations, and stimulate active learning. after these individual writing exercises, the students were engaged in collaborative writing activities on google docs. in the final week of the course, students took the post-test to evaluate their proficiency after the mediated use of the instructional intervention. lastly, the attitude questionnaire was administered on google forms, and the semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 students who were randomly selected. fig. 1. instructional procedures 2.3 data analysis the scores of the preand post-tests were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, and paired t-test. the writing portion of the tests was examined by two raters who shared the same rubric covering the accuracy of sentence formations, tenses, word choices, and collocations. the scores were calculated for the inter-rater reliability using the intraclass correlation coefficient (icc). the data from the attitude questionnaire were analyzed using mean and standard deviation, and each range of the values was interpreted as follows: 3.76-4.00 (very positive), 2.76-3.75 (positive), 1.76-2.75 (negative), and 1.00-1.75 (very negative). the interviews were analyzed for thematic analysis, and the percentage was calculated from the frequencies of the tokens based on the responses that the interviewees revealed. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 the impacts of bcbi on students’ writing proficiency the present study found that bcbi can significantly improve students’ writing proficiency. as shown in table 1, out of 20 scores, the mean score of the post-test (x̅=15.02, s.d.=2.39) was greater than that of the pre-test (x̅=10.14, s.d.=2.81). the difference between the two mean scores was statistically significant at <0.05. hence, the research findings answered the research question that ‘there was a significant difference between writing proficiency scores before and after the implementation of bcbi’. table 1. comparison between pre-test and post-test scores tests n �̅� s.d. t sig. pre-test 43 10.14 2.81 12.01 0.000* post-test 43 15.02 2.39 a. *p < 0.05 the tests contained 20 questions divided into two parts: 17 multiple-choice questions and 3 writing questions. table 2 presents a comparison of the mean scores of the pre-test and post-test with regard to each writing aspect: verb tense, sentence structure, subject-verb agreement, word choices, and collocations. it can be seen from table 2 that the students’ scores for each writing aspect improved after studying via bcbi intervention, except in the case of collocations. there were significant differences between the mean scores of the pre-test and post-test on verb tense (t=6.479, p=0.000), sentence structure (t=10.928, p=0.000), subject-verb agreement (t=3.263, p=0.002), word choice (t=3.774, p=0.000), and the total score (t=12.97, p=0.000). however, the difference between the means of the pre-test and post-test on collocations (t=.819, p=0.418) was not statistically significant at 0.05. f2f ▪ lecture ▪ demonstration ▪ in-class writing tasks online ▪ review ▪ investigation ▪ online writing tasks instruction post-instruction ▪ post-test ▪ students’ attitudes pre-instruction ▪ training ▪ pre-test issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 113 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 109-123 satchayad, p., & charubusp, s. (the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction…) table 2. comparison between pre-test and post-test scores: multiple-choice section writing aspects tests n �̅� s.d. t p verb tense (5) pre-test post-test 43 2.55 3.74 1.07 1.09 6.479 0.000* sentence structure (5) pre-test post-test 43 2.20 4.27 1.20 0.70 10.928 0.000* subject-verb agreement (2) pre-test post-test 43 0.97 1.44 0.80 0.58 3.263 0.002* word choices (3) pre-test post-test 43 1.27 1.93 0.82 0.79 3.774 0.000* collocations (2) pre-test post-test 43 1.41 1.30 0.69 0.67 0.819 0.418 total (17) pre-test post-test 43 8.40 12.68 2.32 2.20 12.97 0.000* b. *p < 0.05 for the writing section of the tests, the students were required to write a sentence to describe pictures. there were three questions, and the test items were examined by the two raters who shared the same rubric focusing on sentence accuracy regarding the five writing aspects. the average mean score of the pre-test was 1.71 (s.d.=0.99) and that of the post-test was 2.31 (s.d.=0.76). the interrater reliability was calculated, and the icc result was 0.97 indicating excellent consistency between the two raters. although the sample group was considered homogeneous in terms of language proficiency, the findings from the test scores and the writing outputs could differentiate the students’ levels of writing performance. in other words, active students outperformed their counterparts because they produced longer sentences with the greater variety of word choice and sentence structure. these students tried to use more compound sentences and added complex sentences to their writing. moreover, they used more accurate verb tense and subject-verb agreement. on the contrary, those students who tended to rely on a simple sentence structure exhibited more errors in tense and collocations. however, the qualitative findings revealed that even the students with lower proficiency tended to demonstrate considerable improvements in their writing performance after receiving bcbi intervention. the findings lend support to rana (2020) in the sense that active learners might outperform their peers in the inductive learning process that requires self-discovery. 3.2 students’ attitudes towards the implementation of bcbi to investigate the students’ attitudes towards the implementation of bcbi, the attitude questionnaire was administered at the end of the course via a google form link. the students were asked to rate their attitudes in two categories: attitudes towards bcbi overall and attitudes towards the bcbi instructional process. after that, the semi-structured interview was conducted to more deeply explore the students’ attitudes in a descriptive manner. findings from the attitude questionnaire table 3 shows the results from the attitude questionnaire that indicated that the students had very positive attitudes towards the implementation of bcbi, with the overall mean score of �̅�=3.81 (s.d.=0.37). the results of the questionnaire are presented in the following section. table 3. results of the students’ attitude questionnaire items i. attitudes towards bcbi �̅� s.d. meaning 1-2 writing improvement 3.87 0.33 very positive 3-5 self-regulation 3.77 0.42 very positive 6-7 blended learning 3.71 0.39 positive 8-11 content and design 3.83 0.39 very positive 12-14 technology-assisted learning programs 3.82 0.38 very positive 3.80 0.38 very positive items ii. attitudes towards the instructional process �̅� s.d. meaning 15-17 scaffolding 3.83 0.30 very positive 18-20 collaborative writing 3.83 0.35 very positive 3.83 0.33 very positive overall 3.81 0.37 very positive 114 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 109-123 satchayad, p., & charubusp, s. (the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction…) considering individual aspects of students’ attitudes towards bcbi, it was found that the highest mean score was attributed to writing improvement (�̅�=3.87, s.d. 0.33). the contents and design of the bcbi intervention (�̅�=3.83, s.d. 0.39) received mean scores relatively similar to the use of technology-assisted learning programs (�̅�=3.82, s.d. 0.39), while self-regulation (�̅�=3.71, s.d. 0.42) scored slightly lower. the lowest mean score in this category was on blended learning (�̅�=3.71, s.d. 0.39). regarding students’ attitudes towards the instructional process, the mean score on scaffolding was �̅�=3.83 (s.d. 0.30), and collaborative writing scored �̅�=3.83 (s.d. 0.35) which indicated a highly positive perception. findings from the semi-structured interviews the overall results of the semi-structured interviews showed that students had positive perceptions towards the instruction under the bcbi model. the results were reported in six themes that emerged from the interviews concerning the students’ perceptions towards the bcbi course, blended learning, the use of bcbi, the bcbi evaluation, writing improvements, and factors influencing students’ learning of english writing. 1) perceptions towards the bcbi course most of the students considered this course to be appropriate to their proficiency levels. 70% of the students had a positive perception of the course, with reasons given below. student responses have been edited for clarity of expression. “there was a consistency between online and in-class tasks, so i only reviewed the lesson and worked on the activities. sometimes, i went straight to the activities without reviewing the lesson.” (student 12) “this course started with easy content and progressed to more difficult content. if i understood the first lesson, i could do other lessons too.” (student 20) “i could relate what i had learned in class with online lessons. in the class, i focused on the content, took notes, and did some activities. for online learning, i reviewed the content very quickly, and worked on exercises and assignments.” (student 36) by contrast, the remaining 30% of the students perceived that the course was difficult for them. they found certain topics challenging, specifically verb forms of the past simple tense, collocations, and complex sentences. from the responses, students indicated four major benefits of the course: language learning, collaborative learning, self-regulation, and critical thinking. fig. 2. benefits of the bcbi course from fig. 2, the majority of the students (35%) benefited from learning different english language aspects including basic sentence structure, verb tense, collocations, and word choice. they also developed writing skills and lexical knowledge, although some of them might have been unable to evaluate their own writing objectively. 35% 29% 18% 18% benefits of the bcbi course language learning collaborative learning self-regulated learning critical thinking n = 17 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 115 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 109-123 satchayad, p., & charubusp, s. (the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction…) “i could develop longer sentences and use different words in my writing.” (student 20) “in my opinion, i knew more words to use in my writing. however, i was not sure if my writing was good or not.” (student 39) in terms of collaborative learning, 29% of the students revealed that they worked better in groups. they developed idea-generating skills and learned from more proficient peers. for example: “we were assigned to work with a friend and write sentences to describe a picture of our choice. as we studied online, my friend and i decided that each of us choose one picture from the internet and share the pictures on google docs. then, we started to think about what to write about for each picture. after that, we chose pictures with more ideas, so we could write more sentences about them. on the document, we wrote separately using the ideas we generated previously and then we compared the sentences and edited them. at this time, i could learn from my friend’s sentences.” (student 20) moreover, students employed strategies to achieve collaborative writing tasks on google docs such as using different text colors to distinguish their writing contributions. additionally, they used the ‘spelling and grammar check’ service on google docs to help check and improve their writing. “there were five of us working together, and we talked about the strategies that we could use to identify the sentences of each student. we decided to use different colors when we wrote our sentences, so we knew which students had already done the group writing.” (student 20) the students gave equal weight (18%) to both self-regulated learning and critical thinking skills being improved by bcbi. for example, student 12, student 38, and student 41 mentioned that they managed their learning pace based on the number of activities and the deadline. regarding critical thinking skills, the students responded that using the corpus was difficult, so they needed to be more careful when they chose examples from the corpus: “i had to be more careful when i chose examples from the corpus.” (student 17) “my friend and i talked a lot when we visited the coca. there was a lot of information on the corpus when we searched for writing examples, so we had to be careful. however, we did not have problems searching for words such as adjectives and adverbs. we could select words with high frequencies to make collocations.” (student 32) these responses indicate that students became more coordinated when they worked with other students. collaborative writing is perceived as an active and interactive learning tool among students that helps them develop academic literacy skills (suwantarathip & wichadee, 2014; talib & cheung, 2017). nonetheless, this finding was inconsistent with coffin’s work (2020) which revealed students’ complaints about unequal work contribution during collaborative writing tasks. another key benefit of this activity was that the students gained support and help from more proficient students when they worked together. this result was compatible with fong’s study (2012) showing that students with greater writing proficiency were able to assist their peers. other studies (widodo, 2013; deveci, 2018) have argued that some students might either avoid working with others or rely too much on other students, so that they never improve. furthermore, students with lower proficiency may be overpowered by more highly proficient students. 2) perceptions towards blended learning overall, the students described positive perceptions of the implementation of blended learning. for example, student 4 stated that online learning offered flexibility because she could work at her convenience. this was aligned with chen’s study (2022), students considered blended learning effective in enhancing learner autonomy, learning responsibility, and learning independence. however, it was found in this study that a few students preferred learning in a normal classroom to blended learning because of the learning environment and social engagement. as commented by student 27, ‘learning in a normal classroom was livelier.’ in connection with the finding of the questionnaire, the students rated their perceptions towards blended learning with the lowest mean score (�̅�=3.71, s.d. 0.39). it might be inferred that blended learning was less appropriate for efl 116 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 109-123 satchayad, p., & charubusp, s. (the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction…) writing instruction in the context under study than that of face-to-face learning one. vo et al., (2017) and müller and mildenberger’s (2021) mentioned that in comparison to traditional classroom instruction, blended learning is neither consistently more nor less successful. besides, students expressed that they needed more engagement in discussion and answering questions, but some friends dominated the discussion sessions. “actually, i wanted to talk but i did not have a chance. there were 2-3 students who always answered the questions fast, but i needed more time to think.” (student 4) taking this into consideration, the teacher facilitator should provide tasks that stimulate sharing and comparing ideas among group members as well as be sensitive to offering more engagement opportunities for every student. 3) perceptions towards the use of bcbi fig. 3 shows the percentage of students’ attitudes towards the use of bcbi. the data were coded for thematic analysis, with four themes regarding the students’ positive impressions of instructional techniques and the teacher’s personality, ease of use of google docs, ease of use of google sites, and consistency between face-to-face and online lessons. fig. 3. positive attitudes towards the use of bcbi overall, 33% percent indicated their impressions of the instructional techniques and the teacher’s personality. these factors included using easy language and clear explanations, interesting and attractive visual aids, friendliness, creating an active learning atmosphere, and quick responses to problems. 28% indicated the ease of use of google docs because this program was user-friendly and convenient to use. this finding was in line with previous studies of google docs as a promising tool for dynamic, productive, and collaborative writing (yang, 2010; suwantarathip & wichadee, 2014; woodrich & yan, 2017). the consistency between face-to-face and online lessons was scored at 22%. because the online lessons resembled what the students had learned in the class, students could quickly review before proceeding through the online activities and assignments. some comments were as follows: “i could write faster on google docs compared to the time i worked on writing exercises in the textbook. the program helped me notice errors such as spelling, use of articles, and punctuation.” (student 27) “i knew from the beginning of the course that the exercises in the classroom and the online exercises were similar. when i went to online lessons, i did not have to read the explanation about the content. i just did the exercises.” (student 32) 17% 28% 22% 33% positive attitudes towards the use of the bcbi ease of use of google sites ease of use of google docs consistency between f2f & online lessons instructional techniques & teacher's personality n=18 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 117 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 109-123 satchayad, p., & charubusp, s. (the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction…) the remaining 17% focused on the ease of use of google sites because the students could use their psychomotor skills, such as clicking buttons and links between interfaces, typing to complete exercises, and scrubbing videos to watch and rewatch specific information. as a result, students became more engaged when they interacted with the learning materials. “i could click links from one page to others when i did exercises on google sites. also, i could watch videos that were posted.” (student 32) “i typed the answers on the pages and sent them to the teacher. it was convenient because i did not have to write on paper.” (student 39) the findings investigated from this section were in line with the result from the attitude questionnaire that the students were very positive towards the use of the technology-assisted learning tools (�̅�=3.82, s.d. 0.39). some negative attitudes were also revealed in the interviews, as shown in fig. 4. fig. 4. negative attitudes towards the use of bcbi it can be seen that 40% of the negative impressions regarded the difficulty of learning collocations in the textbook. the students reported that they could not remember and use collocations correctly. the main reason they stated was that they were unsure if they made the correct combination of words. several scholars have suggested that remembering words in chunks can speed up language acquisition (ӧrdem & paker, 2016; dokchandra, 2018; boers & webb, 2018; deissl-o’meara & tinkel, 2021). however, dervić and beć́́́irović (2020) argued that this is not always the case because of the quality of arbitrariness of language. hence, it is recommended that thai university students learn collocations in context rather than remember them in patterns. “there were a lot of [collocations] in the textbook, but only some of them were selected for the tests. i could not remember all the collocations.” (student 12) “in my opinion, learning collocations was fundamental knowledge. if i understood the contents, i could write sentences more correctly. however, learning about collocations was very new for me and i did not remember them.” (student 39) these findings reinforce the suggestion that teachers use corpus-informed data such as frequency information to make decisions about students’ learning, as posited by conrad (2000). a vast amount of vocabulary and collocations presented in the textbook might hinder students’ learning and language retention. similarly, lewis (2002) has pointed out that although a large number of diverse inputs is desirable and assists second language acquisition, not all inputs are equally useful to individual learners. as a result, the quantity of inputs might not necessarily be equal to the intake. it is also recommended that the teachers utilize corpus-informed data such as frequency information to determine salient language features, provide the appropriate amount of input, and avoid presenting too many unfamiliar and difficult words. 33% 40% 27% negative attitudes towards the use of the bcbi difficulty of use of coca difficulty of learning collocations inconsistency between no. of activities & time n=15 118 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 109-123 satchayad, p., & charubusp, s. (the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction…) in this study, however, students 4 and 27 appeared to acknowledge the significance of collocations. moreover, student 27 added that he/she was able to analyze the patterns of collocations if the teacher provided sample sentences. “i learned a lot of collocations from the textbook and the online lessons. if i could use them correctly, my english would be better.” (students 4) “collocations can help my writing look better, but i still think they are difficult to use. if the teacher provided me sample sentences, i could tell what adjective can go with a certain noun.” (student 27) besides these two specific cases, 33% of students indicated that the corpus was relatively difficult for them especially because the amount of information presented in each search query was burdensome, and as a result, they were unsure of choosing the correct information to accomplish the writing tasks. concerning the difficulty of using the corpus, students commented as follows: “i thought using a corpus was very difficult. there was a lot of information, and i did not know what to choose.” (student 4) “the corpus was new, and i was not familiar with it. at the beginning, i did not know how to search, but i think i could do better now.” (student 27) even though the results from the questionnaire showed that the students had positive attitudes towards the balance between the activities and the time allocation (�̅�= 3.72, s.d.= 0.50), and they could finish the assignments by the deadlines (�̅�= 3.81, s.d.= 0.45), some students suggested that the number of individual writings should be consistent with the time allocation so that they could meet the deadline more easily. this was calculated as 27% of the overall impressions. “it would be good if i had fewer assignments to write. i did my own writing and i also did one more writing assignment with my friend. it was very hard for me.” (student 4) 4) perceptions towards the evaluation overall, the students were considerably satisfied with the evaluation. even though they felt confused about the use of a peer-editing worksheet at the beginning, they improved after receiving the teacher’s guidance. plus, the peer editing enabled the students to get comments from peers and helped them correct their own writing accordingly. “i did not know how to evaluate friends’ writing at first, but i could do it later after looking at the examples from the teacher.” (student 17) “peer-editing was suitable because we could read comments from friends and improve our writing. sometimes, i did not know how to correct my own writing.” (student 32) it was found that students gained a higher ability to retain lexical information after they processed feedback collaboratively compared to working individually. moreover, srichanyachon’s study (2011) found that students expressed positive perceptions of peer feedback in terms of motivation, although they found their teacher’s comments more effective for language acquisition. on the contrary, lund (2008) found that students felt reluctant to have others read their unfinished writing products. plus, some of them experienced pressure to edit other students’ work because they were inexperienced in editing. 5) perceptions towards writing improvements after learning under the bcbi model, the students in this study perceived improvements in their writing proficiency in terms of fluency, lexical variety, and accuracy. they reported that they could write faster and better when they were able to generate more ideas. “after learning how to write step-by-step, i could think faster and write faster.” (student 4) “i write and share more ideas with friends. we thought about the topic that we liked and wrote everything we knew first. after that, we chose only the ideas that were related to the topic. i thought we worked faster this way.” (student 39) issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 119 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 109-123 satchayad, p., & charubusp, s. (the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction…) moreover, students used more variety of words to create better sentences. student 38 added that a frequency information list generated on the corpus was beneficial. in terms of accuracy, the students studied sentence models retrieved from the corpus and imitated the models. “when i search for a list of frequency information, i know which words are frequently used by indicating numbers of frequency and percentage. therefore, i had more vocabulary to use in my writing.” (student 38) “i looked at examples in the corpus, and i could write similar sentences. my writing seemed better than it once was.” (student 27) it was revealed that the students utilized corpus-based consultation in various ways, for example, to find more word choices from the frequency list and to look at sample writing models. the studies of ashouri (2015) and li (2015) pointed out that students could benefit from studying the sentences presented on corpora. these findings were congruent with yusu (2014) and harb (2018) that efl students were able to find accurate collocations and improve their writing performance in terms of writing scores and lexical accuracy. this was also in line with the quantitative result of the questionnaire that the students were very positive towards their writing improvement (�̅�=3.87, s.d. 0.33). importantly, students gained perceptions about lexicogrammar and language awareness (yoon, 2008; mansour, 2017). 6) factors influencing the learning of english writing significant factors influenced the students’ learning: workload, degree of interest in the contents, and level of content difficulty. the students felt pressured and lost learning motivation if their assigned workload was too high, as shown in the following student comments: “i lost motivation if i had a lot of work to do. if i was required to work for a limited period of time, i did not want to do it.” (student 4) “the teacher should give a fair amount of work, so students do not feel pressured.” (student 39) additionally, some students remarked that interesting content and attractive presentation could liven up their learning interest and attention. “sometimes, i looked at the content in each unit before attending class. if the content was interesting, i felt more active in learning.” (student 27) “i liked to have a copy of the teacher’s presentation before the lecture, so i could take notes along with her explanation.” (student 14) 4. conclusion this study investigated the impacts of implementing bcbi on thai university students’ writing proficiency and examined the students’ attitudes towards the instruction. the findings revealed that bcbi was highly effective in enhancing the writing proficiency of thai university students as shown by the post-test scores. the students accumulated more sentential writing ability concerning verb tense, sentence structure, subject-verb agreement, and word choice. despite there being no marked change in the students’ collocational competence, the qualitative findings revealed students’ positive perceptions towards learning via bcbi, and they acknowledged their writing improvements. all in all, learning is meaningful when tasks are manageable and achievable by the students. the research findings of this study have added insights into writing instruction with the integration of corpus-based data and blended learning. however, there is room for further study in this area. suggestions are given as follows: 1. the current study was limited to the use of corpus-based data to improve five writing areas, and the instruction was implemented for eight weeks. a further study may use a similar research design and focus on a longitudinal study which allows more investigation of students’ progression and improvements over a longer period of time. 120 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 109-123 satchayad, p., & charubusp, s. (the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction…) 2. the current study was conducted with one homogeneous sample group. to further validate the effectiveness of bcbi, a quasi-experimental study should be conducted with control and experimental groups. 3. the post-test scores and the students’ writing performance indicated that more highly proficient students outperformed those of lower proficiency. hence, further studies might focus on implementing bcbi with students of lower proficiency to investigate both the effectiveness of the instruction and the ways that these students handle the corpus-based activities in their learning process. acknowledgment we would like to express our gratitude to the anonymous participants who took parts and made contributions in this research. declarations author contribution : patcharin satchayad led the research, constructed the instruments, collected and analyzed the data, and drafted the manuscript. sasima charubusp supervised the research, read and approved the final draft. funding statement : the research is funded by the office of postgraduate studies, mae fah luang unviersity, chiang rai, thailand conflict of interest : the author declares no conflicts of interest. 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. references ashouri, s. 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(2014). on the application of corpus of contemporary american english in vocabulary instruction. international education studies, 7(8), 68-73. https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v7n8p68 appendix results of the attitudes questionnaire items attitude statements �̅� s.d. meaning i. attitudes towards the bcbi 1 bcbi helps me improve my writing skill. 3.84 0.37 very positive 2 bcbi allows me to have more opportunities to practice my writing. 3.91 0.29 very positive writing improvement 3.88 0.33 very positive 3 bcbi encourages me to regulate my own learning. 3.65 0.48 positive 4 i usually finish the assignments by the deadlines. 3.81 0.45 very positive 5 self-reflection activity helps me reflect my learning progress, benefits, and problems i have in each lesson. 3.86 0.35 very positive self-regulation 3.77 0.43 very positive 6 overall, i enjoy learning english writing through the use of the bcbi. 3.77 0.43 very positive 7 online learning is convenient for me to practice writing. 3.65 0.35 positive blended learning 3.71 0.39 positive 8 the content of the process writing is appropriate for my english proficiency. 3.91 0.29 very positive 9 the proportion of the content and activities are well-balanced between face-to-face instruction and online learning. 3.81 0.45 very positive 10 the proportion between the activities and the time allocation is appropriate. 3.72 0.50 positive 11 the design of the bcbi (e.g. font size, colors, pictures, format, etc.) is appropriate. 3.88 0.32 very positive contents and design 3.83 0.39 very positive 12 google sites is a useful platform to learn, work, and submit assignments. 3.93 0.26 very positive 13 a corpus is useful for language learners to look for vocabulary and examples. 3.79 0.41 very positive 14 the programs (e.g. coca, google sites, and google docs) are convenient and easy to use when i get training. 3.74 0.49 positive technological-assisted learning programs 3.82 0.39 very positive items attitude statements �̅� s.d. meaning ii. attitudes towards the instructional process 15 the teacher provides sufficient help and support throughout the course. 3.98 0.15 very positive 16 i like to get feedbacks from the teacher all the time, so i can improve my writing. 3.95 0.21 very positive 17 i can improve my writing when i receive comments from friends. 3.56 0.55 positive scaffolding 3.83 0.30 very positive 18 i enjoy learning collaboratively with peers. 3.65 0.48 positive 19 i found that developing a piece of writing is easier when i am able to generate ideas. 3.93 0.26 very positive 20 i feel enthusiastic when i have interactive communication with friends and the teacher in face-to-face instruction. 3.88 0.32 very positive collaborative writing 3.83 0.35 very positive overall 3.81 0.37 very positive 1. introduction 2. method 3. findings and discussion 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 129-142 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i2.6562 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id digital literacy readiness: voices of indonesian primary and secondary english teachers bambang widi pratolo a,1*, nur fatimah b,2, soviyah c,3, ali zuraina d,4 a,b,c universitas ahmad dahlan, jl. ringroad selatan, kragilan, tamanan, bangutapan, bantul, yogyakarta, and 55166, indonesia d centre for modern languages, universiti malaysia pahang, 26600 pekan, pahang, malaysia 1 bambang.pratolo@pbi.uad.ac.id *, 2 nur.fatimah@pbi.uad.ac.id, 3 soviyah@pbi.uad.ac.id, 3 zuraina@ump.edu.my * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 06 june 2022 revised 03 august 2022 accepted 15 august 2022 the ways students learn nowadays have changed significantly since the covid 19 pandemic in 2019. students today need different ways of teaching as they also have different learning styles. this study is intended to investigate how much the indonesian primary and secondary english teachers are technologically literate, identify the challenges they face in teaching using technology and describe their hopes and expectation in their professional work as english teachers. questionnaires in the form of google form were used to collect the data from all the participants, while interview was used to collect the data from the selected participants. the findings showed that most of the participants possessed high level of digital literacy, suggesting that they had the skills needed to help them teach online classes using the available online teaching platforms. they seemed to enjoy teaching online classes as they were capable of exploiting the online resources as the teaching materials, developing the available resources and even creating the digital teaching materials and using it in their online classes. the most serious problem they had was lack of it knowledge in regard with the new online teaching platforms and internet connection. if they had to use the new online teaching platform, they had to learn it on their own, usually through youtube and teach how to use it to their students. the classic problem, the internet connection, still occurred among the teachers and it caused problems in delivering the teaching materials and assessing the students’ work. this implies that the policy makers need to design professional development program which would help the indonesia english teachers cope with their technological issues. this is an open-access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords digital literacy technologically literate professional development how to cite: pratolo, b. w., fatimah, n., soviyah., & zuraina, a. (2022). digital literacy readiness: voices of indonesian primary and secondary english teachers. english language teaching educational journal, 5(2), 129-142. 1. introduction recently there has been a spate of interest in the study of digital literacy among teachers and students as the impact of the development of information and communication technologies which increases massively in the 21 century. according to preston et al (2015a, 2015b) these phenomena of novel technologies refer to the use of a modern way called internet. over the last years, the internet has been embedded in popular culture around the world among young and adults. websites, youtube, wikipedia, and blogs are examples of internet-based outlets which people call for when they seek information. email and various social media platforms have allowed instant communication among people across the world. in addition to instant communication, the social networking sites of website 2.0 technologies such as instagram, twitter, facebook, and whatsapp have let people collaborate by sharing and editing https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i2.6562 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:bambang.pratolo@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:nur.fatimah@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:soviyah@pbi.uad.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1527-6320 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8716-028x http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v5i2.6562&domain=pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4154-6942 130 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 129-142 pratolo, b. w. et al. (digital literacy readiness: voices of…..) online content. in the industrial domain, the internet has also helped people distribute their products more efficiently and faster. using online application such as zalora, shoppe, tokopedia, amazon, alibaba, etc. people do the trading, shopping, buying and selling. these phenomena indicate clearly how internet has become the central aspect of most human lives around the world today. in the field of education, massive technology development also exists, especially in the process of teaching and learning held both in formal and informal classes. from the students’ side, the use of modern technologies becomes a must nowadays because these students are categorized as digital natives. they were born and grew up during this millennium era taking their life path together with technology almost in their everyday life. therefore, conducting classes by making use of digital tools such as applications and websites in their learning process can help them understand the materials better. the ability of using tools of technology brings us to the concept of digital literacy. the term digital literacy was first defined as the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers (hussein et al, 2017). hsu (2019a, 2019b) says that digital literacy is the ability to effectively seek, navigate, analyse and make information about the using various forms of digital technology. meanwhile, media literacy is concerned with helping students develop an informed and critical understanding of the nature of mass media, the techniques used by them, and the impact of these techniques (tan, xiang, zhang, teng, & yao, 2012). in this present study, the use of the term digital literacy refers to the multiplicity of literacies associated with the use of digital technology which is used by the teacher and students. in the context of education, one of the famous applications among teachers and students are microsoft office which includes presentation powerpoint, microsoft word, and microsoft excel, etc. these forms of applications are highly used by both teachers and students. another form of technology which is often used is website. this technological phenomenal development in the field of education is the issue most researchers conduct the studies. the use of digital literacy also concerns the ability to use digital learning platforms. a study that was conducted to identify the learning of english in the 21st century found that the platforms could be employed to assist language learners in their writing activities (ali, 2022). specifically, its use was to gauge the students’ language learning strategies (lls) for instance metacognitive, cognitive, and social strategies classified (hamad, 2017). this study aims to describe the level of the digital literacy among indonesian primary and secondary english teachers. the findings of this study are expected to contribute to the management and policy making for indonesian primary and secondary english teachers. in addition, it can be used as a reference for establishing and planning proper teacher professional development program especially related to information and communication technology. digital literacy is not a new strategy for a student to gain the information and knowledge needed (saubari & baharuddin, 2016). the term digital literacy was first introduced by gilster in the late 1990s. he said that it is the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers (spante et al., 2018; alkali & amichaihamburger, 2004). the capability to use the technology to allow us to right to use the materials is a key aspect of digital literacy. as a starting point, the obvious aspect of digital literacy is an internet. in simple terms, digital literacy is the ability to properly use and evaluate digital resources, tools and services and apply it to their lifelong learning process (falloon, 2020; bawden, 2008). pratolo and solikhati (2021) investigated teachers’ attitude towards digital literacy in efl classroom. their study endeavored to find out how the digital literacy was implemented in their english classes, to determine teachers’ attitude in implementing the digital literacy, to scrutinize the challenges and the actions they took to cope with them. they found that computer and smartphone were the used the most often search for digital information. the teachers exhibited positive attitudes in the use of digital literacy for english teaching. they used syllabus as a major consideration, developed effective teaching, implemented multiple literacy and improved the four language skills. they also discovered lack of technology, lack of time and limited budget were acknowledged as hindrances in digital literacy implementation. to cope with these issues, the teachers in their study developed an early planning and support plan. ng (2012) explored the knowledge about educational technologies of a group of undergraduate students studying the course introduction to elearning at a university in australia and how they issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 131 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 129-142 pratolo, b. w. et al. (digital literacy readiness: voices of…..) adopted unfamiliar technologies into their learning. the study explores the 'digital nativeness' of these students by investigating their degree of digital literacy and the ease with which they learn to make use of unfamiliar technologies. in her study, she employed mix method with pre-service teachers as the participants. she identified the technologies that should be understood by the students who would conduct a blended-learning mode such as for concept-mapping software, prezi (presentation software), hot potatoes or surveymonkey software (for quiz creation) and voicethread and wikispaces as collaborative platforms to respectively upload the students’ digital stories and construct a collaborative webquest. phuapan, viriyavejakul and pimdee (2016) conducted a similar study which was held among students in nine universities in thailand. in their study, they used digital competences from bloom taxonomy which refers to the technologies to answer their research questions. with a massive sampling of 400 undergraduate students as their participants, they sought to determine which digital literacy skills were most important in using digital technology, communications tools, and/or networks to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, create and communicate information in order to function in a knowledge society. alamsyah (2017) investigated the patterns of digital literacy among sriwijaya university lecturers and its contribution to the implementation of elearning. employing a mixed method involving 30 lecturer participants and used offline and online questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and secondary data collection, he found that digital literacy competence among the lecturers was in a high position. this situation is the initial capital for the implementation of e-learning at the university. however, this situation has not contributed to the implementation of e-learning because the lecturers were not willing to adapt to the e-learning environment system and the policy makers had not been intervening several factors that contributed to e-learning implementation at the university level. we identified a methodological gap in terms of the participants involved in the previous studies. say for example, pratolo and solikhati (2021) involved junior high school teachers only as their research participants, while alamsyah (2017) focused his study on the lecturers. different from these two studies, ng (2012) and phuapan et.al. (2016) recruited undergraduate students as their informants. none of these studies looked into what the primary english teachers said about their readiness of digital technology. by nature, different participants with different background will offer different result. this present study is trying to fill in the gap by involving primary and secondary english teachers to speak out their voices and is conducted to answer the following research questions: (1) how is the digital literacy level of the indonesian primary and secondary english teachers? (2) what kinds of technology forms do they use? (3) why do they use such applications in their everyday teaching? (4) what kinds of problems do they face in using technology in their online teaching? 2. method the present study adopted a mixed methods approach as outlined by creswell (2012) to investigate the digital literacy of indonesian primary and secondary english teachers. a total of 36 indonesian english teachers from across the country participated in the study. the data was collected through the use of both closed and open questionnaires, modified from the work of son, park, and park (2017). the questionnaire consisted of six sections, including demographic information, perceptions and experiences with using information and communication technologies (icts) in teaching, capability in using applications for teaching, frequency of using websites to support teaching, frequency of utilizing the services provided by these websites, and open questions about the use of applications to improve language skills and teaching. to help the participants be well informed with the questions and to avoid misunderstandings, the questionnaire was translated into indonesian. the invitations were sent through whatsapp messages along with the google form link to the potential efl teacher participants. some of them responded quickly, some other filled up the form late. therefore, by the time the data were analyzed, the recorded number of the participants was thirty-six. for their confidentiality purposes, none of their real names was used in any part of this study report. the data was analyzed using theme-based coding and quantified using percentages. the results were used to describe the digital literacy of the participating english teachers and to examine the challenges they faced in using digital technology for teaching performance. 132 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 129-142 pratolo, b. w. et al. (digital literacy readiness: voices of…..) 3. findings and discussion the process of collecting the research data was carried out using google form. the google form was distributed to the targeted participants mainly through whatsapp. meanwhile, the interview was done via telephone call. regarding the research instruments, to obtain the instruments’ validity and reliability, in addition to the member checking techniques, we also conducted an intensive discussion with them. table 1 depicts the blueprint of the instrument: table 1. the blueprint of the research instrument category item quantity respondents’ identity 9 digital literacy 18 capability in working with application 5 frequency in using websites and applications 16 frequency in using web services 11 total 59 3.1 research participants’ demographics based on the data collected, as shown in the chart below, there were a total of 56 teachers who became the participants of the research. these participants comprised of 20 teachers of primary school (36%) and 36 teachers of junior high school (64%). fig. 1. demographic meanwhile, seen from the age group category, among the participants, 8.9 percent were 51 years of age and above, 26% were within 41 and 50 years old, 41.1% aged between 31 to 40 years old, 19.6% were within the range of 25-30 years of age and 3.6% were under 25. based on the demographic data, the participants within the range of 31 and 40 years of age ranked the first, followed by those falling in the range of 41 up to 50 years old. the least percentage was those of under 25 years of age with the percentage of 3.6%. the chart below depicts the spread of the age group among the participants. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 133 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 129-142 pratolo, b. w. et al. (digital literacy readiness: voices of…..) fig. 2. group of age regarding the participants’ teaching experience or duration of time serving as teachers, participants with more than 20 years of teaching experience ranked first reaching 25% and then followed by participants with teaching experience between 0-5 years who got the percentage score of 22%. meanwhile groups of participants with teaching experience of 6-10 and 11-15 years ranked third each occupying 21%. the least rank was the group of participants with 15 to 20 years of teaching experience who gathered the percentage score of 11%. fig. 3. year of experience 3.2 research findings 1) research question 1: participants’ digital literacy level to know the level of the participants’ digital literacy, after the data were collected, they were analyzed quantitatively first. this functions to determine the mean of each aspect researched. next, categorization was made to help us categorize the participants’ digital literacy level as shown in table 2. table 2. categorization of the digital literacy level mean category 55 72 very high 37 54 high 19 36 medium 18 low 134 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 129-142 pratolo, b. w. et al. (digital literacy readiness: voices of…..) the results of the data analysis are presented through the following chart: fig. 4. participants’ digital literacy level referring to the data displayed on figure 4, it is found out that the level of digital literacy among the participants, in general, is in high category. this is based on the value of the mean which reached score of 44.27. zooming into the table more closely, though, it is interesting to notice that among all items asked, the highest score the participants gave was item no 3 stating that ict makes the process of teaching and learning more interesting. for this item, majority of the participants gave such a high score that it could reach the mean of 51.5. they comprised of 39 participants who chose strongly agree, 16 participants chose agree, and only 1 single participant chose somewhat disagree. on the contrary, for item number 10 stating “i own the technical skills i need to work with ict for learning and to create artifacts (e.g. wiki, blog) that demonstrate my understanding of what i have learnt/mastered”, the participants gave the least score as it only reached 33.75 as its mean. for this item, majority of the participants chose somewhat disagree (30 participants), 17 participants chose agree, and only 5 participants chose strongly agree. interestingly, there were 4 respondents who chose disagree. 2) research question 2: kinds of technology forms the participants use to reveal the data of the kinds of technology forms the participants use, there were three main question categories given to them. they were questions related to capability in working with learning applications, frequency of using learning website/applications, and frequency in using web services. a) capability in working with learning applications in terms of participants’ capability in working with application, there were five questions asked under this category. these five questions referred to the idea of how the participants perceived themselves regarding their capability in working with various learning applications on internet. specifically, these five questions were related to the capability in operating some specific application categories such as word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, video editing, and photo editing. based on the data collected, it was found out that, in general, the participants perceived themselves to be in "high (capable)" category with the average mean score reaching 40.15. meanwhile, when viewed more closely, it appears that among the five learning application categories asked, the participants were most confident with application category number three i.e., presentation (power point presentation, keynote) and least confident with application category number four i.e., video editing (imovie, movie maker) with the average mean score of 45.25 and 32.75 respectively. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 135 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 129-142 pratolo, b. w. et al. (digital literacy readiness: voices of…..) b) frequency of using learning website/applications fig. 5. frequency of using website/applications figure 5 shows the results of the data analysis regarding the types of applications used by participants in the learning processes they have conducted. among 16 applications asked, the top three most used applications chosen by the participants were you tube, google classroom, and zoom with average mean score of 50.5, 48 and 44.75 respectively. meanwhile, the least used application was cousera as it only reached the average mean score of 16.75. c) frequency in using web services fig. 6. frequency of using website services figure 6 provides information related to data about the services available on websites/applications that the participants often used. under this category, there were 11 questions asked about the website services which were most frequently used by the participants in their daily teaching practices. among these 11 questions, question number two topped the survey with the average mean score reached 47.25. most participants stated that they most often accessed websites such as online dictionaries and content specific websites as they considered these types of websites helped them in finding out references and contents for their classes. the second most accessed website type was the one which 136 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 129-142 pratolo, b. w. et al. (digital literacy readiness: voices of…..) was related to social media such as facebook, instagram, twitter, etc. with the mean score of 46.5. the participants said that they often used these kinds of social media for their teaching. 3) question 3: reasons of using applications for academic purposes in regards to the research question 3, there were four issues found. they comprised the reasons for using the application for learning english, the reasons for using the applications for teaching, the language skills and the language teaching skills developed while using the applications. when asked the questions about the reasons the participants had in using the application for learning and improving their english, 62.69% of the participants interviewed declared that the applications were user friendly. furthermore, they stated that they did not have any difficulties in using them. in other words, the applications were easy-to-use applications. meanwhile, 13.23% of the participants answered that the application provided them with sufficient facilities for them to use for teaching. for that, they said that they could post the pdf material, audio and audiovisual material quite easily. the rest 24.48% of the participants trusted the that application were the safe ones. for the issue related to the reasons why the participants used the applications for teaching, 56% of the participants said that that the applications were easy to use and they did not have significant problems in using them for teaching. meanwhile, 24% of the participants said that the applications had supporting facilities to help them teach online. this reason was supported by the other 20% of the participants who agreed that the applications provided them with the resources needed in teaching. they further said that having these applications in hand, they did not have to develop their own teaching material. in dealing with the language skills developed during the use of the internet applications, 32.26% participants said that their listening skill improved significantly. furthermore, 27.96% participants agreed that the use of applications could improve their reading skill and 20.43% participants believed that the use of applications could improve their speaking ability. meanwhile 19.35% participants conceived that by using the applications, their writing ability would improve. in regard to the teaching skills developed during the use of the application, 52.28% participants believed that their material management skill improved and 27.49% of them cerebrated that their skill in learning and teaching method improved. meanwhile, the total of 8.33% participants agreed that their skill in class management developed well during the use of the application and 7.94% participants believed that all their teaching skills improved well by using the application. surprisingly, there’s only 3.96% conceived that their language mastery improved because of the applications use. 4) research question 4: problems in using technology in terms of weaknesses of the applications, the participants identified such weaknesses of the applications they used as: quota of data provided (28.57%), advertisement distraction (4.76%), too many resources to select (11.90%), need of parental and teacher’s guide (26.19%), availability of learning facility on the application (9.52%), and internet signal or connection (19.05%). as the research applied the interview technique in order to dig out more deeply about the issue, the following sub sections will discuss the findings of it. in regards to the problems faced by the participants when making use of the applications, there were three main problems found out i.e., lack of it knowledge and facility, cellphone management, and problems with new applications. a) lack of it knowledge and facility among the participants, lack of it knowledge and facility became one of the prominent problems in using applications. one of the participants said that he did not have enough knowledge of the information technology and there’s lack of facility in his mobile phone and laptop and the problem with the internet connection as well. this situation prevented him to join a teacher professional development upgrading program and workshops, including the one which was aimed at improving the teachers’ capacity in using the it. ...lack of knowledge on it and lack of facility, for example the capacity of the cell phone or laptop that needs to be upgraded. another problem emerges if we have to do our activity from home which is without wi-fi. there is unstable connection here, too. we have never joined workshops related to the use of application in teaching our students… issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 137 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 129-142 pratolo, b. w. et al. (digital literacy readiness: voices of…..) ...i never join workshop on using application to teach. workshop where teachers can learn how to use applications to teach are needed. also, it is necessary to have a sharing forum among teachers about what application feasible to teachers and students... moreover, he explained that due to his insufficient knowledge on it and capacity of his cellphone, he preferred using the teaching materials available on youtube to developing the materials on his own. ...i prefer using videos from youtube because of my time limitation as a teacher and facility or memory of my cellphone. i don’t make my own video, either. i have to spend lots of time to take the picture and audio, and also for editing it. if my students have problems in pronunciation, i ask them to send me a personal message, and to respond to it, i send them a voice note to give an example of how to say words or sentences. one of the participants said that the use of online teaching application will only benefit the teacher who is familiar with the application, but the students will not get any benefit from it because they are not familiar with the platform. this is due to the fact that the application is only installed in the teacher’s laptop. a relatively new application may result in teaching and learning problems. only the teacher knows how to use it, the students have not yet been familiar with it, or the application is only installed in the teacher’s laptop. i usually make a backup material or manual of the material from the application. this is for faceto-face meeting in my class... b) cellphone use management in terms of the cellphone management issue, it arises because of the fact that as children/students are not supposed to have their own cellphones, they depend on their parents to access their assignments from their teachers. if any of their parents always stay at home and do not have to go out to work, it will not be a big deal. but if both of the parents have to work, they will have to wait until their parents get home from work to learn the materials or do the assignments. for online learning, we use two applications i.e., whatsapp and gform. there is a problem when the students share the cell phone with other family members. sometimes when the parents arrived home, they forgot to tell their child. further, the technical problem also occurs when the connection is not stable. using whatsapp application, there often many messages posted so that some students often miss certain tasks. as a teacher, i remind them about the assignment to accomplish. i understand that the online learning environment or atmosphere is quite different from learning in the classroom. monitoring and guidance are much more needed here. we use user friendly applications, word for the materials and ppt including the video or voice note to explain the materials. the exercises are taken for the textbook. this is to anticipate the problems c) problem with new application problems with new applications became another kind of problem faced by participants when using internet applications. for common applications which are popular among teacher and students, most of the teachers do not have any problem. the problem emerges when they have to use a new application. it is not only that they have to learn on their own, they have to teach their students on how to use the application too. problems in online learning especially exists with relatively new applications...this does not happen on the use of google form, g classroom, zoom, quizzes. for the relatively new or unfamiliar one, the teacher needs to train the students to be familiar and able to use the learning application. a complicated application especially for ‘senior’ teachers is also a problem, there must be a workshop. in my opinion, complicated here can be the activity that requires the teachers to install before using the application in the mobile phone or laptop, or complexity in inputting the data or materials in the application, or the data cannot be copied and pasted from word document to the application used. another case is on the application using certain codes. the workshop is to anticipate or to overcome students’ boredom and it is to drive students’ motivation to learn online. not all of us-the teacher are able to use the application, for example g-meet. but we do our best to do that, we learn from tutorials from youtube. this interview excerpt is very interesting. it was found not all teachers in her school was familiar with the online teaching platforms such as g-meet. but this pandemic situation could motivate them 138 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 129-142 pratolo, b. w. et al. (digital literacy readiness: voices of…..) to learn on their own, such as from you tube. it has proved that this pandemic forced them to be an independent learner in the use of online teaching platform. 3.3 discussion the findings of this study shows that the participating primary and secondary english teachers perceive that they are quite digitally literate as the average score reaches the category of "high" level. this result sparks some intriguing points to discuss further. from the positive side, this result is acceptable and relevant especially when it is related to the condition when this research was carried out i.e., during the covid19 pandemic which had made all learning processes be conducted online. this is also the case with the participants in this study. practically, due to the pandemic, these participants have been implementing online learning since the beginning of 2020. it means since then they have been working with technology intensively and using it in their teaching and learning process. since then, they have been demanded to be able to adapt quickly to the existing situation. as a result, they learned quickly from any possible sources and implemented the teaching and learning process online. long story short, online learning due to covid19 pandemic has forced teachers, including the participants in this study, to make themselves be familiar with technology and be more competent in using it as well. in fact, the use of online distance learning (odl) is mushrooming as the effect of the pandemic. zuraina et al. (2022) conducted a study in the use of telegram as the alternative to support learning when the disease was widespread. the study found that its use promoted ease in teaching and learning, enhance communication between students-teachers by providing prompt responses, and be used to share information between students and teachers. the researchers concluded that telegram as an odl was very relevant during the crisis. furthermore, in terms of the form and type of technology the participants used, they have made their own milestone with their digital literacy development process during this pandemic. starting from using whatsapp more frequently and for teaching, they now, slowly but surely, have been moved to a higher level by applying more complex applications such as youtube, google classroom, zoom, quizizz and some other types of online learning platform. meanwhile, in terms of content, they also experienced a kind of quantum leaping regarding the use of educational technology. searching and browsing various learning materials through internet, compiling them and packing them in media that are fully supported by technology, such as video, audio, or power point presentation and then presenting them in online settings via google classroom, youtube channel, lms (learning mobile system), etc. are things that become very close to their lives and they do it daily in their classrooms. of course, all these processes of learning, adapting, adopting and developing technology in their daily teaching practices have made them be more digitally literate and more confident in working with technology, and thus made them perceive that they have high level of digital literacy hierarchy. however, seen from a different perspective, the result of the study rings a bell to a need of more discussions and further research in the field. as part of the questionnaire which asks about participants' digital literacy is based on the participants’ personal perception plus due to the fact that perception is subjective in nature, the result this research collects may be influenced by several factors from the participants themselves. personal characteristics might possibly affect perception the most such as a person's attitudes, personality, motives, interests, past experiences, and expectations. therefore, additional research of the same topic but different research method is needed in order to balance the information. the study also reveals that the top three most used applications chosen by the participants were you tube, google classroom, and zoom. this result is in line with the findings of other researches in the field (see for example tamim, 2013; bardaki, 2019; kabooha & elyas, 2018). one of the factors is the fact that youtube is very popular among teachers, including the participants in this study. one of the indicators is that there have been many researchers in the field of elt and learning media who have conducted researches on the use of youtube in education, including english education. many studies have confirmed that teachers use you tube quite often to support their daily teaching needs (tamim, 2013; bardaki, 2019; kabooha & elyas, 2018). regarding the advantages of using youtube, in general, it is an accepted fact that the use of youtube can improve students’ involvement and participation in the classroom and improve their learning strategies (callow & zammit, 2012). furthermore, the use of youtube videos is greatly effective especially for introductory courses as it can facilitate difficult concepts, and attract the attention of weak students as well as visual and special students (kabooha, & elyas, 2015; 2018; heriyanto, 2015). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 139 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 129-142 pratolo, b. w. et al. (digital literacy readiness: voices of…..) in addition, youtube is a multidimensional resource that offers videos in all fields of knowledge that can be accessed effortlessly (kabooha & elyas, 2018). as videos on youtube are limited in length, this makes them suitable for the tight classroom’s time. studies have also examined the effect of youtube on autonomous learning (hafner & miller, 2011). berk (2009) argues that the verbal and visual elements provided by the online video clips match the idiosyncrasies of the net generation of learners and address their different learning styles. this study has found that in regard with the use of application for learning most of the participants considered the applications were user-friendly. it suggests that most of the teachers have high level of digital literacy as reflected in their ability to use the digital technologies (martin’s, 2005; ng, 2012). this is very important in making the online teaching successful. with the skill of using digital technologies, the teachers can create, develop or select the materials suitable and appropriate with the level of the students. they will ensure that the materials are within the students’ reach to learn. this will help the students acquire the content of the subject more easily. in other word, the teachers help prepare the students to face a globalized and multilingual world (godwin-jones, 2016). nevertheless, teachers are required to employ various techniques in class to boost motivation, in particular intrinsic motivation, among students. in the use of canva; an online graphic design tool, ali (2022) found the infographics enabled language learners to be creative due to the interesting features that are available in the application. therefore, teachers should not be teaching writing by merely asking students to write sentences. yet, teachers could also ask their students to use infographics to express their thoughts and ideas. the most serious problem faced by the teachers is their it knowledge and the facility in their communication devices, such as mobile phone. their skill in using the online teaching platforms is crucial and reflect the level of digital literacy of the teachers (see godwin-jones, 2016; martin’s, 2005; ng, 2012). this finding also shows that the it facility of the teachers cannot guarantee the effectiveness of the online teaching due to the internet connection, which is sometimes interrupted and down. this confirms the finding of the study conducted by huerta and sandoval-almazán (2016). 4. conclusion covid-19 pandemic has forced the policy makers to close all the schools and apply work from home for all teachers. this affects the way how the students learn. therefore, the students have to learn also from home. the online teaching is not an option anymore, it is mandatory due to the school closure. to make this online teaching and learning process run effectively and successful, the teachers have to be digital literate. this study was implemented, among others, was to assess how digital literate the indonesian primary and secondary school teachers were. this finding could be used as a consideration for the policy makers to make rules and regulations related to online teaching and learning process indonesian school system. in general, the level of digital literacy of the teachers is in high category, suggesting that the teachers know very well how to use the online teaching application or platforms without any problems. they know how to prepare and or select the material from online resources, deliver it through the application to the students, assess and give feedback to the students, work etc. in term of the capability in working with the learning application, it was found that most of the participants capable, suggesting that they did not have any issues with the complexity of the application. they knew all the icons and their functions very well. this suggests that they could maximize the use of the application by the facilities provided. this affects the effectiveness and success of online teaching during the pandemic. among the available online learning resources and applications, youtube was still the most frequently accessed as the learning resource. it is understandable as youtube provides almost everything including the teaching and learning resources for all subject matters in the forms of interesting videos. meanwhile, google classroom was the most favorite application for teaching, followed by zoom. these two applications are user friendly and the ways how to use them are just so simple. they also provide upload and download facility which they can use for sharing and using the learning resources. among the online resources available in the websites, online dictionary is the most popular among the teachers, followed by content specific websites. the online dictionary suggests more complete translation and examples of how words are used in sentences. this is so helpful for the teachers. the content specific websites such as british council is very rich and so resourceful not only 140 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 129-142 pratolo, b. w. et al. (digital literacy readiness: voices of…..) for teachers but also for students. among the social media, facebook was still the champion, followed by instagram and twitter. this suggest that teachers still need media to socialize themselves and at the same time search for teaching resources in those social media platforms. in terms of the problems, most of the teachers encountered issues with the lack of it knowledge and facility including their unfamiliarity with the online learning platforms and internet connection and cell phone availability. these three issues became the major problems faced by primary english teachers in teaching online classes. references alamsyah, a. (2017). digital literacy among sriwijaya university lecturers. informasi, 47(2), 243254. https://doi.org/10.21831/informasi.v47i2.15816 ali, z. 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(2022). teachers' perspectives on the use of telegram for online distance learning during the pandemic of covid-19. res militaris, 12(4), 1885-1889. https://doi.org/10.7763/ijiet.2012.v2.158 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 abst ract 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. 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 abst ract 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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(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 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 abst ract 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. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 32-43 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7876 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id the complexity of speaking anxiety among students in an international university in thailand jebamani anthoney a,1,*, jeffrey dawala wilang b,2 a faculty of arts and humanities, asia-pacific international university, saraburi 18180, thailand b school of foreign languages, suranaree university of technology, nakhon ratchasima 30000, thailand 1 jebamani@apiu.edu; 2 wilang@g.sut.ac.th* * corresponding author article info abstract article history received 12 january 2023 revised 27 march 2023 accepted 14 april 2023 prior research has shown that english as a foreign language (efl) students often experience speaking anxiety and its detrimental effects. however, there is limited knowledge about the speaking anxiety experienced by international students at a thai university where english serves as both the medium of instruction and the primary language of communication outside the classroom. this study employed a three-pronged approach: a survey questionnaire to gauge speaking anxiety levels and identify differences based on nationality and geographical location; sorting activities to observe changes in speaking anxiety levels; and individual interviews to gain a deeper understanding of students' speaking anxiety. the descriptive analysis showed that students experienced varying degrees of anxiety. among the 13 nationalities surveyed, vietnamese, cambodian, thai, and burmese students displayed higher levels of speaking anxiety. moreover, students from rural backgrounds were more anxious than those from urban areas. interviews conducted after the sorting activities revealed that factors such as familiarity, predictability, competence, and social support influenced students' anxiety levels. pedagogical recommendations include the importance of repetition and practice, scaffolding, familiarity with an activity, building positive relationships, incremental exposure to language activities, regulating emotions and encouraging reflective practices. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords international students speaking anxiety sorting activity how to cite: anthony, j. and wilang, j. d. (2023). the complexity of speaking anxiety among students in an international university in thailand. english language teaching educational journal, 6(1), 32-43. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7876 1. background of the study there can be several reasons why international students experience speaking anxiety in the classroom. they may not be fluent in the language used in the classroom, which can make them selfconscious and anxious about speaking up (debreli & demirkan, 2015; liu, 2006; liu & jackson, https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7876 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index file:///c:/users/muhammadwildan/downloads/eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:jebamani@apiu.edu mailto:wilang@g.sut.ac.th http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7876 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5456-7182 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6322-8799 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i1.7876&domain=pdf issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 33 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 32-43 anthony, j. and wilang, j. d. (the complexity of speaking anxiety among students…..) 2008; rajitha & alamelu, 2020; woodrow, 2008; zhang, 2001). in addition, they come from different cultures where the communication style, social norms, and expectations are different from the host country, which can create anxiety when interacting with local students or faculty (jones, 2004). also, they may fear being judged or evaluated negatively by their peers or instructors, which can contribute to their reluctance to participate in class discussions or presentations (rajitha & alamelu, 2020). moreover, they may lack confidence in their language proficiency, communication skills, and ability to express themselves effectively in a new language and cultural context (horwitz et al, 1986; liu, 2022; rajitha & alamelu, 2020). and lastly, they may feel pressure to perform academically in a foreign environment, which can provoke their anxiety and stress levels, and affect their language performance negatively (akaraphattanawong, hongsiriwat, & methakunavudhi, 2021; altunel, 2019; sung & li, 2019). foreign language anxiety (fla) is a concept developed by horwitz, horwitz, and cope in 1986, defined as the “distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process” (p. 128). it can be manifested in a range of physical, cognitive, and affective symptoms, including feelings of nervousness, panic, and helplessness, as well as negative self-evaluations, avoidance behaviours, and reduced motivation to learn. accordingly, there were three underlying factors including communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety. those factors were also reported by kulwattanapaisarn et al., (2022) in thai context including fear of being less competent than others, negative attitudes toward language class, and beliefs about language learning (see also akkakoson, 2016). further findings revealed that both thais and non-thais have moderate levels of anxiety in all aspects. in an engineering international program in a thai university, wilang (2022) revealed communication apprehension, cognitive processing anxiety, the difficulty of the english medium instruction course, fear of making mistakes, lack of autonomy, perceived negative teacher acts, peer negative evaluation and test anxiety as factors of anxiety when english is used as a medium of instruction. while speaking anxiety in english is a common experience among students in various learning contexts, little research has done among international students in an efl learning context, for example, a thai university offering international programs. previous literature argued that fla can have significant implications for language learning outcomes, as anxious learners may be less willing to engage in communicative activities and may experience difficulties in processing and retaining new language input (desta, 2020; jiang & dewaele, 2020). additionally, it could lead to lower test scores (marcos-llinás & garau, 2009; salehi & marefat, 2014; trang, moni & baldauf, 2013). recently, fla has been reported as a complex and dynamic phenomenon that can be influenced by a range of internal and external factors (see aydin, 2008; jen, 2003; young, 1991), including individual learner characteristics (e.g. personality traits, language proficiency, learning style), task demands (e.g. complexity, novelty, evaluative nature), and social and cultural contexts (e.g. classroom norms, expectations, language policies). using complex dynamic systems theory (see larsen-freeman, 2017, 2018; larsen-freeman & cameron, 2018), it attempts to explain the phenomenon of speaking anxiety by considering the dynamic interaction between various factors that influence an individual's anxiety levels. for example, speaking anxiety cannot be viewed as fixed or static construct, but rather a complex and dynamic phenomenon that arises from the interaction of multiple factors over time. as stated previously, speaking anxiety is influenced by a range of factors, including personal factors such as prior experiences, personality traits, and beliefs about language learning and communication, as well as situational factors such as the nature of the communication task, the communication context, and the social dynamics of the communication situation. it is believed that these factors interact in complex ways to shape an individual's anxiety levels, which can vary from situation to situation and over time (wilang & vo, 2008). for instance, the heartbeat per minute measurement indicates varying levels anxiety due to various factors. thus, speaking anxiety is not a one-way causal relationship. instead, it is a bidirectional and dynamic relationship, where anxiety can both influence and be influenced by varying factors (see wilang & vo, 2008). some tools were used to measure language anxiety. for example, survey questionnaires have been developed to measure speaking anxiety and are widely used. the commonly used are foreign language classroom anxiety scale (flcas) by horwitz, horwitz, and cope in 1986; mccroskey’s (1970) communication apprehension test (cat), which measures anxiety in any communication 34 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 32-43 anthony, j. and wilang, j. d. (the complexity of speaking anxiety among students…..) situation, including speaking a foreign language; mccroskey & mccroskey’s (1982) personal report of communication apprehension (prca), which focuses on interpersonal communication; the oral performance anxiety inventory (opai) developed by onwuegbuzie and bailey in 1997, which measures anxiety related to oral performance in academic settings, including speaking a foreign language in a classroom. thus, new methods were introduced, for example, sorting activity, to capture the complexity of individual beliefs (haukas & mercer, 2021). this study was conducted to address the limited research on speaking anxiety in international universities in thailand, insufficient exploration of speaking anxiety differences by nationality and geographical location, and lack of understanding on situational triggers for speaking anxiety from a complex dynamic system perspective. thus, three questions were answered: (1) what is the level of speaking anxiety among students in an international university in thailand? (2) are there differences of speaking anxiety level based on nationality and geographical location? (3) what situations provoke the change of the speaking anxiety level among the students? 2. method the research was carried out in a small, private christian international university in thailand that provides various programs of study, including theology, arts and humanities, business, information technology, nursing, science, and education. the students are from different countries with varying levels of english proficiency and year levels, and approximately 1200 students from 32 different countries are enrolled. the study used a 3-stage mixed method design. 2.1 stage 1 the first stage involved adapting a speaking anxiety questionnaire from paranuwat (2011) as it suits the broader context of the present study. herein, cronbach alpha indicated 0.91, which means the instrument has a high reliability. the data from the questionnaire was analysed to determine the level of speaking anxiety among the participants and answer questions 1 and 2. the questionnaire has a 4-point likert scale, consisting of 25 items. the questionnaire was sent to students through various media channels. a total of 138 students from 13 different countries responded voluntarily (see table 1), and 10 of those students were selected for stage 2 through convenience sampling based on certain criteria – voluntary participation and high or low levels of speaking anxiety. however, only 4 out of 10 students heed the call for participation. in stage 2, selected students were asked to sort high-anxiety and low-anxiety speaking statements into four categories based on their level of agreement or disagreement, and to provide reasons for their choices. the sorting activity was observed and noted by the researchers. in stage 3, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted to further explore the reasons behind the sorted statements. descriptive statistics were used to analyse the speaking anxiety levels of the students, and coding was used to identify the situations that triggered their writing anxiety. table 1: participants in the study nationality number american 1 brazilian 1 burmese 22 cambodian 4 chinese 28 filipino 4 indian 2 indonesian 3 laotian 1 malaysian 13 thai 55 togolese 1 vietnamese 3 geographical location rural 98 urban 40 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 35 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 32-43 anthony, j. and wilang, j. d. (the complexity of speaking anxiety among students…..) the mean scores of the speaking survey questionnaire were interpreted as follows: if the mean score falls within the range of 1.0-1.75, it indicates that the respondents strongly disagree with the statement. if the mean score falls within the range of 1.76-2.50, it indicates that the respondents disagree with the statement. if the mean score falls within the range of 2.51-3.25, it indicates that the respondents agree with the statement. if the mean score falls within the range of 3.26-4.0, it indicates that the respondents strongly agree with the statement. the range of mean scores provides a standardized way of interpreting the responses to the survey questionnaire. 2.2 stage 2 the second stage used purposive sampling to select students who sorted a number of speaking anxiety statements, which were chosen based on their survey response. the sorting activities were conducted twice, two weeks apart, and involved at least eight to ten statements sorted into four to five random strongly agree and five random strongly disagree statements. the sorting activities were performed on two separate occasions to assess any changes in participants' speaking anxiety levels. the researchers introduced a 2-week interval between the activities to allow participants to forget their prior anxiety levels and reflect on their more recent experiences with speaking anxiety. this stage provided data to answer question 3. the following procedures were done during the sorting activity. first, three random statements of strongly agree, agree, disagree and or strongly disagree were selected from each participant. then a board was prepared with numbers 1-4; where 1 means strongly agree, 2 means agree, 3 means disagree and 4 means strongly disagree. afterwards, the statements were given to the participant. then he or she placed each statement under the numbers and may provide some reasons during the sorting activity. while sorting, the researchers took note of the reasons. after the student has decided with the placement of the statements, the researcher conducted the semi-structured interview. the similar process was followed in the second sorting activity. 2.3 stage 3 the last stage of the process entailed carrying out individual semi-structured interviews to gain insights into the factors contributing to the students' speaking anxiety. participants were prompted to discuss the reasons behind any decrease or increase in their anxiety levels from the initial survey to sorting activity 1 and sorting activity 2. as an example, during the second sorting activity after the two-week interval, participants were asked to discuss the reasons behind their decreased nervousness while speaking, the factors contributing to their increased confidence, and the aspects that led to their enjoyment of speaking. 3 findings and discussion 3.1. research question 1 table 2 presents varied outcomes of speaking anxiety experienced by students at an international university in thailand. while they demonstrated confidence in speaking english (item 14) and reported no fear of speaking the language (item 10), they became anxious when required to speak impromptu (item 3) and felt their heart racing when called upon to speak (item 11). these findings suggest that speaking anxiety is a prevalent issue among many students. factors contributing to this anxiety encompass lack of preparation, physical symptoms such as a racing heart, comparing themselves to peers, forgetfulness due to nervousness, self-awareness, and challenges in maintaining eye contact with the audience. table 2: level of speaking anxiety among the students item m, sd interpretation 14. i face the prospect of speaking english with confidence. 2.82, 0.81 agree 3. i start to panic when i have to speak english without a preparation in advance. 2.76, 0.99 agree 11. i can feel my heart pounding when i am going to be called to speak. 2.76, 0.98 agree 10. i have no fear of speaking english. 2.74, 0.98 agree 24. i keep thinking that other students are better at speaking english than i. 2.67, 1.01 agree 4. in a speaking class, i can get so nervous i forget things i know. 2.66, 0.96 agree 25. i always feel that the other students speak engli sh better than i do. 2.65, 1.05 agree 36 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 32-43 anthony, j. and wilang, j. d. (the complexity of speaking anxiety among students…..) 6. i feel very self-conscious while speaking english in front of other students. 2.64, 0.85 agree 23. even if i am very well-prepared i feel anxious about speaking english. 2.60, 1.03 agree 1. i never feel quite sure of myself while i am speaking english. 2.55, 0.90 agree 7. i get nervous when i am speaking english. 2.55, 0.95 agree 22. i find it hard to look at the audience while speaking english. 2.51, 0.97 agree 18. i feel anxious while waiting to speak english. 2.47, 0.92 disagree 2. i tremble when knowing that i am going to be called on to speak english. 2.42, 0.97 disagree 12. i feel relaxed while speaking english. 2.42, 0.90 disagree 8. i am afraid that other students will laugh at me while i am speaking english. 2.35, 1.06 disagree 21. i have trouble to coordinate my movements while speaking english. 2.35, 0.96 disagree 5. i feel confident while i am speaking english. 2.34, 0.88 disagree 13. it embarrasses me to volunteer to speak english in class. 2.33, 0.93 disagree 17. certain parts of my body feel very tense while speaking english. 2.32, 0.93 disagree 19. i want to speak less because i feel shy while speaking english. 2.30, 1.06 disagree 16. the more speaking tests i have, the more confused i get. 2.25, 0.88 disagree 9. i get so nervous when the language teacher asks me to speak english which i have prepared in advance. 2.18, 0.97 disagree 20. i dislike using my voice and body expressively while speaking english. 2.18, 0.95 disagree 15. i enjoy the experience of speaking english. 1.78, 0.79 strongly disagree in table 3, findings suggest that there may be differences in the levels of anxiety experienced by participants based on their nationality. the american brazilian, indian and togolese participants strongly disagree that they experience speaking anxiety. it is also interesting to note that the chinese, filipino, indonesian, and malaysian participants tend to disagree with the statement about speaking anxiety, indicating that they may feel more confident or comfortable when speaking english. table 3: differences of speaking anxiety based on nationality nationality m sd interpretation vietnamese 2.90 0.33 agree cambodian 2.63 0.29 agree thai 2.61 0.07 agree burmese 2.51 0.09 agree china 2.43 0.08 disagree malaysian 2.34 0.14 disagree filipino 2.15 0.31 disagree indonesian 2.13 0.44 disagree laotian 1.76 0.00 disagree indian 1.68 0.50 strongly disagree togolese 1.60 0.00 strongly disagree brazilian 1.56 0.00 strongly disagree american 1.20 0.44 strongly disagree on the other hand, the cambodian, burmese, thai, and vietnamese participants agree that they experience anxiety. this may suggest that cultural factors or differences in language learning experiences play a role in shaping anxiety levels. more research is needed to fully understand the role of culture and language learning experiences in shaping anxiety levels. 3.2. research question 2 based on table 4, there seems to be a difference in speaking anxiety levels based on geographical location. the participants from rural areas tend to agree that they feel anxious while speaking, with a mean score of 2.53. on the other hand, participants from urban areas tend to disagree that they feel anxious while speaking, with a mean score of 2.37. one possible explanation for this difference could be the social environment and exposure to english language opportunities in these locations. it is possible that students in rural areas have fewer opportunities to practice english and speak in public, leading to increased anxiety and lack of confidence when speaking. in contrast, students in urban areas may have more opportunities to interact with english speakers and have more exposure to public speaking situations, which could lead to decreased anxiety and more confidence when speaking. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 37 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 32-43 anthony, j. and wilang, j. d. (the complexity of speaking anxiety among students…..) table 4: differences of speaking anxiety based on geographical location rural/urban mean sd interpretation rural 2.53 0.07 agree urban 2.37 0.11 disagree the survey questionnaire's findings echoed the outcomes of earlier research (akkakoson, 2016; kulwattanapaisarn et al., 2022; wilang, 2022). although factors were not directly derived from the data, aspects of communication apprehension and fear of negative evaluation were indeed present. however, there is an issue with the distribution of the sample population, which impacts the generalization of the results. this limitation could potentially reduce the applicability of the findings to a broader context or diverse student populations. it is understandable that students from vietnam, cambodia, thailand, and myanmar, as nonnative speakers, experience higher levels of speaking anxiety compared to other nationalities. language proficiency challenges are common among non-native speakers, which can result in difficulty comprehending lectures, engaging in classroom discussions, or accomplishing assignments. 3. 3 research question 3 to answer research question 3, four cases were drawn to illustrate the situations that provoke change of the level of the students’ speaking anxiety. only the items that indicated a change in participants' speaking anxiety levels were presented in the tables. case 1: olga, high anxiety (m=3.36) based on the results in table 5, it seems that olga's anxiety level changes, most notably in items 11 “heart pounding when called”, 15 “not enjoy speaking”, and 16 “more confused when speaking”. regarding the decreased of speaking anxiety, she said, "i feel that i know what to expect", suggesting that uncertainty and unpredictability may contribute to her anxiety levels. when she has a clearer idea of what to expect, her anxiety levels may decrease. she continued, this time, i know and understand the statements better. i am also more comfortable with the activity compared to the first time. this suggests that competence and familiarity with the task may also play a role in her anxiety levels. when she feels more competent and familiar with the task, her anxiety level may decrease. others reasons she has given were familiarity with the activity and comfortability talking with people she knows, and the more she speaks, the more comfortable she becomes. it seems that olga's anxiety levels are influenced by a variety of factors related to familiarity, predictability, competence, and social support. table 5. olga’s chosen statements items survey sort 1 sort 2 8. afraid when others laugh at me strongly agree agree agree 10. fear of speaking english strongly agree strongly agree disagree 11. heart pounding when called strongly agree agree disagree 15. not enjoy speaking disagree agree strongly disagree 16. more confused when speaking disagree agree strongly disagree case 2: nittaya, high anxiety (m=3.52) the results suggest that nittaya's anxiety (refer to table 6) is influenced by various factors. it is interesting to note items 5 “nervous when teacher asks something”, 7 “nervous when speaking”, 9 “nervous when teacher asks questions’, 12 “not relaxed when speaking”, 14 “not confident when speaking”, 15 “not enjoy speaking”, and 18 “anxious while waiting”, suggest decreasing speaking anxiety levels. during the interview, nittaya stated the following reasons: 38 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 32-43 anthony, j. and wilang, j. d. (the complexity of speaking anxiety among students…..) this time, i know and understand the statements better. i am also more comfortable with the activity compared to the first time. i am familiar with the activity. i am comfortable talking to people i know. the more i speak, the more comfortable i become. table 6. nittaya’s chosen statements items survey sort 1 sort 2 5. not confident while speaking strongly agree agree agree 7. nervous when speaking strongly agree agree disagree 9. nervous when teacher asks questions strongly agree agree disagree 12. not relaxed when speaking strongly agree agree disagree 14. not confident strongly agree agree disagree 15. not enjoy speaking strongly agree agree strongly disagree 18. anxious while waiting strongly agree agree disagree based on the provided statements, it appears that each statement reflects a level of agreement regarding the speaker's reduced anxiety in different situations. the first statement indicates that the speaker's familiarity and understanding of the statements and the activity have increased. as a result, she feels more comfortable, suggesting a decreased level of anxiety. the second statement, familiarity with the activity, implies that the student has a level of comfort and experience with it. this familiarity likely reduces anxiety as the speaker she knows what to expect and how to engage with the activity. with regard to the third statement, it shows that she feels at ease when conversing with people they know, which suggests a decrease in anxiety in these situations. the familiarity and trust with known individuals can create a supportive and comfortable environment, reducing the fear of judgment or criticism. and the last statement suggests that the student's anxiety decreases as she continues to engage in the classroom activities. this progressive decrease in anxiety could be due to building self-confidence, gaining experience, and becoming more adept at handling speaking situations. such responses have meaningful pedagogical implications. case 3: aldrich, low anxiety, (m=1.40) although aldrich has low anxiety, one situation that increased his anxiety was when “nervous when he forgets something” (see item 4 in table 7). he explained, there was changed in the last activity. i was given a topic i was not familiar with. and the other students seemed more knowledgeable. the statement suggests that aldrich's anxiety increased due to several situations. first, the change in the activity. this implies that the student was caught off-guard or unprepared for the new topic. sudden changes can lead to increased anxiety, especially if the individual feels unprepared or lacks confidence in their ability to adapt quickly. next, speaking about a subject one doesn't have much knowledge about can naturally lead to feelings of anxiety, as it becomes more challenging to express oneself confidently and provide accurate information. another situation is comparison with peers wherein the participant felt that other students appeared more knowledgeable about the topic. this comparison can trigger feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt, which can further exacerbate anxiety. it is also possible that fear of judgment provoked the student’s anxiety. it can be deduced that the combination of being unfamiliar with the topic and perceiving other students as more knowledgeable can create a fear of being judged negatively by peers. this fear can contribute to increased anxiety while speaking. table 7. aldrich’s chosen statements items survey sort 1 sort 2 4. nervous when forgets something strongly disagree strongly disagree agree 8. afraid when others laugh strongly disagree strongly disagree disagree issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 39 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 32-43 anthony, j. and wilang, j. d. (the complexity of speaking anxiety among students…..) moreover, he said that he was familiar with the activity that he changed from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘disagree’ on item 8. there could be two reasons: confidence and efficient communication. the student’s familiarity with the activity may have given him more confidence in his ability to participate effectively. this confidence could have led him to feel less of a need to speak up, as they already understand the topic or process. secondly, as the speaker is familiar with the activity, he may be able to communicate more efficiently and effectively, requiring fewer words or explanations. this efficiency can result in a decrease in speaking. case 4: vince, low anxiety, (m=1.24) for vince’s case (see table 8), there was decreased of speaking anxiety in item 8 “nervous when other laugh.” he said, i changed a little because i think of the people i speak to. so, it shouldn't be that bad if they know me. the statement suggests that familiarity with the audience could decrease speaking anxiety. by considering the audience, it can help create a more comfortable and relaxed environment for the students, reducing anxiety. the student may have perceived that the audience is less likely to judge her harshly since they already know each other. also, knowing the audience means that the student might share common experiences and understanding with them. this shared knowledge can make communication easier and create a sense of camaraderie, which can help alleviate anxiety. there might be an increase of confidence as vince feel more capable of expressing her thoughts and ideas, as she trusts that the audience will be receptive and understanding, which can lead to decreased anxiety. table 8. vince’s chosen statements items survey sort 1 sort 2 8. afraid when others laugh strongly agree agree agree it interesting to discuss the individual results based on freeman-larsen’s cdst. as stated previously, speaking anxiety could be a nonlinear, dynamic process influenced by numerous interacting variables, which can lead to unique language learning trajectories for each individual. in this context, the cases of olga, nittaya, aldrich, and vince offer insights into how different factors interact and impact speaking anxiety. for olga, the interaction between uncertainty, predictability, familiarity, and competence demonstrates how changes in one aspect can have cascading effects on other aspects of her language learning experience. as her familiarity and competence increase, the nonlinear dynamics of her learning system help reduce anxiety levels. this highlights the importance of understanding and addressing multiple factors to create an adaptive learning environment that accommodates individual needs. nittaya's case showcases how the interplay between practice, familiarity, and social support contributes to her unique learning trajectory. by engaging in more speaking activities and receiving support from familiar peers, her anxiety levels decrease, illustrating the interconnectedness of these factors within her language learning system. in aldrich's case, the interaction between preparedness, self-confidence, and fear of judgment reveals how changes in one variable can lead to fluctuations in anxiety levels. cdst helps us understand that learning is a dynamic process, and learners will experience variations in their anxiety levels as they encounter different situations. vince's case illustrates the role of audience familiarity and trust in the complex dynamic system of language learning. the interconnectedness of these factors affects his anxiety levels, emphasizing the importance of considering the social context in which language learning occurs. as can be seen from above, each learner's unique set of interacting factors (see akkakoson, 2016; aydin, 2008; kulwattanapaisarn et al., 2022; jen, 2003; rajitha & alamelu, 2020; wilang, 2022; young, 1991) shapes their speaking performance, and understanding these interactions can help educators develop tailored strategies to address speaking anxiety and support language learners in building confidence and enhancing their language learning experience. 40 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 32-43 anthony, j. and wilang, j. d. (the complexity of speaking anxiety among students…..) future studies should take into account the following considerations. firstly, cultural and contextual factors can significantly influence the experience of speaking anxiety. efl students from diverse cultural backgrounds may exhibit variations in the manifestation and intensity of speaking anxiety, as evidenced by the relevance of these factors in this study's participants. researchers should be mindful of these factors and ensure that their studies adequately address the specific cultural and contextual contexts of their participants. secondly, it is important to recognize that speaking anxiety is often self-reported, relying on participants' subjective perceptions and descriptions. self-report measures may be susceptible to biases, as individuals might underreport or over report their levels of anxiety. researchers should be aware of this potential bias and consider complementing self-report measures with additional methods, such as behavioral observations or physiological measures, to provide a more comprehensive understanding of speaking anxiety in individual cases. 4 conclusions and pedagogical implications the current study conducted on speaking anxiety in students from an international university in thailand has revealed mixed results. while participants displayed confidence and lack of fear when speaking english in certain situations, they experienced anxiety and panic when speaking without preparation or when compared to their peers. the results also highlight the potential influence of nationality and geographical location on speaking anxiety. participants from specific countries, such as american, brazilian, indian, and togolese, reported little to no speaking anxiety, while participants from other countries, such as cambodian, burmese, thai, and vietnamese, experienced anxiety. this could suggest that cultural factors and language learning experiences might play a role in shaping anxiety levels. moreover, participants from rural areas tended to exhibit more anxiety compared to their urban counterparts, possibly due to differences in english language exposure, learning opportunities, and cultural values. these findings emphasize the need to address speaking anxiety in language learning settings by considering factors such as nationality, cultural background, and geographical location. educators should be sensitive to the needs of their students and develop strategies to help them overcome anxiety, build confidence, and enhance their language learning experience. future research should further investigate the role of culture, language learning experiences, and environmental factors in shaping anxiety levels to better understand and support language learners. analyzing the individual cases provides valuable insights into the various factors that may influence speaking anxiety levels among language learners. factors such as familiarity, predictability, competence, and social support play a significant role in shaping the students' anxiety levels. for olga, uncertainty and unpredictability, as well as a lack of familiarity and competence, contribute to her anxiety. as she gains experience and becomes more familiar with the activities, her anxiety decreases. in nittaya's case, her anxiety levels decrease as she engages more in speaking activities, becomes more familiar with them, and feels comfortable speaking with people she knows. this shows the importance of practice, familiarity, and creating a supportive environment. aldrich experiences low anxiety but faces increased anxiety when dealing with unfamiliar topics and perceiving other students as more knowledgeable. this highlights the role of preparedness, selfconfidence, and the fear of being judged negatively by peers. lastly, vince also exhibits low anxiety and experiences a decrease in anxiety when considering the familiarity of the audience. this suggests that knowing the audience and trusting their receptiveness can boost confidence and alleviate anxiety. understanding these factors can help educators develop effective strategies to address speaking anxiety and support language learners in building confidence and enhancing their language learning experience. 4.1 pedagogical implications the findings offer insights into factors that can influence a learner's comfort and anxiety in various situations. thus, the following pedagogical implications are drawn: • importance of repetition and practice suggests that learners become more comfortable with activities and statements when they have the opportunity to engage with them multiple times. educators should create opportunities for practice and repetition to help learners build confidence and familiarity. for example, new issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 41 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 32-43 anthony, j. and wilang, j. d. (the complexity of speaking anxiety among students…..) vocabulary words or sentence structures can be used repeatedly to reinforce learning and retention. • familiarity and scaffolding highlights the importance of familiarity with an activity. learners can feel anxious when faced with unfamiliar topics and perceived expertise of peers. educators should be sensitive to these situations, providing appropriate guidance, support, and encouragement to help learners navigate these challenges. also, teachers can use scaffolding techniques to build on learners' existing knowledge and gradually introduce new concepts, helping to create a comfortable learning environment. • role of peer relationships emphasizes the importance of building positive relationships among learners. teachers can foster a supportive classroom environment by encouraging peer collaboration, group discussions, and opportunities for students to build connections with one another. one possible approach is to pair students with high levels of anxiety in speaking english with more confident peers. however, it is essential for the teacher to closely supervise the activity to ensure that anxious students can derive maximum benefit from the experience. • incremental exposure suggests that learners become more comfortable with speaking as they gain experience. teachers can incorporate incremental exposure strategies in their lessons, gradually increasing the complexity and frequency of speaking opportunities to help learners build confidence. • encouraging self-awareness and reflection indicates the importance of selfawareness and reflection. teachers can encourage learners to reflect on their feelings, recognize their strengths, and consider the context of their interactions, helping them better manage anxiety and develop self-confidence. encouraging students to write reflective journals at the end of their language lessons can be beneficial. acknowledgment the researchers wish to express profound gratitude to everyone involved in this research project, from data collection to analysis, and those who provided valuable feedback. heartfelt thanks to all contributors and parties who facilitated the completion of this manuscript. declarations author contribution : jebmani anthoney was responsible for the entire research project. she was responsible for the project approval, data collection, and data analysis. jeffrey d. wilang led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the first author. both authors revised,proofread, and approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research received funding from asia-pacific international university, saraburi, thailand. conflict of interest : all 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 with the regulations of our university and that we have obtained 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. additional information: no additional information is available for this paper. 42 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 32-43 anthony, j. and wilang, j. d. 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(2001). esl students' classroom anxiety. teaching and learning, 21(2), 51-62. https://repository.nie.edu.sg/bitstream/10497/350/1/tl-21-2-51.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2006.04.004 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-020-00550-w https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2008.00687.x https://doi.org/10.1080/03637757809375965 https://ir.swu.ac.th/xmlui/handle/123456789/3913 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2020.05.154 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1243013 https://doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v12i6.33453 http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2018.15.3.8.682 https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688206071315 https://www.jstor.org/stable/329492 https://repository.nie.edu.sg/bitstream/10497/350/1/tl-21-2-51.pdf 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 abst ract 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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(2014). not all emoticons are created equal. linguagem em (dis) curso, 14 (3) 511-529. https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-4017-140304-0414 https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2017.1313723 https://www.gallaudet.edu/documents/clerc/early%20beginnings.pdf https://www.gallaudet.edu/documents/clerc/early%20beginnings.pdf https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115624529 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csl.2012.02.005 https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/11518 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110214468 http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/multimedia/field/santiago/pdf/guidelinesnationalefa2015reviewsenglish19062013.pdf https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v1n2p18 https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-4017-140304-0414 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 abst ract 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. 3, december 2023, pp. 188-198 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.6661 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id first-year-students' perceptions of asynchronous media platform (amp) for learning english edi sunjayanto masykuria,1*, vоrоnushkinа olesya vlаdimirоvnаb, 2, mezentsev ivan evgenevichc, 3 a universitas muhammadiyah purworejo, jl. kha dahlan no.4&5, purworejo, kec. purworejo, kabupaten purworejo, jawa tengah 54151, indonesia b, c altai state pedagogical university, ulitsa molodezhnaya, 55, barnaul, altayskiy kray, russian federation 1 esunjayanto@umpwr.ac.id*; 2 o.voronushina@mail.ru; 3 ivan.mzntsv@gmail.com * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 16 june 2023 revised 12 august 2023 accepted 15 august 2023 this study investigates the attitudes of first-year university students toward the use of asynchronous applications in learning reading comprehension. the primary objectives were to determine students' perceptions of using smartphone-based asynchronous media platforms (amp) for reading comprehension, assess how these applications enhance student engagement, and understand the rationale behind their use. data were collected via a questionnaire administered to twenty-seven first-year university students. a case study approach was employed, and the data were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods. the findings indicate that students have a positive attitude toward the use of asynchronous applications for reading comprehension, with high average scores on the questionnaire demonstrating favorable assessments of these tools. the positive student attitudes toward asynchronous applications suggest that integrating these tools into the efl curriculum could significantly enhance reading comprehension and engagement. the use of asynchronous media platforms provides flexibility and accessibility, enabling students to learn at their own pace and on their own schedule. in conclusion, the findings of this study highlight the potential benefits of asynchronous applications in efl learning environments. by adopting these tools, educators can create more dynamic and interactive learning experiences that cater to the diverse needs of students. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords asynchronous media platforms media reading skills junior high school how to cite: masykuri, e. s., vlаdimirоvnа, o. v., & evgenevich, m. i. (2023). first-year students' perceptions of asynchronous media platform for learning english. english language teaching educational journal, 6 (3), 188-198. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.6661 1. introduction vocabulary is crucial to the reading process, and learners who are unable to master the vocabulary of the texts used in their classrooms typically struggle to comprehend the required reading material (coxhead, 2012). while it is unclear precisely how much vocabulary english as an additional language (eal) learners need to achieve academically in emi (english as a medium of instruction) schools, research indicates that eal learners often struggle with two forms of vocabulary crucial for academic performance: high-frequency and academic vocabulary (hawkins, 2005). a lack of vocabulary knowledge can significantly influence eal learners' academic progress in reading comprehension, a specific and critical academic skill that eal learners have been shown to struggle with (droop & verhoeven, 2003; murphy, 1998). https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.6661 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:esunjayanto@umpwr.ac.id mailto:o.voronushina@mail.ru mailto:ivan.mzntsv@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.6661 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i3.6661&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2228-6241 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 189 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 188-198 masykuri, e. s. et al. (first-year-students' perceptions of asynchronous media platform …..) reading comprehension impairments are a significant reason for eal learners' academic underperformance. in the uk, both research and national test scores indicate that a lack of reading comprehension in english is one of the key reasons why eal learners continually suffer academically compared to their first-language english classmates (murphy & unthiah, 2015). reading comprehension is a challenging ability for eal learners to acquire due to the multiple components required to establish meaning from a written text (twist et al., 2007). lower levels of grammatical and lexical proficiency are often compounded by unfamiliarity with cultural references encountered in classroom texts (burgoyne et al., 2009; hill, c., 2011). despite the necessity of acquiring multiple language skills, reading is given primacy in language instruction. globally, people are increasingly turning to the internet for aid with their normal activities and to satisfy diverse wants by reading. the rapid development of internet-related innovations has significantly altered many aspects of life, particularly in the areas of communication, commerce, and education. the digital world connected to the internet provides any knowledge people need, leading to substantial changes in students' behaviors regarding information collection. students often access advanced texts online rather than going to libraries to hunt for paper books. the internet not only provides data but also facilitates communication about class topics and the exchange of academic concerns through various web-based media (bana, 2020). reading on media apps in technology has advantages and disadvantages. on one hand, it makes reading and sharing information easier and more enjoyable. on the other hand, it poses a threat to one’s capacity to comprehend societal norms. in the context of educational growth, a large quantity of reading material can be found with relative ease on asynchronous media platforms such as sigil (alperi, 2015). an asynchronous media platform (amp) can be considered both an online journal and an electronic book (alperi, 2015; maharani et al., 2015; sari, 2016; wirasasmita & uska, 2017). the content of an amp can vary widely, from personal diaries and thoughts to comprehensive knowledge on any subject. it is important to stimulate kwl (know, want to know, learned) strategies in students. compared to publishing in a magazine or comic book, publishing on an amp is considerably simpler. amps, especially when created by students themselves, provide more control over their own learning. the researchers' experience at altai state pedagogical university in russia indicated that english teachers rarely use amps as reading materials in the learning process (fitri et al., 2021). this study explores students' perspectives on the use of amps as english reading materials. student perspectives on amps can vary from enthusiasm to disinterest. this research aims to determine whether students view amps as favorable or unfavorable english reading media, particularly considering the integration of text, audio, and visual elements. 1.1. student’s perception in language learning research on student perceptions in language learning has been extensively conducted by dewaele and saito. according to their studies, student perceptions are divided into two categories: anxiety and enjoyment. students’ anxiety while learning a foreign language is a complex interplay of selfperceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors associated with classroom language acquisition. this anxiety emerges from the distinctiveness of the language learning process, where learners often feel a threat to their ego when attempting to express themselves in a potentially awkward manner in a second language. this fear of appearing abrupt or making mistakes generates anxiety (dewaele & saito, 2024). such anxiety can sometimes align with students' expectations but also significantly diminishes their motivation (asysyfa et al., 2019). the second category is students’ enjoyment while learning a second language. enjoyment is a multifaceted emotion that combines challenge and perceived ability, driving achievement in difficult tasks. it is more than just a pleasant feeling; enjoyment occurs when individuals exceed their needs to accomplish something new or unexpected. pleasure, on the other hand, is a more straightforward emotion associated with experiencing something agreeable (dewaele & saito, 2024). a positive perception is characterized by a favorable judgment of all aspects and skills, whether recognized or not. explicit perception refers to personal assessments and interpretations of phenomena in the surrounding environment (zhang et al., 2020). when individuals hold a positive perception, they are likely to recognize and support the perceived object or activity. conversely, implicit beliefs involve subtle experiences that may be perceived as undesirable or unsuitable, leading to opposition 190 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 188-198 masykuri, e. s. et al. (first-year-students' perceptions of asynchronous media platform …..) and refusal of tolerated attempts (dörnyei & dewaele, 2023). in other words, a person's judgment of an object or activity in their environment can lead to a negative perception, resulting in opposition if they believe it to be ineffective. this duality of perception—anxiety and enjoyment—plays a crucial role in language learning. understanding these perceptions can help educators create more supportive and engaging learning environments that mitigate anxiety and enhance enjoyment, ultimately improving language acquisition outcomes. 1.2. enhancing student learning with asynchronous media platforms the use of amp has the potential to significantly improve students' interest in learning, thereby positively impacting their academic achievement and learning outcomes. amp can enhance comprehension and increase the likelihood of successfully achieving learning goals (hatmanto et al., 2023; hatmanto et al., 2023b; salsabila, 2013). as one of the emerging online discussion technologies, amp provides flexible and accessible opportunities for collaborative and interactive writing and learning, both with professors and peers. this engagement helps students become more media and information literate, fostering a greater sense of self-assurance and enhancing their ability for selfexpression. publishing their writing on amp allows students to experience a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, as their work is accessible to a wider audience, boosting their confidence and overall happiness with their achievements (kadir & tasir, 2020). additionally, using an e-book for maintaining an online journal enables students to discuss and reflect on their experiences. this process motivates them to better organize their material and make thoughtful decisions regarding the appropriate register and style for each task, driven by the commitment to meaningful exchange among their peers (yamin et al., 2020). overall, the implementation of amp in educational settings can create a more engaging and supportive learning environment, promoting academic success and personal growth among students. 1.3. asynchronous learning asynchronous learning is often described as self-regulated, meaning that students have the ability to monitor and take responsibility for their own academic performance (de bruin et al., 2011). the quality of learning may be significantly influenced by how effectively students can track their own progress. when students establish and follow consistent daily study routines, they are better able to comprehend information and acquire knowledge. additionally, students who can self-regulate are more likely to improve their academic performance because they are more aware of the strategies they should use or prepare for in the future (mahlberg, 2015). 1.4. review of related research the previous study examined the implications of increasing learners' motivation and repertoire of strategies for improving vocabulary size and depth (lee et al., 2022). it focused on students' perceptions of online learning during the covid-19 pandemic, investigating how students managed to pass exams without traditional classroom settings (wijayanengtias & claretta, 2020). creative strategies in learning english (masykuri et.al., 2022; parapi et al., 2020; masyakuri, 2022) were found to motivate students by reducing anxiety and enhancing contextual visuality. this investigation involved an in-depth, qualitative approach, utilizing both interviews and surveys to gather data. the findings indicated that students at the university of bengkulu had a positive perception of online learning. another study conducted during the covid-19 pandemic at the university of bengkulu (yunita & maisarah, 2020) revealed a strong relationship between students’ motivation and strategies in learning a second language. additionally, research on "practicing tefl using ict" at iain salatiga found that learning english through infographics had both advantages and disadvantages, highlighting the challenges and motivations of students (muna, 2019). in light of these considerations, the present study aims to address the following research questions: 1. what are students’ perceptions of the usage of asynchronous apps in learning reading comprehension? 2. how does the usage of asynchronous apps raise students’ attention? issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 191 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 188-198 masykuri, e. s. et al. (first-year-students' perceptions of asynchronous media platform …..) 2. methodology in this study, an empirical approach was adopted for the descriptive research. the aim was to understand first-year students' perceptions at altai state pedagogical university, russia federation, regarding the use of asynchronous media platform (amp) for english reading comprehension. data were collected via an online questionnaire, following a systematic procedure. first, the researchers designed the questionnaire. then, the respondents completed the questionnaire, which was made available through google forms. the study focused specifically on first-year russian-speaking students. the questionnaire consisted of 15 items, where respondents indicated their level of agreement or disagreement using a likert scale ranging from strongly satisfied (ss) to strongly dissatisfied (sd). the instrument measured students' competence in reading comprehension, categorizing their scores into five levels: very low (vl), low (l), medium (m), high (h), and very high (vh). this classification provided a detailed description of the students' reading comprehension abilities (table 1). table 1. mean score interpretation based on interval no. interpretation of mean score interval mean score 1 vl 1.00 – 1.79 2 l 1.80 – 2.59 3 m 2.00 – 3.39 4 h 3.40 – 4.19 5 vh 4.20 – 5.00 a. (source: educational planning and research division, moe, 2006) (zakaria et al., 2015) 3. finding and discussion 3.1. findings the results of this investigation are presented in this section. a likert scale from 5 to 1 was used to score the questionnaire items: 5 for "strongly satisfied (ss)," 4 for "agree," 3 for "fair (f)," 2 for "disagree (d)," and 1 for "strongly dissatisfied (sd)." the table below presents the research findings for each indicator. table 2. scoring pre-test and post-test and students’ satisfactory pre-test post-test no. student interval mean score interpretation interval mean score interpretation value 1 вк vl 1.79 m 3.30 ss 2 ан l 2.00 m 3.20 ss 3 вш l 2.39 h 3.48 ss 4 да l 2.39 m 3.30 ss 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 мр эв кк уm аб mc tc дл сш ш м m vl v l m m h m l l l 2.18 2.20 1.49 1.80 2.20 2.18 3.30 2.18 2.20 2.39 2.30 h l m h h h vh h h vh h 3.40 3.30 3.18 3.30 3.30 3.40 4.30 3.40 3.48 4.20 3.30 ss ss ss ss ss ss ss ss ss ss ss 2.19. 3.45 in table 2, the total population consists of 15 students. the pre-test results, displayed on the left side, show an average score of 2.19, indicating a low level of satisfaction in the class. the researchers did not use amp for scaffolding during this phase. on the right side, the post-test results demonstrate 192 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 188-198 masykuri, e. s. et al. (first-year-students' perceptions of asynchronous media platform …..) a significant improvement, with the average score rising to 3.45, suggesting strong satisfaction with the scaffolding provided. table 3 provides detailed points from the 15 questions posed after the post-test to the same class. students shared their opinions through google forms. table 3. descriptive table of students’ perception towards amp as an english reading media no statement sd a f s ss m value 1 amp makes student easier to learn vocabulary. 0 0 12 2 3 3.30 ss 2 amp makes students learn more enthusiastically. 0 0 11 2 2 3.80 ss 3 amp is more fun. 1 0 12 2 1 3.80 ss 4 students can learn anywhere and anytime. 0 0 8 2 3 3.00 s 5 amp can improve students’ understanding in text contextually. 0 0 9 0 6 3.00 s 6 getting the hang of reading by utilizing amp can't work on my inspiration in picking up reading. 0 0 11 4 0 3.30 ss 7 learning reading by using amp can help me focus more. 0 0 3 12 0 3.00 s 8 students have issues utilizing amp as a result of restricted smartphone offices, restricted web bundles, and helpless sign issues. 0 0 7 3 5 3.60 ss 9 amp is difficult to use because of the lack of students’ understanding of how to operate. 0 0 13 2 0 3.80 ss 10 learning reading by using amp is made me easier to resume what i have read. 0 0 12 2 1 4.00 ss 11 amp is a learning process that utilizes internet networks as a learning tool. 0 0 4 11 0 2.80 f 12 amp makes it simple for students or educators to impart and communicate whenever and anyplace. 0 0 9 6 0 2.80 f 13 amp can save time in the learning process 0 0 6 9 0 2.80 f 14 learning english using amp is a waste of internet data. 0 0 14 1 0 3.00 s 15 in light of the refinement of innovation in this advanced period, amp can keep on being created. 0 0 7 8 0 3.00 s total average 3.32 ss the findings of this study indicate that students generally agree with the statement that "learning to read by using amp makes it easier for me to resume what i have read." additionally, the statements "amp can save time in the learning process," "amp makes it simple for students or educators to impart and communicate whenever and anyplace," and "amp is a learning process that utilizes internet networks as a learning tool" received a "fair" rating (f), suggesting that while students agree, they are not completely satisfied with these aspects. an analysis of the data from the digital questionnaire revealed that the majority of first-year students have a favorable view regarding the use of amp for english reading. the mean score of the questionnaire was 3.40. however, many students still encountered difficulties when using amp, with the software recording a mean score of 3.40, placing it in the "high" category. table 3 illustrates that students agree that using amp presents several challenges, including limited mobile phone capabilities, restricted internet packages, and weak signal quality. the calculated mean issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 193 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 188-198 masykuri, e. s. et al. (first-year-students' perceptions of asynchronous media platform …..) score of 3.40, which falls within the "high" category, reinforces this conclusion. these results provide a clear understanding of students' perceptions regarding the five indicators previously discussed. table 4. descriptive statistics of problems faced by students’ perception towards amp as an english reading material no statement sd a f s ss m sd interpretation 6 concentrating on reading by utilizing amp can't work on my inspiration in picking up reading. 0 0 11 4 0 2.8 f 8 students have issues utilizing amp due to restricted smartphone offices, restricted web bundles, and helpless sign issues. 0 0 6 0 9 3.0 ss 9 amp is hard to utilize due to the absence of students' understanding the utilization of web websites. 0 0 13 2 0 3.0 s 14 using amp is wastefu of internet data. 0 0 14 1 0 3.0 s total 3.4 high 3.2. discussion the discussion highlights that amp, which focuses on the know – what i already know, want – what i want to know, learn – what i learned (kwl) method, is a creative learning medium that can motivate students to improve their skills. this approach provides students with new experiences beyond the subject matter, fostering a broader scope of learning. self-regulated learning fosters independence among students as they manage their own learning schedules, focus areas, and goals (adie et al., 2018; gardner, r.c., 1985; hill & west, 2020). integrating amp via smartphones is crucial for learning english in the context of education 4.0 0 (kusuma et al., 2021; parapi et al., 2020; santoso et al., 2018; masykuri et.al., 2022). this material emphasizes vocabulary building, aiming to extend students' vocabulary and comprehension. effective vocabulary acquisition requires strategic techniques and combinations of tactics (kojik-kabo & lightbown, 1999; zhang & lu, 2015). motivation plays a significant role in vocabulary acquisition, which is a key component of learning (dörnyei & dewaele, 2023). technology allows students to enhance their english vocabulary in various contexts, enabling them to read anywhere and anytime. according to tables 2 and 3, most first-year students accepted the change and did not experience self-anxiety, recognizing that anxiety can lead to complex self-perceptions and behaviors related to language acquisition (asysyfa et al., 2019; dewaele & saito, 2024). autonomous learning benefits from teacher feedback, helping students set goals and self-motivation strategies. this platform aids in problem analysis and evaluation, reflecting the dynamic nature of social environments and cultural practices. the study's findings indicate that teacher feedback enhances students' ability to self-regulate their english language learning, consistent with previous research showing that feedback activities encourage self-regulated learning (vatoy & smith, 2019). in response to the second research question, the study found that amp can increase students’ attention. amp functions effectively by presenting content that appeals to young learners, such as text, comic strips, animations, and movies. these visual aids (fig.1-3) scaffold understanding while reading. the asynchronous learning platform's smartphone-based accessibility allows students to read articles anywhere and anytime, enhancing their learning experience. the integration of amp not only improves students' engagement but also supports their autonomous learning by providing flexible and accessible learning tools. these findings underscore the potential of amp to enhance vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension, ultimately contributing to students' academic success. 194 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 188-198 masykuri, e. s. et al. (first-year-students' perceptions of asynchronous media platform …..) fig. 1. asynchronous media platform for learning english fig. 2. collection of books, notebooks, modules, and workbooks fig. 3. reading comprehension material for test a2 4. conclusion this study found that first-year students have a high perception of amp as an english reading medium, with a mean score of 3.55, indicating strong satisfaction. this suggests that learning to read with amp is easier and fosters students' enthusiasm. however, the effectiveness of amp was hindered by poor internet connectivity, resulting in a mean score of 3.40, categorized as 'high.' this issue led to decreased interest and difficulty in comprehension among students. despite these challenges, students exhibited enjoyment and curiosity rather than anxiety, demonstrating strong self-belief and motivation to learn more. future research should include teachers' perspectives to provide a more comprehensive understanding. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 195 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 188-198 masykuri, e. s. et al. (first-year-students' perceptions of asynchronous media platform …..) acknowledgment thank you to all the participants in this study who have given their time to provide information. we also thank nebolsina marina sergeevna who kindly helped us in translating and interpreting russian text, and also the rector of altai state pedagogical university who gave the permission for the study. declarations author contribution : edi sunjayanto masykuri was responsible for the entire research project. he also led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the second author. vоrоnushkinа olesya vlаdimirоvnа, supervised the first author and acts as an advisor and helped to find the correct method, managed the analysis, and revised the manuscript. mezentsev ivan evgenevich proofread the final draft and revised. funding statement : this research did not receive any funding. conflict of interest declaration of ethics : : the authors declare no conflict of interest. we as authors acknowledge that this work has been written based on ethical research that conform with the regulations of our university and that we have obtained the permission from the relevant institute and participants 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. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references adie, l., van der, f., & cumming, j. 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(2015). the relationship between vocabulary learning strategies and breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge. modern language journal, 99(4), 740-753. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12277. modern language journal, 99(4), 740-753. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12277 https://doi.org/10.32332/pedagogy.v8i2.1793 https://doi.org/10.29300/ling.v6i2.3718 https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041302 https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12277 1. introduction 1.1. student’s perception in language learning 1.2. enhancing student learning with asynchronous media platforms 1.3. asynchronous learning 1.4. review of related research 2. methodology 3. finding and discussion 3.1. findings 3.2. discussion 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations references english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.8747 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs): an action research study in a chilean teacher education program jessica vega-abarzúa a,1*, camilo jarpa gutiérrez b,2, valentina palma pulgar c,3, vasco salazar marabolíd,4 a,b,c,d universidad adventista de chile, camino a tanilvoro km. 12 sector, las mariposas, chillán, ñuble, chile 1 jessicavega@unach.cl *; 2 camilojarpa@alu.unach.cl; 3 valentinapalma@alu.unach.cl; vascosalazar@alu.unach.cl * corresponding author article info abstract article history received 11 january 2023 revised 23 february 2023 accepted 10 april 2024 situated in an action research study, this investigation describes the impact of scaffolding on the perceptions of preservice teachers of english. an action plan was developed for this group of preservice teachers as they showed concern for some of their communication, critical thinking, creativity and collaboration skills known as learning and innovative skills or 4cs. the action plan comprised the use of scaffolding as the main means of instruction, which was executed by the design of various evidenced-based scaffolds including group discussions, notetaking, summarizing, comparing, hypothesizing and problem-solving. the group of preservice teachers included 11 students, 4 male and 7 female, aged 20 and 38 of an english education program in a private university in ñuble, chile. data was collected in three main stages using an open-ended questionnaire before, during and after the implementation of the action plan. findings showed that the use of scaffolding increased participants’ perceptions of their overall 4cs skills, being critical thinking the most salient area of change. it is hoped that english teacher education programs can incorporate scaffolding as a potential instructional method in the development of academic and crucial skills for future teacher generations. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords scaffolding learning and innovative skills 4cs 21st-century skills action research teacher education how to cite: vega-abarzúa, j., jarpa gutiérrez, c., palma pulgar, v., & salazar marabolí, v. (2023). scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs): an action research study in a chilean teacher education program. english language teaching educational journal, 6(1)57-72. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.8747 1. introduction today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape has resulted in the incorporation of 21stcentury skills into the teacher education programs of various contexts around the globe. from an english language teaching (elt) perspective, 21st-century skills are pivotal to equip learners with the necessary tools and competencies to succeed in the modern world by using the target language in different contexts (armstrong & warlick, 2004). considering this relevance, a vast amount of research has been conducted on 21st-century skills in english as a foreign language (efl) contexts during the past five years (e.g. eryansyah, 2019; hosseinnia, 2018; motallebzadeh & saleh, 2019; şahin & han, 2020; tang, et al. 2022). beyond ‘skills for life’ or ‘skills for the future’, the literature https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.8747 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:jessicavega@unach.cl mailto:camilojarpa@alu.unach.cl mailto:valentinapalma@alu.unach.cl mailto:vascosalazar@alu.unach.cl http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.8747 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5260-5584 https://orcid.org/0009-0007-2677-7271 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9644-3177 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i1.8747&domain=pdf 58 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega -abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) seems not to point to a universal definition of 21st-century skills; what is known is that these skills emerged from a convergence of factors, namely, knowledge work, thinking tools, digital lifestyles and learning research (trilling & fadel, 2009). today, educational institutions have a regulatory framework for the integration of the 21st century, known as ‘21st-century student outcomes’ put forward by partnership 21st century skills in 2009. the framework, which takes a rainbow shape, is meant to be used with some critical factors supporting the classification of the skills, including standards, assessments, curriculum and instruction, professional development and learning environments. the skills, on the other hand, are grouped into three categories: i) learning and innovative skills, ii) information, media, and technology skills, and iii) life and career skills (partnership 21, 2015). specifically, this study addresses the category of learning and innovative skills, encompassing communication, critical thinking, creativity and collaboration known as the 4cs. based on the literature, these skills are key for thriving in academic and personal life; saxena (2015) presents the 4cs as the ‘super skills’ that “help develop the qualities that students need to possess in the 21st century for success in college, career and citizenship (p.1)”. hence, this action research study focuses on these skills. furthermore, our study aims to contribute to the limited body of literature on 21stcentury skills in efl teacher education within the chilean context. to address the 4cs and meet participants' needs, this study used scaffolding as the main instructional strategy. scaffolding is not a novel approach in education; jerome bruner, the american cognitive psychologist, pioneered its use in educational contexts. based on bruner (1957), scaffolding involves providing temporary support or assistance to learners to help them acquire new skills or knowledge. in the context of education, bruner's scaffolding approach emphasizes the importance of a knowledgeable teacher or more competent peer providing guidance and support to a learner as they progress through a learning task. wood et al. (1976) assert that scaffolding is a cognitive support construction that learners adapt to their needs. research on scaffolding is closely linked to the development of learning and innovative skills; current literature has explored scaffolding and critical thinking (e.g. brown et al., 2017; mohammed qadir & yousofi, 2021) creativity (e.g. ivcevic, hoffmann & mcgarry 2022; sanders, 2006; sharma & hannafin, 2005); communication (e.g. liboiron & soto, 2006; nfor, 2020; rasmussen, 2001) and collaboration (ertmer & glazewski, 2015; griesemer & shavit, 2023; hsieh, 2017; rojas-drummond & mercer, 2003). although scaffolding has been vastly investigated, especially in elt contexts, (e.g. chen, 2020; choi, et al. 2019; johnson, 2023; nasr, et al., 2018; xu, et al. 2023) its study in teacher education has not been sufficiently covered. the few research studies found (e.g. bunch & lang, 2023; schutz et al., 2019; sleeter, et al., 2004) were of great use in this action research study, shedding light on how scaffolding provides student teachers with opportunities to enhance their teaching practice. sleeter et al. (2004), based on critical pedagogy, describe scaffolding as a practical pedagogical tool that not only has an impact on student teachers but also on their learners as scaffolding facilitates teaching and learning, and complex reflexible processes. bunch & lang (2023) offer valuable insights from preservice teachers’ understanding of scaffolding that point to a useful tool that teachers employ to activate learners’ prior knowledge and help dissect the main components of tasks. based on this context and preservice teachers’ need to improve their learning and innovative skills, an action plan that considered scaffolding as an instructional strategy was designed to strengthen teachers' 21st-century skills. since this study took place in a teacher education program, the investigation is addressed to the teacher education community to reflect upon student teachers’ concerns and explore ways to tackle those situations in a practical way. the leading questions were the following: general question: • what are efl preservice teachers' perceptions of scaffolding in promoting communication, critical thinking, creativity and collaboration? issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 59 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) subsidiary questions: • what do efl preservice teachers know about scaffolding prior to the action plan? • what are the perceptions of efl preservice teachers about their communication, critical thinking, creativity and collaboration before, during and after the action plan? • what are the benefits and difficulties, from the perspective of efl preservice teachers, of using scaffolding in the classroom? 2. method this is a qualitative action research study, grasped as a systematic procedure in tackling realworld issues within educational institutions and classrooms (creswell, 2015). since a problem was identified in a university classroom and the instructor aimed to enhance the skills of preservice teachers, action research emerged as the most fitting methodology to address and document the issue. the teacher-researcher, a tesol instructor, collaborated with three student assistants (hereafter research team). the study involved a cohort of 11 preservice teachers enrolled in an english education program in ñuble, chile, comprising 4 females and 7 males, ranging in age from 20 to 38. these participants willingly volunteered to take part in the study and were informed about the anonymous handling of their data. this was clarified in the informed consent provided during the initial stage of the data collection process. it is important to note that both the study and data collection received approval from the scientific ethics committee of the university where the research was conducted. the problem was identified at the beginning of the first semester of 2023 while the participants were enrolled in the 'methodology and didactics of english language teaching' module. this issue surfaced during informal classroom discussions, where teacher students expressed concerns about their readiness to foster critical and creative thinking skills in school learners if they had not fully developed these skills themselves. additionally, the participants reflected on their knowledge gaps and social skills deficits resulting from the remote learning scenario during the covid-19 pandemic. after listening to the students' challenges, the research team developed an action plan that entailed various methodological actions, which were categorized into six procedures, as summarized in figure 1. figure 1. methodological actions comprised in the action plan first, the participants needed to experience fully student-centered teaching methods; therefore, lessons were planned including the use of problem-based learning, flipped learning and task-based learning. second, every lesson would require the completion of evidenced-based scaffolds to promote deep learning. these scaffolds were constructed based on mctighe & silver’s teaching for deeper learning: tools to engage students in meaning-making (2020), which comprised activities such as discussions, note-taking, summarizing, comparing, hypothesizing and problem-solving. all these scaffolds were always used with oral and written instructions on a self-guiding document that would engage participants in the step-by-step process of the outcome sought in every lesson. for instance, if participants were to read study material, they were given a tailored scaffold to complete including questions and information required for the reading (see figure 2). this approach ensured 60 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega -abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) that all participants had equal opportunities in the reading process and subsequent discussion of the material. figure 2. participants’ sample of scaffolds of the action plan third, participants were encouraged to document all their work resulting from the provided scaffolds, notes and assessments in a folder. fourth, the 4cs would be appraised based on the conceptualization of the pedagogical standards for teachers of english (mineduc, 2021) as described below; it is worth noting that participants were also presented with this information when data was collected: -communication: “the teacher of english communicates ideas accurately and effectively, mastering the fourth language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. the teachers possess knowledge that allows her/him to present, explain and model abilities and linguistic components of the english language in various contexts” (personal translation based on mineduc, 2021, p.79) -critical thinking: “which implies understanding and expressing the meaning or relevance of various experiences, situations, data, events, judgment , agreements, beliefs, norms, procedures or criteria” (personal translation based on mineduc, 2021, p.13) -creative thinking: “understood as the one used in the creation or modification of something, introducing new elements to generate new ideas that have the potential to develop or modify something already existing” (personal translation based on mineduc, 2021, p.13) issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 61 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) -collaboration: “to solve shared problems or tasks through the development of abilities and attitudes that allow the mutual construction of knowledge in a trusting environment of joint collaboration” (personal translation based on mineduc, 2021, p.13) fifth, data collection would take place in three different moments: before, during and after the action plan using an open-ended questionnaire elaborated by the research team, and documenting relevant information in a research journal. sixth, to ensure rigorous work and procedure, the action plan underwent discussion and refinement based on the feedback of two external academics. 2.1 data collection and analysis as previously mentioned, data collection occurred at three distinct points through an electronic questionnaire distributed to participants via their institutional email addresses. these questionnaires were completed during instructional hours to ensure uniform timing and conditions for all participants. the first questionnaire served as a threshold for the study since, up to that point, the research team had only collected informal data through conversations, which was not sufficient to establish a rigorous reference point. therefore, the initial questionnaire consisted of 5 open-ended questions covering the two leading dimensions of this study: scaffolding and 4cs. the second stage of data collection occurred after six weeks of implementation using scaffolding and was very similar to the initial questionnaire as the research team wanted to focus on the progress or possible changes from the perceptions of the participants. the third questionnaire was different as it sought to unpack the impact of scaffolding on 4cs and participants’ future teaching practice specifically. from these three questionnaires, the research team obtained a data corpus that underwent thematic analysis. the three questionnaires were initially managed separately; participants’ answers were organized on a spreadsheet and were coded using colors whenever themes emerged. this process was repeated in each questionnaire. afterwards, codes and themes were arranged onto another spreadsheet that comprised the three moments of data collection. this process allowed the research team to identify the changes from the perception of the participants. the research team determined to present the results showing the contrast of participants’ perceptions per each skill of the 4cs, using graphs and direct quotes from the participants as presented in the following section. 3. results the findings described in this study stem from data collected at three different moments of the action plan that involved two leading dimensions, namely, scaffolding the 4cs. therefore, prior to the implementation of the action plan, and by means of the initial questionnaire, it was of utmost importance to explore participants’ perceptions on each of the dimensions. in terms of scaffolding, it was possible to establish that all the participants either did not know or did not remember about scaffolding, even when including the concept in their first language. regarding the 4cs, it was possible to determine that participants, in general, showed confidence and preparation in their creative thinking and collaborative work. nevertheless, in the areas of communication and critical thinking, participants’ responses revealed less preparation. these initial results match learners’ comments gathered in informal conversation and served to determine their progress during the action plan. the second stage of data collection indicates an increase in all the 4cs, including the areas of concern. to illustrate this progress, each area is presented separately. 3.1 communication it is worth pointing out that during the implementation of the action plan, and with the various scaffolding activities participants’ disposition to learning changed favorably. as each assignment required the use of tailored scaffolds, participants seemed to enjoy engaging in the activities. participants’ perceptions of their communication skills were coded using the labels: prepared, partially prepared, more or less prepared, and not prepared. as seen in figure 3, participants’ evaluation of their communicative skills was lower compared to the perceptions they had during the implementation of scaffolded activities. participants’ answers during the action plan resulted in three 62 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega -abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) labels in which the majority of the participants stated to have developed their communication skills. participants commented that the action plan helped them to express themselves effectively. for instance, in the participants’ words: “i think that they [scaffolds] have helped me in communicating effectively because of the emphasis placed on expositions, debates and communication instances” (participant 1) “the round table discussions have been good to talk about different topics which have helped to an better communication” (participant 2) “...these tools [scaffolds] have been of great help at the moment of sharing our answers with our classmates” (participant 5) “i think that all the scaffolds have helped me to develop my communication because they are all very practical. in some of them i have to write my ideas, in others we have to write our points of view, improving my written communication. this has helped me in keeping my ideas organized” (participant 10). figure 3. participants’ perceptions of communication skills before and during the action plan. 3. 2 critical thinking in addition to communication, critical thinking was another skill of concern for participants. the initial questionnaire yielded a lack of preparation as most of the participants claimed to be partially prepared in terms of critical thinking. compared to the questionnaire administered during the action plan, it was possible to establish a significant change in participants' perceptions towards their critical thinking skills. figure 4, displays this contrast, in which 91 % of the participants claimed to be prepared for this skill. in this sense, participants explained the following: “i’m sure that the scaffolds given in the exercises of case study and providing an opinion/critique helped me improve my critical thinking skills” (participant 6). “...i remember that in one activity we had to write questions for the author and to the teacher about a text we were reading, and that was new for me and it was an opportunity for questioning and making comments about it [the text]” (participant 7) figure 4. participants’ critical thinking skills before and during the action plan issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 63 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) 3. 3 creative thinking while creative thinking was not initially identified as a critical skill requiring attention, participants' initial assessments were categorized into three main groups: prepared (66, 7%), partially prepared, (11, 1%) and not prepared (22,2%). as seen in figure 5, during the action plan, participants' appreciation towards their creative thinking skills increased from 66,7 to 90,9% of preparedness. some of the comments of the participants stated the following: “i believe that they [scaffolds] have provided a significant contribution because although they are guiding tools, at the same time they makes us think, and start elaborating new ideas in a creative way as it is needed” (participant 1). “yeah, the participation in hypothetical situations has helped me to develop my creative thinking because i have to think in activities for these contexts” (participant 2) “yes, this is the area in which i struggle the most, but these tools really challenged me to think ‘out of the box’” (participant 10). figure 5. participants’ creative thinking skills before and during the action plan 3. 4 collaborative work collaborative work was another aspect that did not appear to be a significant concern during informal conversations among the participants. however, in the initial stage of data collection, several participants expressed that they were not fully prepared in this regard (see figure 6). some participants provided explanations, stating: “in this aspect [collaborative work] i'm not really prepared because not many times i have had to work on something like this [constructing knowledge together]...”(participant 8), “honestly, collaborative work is something hard for me because i am a little stubborn and it is also difficult to delegate work” (participant 9). during the action plan, all the participants showed full preparedness in their collaborative skills. figure 6. participants’ perceptions of their collaborative skills before and during the action plan prepared 64 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega -abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) 3.5 scaffolding and the 4cs participants’ perceptions of scaffolding in the development of the 4cs were favorable as all the participants showed satisfaction with the various scaffolding tools used throughout the action plan. as seen in figure 7, most of the participants maintained that critical thinking, 31,6%, and creative thinking 26,3%, were the skills that they developed the most during the implementation of the action plan. in this respect, some comments are presented below: “critical thinking mainly because there were many instances for reflection and analysis where i used this skill to reflect about teaching” (participant 1) “to develop my creative and critical thinking, scaffolding was what helped me the most…. the latest activity, assessment tools, has helped me think ‘out of the box’ and judge what i should use and what not… these type of skills will be highly useful in teaching” (participant 3) “i think that communication and critical thinking were the abilities that i developed the most, and the scaffolding activities like group conversations and discussions helped to find other strategies for studying and in that way i felt more confident” (participant 8) “i think that creative and critical thinking because i had that skill gap from the beginning. every lesson, each scaffold helped me develop these skills…” (participant 9) figure 7. scaffolding in the development of the 4cs based on participants’ perceptions in terms of the procedural aspects that allowed the participants to develop their 4cs, the research team identified three themes, being the most salient organization. the participants expressed that all the actions embedded in the action plan (e.g. classroom arrangement, activities, assignments, instructional material and teaching methods) required a systematic organization. seemingly, participants also valued having scaffolded activities with written guidelines, steps and checklists. for instance, in the participants’ words: “it [the intervention] helped me out to organize my studies and also have an organization in my readings and documents because i keep them in my folder” (participant 7) “it was new and surprising for me to see such detail instructions provided by teacher j because at least i had never seen activities explained in that way…. this has had an impact on my mental organization, meaning that now i follow the instructions point by point which is something important to do well” (participant 11) another theme connected to the organization was autonomy. participants’ answers reveal that during the action plan, they gained autonomy as many of the instructional activities were explained extensively, allowing them to make progress at their own pace. it also seems that the novel issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 65 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) component of the action plan and its methodological approach contributed to the positive appreciation of preservice teachers as they expressed that: “they [scaffolds] made a difference, since they promoted self-learning in a module, and this is also the first time that in one class 21st century skills are developed in such a short time and in such effective way…” (participant 1) “...scaffolds have turned out to be very interesting, there are more instances to work step by step different contents. it is very meaningful and different from our normal classes… this class involved creativity, investigation and autonomy which are very important…” (participant 6) a third theme that seems to have contributed to participants’ perceptions in their development of the 4cs using scaffolding was feedback. participants’ comments in this theme underscore: the moments their activities were corrected, the help the instructor provided, and the feedback provided prior and after the assessments. in terms of the difficulties that participants faced during the implementation of the action plan, all the participants stated that the scaffolds did not pose further challenges for them. given the frequency and numerous tools that participants received, just 1 participant added that although the scaffold materials were not complex to tackle, some of them could turn ‘complex’ as they required more development and lots of thinking. 3.6 scaffolding in the classroom although all participants' responses reveal benefits for using scaffolding in their efl classes, they signaled different reasons. some of these reasons were grouped under the same category as shown in figure 8. the category that comprises most of the reasons was named facilitate learning as the participants expressed that they would use scaffolding to leverage mixed-ability groups and to provide equal learning opportunities for all learners. based on our participants' answers, it was possible to establish that they see scaffolding as a useful tool for making sustained progress in the classroom. the most frequent reason is portrayed as 4cs/21st century skills since participants commented that they would use scaffolding to specifically focus on these skills that help learners in their studies and life. organization and guided learning was the third most frequent reason, for participants believe that scaffolding can be key in providing organization and learning success. figure 8. participants’ reasons for using scaffolding in the efl classroom 66 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega -abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) 4. discussion this study has addressed an education issue that emerged from the concern of efl preservice teachers. the findings of this study reveal that, from the perspective of a group of preservice teachers, they did not feel fully prepared in terms of their learning and innovative skills. after implementing an action plan based on a number of methodological procedures in which scaffolding was the main instructional approach, participants’ perceptions showed more satisfaction in the development of their 4cs. in particular, participants expressed more consolidation in the areas of critical and creative thinking. this, to some extent, can be explained by the nature and quantity of scaffolds designed for developing these skills. counting the number of scaffolds that would contribute to the development of each of the 4cs was out of our scope. therefore, future studies may consider this to minimize bias. despite the marked development in critical and creative thinking, it has to be noted that participants’ perceptions increased in all the 4cs as they declared to be more prepared after their scaffolded-based instruction. these results match the benefits of scaffolding addressed in the literature not only to promote learning and innovation skills (griesemer & shavit, 2023; hsieh, 2017; ivcevic, hoffmann & mcgarry 2022; mohammed qadir & yousofi, 2021; rasmussen, 2001) but also to provide student teachers experiential learning as addressed by awadelkarim (2021) participants' favorable views toward scaffolding align with their intentions to incorporate scaffolds into their future teaching practices a finding that turned out to be surprising was the fact that none of the participants declared to know what scaffolding is prior to the implementation of the action plan. considering that scaffolding is a well-established teaching strategy, it raises concerns that future teacher generations are not familiar with this type of inherent processes in english language teaching. it also calls to our attention the fact that participants had appreciated and benefited from detailed oral and written instructions in their instructional material. this finding serves as a warning regarding methodological and didactic knowledge that instructors and teachers programs should heed. while student teachers are adults, they are still learners who require quality practices and models to take to their future classrooms. 5. conclusion this study has established that scaffolding used as a primary instructional strategy significantly enhanced the perception of efl preservice teachers regarding their learning and innovative skills, particularly in critical and creative thinking. these student teachers hold highly positive views about the regular use of scaffolding, considering it a valuable tool they intend to incorporate into their teaching practice. likewise, it is important to highlight that through research and action, the research team recognized the potential of methodological changes to empower teacher candidates, not only in the attainment of language skills but life skills acquisition. this study faced some limitations that future researchers and practitioners may consider. designing instructional materials and documenting participants' information lesson by lesson was time-consuming and required a team of researchers. additionally, handling a large data corpus was challenging; future research may explore alternative data collection techniques. acknowledgment the researchers express deep gratitude to all those who played a role in bringing this paper to completion, specifically the editorial support of eltej. declarations author contribution : the first author was responsible for the design and implementation of the entire action research study. she also led the writing of the manuscript, data collection and analysis processes. the second, third and fourth author participated in the data collection and transcription as well as text revision. the completed manuscript was accepted by four authors. funding statement : : this study received no funding or specific grant. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 67 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) conflict of interest : : the authors declare no conflict of interest. ethics declaration : additional information : : we as authors declare that this work has been written based on ethical research that conforms with the regulations of universidad adventista de chile, and that we have obtained 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. references armstrong, s., & warlick, d. 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(2023). embedding teacher scaffolding in a mobile technology supported collaborative learning environment in english reading class: students' learning outcomes, engagement, and attitudes. international journal of mobile learning and organisation, 17(12), 280-302. https://doi.org/10.1504/ijmlo.2023.128340 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.01.004 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/bf02960225 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/bf02960225 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej795236.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2021.1935226 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x https://doi.org/10.1504/ijmlo.2023.128340 https://doi.org/10.1504/ijmlo.2023.128340 70 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega -abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) appendix participants’ sample completion of scaffolds issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 71 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega-abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) 72 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 57-72 vega -abarzúa, j., et.al (scaffolding in the development of learning and innovative skills (4cs):…..) english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 73-83 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.6497 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id using augmented reality technology to improve english language learning by identifying objects around us nafisah endahati a, 1*, setia wardani b,2 a,b universitas pgri yogyakarta, jln. pgri i, sonosewu no 117, yogyakarta, 55182, indonesia 1 nafisah@upy.ac.id* ; 2 setia@upy.ac.id *corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o article history received 11 january 2023 revised 16 march 2023 accepted 15 april 2023 educators are expected to be aware of information technology development. however, many teachers have not integrated technology into teaching strategies. this research aims at developing english learning media by using augmented reality (ar) technology and analyzed its effectiveness in learning. the researchers employed microsoft solution framework (msf) tool to develop the media which consisted of requirement definition, and system & software design. the developed media was evaluated through tests to 30 seventh graders of junior high school. interview and observation were conducted to know users’ learning needs. data was obtained by distributing questionnaires and quantitatively analyzed. the results showed 1) ar-based english media has 12 markers which can be downloaded in the application menu. the application display consisted of pre-elemi nary, marker, information, and theory pages. the chapter theory included 8 chapters; 2) the mean score of enthusiasm by implementing ar-based media is 27.07, but the score of non-implementing ar-based learning media is 22.33. it can be scientifically stated that ar-based media is effective to increase students’ enthusiasm in learning english. the ar technology can potentially be utilized to generate english media in productive skills. thus, further studies should be encouraged to investigate the integration of english material and ar technology in receptive language skills. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords augmented reality technology english learning media effectiveness how to cite: endahati, n. and wardani, s. (2023). using augmented reality technology to improve english language learning by identifying objects around us. english language teaching educational journal, 6(1), 73-83. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.6497 1. introduction english learning is intended to make students having the ability to: (1) develop communication competence both oral and written to gain functional literacy; (2) have consciousness on the essence and importance on english to develop national and global competitiveness; and (3) develop students’ understanding on the relationship between nations and culture (syarifuddin, 2017). the development of students’ potency would be focused on making them able to have the communicative competence in the interpersonal, transactional and functional texts (gultom, 2016; hargie, 2021). the curriculum puts the priority on scientific approach (observing, questioning, gathering information, associating and communicating), it is supported by other innovative approaches such as problem-based learning, cooperative learning, and explorative learning and so on. activities in the process of english learning support students to be independent, active in all processes and cooperative with others. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.6497 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:nafisah@upy.ac.id* mailto:setia@upy.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i1.6497 74 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 73-83 endahati, n. and wardani, s. (using augmented reality technology to improve english language learning…..) in the syllabus of english learning materials of the seventh graders of junior high school, the subject matters are people, animal or things around the house and school (wachidah et al., 2017). identifying things around the house, school and public places should be presented well, this is because the seventh graders are more interested in things if they are displayed with interesting description or display. students are more motivated to orally deliver the idea through technology (puspitarini & hanif, 2019). in this case, ar is used to help students describing things around them, since it is a technology which relates human to machine (awadh & shafiull, 2020). students are expected to have the abilities to describe, identify, criticize and assess people, animal and things from the characteristics. along with the development of technologies, the augmented reality (ar) appears to be one of facilities in the process of teaching and learning at school. the technology of ar is the direct and indirect perspectives from physical things by adding information that can be presented virtually. this technology is presented to support the related learning processes (czerkawski & berti, 2021). technology adopted in the learning media enhances learning outcomes and quality (marini et al., 2022). the purpose of learning english is to develop competence on communication both oral and written to gain the functional literacy level. the process of it should include all abilities such as listening, speaking, writing and reading through strategies of language learning. the ability or skill of speaking will support students to deliver idea and feeling in oral. to achieve that, providing the learning media which is information and communication technological based can be an alternative. research on the role of integrating information technology to learn english has been conducted to improve productive skills. it is stated that information and technology learning based is more valid, effective and practical when it is compared to the non-information and technology learning media based (endahati & purwanto, 2016; tsai et al., 2020). the implementation of information and technology to the learning processes based on the students’ needs will develop their interest on english. media which is integrated with technology is widely implemented in education (szeto et al., 2016). this research focuses on developing a media of english by using ar technology to describe things around us. ar technology is adopted in several use of practice since it shows the correlation between the real physical world and the digital objects (poretski et al., 2019; maccallum & parsons, 2019). ar means a modern computer-assisted-learning-environment that combines the observed real-world phenomena with graphically added information or image (norouzifard et al., 2023; norouzifard et al., 2022). it is revealed by many previous research that high-tech learning based will not bring any significant expectation and goals if that technology does not promote critical thinking, meaning-making or meta-cognition (saidin et al., 2014; alam et al., 2019). it is expected that augmented reality features are able to engage students in learning processes and help improving their visualization skills. augmented reality technology contributes to the ultimate growth of students and supports the development of student’s critical thinking (chang & hwang, 2018; rafiq & hashim, 2018). besides that, ar technology stimulates pupils to autonomously study the subject matter (martín-gutiérrez et al., 2015; tarasenko et al., 2021; quqandi et al., 2023). according to research, using augmented reality technology in learning materials results in students becoming more motivated and autonomous (taskiran, 2019; wedyan et al., 2022). by providing well-prepared ar teaching materials, the teaching and learning processes would be better conducted and students may get various benefits. this ar technology has been mostly applied in higher education settings and compulsory levels of education for motivating students. augmented reality technology is adopted to create media in language learning to achieve the learning participants producing the target language autonomously (parmaxi & demetriou, 2020; cai et al., 2022; marrahí-gómez & belda-medina, 2022). in addition to language instruction, ar technology is used in biology and scientific classrooms (virata & castro, 2019; omurtak & zeybek, 2022; wang et al., 2023). students are encouraged to visualize the subject matter through the visualization provided by the ar technology. by providing well-prepared ar teaching materials, the teaching and learning processes would be better conducted and students may get various benefits. however, teachers met challenges to harness the power of augmented reality technology in ways that contribute to the ultimate growth of students, and that means supporting the development of students’ higher order thinking skills. many issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 75 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 73-83 endahati, n. and wardani, s. (using augmented reality technology to improve english language learning…..) obstacles are found in implementing the integration of augmented reality technology in learning. barriers to implementing augmented reality technology include limited knowledge, limited learning design, limited attention, limited time, and minimal facilities and infrastructure (mekni & lemieux, 2014; alalwan et al., 2020). the general population has a fairly low level of acceptability for the use of augmented reality technologies (sugiono, 2021). not everyone, especially educational professionals, is amenable to integrating augmented reality technology, therefore they feel embarrassed about doing so. to guarantee the acceptance of ar to the teaching and learning circumstance, some key points should be carefully considered. they are curriculum, stability of the interaction, self-learning capability, parents’ involvement, students’ background, platform and social factors (lasica et al., 2020; kırlı & ozen, 2023). therefore, it is necessary to consider the development of each of these aspects. while the world is undoubtedly changing, we will grow and adapt along with it. in fact, if we have our way, we will be the ones on the forefront, pushing forward with new innovations and improvements for teaching and learning. as mentioned above, integration of augmented reality technology is needed. a study to test the effectiveness of implementing the ar reveals us that students with adopted ar system have achieved better learning results than those who learned with the traditional 2d simulation system (satkowski & dachselt, 2021). it needs for teachers to provide positive emotion and reach learning experiences, not just condensed as ‘sightseeing’, to stimulate students’ active learning (singer-brodowski, 2017; lin et al., 2022). to achieve this, eco-discovery ar-based learning system (edals) was introduced to improve learning outcomes and needs among learners (huang et al., 2016; mirza et al., 2022). without a doubt, infrastructure preparation, curriculum readiness, and active stakeholder involvement assist the integration of technology into the education area, resulting in more advanced education. the implementation of ar technology in language learning can improve the learning outcomes of children (saputri, 2017; mubaraq et al., 2018; rahmawati, 2021). additionally, technology integrated in english learning is highly influenced by teachers’ willingness to keep studying and practicing, students’ participation, interaction frequency and cooperativeness (habibi et al., 2019; nugroho & mutiaraningrum, 2020). english language teaching is directed to students for encouraging them to produce contextual language. there are four basic skills in language competence; listening, speaking, writing and reading. the outcomes of learning english in the kurikulum merdeka provide an overview of how each language skill is integrated with other skills (agustini, 2023). the involvement of teachers and students produces good learning collaboration (anwar et al., 2021; mora et al., 2020). it is clearly stated in the curriculum of english lesson that has been nationally implemented; the language skills are provided and developed integrative. this integrated language fluency development pushes teachers to change their conventional learning approaches to the ones which are updated and technology based. the ability to understand texts accurately, provide the language model, maintain the fluency, provide model or examples, monitor the target language fluency, and provide time to practice. texts are better presented through technology integration with teaching media (christ et al., 2019). this technological implementation has been proven to develop students’ level of proficiencies on productive and receptive abilities. as such this augmented reality technology, there have been benefits of its’ implementation to develop students’ achievement on learning. ar is a novel form of interaction between human and machine which leads to a new experience and perspective. the prominence of ar is that it creates computer animated objects in the real perspective. it uses webcam to detect marker that has been previously designed and project the combination between real and animated objects. the webcam is used as ‘eyes’ from the technology of ar to detect marker and then process it to generate virtual interaction appears on screen. by implementing the ar technology in learning, it creates effective learning atmosphere which provides us the picture of the real world. the essence is it combines real world situation and virtual objects aims at overcoming problems and understanding learning materials and processes. by implementing it, students have chance to create own understanding and discuss with classmates the teaching materials which implementing the ar in the process. therefore, this research focuses on the development of english learning media and measures its effectiveness in learning english. the research questions, then are mentioned as follows. 76 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 73-83 endahati, n. and wardani, s. (using augmented reality technology to improve english language learning…..) a. what english learning materials can be developed by using augmented reality technology? b. how can the developed product (english learning media) effectively improve learning process? 2. method 2.1. method of the research this type of research is survey research which is analytical and descriptive exploratory in nature. in order to test hypotheses, measurement procedures, the clarity of variables, and data based on operational variables and data analyzed using statistical tests, a quantitative approach was used. the effectiveness of using augmented reality technology was assessed using a checklist with a likert scale. 2.2. data collection method both primary and secondary data were utilized in this study; primary data came directly from the source and took the form of respondents' responses to questionnaire questions that covered various areas of the investigation. the interview with the teacher and school principal was conducted to find out the student’s needs. secondary data on the issues in this study were collected from literature reviews, literary books, journals, and research papers. 32 respondents from smp pgri bantul, including 30 pupils and 2 teachers, made up the study's sample. a total of 32 questionnaires were sent, however only 30 respondents could be tabulated since 2 of the questionnaires were incomplete and hence could not be used in the research. 2.3. data measurement method to confirm that the study instrument was a precise and dependable measurement tool, validity (correlation) and reliability tests were conducted. to ascertain the correlation (strength of association) between study variables or to demonstrate the extent to which a measuring instrument measures what it wishes to measure, validity (correlation) tests are conducted. if the significant value is (where = 0.05), then the hypothesis is considered to be valid. the reliability test, also known as internal consistency reliability, measures how consistent a measurement result is when evaluating the same aspect and is assessed using the spearman method to obtain the r. 2.4. data analysis method multiple regression methods with validity and reliability tests, requirements testing, and multicollinearity, hiteroscedasticity, and path analysis (path analysis) tests were all used in the data analysis method that was used to test the proposed hypothesis. 3. findings and discussion the researcher discusses the findings in this part, which are based on questions about the product development of ar-based english learning media and the efficiency of these materials in teaching english to junior high school students in the seventh grade. 3.1. the product of learning media development there are 2 vital contents in the application of android based learning media using augmented reality technology, they are marker and image display. marker is an important component in the application of learning media to study english; it is used to display the objects of augmented reality in every chapter. it is expected that every user who employs learning media of english lesson to have marker first in which it can be downloaded from the menu of the application. the application has 12 markers in chapter 1, 2, 4, and 7. each of them has 1 marker. moreover, chapter 3 has 3 markers, 2 markers in chapter 5 and 2 in chapter 6. chapter 8 does not have marker since it presents song for the users. below is the example of marker in chapter 3. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 77 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 73-83 endahati, n. and wardani, s. (using augmented reality technology to improve english language learning…..) object representation of a clock object representation of sun object representation of watch figure 1. markers on chapter 3 this instructional resource's chapter 3 contains three markers. these three markers will create 3d representations of wall clocks, watches, and sun-related things. timing is a key concept covered in chapter 3 of the work. as a result, the modeled 3d objects include an element of time. additionally, the 3d graphics shown in other chapters are modified to match the underlying ideas of the subject matter being covered. the items in the home and school are covered in chapter 5. the markers listed in chapter 5 are as follows. object representation of house building object representation of school building figure 2. markers on chapter 5 the display of the application on this english lesson is presented in the first page as a way for users. there is picture provided in the left or right side of the first page. there are 4 menu buttons, they are the button of theory, marker, information and exit. the first button is for connecting the theory to the chapter. the marker button is for connecting the page marker. the information button connects the information on the writers. the last one, exit button is for exiting the program. this application has 8 chapters which helps students to study english from the text books. the theme is adjusted to the text book. below is the developed 3d objects: table 1. the chapter themes chapter title 3d object 1 good morning, how are you? 2 students 2 this is me a student 3 what time is it? a clock, sun and a watch 4 this is my world living room 5 it’s a beautiful day house and school building 6 we love what we do a cat, a doctor and a deer 7 i’m proud of indonesia a student 8 that’s what friends are supposed to do english teachers created the materials to meet the demands of the students. the most engaging and contextual learning materials are those that are connected to items or objects the learner is familiar with. we can get this information from items around your house or at school. the goal of creating english learning resources is to assist students in honing their speaking abilities. the created content utilizes 3d technology and is accessed by markers. students are encouraged to describe the items they perceive by having access to these objects. students then refine their speaking abilities. using media that is incorporated with technology, student may independently produce target language. expressing ideas fluently initiates student’s critical thinking (iman, 2017). after accessing to the media, students may engage in conversation, debate, and question-and78 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 73-83 endahati, n. and wardani, s. (using augmented reality technology to improve english language learning…..) answer sessions with their peers. the critical thinking skills of the students was strengthened by this practice. students in junior high school reach the age when they can start using critical thinking (bean & melzer, 2021). by encouraging discussion and problem-solving, this learning tool can improve critical thinking of pupils (asyari et al., 2016; narmaditya et al., 2018). each student took the initiative to solve issues during group discussions. 3.2. quantitative data description the analysis of product effectiveness is conducted through these hypotheses. the effect of the augmented reality technology based for learning media towards the students’ enthusiasm. ho: there is no significant differences on students’ enthusiasm between the classes which are taught by employing english lesson media. ha: there is significant difference on students’ enthusiasm on using english lesson media. before testing hypothesis is over, it needs to conduct pre-requisite testing, the normality and the homogeneity testing. 3.2.1. normality testing the following table is the result of normality testing. table 2. tests of normality media kolmogorov-smirnova shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. statistic df sig. total non tik .229 30 .000 .902 30 .009 tik .185 30 .010 .946 30 .128 a. lilliefors significance correction based on the above table, it reveals that the score of sig. (2-tailed) on the data of students’ enthusiasm using non-english lesson media has significance < 0,05, so that the ho is acceptable. this means the data is not normal distributed. furthermore, the data of students’ enthusiasm using english lesson media application has significant < 0,05, meaning that ho is acceptable and data is not normal distributed. 3.2.2. homogeneity testing the following table is the result of homogeneity testing table 3. test of homogeneity of variances total levene statistic df1 df2 sig. .683 1 58 .412 based on the above table, the significant score on students’ enthusiasm is above 0,05, that is 0,412. it can be concluded that in the level of significant 5%, group that is employed in this research is the homogeny group. 3.2.3. hypothesis testing the following table represents the summary on output mann-whitney students’ enthusiasm on the class which implements the english lesson application. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 79 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 73-83 endahati, n. and wardani, s. (using augmented reality technology to improve english language learning…..) table 4. test statistics total mann-whitney u 2.000 wilcoxon w 467.000 z -6.678 asymp. sig. (2-tailed) .000 based on the above illustration, it can be revealed that the achievement significant score is 0,000. the score is <0,05 which leads ho is refused. there is difference between classes which implements the ar based english lesson with the one which does not. 3.2.4. mean testing table 5. report total media mean n std. deviation non ar 19.29 30 1.093 ar 26.18 30 1.413 total 22.73 60 2.695 based on quantitative descriptive analysis, it can be concluded that mean enthusiasm by employing ar technology-based for english lesson media is 26.18. meanwhile, the score of enthusiasm by using non–media application english lesson is 19.29. it can be declared that using application english lesson media based on ar is effective to develop students’ enthusiasm to study and learn english by identifying things around us. we can use talks, question-and-answer sessions, games, or even writing to identify objects. students might begin the activity with a guessing game before moving on to discussing the features of the objects visible in the 3d model. students who are passionate on studying tend to be joyful and engaged in all aspects of the educational process (anderson, 2016). bright and energetic facial expressions convey feelings of excitement. students concentrate on the subject matter they are learning. the pupils are also engaged and receptive to the teacher's guidance. they actively participate in responding to inquiries, expressing ideas, and holding debriefings that are connected to critical thinking (cicchino, 2015). 4. conclusion this research generates learning media, namely the application of english lesson, consists of 8 chapters. the display of the application consists of first page, marker page, information page and the theory page of the chapter. the users can use this media need to download the 12 markers. mean enthusiasm by using non-english lesson media application is 19.29. the score of enthusiasm by implementing the application of english lesson is 26.18. it leads to a conclusion that ar is effective to develop students’ enthusiasm to study things around in english. the findings of this study demonstrate that augmented reality technology can potentially be utilized to generate teaching materials for english. the developed learning materials focuses on increasing productive skills. thus, further researchers are expected to investigate the effectiveness of integrated english learning media and ar technology in receptive language skills. acknowledgment many thanks go to head and officers of lppm universitas pgri yogyakarta for supporting this work. authors also send their appreciation to fellow researchers at universitas pgri yogyakarta 80 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 1, april 2023, pp. 73-83 endahati, n. and wardani, s. (using augmented reality technology to improve english language learning…..) and all participants and parties who were involved in the process of collecting, processing, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions. declarations author contribution : the first author was in charge in the entire research project. she wrote the manuscript, and collected data as well as analyzed findings. she collaborated with the second author in analyzing findings on numerical data and drawing the research conclusions and implications. funding statement : the research did not receive any funding. conflict of interest ethics declaration : : the authors declare no conflict of interest. the authors state that this research has been conducted in accordance with research principles and reported in line with research report regulations. we have obtained permission to collect data in the field. the authors support the english language teaching educational journal (eltej) to improve the quality of the journal, and maintain academic professionalism. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references agustini, n. p. o. 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(2022). augmented reality-based english language learning: importance and state of the art. electronics, 11(17), 2692. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11172692 https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445330 https://doi.org/10.1108/ijshe-02-2016-0035 https://doi.org/10.31504/komunika.v10i1.3715 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-015-0230-9 https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1946/1/012023 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-019-00690-x https://doi.org/10.1145/3306500.3306556 https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21847 https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11172692 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, december 2023, pp. 162-171 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.9012 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id the implementation of project-based learning in higher education: students and lecturers' perspectives dwi riyanti universitas tanjungpura, jalan prof. dr. h. hadari nawawi, pontianak 78124 dwi.riyanti@fkip.untan.ac.id a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 20 july 2023 revised 15 august 2023 accepted 25 august 2023 project-based learning, which has been widely claimed to be helping students build skills needed in the 21st century, has been implemented in various teaching and learning contexts, including in higher education settings. this research was intended to explore how project-based learning (pbl) was implemented in a university setting from both students' and lecturers' perspectives in an indonesian university. this qualitative research involved 17 students who participated in various projects while taking university courses and two lecturers who taught using pbl. the data were gathered from students' written reflections and lecturers' interviews. teachers' semester plans were analyzed to triangulate the data. the obtained data were analyzed thematically based on emerging themes. the findings show that both students and lecturers consider pbl to be beneficial in strengthening the development of 21st century skills. in particular, the students consider pbl to offer them some benefits, such as improving their critical thinking skills, promoting creativity, fostering collaboration, and expanding their knowledge. despite its usefulness, pbl has some constraints that are time-consuming and provoke tensions among group members as they have different ideas to work on the project. in contrast to the students' perspectives, the lecturers have slightly different views on pbl. the lecturers consider pbl as a good teaching approach, yet monitoring students' progress and assessing the product were two challenges, especially during the pandemic time. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords higher education project-based learning 21st century skills how to cite: riyanti, d. (2023). the implementation of project-based learning in higher education: students and lecturers' perspectives. english language teaching educational journal, 6 (2), 124-133. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.9012 1. introduction project based learning (pbl) as a learning approach has been claimed to help build students' capability to develop various skills needed in students' lives (shpeizer, 2019). as an instructional approach, pbl strives to combine interpersonal interactions with imaginative thinking, foster peer cooperation, strengthen students' problem-solving and critical-thinking abilities, and stimulate affective and cognitive capabilities that contribute to intellectual and creative growth (greenier, 2020). it has also been considered to be one of the appropriate teaching approaches that can develop skills needed in the 21st century (baghoussi & zoubida el ouchdi, 2019; ghobrini, 2020; giri, 2016; mohammed, 2017). this is because pbl helps learners develop their capability in affective and cognitive domains (guo et al., 2020). the development of various learners' skills is possible through the utilization of pbl since the purpose of this strategy is to increase students' engagement in learning processes while highlighting the practical dimension of learning and its relevance to student's lives and the society in which they live (ghobrini, 2020; shpeizer, 2019). additionally, the unique features of pbl, such as in-depth https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.9012 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:dwi.riyanti@fkip.untan.ac.id%20* http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.9012 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4140-3637 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i3.9012&domain=pdf issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 163 vol. 6, no. 2, december 2023, pp. 162-171 riyanti, d. (the implementation of project-based learning…) inquiry, authenticity, active learning, freedom and autonomy, challenging problems, collaborative learning, product, and presentation, as mentioned by shpeizer (2019), expose learners to possess various skills that cannot be developed through traditional teaching, which places teachers to be the center of teaching and learning. furthermore, pbl is claimed to offer benefits that traditional teaching approaches fail to address. according to shpeizer (2019), there are at least five benefits of the pbl. the first benefit is that pbl enhances students' motivation. this is because pbl allows learners to choose the topics and working methods the students prefer and the authenticity of work that is associated with pbl. another benefit that pbl offers is the in-depth inquiry that requires students to work and develop various learning skills, such as working independently, collaborating in teamwork, and communicating to produce a tangible outcome. the next benefit is that pbl prepares learners for professional careers. this is possible because, in pbl, learners are exposed to authentic situations where they have to think creatively, solve problems, and produce products, just like in a professional workplace. the other benefit of pbl is that it accommodates students' various learning styles. autonomy, as one of the features of pbl, allows learners to work using the method they prefer. the final benefit of pbl is that it is suitable for the age of information, where learners have access to technology and explore available sources on their own. considering the benefits of pbl, this teaching approach has been implemented worldwide. many studies show that pbl has been implemented in many countries such as the united arab emirates (mohammed, 2017), nepal (bastola, 2021), iraq (kavlu, 2020), morocco (akharraz, 2021), algeria (baghoussi & zoubida el ouchdi, 2019), switzerland (terrón-lópez et al., 2020), colombia (alejandra & pérez, 2018), malaysia (hussin et al., 2019), thailand (kettanun, 2015), and indonesia (mali & timotius, 2018; paristiowati et al., 2022; pradanti & muqtada, 2023; widyaningrum et al., 2022; yusuf & ali, 2023). the abundant research related to pbl indicates that it has gained popularity as a teaching approach. besides, it can be because of the benefits that pbl offers. within the context of higher education, there has also been much research addressing pbl in various fields, such as biology (abishova et al., 2020), engineering (fernandes et al., 2021), and english language teaching (bastola, 2021; gai mali, 2016; kartika, 2020; kavlu, 2020; kettanun, 2015; sirisrimangkorn, 2021). the abundant studies concerned with pbl in higher education mainly highlight pbl as a teaching approach that is useful for developing university students' skills that prepare them to work in the 21st century. within the english language teaching field, research related to pbl has various research foci, such as an alternative tool for enhancing pedagogical content knowledge, creativity, and critical thinking in the nepalese context from teachers’ perspectives (bastola, 2021), students’ perspective in learning call in indonesian context (mali & timotius, 2018), students’ perspective in critical reading in indonesia (kartika, 2020), the effect of pbl in teaching english for specific purposes in iraq (kavlu, 2020), the effect of pbl in an efl classroom in thailand (kettanun, 2015), the effect of pbl in speaking skill (sirisrimangkorn, 2021). the findings of previous studies on pbl related to students’ perspectives were mostly positive and supported the development of 21st century skills. while there have been few studies related to how students perceive pbl in indonesian context, there is still little information related to how both students and instructors in higher education in indonesian context. thus, the current study addresses the research gap and possibly adding the insights on how pbl is perceived, which is essential to contribute to existing literature on implementing pbl in higher education. in particular, the current research focuses on investigating how pbl is perceived by lecturers and students. 2. method this research design is a qualitative study in which the researcher is interested in gaining in-depth information related to how the research participants perceive pbl. the participants involved in this research were seventeen undergraduate students majoring in english education who participated in project-based learning in the same semester in the academic year 2021-2022, ranging from semester two until semester six, and two lecturers who taught using pbl in a similar semester. purposive sampling was used in selecting the participants in the current research. among the criteria for recruiting the student participants were that they were involved in doing at least a project when taking university courses in the previous semester and were willing to participate in the research project. in 164 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, december 2023, pp. 162-171 riyanti, d. (the implementation of project-based learning…) a similar vein, the participants from the lecturers were selected purposively, in which they assigned projects for their classes and that they were willing to participate in the current research. the demographic information related to student and lecturer participants is shown in tables 1 and table 2. table 1. demographic information of student participants participants semester names of courses students worked on projects rina 6 research paper, statistics, and drama clara 6 statistics for educational research, research paper, drama, and literary work ema 6 statistics in educational research, research paper, seminar research design, drama, and literary work. endah 6 research paper, esp program development, statistics susi 6 drama ita 6 research paper, drama and literary work courses kevin 6 research paper mia 6 research paper, statistic in educational research, drama, and literary work. dins 4 elt for instructional development tia 4 elt instructional development, poetry in elt, english for tourism akbar 4 elt instructional development vira 4 elt instructional development rita 4 elt instructional development nia 4 elt multimedia, elt curriculum, and elt instructional development. rio 2 ict for efl, listening comprehension, writing skill development marta 8 seminar research design toni 6 research paper, statistic in educational research, drama, and literary work table 2. demographic information of lecturer participants pseudonym years of teaching experience names of courses taught using pbl putri 4 literary work, statistics, and poetry in elt melani 16 speaking for transactional functions one of the main research tools used to gather information related to student's experiences and perceptions was students' written reflections on the projects they have been involved in the semesters that just ended at the time of data collection. the students were given prompts in the form of questions. the questions were related to what students learned from doing the projects and what they liked and disliked when doing the projects. the prompts were in google form and were distributed to the participants through whatsapp group. seventeen undergraduate students filled in the google form and wrote their reflections. on the other hand, an unstructured interview was conducted face to-face with each lecturer to obtain data from the lecturer participants. in doing so, the researcher approached the lecturers in person and conversed with each lecturer's participants about their experience in implementing pbl in her classes. to ensure the rigor of the study, the researcher triangulated the data. the triangulation is done by obtaining data from multiple data sources. in the current study, the interview data was triangulated with data from the lecturers' semester plans. the obtained data was analyzed qualitatively. the data from the students’ reflections was first read carefully and then coded and put into similar categories. for example, information related to their positive view on pbl was put into categories of benefits. on the other hand, information related to the students' complaints while doing their projects was put into categories of challenges. while interviews were also coded and categorized, they were first transcribed. the data from lecturers' issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 165 vol. 6, no. 2, december 2023, pp. 162-171 riyanti, d. (the implementation of project-based learning…) semester plans were used to triangulate the information obtained from the interviews. the semester plans were scrutinized to crosscheck whether the lecturers' perspectives on pbl were manifested in their semester plans. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. students' views on project-based learning sun from the open-ended questionnaire, it is found that students' experiences are varied. from the analysis, their experiences can be categorized into the merits and the constraints of pbl. the following are the details of each category. 1) the benefits of pbl regarding the benefits of participating in the projects, the student respondents consider that pbl allows them to improve their skills needed in the 21st century. one of the benefits is that working on the projects they are involved in help them improve their critical thinking skills, which is part of soft skill, as indicated in the following excerpt: from the projects, i could improve my personality, including my soft skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, leadership, and professional attitude. in addition, i could also improve my sense of responsibility and discipline (toni, written reflection). the next benefit students gain from their involvement in projects while taking several courses in the university context is that they become more creative in designing and creating projects, as one of the respondents mentioned. tia, for example, claims that "for each of the courses i took with the project in them, i learned how to create them accordingly and understood their meaning/usage” (tia, written reflection). another benefit that students claim to be part of the projects is that pbl fosters collaboration skills. as indicated in the data from the written reflection, the students also develop their skill to collaborate with others through joining pbl as indicated in the following excerpts: i learned collaboration skills and the way to do a project in a group. i got to know more about what it was like to do a project together with a group of people. therefore, after experiencing these projects, i knew how to share, how to discuss, how to combine, how to collaborate on our ideas, and how to work together more seriously for a project that was larger than the common group presentation projects we usually had (toni, written reflection). as the excerpt above indicates, the respondents consider participating in the pbl to foster their collaborative skills. this is because, in the group project, the students have to cooperate with other team members. another respondent, marta, states, "i like collaborative projects because i can share my idea with other people and discuss it to create or get good results." in a similar vein, students benefit from being involved in projects, either individually or in group projects. one of the respondents claims: from individual projects, i have learned to focus more on achieving targets and making the best use of the available time. also, from the group project, i learned how to adapt while studying and working on the project with friends who have unique characteristics and different opinions and how to understand the intentions and plans that will be carried out (ita, written reflection). ita, as illustrated in the excerpt, considers that working on the projects helps her focus on achieving the target, which indicates that she learns better and also learns how to deal with other students who are different from her. another important view from the student respondents is that being involved in projects while taking courses at the university level expands their knowledge. data from the written reflection indicates that the project makes students aware of their strengths and weaknesses. for some students, 166 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, december 2023, pp. 162-171 riyanti, d. (the implementation of project-based learning…) the projects give them the opportunity to develop themselves, expand their knowledge, and recognize their strengths and weaknesses, as indicated in the following excerpts. what i like about the project given is that it gives me the opportunity to be able to develop myself, expand my knowledge, and know where my weak and strong points are in working on a project (ita, written reflection). what i like about projects is that i can improve my knowledge and skills by working on projects, and the projects are practically not too difficult (nia, questionnaire). from the two excerpts above, it can be concluded that both participants consider that being involved in projects while taking courses is beneficial for helping them learn beyond the expectations of the courses they were taking, as indicated in the following excerpts: from the project that i was involved in, i learned many things. in doing the projects, i became more aware of the material in the class we were studying at that time. i also learned about how to build good cooperation between classmates in working on projects in groups (mia, written reflection). from doing the projects, there were several lessons/things that i learned. firstly, i could increase my knowledge, especially related to the projects i did, which can be useful for me in doing future projects, and i also learned to be a more responsible and disciplined person (toni, written reflection). overall, students view project-based learning positively. most students consider project-based learning as one of the effective ways to make them understand more about the materials being taught in the class. in addition, the students' participation in the projects also contributes to building students' twenty-first-century skills, such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity (4c) from the 4c highlighted in the 21st-century skills, particularly critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration. even though communication as another 21st-century skill is not explicitly mentioned in the questionnaire, it implies that students also build communication skills as they collaborate with their friends on projects. 2) constraint despite its benefits, the students view that pbl has some constraints. based on the students' reflection results, the constraints can be categorized into two. one of them is time-consuming. most of the research participants claim that projects they were involved in the courses they took required much time to finish. for example, one of the respondents, nia, mentions that "sometimes it (the project) takes a long time to complete it." meanwhile, another student, ib, claimed that the long time they spent on the project was mostly triggered by different arguments that the students in the group project had, as stated by one of the students, rina. she explains that “it (the project) takes a long time because we have different opinions.” in addition to the time, respondents also consider argument differences among group members in doing a project as a weakness of pbl, as indicated in the following excerpts: what i dislike about the project is the argument difference. i remember about the time we did the project. i read one member gave instructions to make a part of rpp like this. but after making rpp like her instructions, he even changed everything to be different. it was different from her instructions in the first. it made us confused and want to give up on continuing the project because we were always stuck on one part of it. (rio, written reflection). what i dislike about the project, sometimes, when i work on a project in a group, i find friends who are not cooperative in the group, which makes me have more of the work assigned to me. sometimes, working on projects in groups, in my opinion, is not effective if you get group friends who are too lazy to work together (mia, written reflection). as the two excerpts indicate, project teamwork is only sometimes successful. different opinions and work paces among group members are one of the causes of tension when doing the group project. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 167 vol. 6, no. 2, december 2023, pp. 162-171 riyanti, d. (the implementation of project-based learning…) 3.2. lecturers’ views from the interview data analysis, the findings indicate that lecturers, especially in english study programs, consider project-based learning a good teaching approach. one reason for this is that pbl promotes learning. as in the projects, students need to apply what they learn to practice. lecturers can identify whether students understand the learning materials and whether students need any help, as indicated in the following interview excerpt: project-based learning is a good approach for both the lecturer and the students. for the lecturer, project-based learning is good for seeing the students what do we call students' progress from one material to another material because in doing a project, students need to include most of the materials into one project. so, we can see if they (students) really understand the material, and also, because we teach language, we can see the progress of the language (putri, interview). the excerpt above shows that for putri, pbl allows lecturers to see the students' progress in understanding the materials and applying the target language students learn through their involvement in the project. one reason for this is that in doing a project, the students need to communicate among group members. in an ideal situation, this can be the time for the students to practice using the language they are learning. in addition to being a good teaching approach, lecturers also consider pbl as a teaching method that is suitable for improving 21st-century skills, as explained by one of the lecturers in the english study program in the following excerpt: project-based learning is one of the teaching methods that can improve the students’ 21st-century skills, which is known as 4c: communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. when the students work together, they communicate to complete the project and then analyze the work. they question each other about the project they are working on, and they synthesize all the things they do to become the complete project (melani, interview). while the previous excerpt from putri, indicates that pbl enables lecturers to see the student's progress in language learning and learning materials, the excerpt from melani explains in more detail how pbl addresses 21st-century skills, which cover communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity. thus, lecturers have a positive view on pbl to be implemented in courses in university contexts. another evidence that lecturers have a positive view on the implementation of pbl was in the lecturers' semester plan, in which both putri and melani explicitly mentioned that pbl is part of the teaching approach that they planned to implement in the courses they taught during the semester. melani, for example, outlined the plan for the students’ projects starting from week three. meanwhile, putri assigned students to group project assignments in week two. even though pbl is considered a good approach that helps students develop 21st-century skills, the lecturers admit that ppl is challenging. one of the challenges lecturers faced in implementing pbl was checking students' work progress. this happened because it was still in the pandemic time, as indicated in the following excerpt: i know it was difficult, so i did not check for the offline version. that is why i conducted an offline meeting to check their progress and whether they really worked together or not. i found those problems because i knew the students would not really work together. if they were online, they wouldn't work. honestly, i didn't trust the students if they did the work together, and i am sure one of them only did the work whole work, so that is the question that is hard for me to answer because, yeah, you know, online cannot be checked (putri, interview) the challenge of monitoring students' work progress, as mentioned by putri is because, at the time of data collection, the pandemic was not over. thus, the class meetings were a combination of online and offline meetings. a similar challenge of monitoring students’ work progress due to the lack of offline meetings, another lecturer also considers that not being able to meet face to face offline makes 168 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, december 2023, pp. 162-171 riyanti, d. (the implementation of project-based learning…) it difficult for the lecturer to monitor the students' progress and to provide students examples directly as indicated in the following excerpt: another challenge is that it is difficult to control their work. i ask them about the progress of all the projects they have that they are working on. having problems maybe before they didn't have any experience in making the video in editing the video maybe it just makes an ordinary video taking the video maybe they will not face any problems but because this one is yah we can say that they should have reasonably good ability in technology in editing the video for example in inserting the background in the video in making the caption for example in the video and some (melani, interview) 3.3. discussion in terms of the students' views on their involvement in projects, while taking courses in a higher education context, the findings of the current study resonate with previous research (aifan, 2022; astawa et al., 2017; baghoussi & zoubida el ouchdi, 2019; bastola, 2021; dincă et al., 2023; ghobrini, 2020; ginusti, 2023; giri, 2016; mohammed, 2017; paristiowati et al., 2022; sirisrimangkorn, 2021; tran & tran, 2020; yuliansyah & ayu, 2021) in which pbl supports building 21st-century skills such as collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity. in addition, the findings are also in line with the studies by mali and timotius (2018) and turcotte et al. (2022), in which students have positive attitudes toward implementing pbl. while mali's and timotius' study focuses on the attitude, confidence, and anxiety level in a particular course, the current findings focus on various courses where students are involved in doing projects. nevertheless, the result is similar. thus, it can be concluded that students' perspectives on pbl are generally positive. the current finding also supports previous research by allison and do (2018) in which participants develop soft skills while participating in pbl. similar to students' perspective, the current study's findings reveal that lecturers also have positive views on implementing pbl in their classes. the current study resonates with previous studies (almulhem & almulhem, 2022; hsieh, 2013), in which both students and facilitators at the university level generally have positive views toward implementing pbl. the current study's finding is also in line with a previous study (aifan, 2022) in which pbl improves students' 21st century skills. in terms of the challenges, students face in completing their projects, the current research findings provide new insights into the constraints of doing the projects. for the students in the current study, the major problems they encountered in participating in the projects are related to the time spent on the relatively long project and the tension among the group members due to different ideas. this finding is in line with a previous study (de la torre-neches et al., 2020) in which intragroup conflicts are unavoidable in pbl. the lecturers’ challenges, however, are different from the participants from the students. the current study found that the lecturers faced challenges implementing pbl, especially checking students' work progress and assessing students' products. these findings align with the study by shpeizer (2019), in which assessing students' projects is challenging for teachers. in the current study, however, the challenges of monitoring students' project progress are also due to pandemic times when face-to-face meetings were restricted. 4. conclusion project-based learning is an important teaching method that fosters students' 21st-century skills. the current study's findings show that both the students and the lecturers have positive views on implementing pbl in higher education, especially in english study programs. while the lecturers' positive views on pbl emphasize the use of pbl as a promising approach that promotes 21st-century skills, the students' positive views on pbl provide evidence that pbl enhances the students' 21stcentury skills. with the coverage of the implementation of pbl, understanding both students' and teachers' views on pbl is also essential. from the data analysis, it can be concluded from the current research that students and lecturers have positive views on implementing pbl in higher education. pbl has been found to offer many benefits for the students to develop their 21st-century skills. the issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 169 vol. 6, no. 2, december 2023, pp. 162-171 riyanti, d. (the implementation of project-based learning…) main challenges in doing the projects for the students are related to the time for accomplishing the projects and the tensions among group members as they were working on the project. considering students' positive views concerning their involvement in the projects while taking university courses, lecturers may use pbl as one of the teaching approaches in the teaching and learning process. in line with the findings that time consumption and tensions during completing the projects were the major constraints, it is recommended that lecturers and students communicate well. that way, lecturers may mediate the students and provide better instructions in facilitating students to work on the projects. in addition to the lecturers, future researchers should also consider the current study's findings. as the current study is narrow in scope and only involves one study program in a higher education institution, further research involving more participants and a more extensive study is important to be conducted to better understand how students view project-based learning. acknowledgment this project relies on existing published works and employs empirical data. being grateful to the academics whose works are cited and the participants involved in the study, the author of this article would like to thank all the participants involved. declarations author contribution : dwi riyanti is the sole author and hence responsible for all the writing process of this manuscript. funding statement : this study was supported by institutional funding from fkip universitas tanjungpura. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflicts of interest. ethics declaration additional information : : as the sole author acknowledges that this work has been written based on ethical research that conforms with the regulations of universitas tanjungpura and that i have obtained the permission from the participants to use the data for this publication. i 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. references abishova, g., andreeva, n., issayev, g., issayev, a., & mynbayeva, b. 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(2023). exploring students’ perspectives on using live streaming on facebook as project-based learning in indonesian efl classes. journal on english as a foreign language, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.23971/jefl.v13i1.4571 https://doi.org/10.26858/eltww.v7i1.11976 https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v10n4p227 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.06.094 https://doi.org/10.17509/ije.v11i1.10177 https://doi.org/10.18538/lthe.v14.n2.294 https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031783 https://doi.org/10.33373/pythagoras.v12i1.5011 https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2019.070815 https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.12n.3.p.65 https://doi.org/10.3390/su12124817 https://doi.org/10.17323/jle.2020.10109 https://doi.org/10.1007/s41686-022-00066-0 https://doi.org/10.30659/e.7.2.209-223 https://doi.org/10.33365/jeltl.v2i1.851 https://doi.org/10.23971/jefl.v13i1.4571 1. introduction 2. method 3. findings and discussion 3.1. students' views on project-based learning 1) the benefits of pbl 2) constraint 3.2. lecturers’ views 3.3. discussion 4. conclusion english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 84-94 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9217 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id the impacts of the global pandemic on online learning in vietnam dat bao a,b a, dong nai technology university, nguyen khuyen street, block 5, trang dai ward, bien hoa city, dong nai province, vietnam b monash university, wellington rd, clayton vic 3800, australia 1 baodat@dntu.edu.vn; 2 dat.bao@monash.edu a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 20 june 2023 revised 25 july 2023 accepted 22 august 2023 the global outbreak of covid-19 has caused tremendous disruptions in the field of education, including in vietnam. in response to the ongoing pandemic, online learning has emerged as the primary mode of education delivery, transforming the traditional learning landscape. this article reports a study that adopts a combination of reflection and text-based research. the project explores the impacts of the pandemic on online learning in the new normal within the vietnamese education system. the work focuses mainly on learning motivation, student engagement, and digital competence. while the pandemic has led to increased acceptance and utilization of online learning platforms, it has also presented challenges, including issues of digital inequality and limited social interaction. findings suggest that the vietnamese education system needs to adapt to fully harness the potential of online learning in the new normal. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords online learning student engagement digital competence challenges opportunities how to cite: bao, d. (2023). the impacts of the global pandemic on online learning in vietnam. english language teaching educational journal, 6 (2), 84-94. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9217 1. introduction: the vietnamese educational context at the time of the pandemic this article examines the impacts of the recent pandemic on vietnamese students' online learning, which is now known as the new normal. specifically, this research aims to explore vietnamese secondary and tertiary students' online learning regarding three aspects, namely learning motivation, student engagement, and digital competence. to achieve the aims mentioned above, this research will seek answers to the following question: what were the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on vietnamese students' online learning nowadays? in 2020, the covid-19 outbreak prompted all schools worldwide to shut down to minimise the spread of the virus, which disrupted students' learning. in response to school closures, unesco (2020) urged the implication of virtual learning and encouraged teachers to connect with students from remote areas to lower the possibility of educational interruption. to fulfill the request of unesco, vietnamese education has attempted to maintain the learning spirit by claiming that ‘although students cannot go to schools, their education will not be disrupted’. vietnamese ministry of education and training also issued online teaching and learning guidelines to educational institutions nationwide (nguyen, 2020). unlike universities, secondary schools are unfamiliar with implementing virtual learning. as a result, the rapid switch from face-to-face to distance learning could affect vietnamese learners. therefore, it is crucial to comprehensively understand students' virtual learning experiences as they might struggle in their studies throughout the covid-19 pandemic. while many researchers have examined the online learning experiences of vietnamese undergraduates and postgraduates https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9217 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id http://dat.bao@monash.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9217 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4143-4951 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9217&domain=pdf issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 85 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 84-94 bao, d. (the impacts of the global pandemic on online learning .....) during the covid-19 outbreak (le et al., 2021; nguyet minh, 2021; van et al., 2021), few projects have investigated vietnamese students' experiences. 1.1. the need for a flexible learning mode online learning is ‘learning that takes place partially or entirely over the internet’ (means et al., 2009, p.9). it includes a wide range of applications utilizing the internet to provide access to educational materials and promote teacher-student interaction inside and outside classrooms. the term is also used similarly in several studies, such as online education, virtual learning, remote learning, and computer-based learning (naveed et al., 2017). researchers have discovered the advantages of online learning before and during the covid-19 outbreak (sha et al., 2012; tian et al., 2020). more specifically, online education offers flexible learning (you & kang, 2014) and fosters learners' self-regulation (sha et al., 2012). besides, tian et al. (2020) argued that utilizing technical information can assist in minimizing educational inequality as well as enhance students' academic achievement. however, this idea is opposed by rovai et al. (2005) as they claimed that there is no discernible difference in students' academic performances between online and face-to-face learning. likewise, crawford-ferre and wiest (2012) also pointed out that it is more time-consuming to teach online than in person as teachers need to operate the technological applications and engage with students simultaneously. due to the quarantine, the covid-19 pandemic has pushed students worldwide, including vietnamese students, to adjust to distance learning (mark, 2020). at that time, online learning instruments were considered the top priority of every country (rouadi & anouti, 2020). several online learning tools, including microsoft teams, google classroom, blackboard, and canvas, assist teachers in designing classroom activities, learning modules, and training programs (coman et al., 2020). these online platforms provide chatting, video calling, and file storage functions that help teachers organise their work and communicate with students and co-workers. while it is undeniable that changing to online learning is a practical solution during the covid-19 pandemic, the rapid shift from traditional learning methods to online learning still creates many challenges for students (amarneh et al., 2021). the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on vietnamese students in this essay are discussed based on learning motivation, student engagement, and digital competence. 1.2. new challenge to student motivation learning motivation is ‘student intention or desire to participate in and make efforts on learning, which was performed on student choice of specific learning activity and the efforts on such activity’ (lin & chen, 2017, p.3556). in the classroom setting, learning motivation is developed from classroom experiences or inhered by the students (hedge, 2001). in a virtual learning setting, learning motivation is mainly influenced by individual characteristics and specific contexts (hartnett, 2011). lim (2004) devised three theories to illustrate ways to motivate students in online learning. the three types of motivation are ‘reinforcement,’ ‘interest,’ and ‘affect.’ the first type of motivation is ‘reinforcement,’ which remains and enhances the feedback frequency. some of its motivating factors are marks, teachers' feedback, peer mentoring, and technical assistance. it is stated that students will achieve higher academic performances if they receive instructive rewards, including marks and comments (rotter, 1990). ‘interest’ is another type of motivation promoting learner involvement. it is argued that challenges, fantasy, and curiosity are needed to motivate students profoundly. the last type of motivation is ‘affect,’ which comprises students' emotions, worries, and interests during studying. vietnamese students' learning motivation was negatively affected when they studied online during the covid-19 pandemic. first, regarding ‘interest,’ many vietnamese students said they struggle to maintain interest in online learning (tran et al., 2021, p. 29) and want to study face-to-face (van & thi, 2021). students needed to become more familiar with virtual learning, and teachers attempted to teach them quickly with inadequate content and resources (tran et al., 2021). secondly, regarding ‘effect,’ most vietnamese students complained that they were requested to complete many tasks with demanding requirements, which made them feel that their responsibility is a burden rather than joy (van & thi, 2021, p.135). this problem negatively impacted students' motivation since they considered learning a mission rather than for their benefit. finally, regarding reinforcement, vietnamese students complained about needing more academic support since the teachers spoke rapidly and some teaching resources were beyond the textbooks, making it challenging to comprehend 86 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 84-94 bao, d. (the impacts of the global pandemic on online learning .....) the lessons (que, 2021). therefore, teachers' lack of academic support led to a lack of ‘reinforcement,’ which affected students' motivation to learn. although there has not been any research study on vietnamese students' learning motivation during the covid-19 pandemic, the findings above from studies on vietnamese secondary, undergraduate, and postgraduate students indicate that older students with higher cognitive abilities than secondary students do not experience less difficulty in their learning motivation within the virtual space. hence, the application of online knowledge in vietnam is new to all stakeholders (pham & ho, 2020). additionally, these findings align with other research on secondary students' barriers to online learning during covid-19 in malaysia (basar et al., 2021) and slovakia (velichová et al., 2020). therefore, it could be inferred that the effectiveness of three types of motivation, including the efficacy of ‘reinforcement,’ ‘interesting,’ and ‘affect,’ were not maximised in vietnamese students' learning, which resulted in demotivation in online learning during the covid-19 pandemic. a reasonable approach to tackling this issue is that vietnamese schools should provide comprehensive training programs to encourage teachers' and students' technological competencies and efficient use of virtual teaching and learning. in addition, to maintain students' learning motivation, a clear and concise strategy should be made with systematic and practical teaching materials (subject matter, methods, and objectives) and more appropriate e-learning operating systems utilizing suitable virtual teaching aids (movies, motion graphics, quizzes, and digital games). furthermore, vietnamese schools and universities should develop more academic support programs such as peer and cross-age mentoring. these programs can help students become more motivated and enhance their tutoring abilities by allowing them to take on the role of instructional leader (peterson et al., 2014). additionally, teachers can use some rewarding strategies besides grades to boost learners' learning motivation in online learning (lim, 2004). for example, they frequently check students' learning performance and give instant feedback and encouragement throughout the learning process. another method to promote students' learning motivation is sharing positive examples of students' tasks or achievements. 2. methodology: a reflective and text-based study adopting a reflective approach, this study informs the looming challenges that vietnamese students are likely to encounter when they study online during a pandemic. the approach emphasises the role of introspection, reflexivity, and interpretation in the research process. it recognises that researchers' subjective experiences, biases, and preconceptions influence the research outcomes. by intentionally engaging in reflective practices, researchers can gain a deeper understanding of their own perspectives and biases, leading to richer insights and more nuanced findings. the reflective approach is characterised by three features, namely self-reflection, reflexivity, and interpretation: in performing self-reflection, the researcher consciously reflects on experiences, thoughts, and interpretations throughout the research process. such introspection helps uncover hidden assumptions and biases, promoting greater transparency and critical awareness. reflexivity involves acknowledging and critically examining the researcher's role in shaping the research process and outcomes. the researcher is aware that their own positionality and subjectivity can impact data collection, analysis, and interpretation. through interpretation and meaning-making, the approach recognises that research findings are not merely facts but interpretations of social phenomena. researchers engage in sense-making, interpreting data in light of their own experiences and existing knowledge to generate deeper insights. at the same time, the study also follows a text-based approach. this tradition refers to the collection and analysis of information primarily derived from textual sources such as books, articles, reports, and digital databases. with the exponential growth of digital content, researchers now have access to an unprecedented amount of information. this abundance has necessitated the development of new strategies to manage and process this vast wealth of textual data. the investigation helps policymakers design deliberate policies on the application of online learning to maximise its effectiveness even when covid-19 is over. pedagogically, educational institutions find this study beneficial in creating training programs and workshops to enhance the issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 87 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 84-94 bao, d. (the impacts of the global pandemic on online learning .....) effectiveness of online learning. moreover, this investigation offers teachers and educators insights to support their virtual students and develop effective online teaching and learning strategies. additionally, it proposes valuable suggestions for learners to make online learning a worthwhile experience. the research findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the subject matter and serve as a foundation for further studies in the future. the article argues that the covid-19 pandemic impacted some aspects of vietnamese students’ learning in challenging ways while students' digital competence assisted their learning. i will start my argument by discussing online learning throughout the covid-19 pandemic and the impacts of the pandemic on vietnamese students' online learning regarding learning motivation, student engagement, and digital competence. finally, implications for this issue and the research's summary are mentioned at the end of the essay. 3. data and findings 3.1. finding one: new challenge to student engagement sun and rueda (2012, p. 193) defined student engagement as ‘the quality of effort students make to perform well and achieve desired outcomes.’ student engagement is notably crucial in distance learning since learners have fewer chances to connect actively with their teachers and classmates online. meyer (2014) claimed that a lack of student engagement in virtual classrooms can result in isolated, passive students. although virtual learning has been proven to promote specific kinds of social interaction, like student-teacher interaction, it takes work to maintain an appealing online study experience (buelow et al., 2018). there have been several studies that examined factors that promote student engagement in online learning, namely social support (nortvig et al., 2018), learning environment (khlaif et al., 2021), and internet connections (cullinan et al., 2021). the first factor is social support from teachers, parents, and classmates, which has been identified as a significant determinant of student engagement (ansong et al., 2017). it is indicated that good student-teacher, student-student, and student-learning content interactions can boost their engagement in virtual learning (nortvig et al., 2018). the learning environment is the second factor influencing students' online learning engagement (tas, 2016). according to tas (2016), studying in an active learning environment with sufficient academic support could improve learners' engagement. in addition, khlaif et al. (2021) pointed out that poor access to the internet could impact students' learning experience, resulting in low engagement in online learning. vietnamese students' engagement in online learning was affected during the covid-19 pandemic. first of all, while it is undeniable that students need to freely decorate and control their private study rooms in online learning (amarneh et al., 2021), van & thi (2021) argued that vietnamese students' learning environment were interrupted by their family members and loud noises from the neighborhoods during the covid-19 pandemic. this problem is further explained as personal study spaces are rare in vietnamese families, and they are required to do the housework even during their online classes (van & thi, 2021). i also witnessed this problem as many students from university in vietnam were always told to perform small tasks during their online lessons when we were quarantined during covid-19. the same problem also happened in other classes, as i learned when talking to other teachers about my students' issues. as a result, students need to be more capable of focusing on their studies without positive study spaces, resulting in decreased learning efficiency (chang & fang, 2020). for this reason, vietnamese students' engagement was negatively affected since they were experiencing unforeseen obstacles during their study. secondly, there needs to be more interaction in online learning for vietnamese students. although studying online can encourage shy and inactive students to connect with other classmates and teachers through the online chatting function, sitting for an extended period teaching and learning behind the computer screens can limit teacher-student and student-student interactions (pham & van nghiem, 2022). hence, in contrast with students studying in traditional classrooms, online students receive restricted, inadequate, and ineffective feedback, negatively impacting their academic achievement (martínez-argüelles et al., 2013). this understanding implies that online learning prevents physical and genuine interaction between the teacher and the learner. thirdly, vietnamese students faced the weakness of the internet during covid-19, which can hinder their engagement in their studies (pham 88 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 84-94 bao, d. (the impacts of the global pandemic on online learning .....) & van nghiem, 2022). this finding also aligns with the study of indonesian secondary students (hermanto & srimulyani, 2021). further evidence shows that poor internet connection results in their failure to attend online classes and poor sound quality (dinh & nguyen, 2020). the above insights collected from vietnamese high school, undergraduate, and postgraduate students pointed out that students with older ages and higher cognitive abilities than vietnamese secondary students encountered some difficulties in online learning during the covid-19 pandemic. furthermore, all stakeholders must familiarise themselves with implementing online learning in vietnam (pham & ho, 2020). in addition, the above findings are consistent with other research examining asian secondary students, such as indonesian (agustina & cheng, 2020) and indian students. additionally, it has been proved that there is a connection between student engagement and learning motivation (nayir, 2017). lacking motivation in online learning during the covid-19 pandemic could also affect vietnamese students' engagement. overall, it is clearly stated that vietnamese students' engagement in online education was affected during covid-19 as they had to face the interrupting learning environment, the lack of teacher-student and student-student interactions, and the weakness of internet connection. there are several pedagogical implications for solving this problem. first, to ensure the quality of teaching and learning over the long term, schools must implement advanced technologies, upgraded teaching tools in their core curriculum, and a blended learning approach (hermanto & srimulyani, 2021). second, teachers should offer explicit guidance and seek student feedback to foster a supportive virtual network and promote student engagement. besides, teachers should be aware of students' online learning difficulties to encourage and engage them in studying. providing appropriate and consistent feedback is another strategy to engage learners in active learning and maintain their learning motivation. in addition, to compensate for the lack of teacher-student and student-student interactions, teachers should enable interactive communication channels such as chat, debate, and group discussions among students and teachers (lim, 2004). these kinds of activities have been proven to replace the physical interaction between students and their classmates and teachers (coman et al., 2020). finally, parents must communicate more with their children and participate in several parenting programs to understand their problems and know how to support their learning. 3.2. finding two: the pandemic as an opportunity to develop digital competence digital competence ‘involves the confident and critical use of information society technology (ist) for work, leisure, and communication. it is underpinned by basic skills in information and communications technology (ict): using computers to retrieve, assess, store, produce, present, and exchange information and to communicate and participate in collaborative networks via the internet (ferrari, 2012, p.12). it is stated that vietnamese students' digital competence in online learning assisted them during the covid-19 outbreak. first, all vietnamese students have direct access to knowledge via online platforms. while kanmani (2018) declared that there is a big gap between students' digital skills because of the different locations of living areas, tran et al. (2020) opposed this idea by proving that vietnamese students from both cities and the countryside receive an equal distribution of internet technology education. secondly, vietnamese students have had information technology as a compulsory subject since 2018, so they have practiced digital skills since grade 3 and find it easy to use digital devices (tran et al., 2020). therefore, their remarkable digital skills help to improve their online learning experiences (tran et al., 2020). although many vietnamese students did not encounter any difficulties regarding digital competence during the covid-19 pandemic, dincer (2012) noticed that students tend to spend more time on the internet and have more advanced digital skills than their parents. this situation could be challenging for parents to manage their children's activities on the internet and protect them from online risks. to solve this problem, parents should join several practical parenting programs on digital skills to safeguard their children from exposure to toxic online information and promote a positive attitude toward internet usag. in addition, teachers need to put more effort into training and supervising students' exposure to the internet (reynolds & parker, 2018). moreover, teachers should have more discussions with students on topics related to internet usage to decrease their possible access to online threats. overall, even though vietnamese students' digital competence helped improve their online learning during the covid-19 outbreak, several actions are needed for both parents and teachers to guide and protect students from internet risks. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 89 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 84-94 bao, d. (the impacts of the global pandemic on online learning .....) 4. discussion and implications from findings: proposed strategies for improving online learning this section offers suggestions for improving the vietnamese educational online learning system, especially at the secondary level. based on the research findings and implications mentioned above, several additional suggestions are made for the vietnamese government, the ministry of education, schools, universities, teachers, and students. recommendations for further research are mentioned at the end of this section. 4.1. the need for a more accommodating policy first of all, the government should adopt deliberate policies on online learning to ensure that digital education can continue and its effectiveness can be maximised even when covid-19 is over. hence, the government should guarantee that every necessary facility and infrastructure is available. regarding the weak connection to the internet, the government should develop better solutions to bring equal internet access to all vietnamese students. another way to cope with the absence of the internet is that the vietnamese ministry of education can provide hardcopy pedagogical resources to students from remote areas and deliver lessons through tv channels and radios to reach out to as many students as possible. this solution has been well carried out by france and new zealand (cerna, 2020). finally, the vietnamese ministry of education might need to approve schools’ requests to maintain some face-to-face classrooms available for students with severely poor learning environments and those whose parents worked in essential services during the pandemic's peak. 4.2. the need for academic support programs first, to ensure the quality of teaching and learning over the long term, vietnamese schools and universities must utilise innovative technologies and modernised teaching aids in their core curriculum and promote a blended learning approach (hermanto & srimulyani, 2021). more importantly, vietnamese teacher education programs should focus on comprehensive teacher training programs and develop further academic and technical assistance with up-to-date practical upgrades to create high-quality teaching and learning content. educational support programs and digital course training workshops should be established to motivate their online studies and educate them on avoiding online risks. 4.3. enhanced pedagogy concerning the degree of excitement in online learning, vietnamese teachers should cut down the teaching content to make it simple and incorporate exciting ideas into the lessons to engage students. moreover, supplementing the classes with more interactive projects and games or communication channels (chatting, debates, group discussions) could boost teacher-student and student-student interactions and improve the lessons' quality (lim, 2004). additionally, vietnamese teachers should frequently check on students' learning performance, give instant feedback and encouragement throughout the learning process, and share positive examples of students' achievements. finally, concerning the online risks on the internet, teachers should focus more on training students' exposure to the internet to decrease their possible access to online threats (reynolds & parker, 2018). 4.4. more communication between schools and parents regarding the interrupted learning environment of students, it is suggested that parents should communicate better with their children to understand their problems and give appropriate assistance to improve their online learning experiences. an excellent way to enhance parenting skills is to join several parenting programs so that they can understand their children better and adopt practical parenting strategies. moreover, participating in parenting programs also helps parents prevent their children from online risks and create a positive attitude toward internet usage. 4.5. the need to assist students’ new mindsets the findings suggest that vietnamese students should prepare for a positive mindset as they need to quickly adapt to the rapid changes in educational systems and find the stimulation in learning to overcome upcoming challenges in their studies. besides, it is crucial for students to actively solve their problems in online learning by searching for help from parents, teachers, and peers. in addition, improving time management skills and avoiding distractions would be helpful for students to keep track of their tasks and effectively study online. 90 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 84-94 bao, d. (the impacts of the global pandemic on online learning .....) 4.6. recommendations for further research several recommendations for future study are suggested. first, a survey of the impact of online learning throughout and after the covid-19 pandemic on vietnamese students' mental health, learning habits, and academic performances would be beneficial. second, the researcher recommends examining how vietnamese students' online learning experiences shift over time. this choice would allow the researcher to investigate changes within students from the beginning to the end of the covid-19 pandemic. finally, a significant next step is to examine how vietnamese students cope with their difficulties in online learning during the covid-19 pandemic to develop several student support programs for better distance education in the future. 5. conclusion the covid-19 pandemic has forced all vietnamese schools to shut down for one year and a half. as a result, all vietnamese schools shifted from face-to-face to online learning. apart from universities, vietnamese schools and universities need to familiarise themselves with implementing virtual learning. it is argued in this research that the rapid switch to online learning during covid-19 could negatively affect vietnamese students' learning motivation and engagement. at the same time, their remarkable digital competence assisted their knowledge. as mentioned in this work, some barriers are challenges in adjusting to online learning, overload of online tasks, inadequate teaching and learning resources, interrupting learning environment, lack of teacher-student and student-student interactions, and weakness of the internet connection. while the researcher discovered that vietnamese students improve their online learning experiences, they could easily be exposed to online risks on the internet. therefore, several implications for the vietnamese government, the ministry of education, schools, universities, teachers, parents, and students were made to maximise the effectiveness of online learning even when the pandemic is over. the researcher also made some recommendations for further research in the future. finally, the researcher was aware of the underlying limitation as additional research and statistics are needed to confirm these findings. acknowledgment this project relies on existing published works and do not employ empirical data. being grateful to the academics whose works are cited, the author of this article does not have research participants to say thank you to. declarations author contribution : dat bao is the sole author and hence responsible for all the writing process of this manuscript. funding statement : this reflective study was self-supported and did not rely on any institutional funding. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflicts of interest. ethics declaration additional information : : this research did not require ethics approval as it did not involve any participants other than the author and the work was about a pleasant journey of self-reflection without any disturbing experience. 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. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 91 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 84-94 bao, d. 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(2014). the role of academic emotions in the relationship between perceived academic control and self-regulated learning in online learning. computers & education, 77, 125-133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2014.04.018 https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910762 https://en.unesco.org/news/one-five-learners-kept-out-school-unesco-mobilizes-education-ministers-face-covid-19-crisis https://en.unesco.org/news/one-five-learners-kept-out-school-unesco-mobilizes-education-ministers-face-covid-19-crisis https://doi.org/10.17718/tojde.961824 https://doi.org/10.18421/tem94‐40 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2014.04.018 1. introduction: the vietnamese educational context at the time of the pandemic 1.1. the need for a flexible learning mode 1.2. new challenge to student motivation 2. methodology: a reflective and text-based study 3. data and findings 3.1. finding one: new challenge to student engagement 3.2. finding two: the pandemic as an opportunity to develop digital competence 4. discussion and implications from findings: proposed strategies for improving online learning 4.1. the need for a more accommodating policy 4.2. the need for academic support programs 4.3. enhanced pedagogy 4.4. more communication between schools and parents 4.5. the need to assist students’ new mindsets 4.6. recommendations for further research 5. conclusion acknowledgment declarations english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 95-108 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9111 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling services students: a needs analysis herida panji olivia azhar a,1,*, anita nur masyi’ah b,2 a, b, sekolah tingggi teknologi kedirgantaraan, bantul, diy, indonesia 1 herida.panji@sttkd.ac.id *; 2anita.nur@sttkd.ac.id a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 17 june 2023 revised 29 july 2023 accepted 8 august 2023 english for specific purposes (esp) plays a pivotal role in enhancing the communicative competence of students preparing for careers. in order to develop the esp learning materials for ground handling students, this study focuses on the needs analysis. the needs analysis will capture two aspects: 1) the participants’ perspectives on the development of esp learning materials 2) the use of the english language by the airport ground handling crews. a mixed-method design was employed, incorporating surveys and interviews. the 397 participants involved students, instructors, and airport ground crews. descriptive statistics were used to unveil the trends in the findings, and simultaneously, data reduction, data display, and drawing verification were used to delve into the participants perspectives. the validity and reliability of the survey questionnaire were tested, and member checking was used to justify the credibility of the qualitative findings. the findings provide valuable input for the development of esp learning materials that are contextually relevant and aligned with the needs of airport ground handling services students. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords esp ground handling needs analysis how to cite: azhar, h.p.o and masyi’ah, a.n. (2023). developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students: a needs analysis. english language teaching educational journal, 6(2), 95-108 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9111 1. introduction thousands of people passing through airports every day, and behind the process, there is an intricate network of professionals working to ensure the safe and efficient operation of the flights. one critical aspect of this operation is effective communication, which is essential for coordination. the standard language for communication in the aviation community is english. this is in line with icao (international civil aviation organization) language proficiency guidelines (icao, 2009). according to the guidelines, the use of english is mandatory for communication between pilots and air traffic controllers in the flight operation. other professions, such as cabin crews, mechanics, ground crews, and aviation security officers have less strict standards that vary according to company regulations. while icao may not mandate english proficiency for ground handling services, its importance cannot be overstated. language skills are crucial for effective communication in ground handling services, especially in international airports (cunningham & king, 2021). muecklich et al. (2023) point out that miscommunication by ground crew in the airport operation can lead to incidents, although they do not cause death. however, they pose the airport operation to safety risks. furthermore, oreschko et al. (2011) emphasized that english mastery is one of the basic skills for ground handling crews. the ground crews also handle international passengers in the departure and arrival sections. according to the iata (international air transport association) ground operation https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9111 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:herida.panji@sttkd.ac.id mailto:2anita.nur@sttkd.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9111 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9111&domain=pdf 96 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 95-108 azhar, h.p.o & masyi’ah, a.n. (developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students…) manuals (2021), ground handling encompasses positions such as passenger handling, baggage handling, and aircraft servicing. therefore, being able to communicate in english is a part of the daily job description of these crews. due to the importance of english language proficiency for ground handling crews, it is important to provide proper english training for the ground handling students. in indonesian higher education, the status of english language teaching is considered esp (english for specific purposes). the students learn english for academic purposes or vocational purposes, depending on the nature of the study programs. esp aims at developing students’ communicative competence for professional settings. hutchinson and waters (1987) explain that, in theory, there is no difference between esp and general english teaching. however, there is ‘a great deal’ of difference in practice. in general english, the learning objectives are based on linguistic analyses. on the other hand, in esp courses, the learning objectives are based on needs analyses. woodrow (2018) describes the ‘typical characteristics’ of esp and highlights that the learners and the learning purposes are what make esp unique. esp learners are commonly adults who already have some basic english mastery and have basic knowledge of their professional fields. then, their learning goals are to obtain communicative competence to perform in their professional context. this implies that the needs analysis process is important in developing an esp course. the result of the needs analysis is the basis to determine the learning goals and to consider the most appropriate method to teach the materials. numerous studies have highlighted challenges in implementing esp courses in higher education. adi and khotimah (2018) noted that faculty policies mandate esp instructors to focus on preparing students for the english proficiency test at the university language center. this makes the instructors teach english for test preparation instead of actual practical communication skills. moreover, at the institutional level, esp courses are often conducted in large classes with inadequate teaching resources and insufficient faculty support. gestanti et al. (2019) outline that such a situation makes the students exhibit low english proficiency levels, lack motivation, and tend to be passive learners. this situation also happens in sttkd (sekolah tinggi teknologi kedirgantaraan). the students of ground handling and airport operation concentration in the air transport department show a low proficiency level. the report from the sttkd language center for 2021-2023 shows that the students’ english skills are relatively low. less than 40% of the students pass the minimum test score set by the faculty. the test consists of listening, reading, and writing using the englishscore provided by the british council. in addition to that, reports from the public relation and partnership division show that the stakeholders (airline and ground handling companies) reported that many students showed low english proficiency during on-the-job training. considering the importance of the english language in the airport ground operation, it is important to provide the department with quality learning materials geared to the students’ learning needs. as madya (2002) suggests, the availability of high-quality learning materials and authentic materials is among the ‘standards’ that contribute to the success of a language learning program. well-designed learning materials help learners develop their language skills while also fostering learner engagement and motivation (richards & rodgers, 2010; tomlinson, 2011). thus, the availability of esp learning materials for ground handling services students is expected to improve the quality of the teaching and learning processes. eventually, this improves the students’ english proficiency levels. furthermore, woodrow (2018) states the importance of needs analysis in the development of successful esp courses. the needs analysis makes the teaching and learning goals grounded in the target language used in professional settings. therefore, the students in the classroom learn english not only through practicing structures and vocabulary but also through using them in meaningful contexts. in the esp material for ground handling service students, cutting (2012) has the most cited publication. he uses structural-functional analysis to identify the conversation used by ground crews. the result provides valuable insight into the functions used by the ground-handling crews. however, it is important to recognize that the findings of this study primarily focus on language analysis within the classroom context rather than representing the perspectives and experiences of the ground crews themselves. to develop esp materials that truly meet the needs of airport ground handling students, it is essential to complement this linguistic analysis with a comprehensive understanding as perceived by the ground crews themselves. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 97 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 95-108 azhar, h.p.o & masyi’ah, a.n. (developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students…) cahyani and drajati (2017) explore communication problems and needs from a social engagement perspective. this offers valuable insights into the dynamics of communication within the context of airport ground handling. however, the study did not involve stakeholders from educational institutions, such as students, teachers, and campus management. anthony (2018) states that each participant group should be invited to the needs analysis to ensure that the material development receives aid, resource allocation, and infrastructure support from the campus. other attempts to improve english language teaching in aviation settings involve the development of esp textbooks for pilots and air traffic controllers (ellis & gerighty, 2008; emery & roberts, 2010; goodman, 2008; shawcross, 2011) and english for flight attendants (gerighty & davis, 2011; lansford & ellis, 2010). the esp materials for ground handling sectors seem to be under-researched. considering this issue, this study attempts to develop esp learning materials for ground handling students. to achieve this goal, this study uses the esp course design proposed by anthony (2018). the steps involve identifying needs, developing objectives, designing the materials, and evaluating the materials. due to the time limitation, this study focuses its objectives on the first step of anthony’s model, identifying needs. anthony further states that identification of learning needs should explore the learners, lecturers, administrators, and people working in this field. with this in mind, this study focuses on identifying the participants’ perceptions on the development of esp learning materials and the use of the english language in airport ground handling services. 2. method 2.1. research design this study employed a convergent mixed-methods design (creswell & clark, 2018), utilizing both quantitative and qualitative data. the advantage of using this design is that it does not matter which data has more weight. the goal is to get a broader understanding on the needs analysis. in addition to that, the design can be conducted in a relatively short time since the process of data collection follows similar timeline. 2.2. research participants the population involved students, english teachers, faculty members and administration, and ground crews at an international airport in indonesia. to conduct the quantitative procedure, a census sampling technique was used since the number of the participants was relatively small. this means that all participants in the population were invited to join the study (table 1). table 1. research participants groups population sample interview students 116 students 116 students 10 students english lecturers 4 lecturers 4 lecturers 4 lecturers faculty members 5 people 5 people 5 people ground crews 272 people 272 people 10 people total 397 participants 397 participants 29 participants to carry out the qualitative procedure, the participants were selected purposefully from the population groups. the parties invited for the interviews were 10 students, 4 english teachers in the college, 5 faculty members (head of the department, curriculum development coordinator, and three subject teachers), and 10 ground crews. the number of participants invited for the interviews are 29 people. 2.3. data collection techniques 1) questionnaire to collect the stakeholders’ perspectives and the practical use of the english language by ground handling crews, questionnaires were distributed to the participants. the questionnaire was developed using anthony's (2018) guidelines for conducting the needs analysis. the first step in developing the 98 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 95-108 azhar, h.p.o & masyi’ah, a.n. (developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students…) questionnaire involved making the rubric. table 2 shows the rubric of the questionnaire that breaks down the needs analysis into indicators. then, the researchers developed the items for the questionnaire. once the items were completed, the questionnaire was checked for double-barreled and confusing items. after that, the questionnaire was distributed to 30 people to be tested for validity and reliability. table 2. rubrics of the questionnaires variable sub variables indicators needs analysis perceived needs needs, lacks, wants the use of english in the ground handling peration skills the validity and reliability of the questionnaire were tested using pearson correlation and alpha cronbach. the tests were to find evidence that the instrument measures what it tries to measure (creswell & clark, 2018). table 3 shows the result of the validity testing, and table 4 presents the result of the reliability testing. of the 22 items tested using pearson correlation, one item was not valid. thus, the item was removed from the questionnaire. the valid items were used in the final draft of the questionnaire and distributed to the participants to obtain the research data. the outcomes of the reliability test indicate that the instrument used in this study can be deemed reliable. table 3. the result of the validity analysis items correlation pearson r status 1 0.408 > 0.374 valid 2 0.505 > valid 3 0.478 > valid 4 0.556 > valid 5 0.429 > valid 6 0.501 > valid 7 0.553 > valid 8 0.564 > valid 9 0.380 > valid 10 0.786 > valid 11 0.644 > valid 12 0.538 > valid 13 0.478 > valid 14 0.398 > valid 15 0.414 > valid 16 0.600 > valid 17 0.390 > valid 18 0.550 > valid 19 0.491 > valid 20 0.397 > valid 21 0.276 < not valid 22 0.452 > valid table 4. reliability analysis cronbach's alpha cronbach's alpha based on standardized items n of items .964 .964 23 2) interview to collect the quantitative data, interviews were conducted with purposively selected participants. the interviews were semi-structured and allowed participants to provide more detailed information issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 99 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 95-108 azhar, h.p.o & masyi’ah, a.n. (developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students…) about their perceptions. the interview with the students was conducted with five students at a time. this was employed to reduce their anxiety when having a face-to-face interview with the researchers. then, for other participants, the interview was conducted individually. the rubrics of the interview guideline follow a similar pattern to the rubrics for the questionnaire. the researchers only change the statements into open-ended wh questions. creswell and clark (2018) state that the trustworthiness of the findings refers to the credibility and dependability of the results obtained from the qualitative procedure. since it involves subjective interpretation and understanding of the phenomena, assessing trustworthiness is important. credibility assesses whether the interpretations, conclusions, and claims made by the researchers are wellgrounded in the data. this was established through member checking by sharing the findings with participants to refine interpretations. then, dependability was ensured by specifying the participants who represent a broad range of groups. 2.4. data analysis techniques the data collected from the survey were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as percentage and frequency. the qualitative data obtained from the interviews will be analyzed using the qualitative data analysis model from miles et al. (2018). this analysis is intended to identify themes and patterns related to perceptions towards the development of esp learning materials. the analysis involved data reduction, data display, and drawing verification. the results of the quantitative and qualitative data analyses were integrated to provide a comprehensive interpretation of the findings. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. new challenge to student engagement this study invited stakeholders in the ground handling sector, including students, esp teachers, faculty members, and ground handling staffs from an international airport in indonesia. of all the questionnaires distributed, 76% (301) were completed. 96 (24%) questionnaires were not returned, so they were omitted from the data analysis. despite this, the data were sufficient for analysis, as cresswell and clark (2018) state that the completion rate of a survey is at least above 50% of the target audience. table 5 shows the composition of the respondents and the completion rate of the respective groups. table 5. distributed questionnaires category sample returned ground handling students 116 students 92 (86%) english lecturers 4 lecturers 4 (100%) faculty members and administrators 5 people 5 (100%) ground crews at an international airport 272 crews 200 (73%) total 397 participants 301 (76%) following the distribution of the questionnaire, follow-up interviews were carried out with 29 participants. the interviews served as a vital component of the study, allowing the researcher to gain deeper insights into the perspectives of these individuals. the interviews involved five participants from an aviation college in yogyakarta. they are the heads of the departments, the coordinator of curriculum development, and three subject teachers in ground handling. then, four esp teachers and ten ground crews were invited to the interviews. finally, ten students from the department were invited to give follow-up interviews. in this section, the findings will be presented and discussed, with a focus on answering the research questions. first, the findings and discussion cover the participants’ perceptions of their needs, lacks, and wants in relation to the development of esp learning materials for ground handling students. second, this part focuses on the practical application of the english language by individuals working in the ground handling company. by discussing these aspects, this study is expected to inform the creation of esp materials. 100 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 95-108 azhar, h.p.o & masyi’ah, a.n. (developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students…) 3.2 perception on the needs to develop esp learning materials for ground handling students table 6 suggests that nearly half (49.5%) of the respondents agree that airport ground handling crews need english at work. a smaller percentage (30.2%) strongly agree with this statement, while a combined 20.3% (3.7% strongly disagree and 16.6% disagree) expressed some level of disagreement. the data indicates that the respondents generally see the importance of english language skills for airport ground handling crews, with a particularly strong consensus on the importance of english in item 1. however, in statement 2, there is a notable percentage of respondents who expressed some level of disagreement regarding the necessity of english at work for these crews. table 6. the needs of the english skills at work no items sd d a sa 1 english is important for airport ground handling crews. 5.6% 2.3% 16.9% 75.1% 2 the crews need english at work. 3.7% 16.6% 49.5% 30.2% the interview responses from the participants support the results by emphasizing that english language proficiency is an integral part of service excellence. indonesia is popular as a tourist destination, which means that international airports are likely to have foreign passengers. the participants recognize that effective communication in english is a fundamental component for providing service excellent to passengers. they also said that foreign language skills are important in the travel and tourism industry. thus, the skills are not just valuable for ground handling crews but a key competency in the larger industry landscape. this aligns with the broader understanding that effective communication is a cornerstone of excellent customer service in any industry (solomon et al., 2019). other studies have consistently highlighted the critical role that language proficiency plays in this context. for instance, muecklich et al. (2023) demonstrated through their research that language-related incidents, although they are not related to life-and-death incidents, can lead to safety and security risks. furthermore, oreschko et al. (2011) emphasized that proficiency in english is among the standard skills for ground handling crews (table 7). table 7. the indicator of the needs of the english skills at work no item sd d a sa 3 english is important for ground crews job promotion 3.7% 20.9% 32.6% 42.9% item 3 relates to job promotion, and it also underscores the significance of english skills, with a notable percentage of the respondents expressing agreement. the interpretation remains coherent with the idea that english proficiency is considered important for various aspects of ground crews' work, including job promotion. the result of the interviews also shows that english is important for job promotion. ground crews are at operator-level jobs and they may advance their careers at managerial levels. in such scenarios, a good command of english can be an important factor in securing promotions. (ting et al., 2017) point out that candidates with english skills are preferred by employers when working for a company with international customers. table 8. the needs on specific materials no items sd d a sa 4 english for ground handling has different content from general english. 2.3% 18.6% 33.2% 45.8% 5 english learning materials for ground handling needs further development. 5.3% 6.0% 24.3% 64.5% the next aspect is related to the needs of specific learning materials for ground-handling students. table 8 suggests that a majority of respondents (45.8%) strongly agree that english for ground handling has different content from general english. additionally, 33.2% of the respondents agree with this statement, indicating a significant consensus. item 5 addresses the need for further development of the english learning materials specific to ground handling. this suggests that there issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 101 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 95-108 azhar, h.p.o & masyi’ah, a.n. (developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students…) may be room for improvement in the resources available (table 9). the needs for authentic learning materials. table 9. the needs for authentic materials no items sd d a sa 6 english learning materials for ground handling should be relevant to the real usage of english at work. 5.0% 9.3% 30.6% 55.1% 7 such learning materials prepares students better in using english at work. 5.0% 3.7% 35.9% 55.5% in table 9, a majority (55.1%) of the respondents strongly agree that the english learning materials for ground handling should be relevant to the real usage of english at work. additionally, 30.6% of respondents agree with this statement, indicating a strong consensus on the importance of authentic learning materials. then, 55.5% of respondents strongly agree that learning materials tailored to ground handling better prepare students for using english at work. items 6 and 7 emphasize the importance of authentic learning materials. respondents strongly support the idea that such materials are crucial for effective language learning. this aligns with the overall theme of tailoring english language skills to the specific needs of ground handling crews. authentic materials have long been recognized as valuable tools for language learners (iucu & marin, 2014). according to richards & rodgers (2010), authentic materials reflect the way language is used in real-world contexts. utilizing authentic materials helps learners develop skills that are directly transferable to their practical, everyday needs. the result of the interview aligns with the data from items 6 and 7. three themes emerge from the interview about the authentic materials. first, authentic materials are relevant and practical. it is relevant because the materials bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-life application. it is practical since the language skills taught in the classroom are directly applicable to their daily work. second, it is efficient. the participants believed that focusing on job-specific language makes the training more efficient and effective. they state that ground handling students can benefit from language materials and training modules that address the common situations, terminology, and challenges they encounter in their roles. third, it is cost-efficient. by focusing on what is actually needed on the job, resources for language training can be allocated more efficiently. it ensures that investments in language training yield a clearer return. however, huong (2020) warns that, when using authentic materials, english teachers should focus on the pedagogical purposes of the materials. this is to ensure that the language training achieves the desired goals. in the same manner, fitria (2022) suggests that english teachers need to consider the students’ language proficiency level. some authentic materials can be adapted, so long as they help students achieve communicative competence. in this sense, english teachers need to remember that the students are learning plain english to communicate in aviation settings. they are not learning the content of aviation subjects. table 10. availability and accessibility of the esp learning materials for ground handling students table 10 describes the results of the availability and accessibility of the esp learning materials. approximately 63.5% of respondents agree (a and sa) that english textbooks for ground handling are widely available, while about 39.2% of the participants disagree (d and sd). this suggests a no items sd d a sa 8 english for ground handling textbooks is widely available. 10.3% 28.9% 34.6% 26.2% 9 online resources of english for ground handling are widely available. 5.6% 14.3% 50.8% 29.2% 10 it is difficult to access resources of english for ground handling. 8.3% 20.6% 54.5% 16.6% 11 i feel satisfied with the existing resources on english for ground handling. 20.3% 25.9% 36.9% 16.9% 102 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 95-108 azhar, h.p.o & masyi’ah, a.n. (developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students…) generally positive perception of the availability of textbooks. a similar trend is found in the availability of online resources for the esp materials for ground handling students. there is a general agreement that both online and printed esp learning materials are available. however, there is a mixed perception related to the ease of access to those materials, with a notable portion experiencing difficulty in accessing these resources. a total of 71.1% of the respondents (agree and strongly agree) perceived that accessing english resources for ground handling can be challenging. then, although around half of the respondents feel satisfied with the existing resources, 46.2% of them express the opposite. this indicates room for improvement in meeting the satisfaction levels of the participants with the current resources. the dissatisfaction might be related to meeting the specific language skills needed by ground crews. adi and khotimah (2018) reported similar findings. on the institutional level, esp courses are held in large classes, and they lack faculty support. their study found that the policy of the faculty makes the esp instructors teach the students to pass the proficiency test. this made the instructors teach english for test preparation instead of teaching the language skills necessary for work. the result of the interview also supports the quantitative data. in general, the english teachers state that there are already a few textbooks about english for aviation. however, they believed that there was still a lot of room for development. they illustrate how they use separate sources and self-made learning materials. for example, for teaching grammar, they use separate english grammar books, like "english grammar in use" (murphy & klett, 2019). then, they also use textbooks from other sources to address the different language skills. the current esp learning materials used for ground handling students are predominantly self-generated. these resources primarily take the form of powerpoint presentations and worksheets. the english teachers also mention some books like "english for airline professionals(leo, 2017) and "general english for aviation(uemura, 2014) that are tailored to the specific needs of their ground handling students. however, they also pointed out that using these books in the classroom necessitates a substantial amount of adaptation. in fact, they indicated that the level of effort required to adapt and create supplementary materials is nearly equivalent to the effort required to develop materials from scratch. the next aspect delves into the participants' perspective on the preferred classroom activities for english for ground handling students. it seeks to understand whether the respondents are in agreement with specific classroom activities. by examining their level of agreement with activities such as pairwork, students' presentations, role play/simulation, and group discussions, the researcher gains valuable insights into their preferences and expectations regarding the teaching methods used. fig. 1. preferred learning activities; individual overall, it seems that lecturing has mixed perceptions, with a substantial portion of respondents both agreeing and disagreeing with it. figure 1 suggests that a significant percentage of the respondents (41.2%) (a and sa) perceived that lecturing is an effective teaching method. however, there is also a substantial portion (41.2%) (sd and d) that issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 103 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 95-108 azhar, h.p.o & masyi’ah, a.n. (developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students…) disagrees with the effectiveness of traditional lecturing. student presentations and individual works are generally viewed positively, with a majority of the respondents describing them as effective in the learning process. fig. 2. preferred learning activities; pair/groups on the other hand, role play/simulation, pair-work, and discussions seem to have more positive responses (figure 2). the majority of the respondents strongly agree with its effectiveness. pair-works receive strong support from respondents; 89.4% of them choose strongly agree and agree. only a small minority (10.7%) of them prefer to strongly disagree or disagree. it can be interpreted that the high level of agreement in activities like role play, simulation, and pair-work suggests that students are keen on interactive and practical activities in language learning. this preference aligns with the existing research, which underscores the effectiveness of communicative activities in enhancing students' speaking proficiency. ali et al. (2019) this aligns with the present study's findings, which indicate that the participants perceived speaking skills as important skills for ground handling crews. correspondingly, liu and wang (2023) state similar findings. in their survey, they found out that one of the strategies to reduce anxiety in the efl classroom is to increase activities like role play and group work. the interviews revealed a valuable suggestion from the head of the department. he suggested a collaboration between english teachers and subject-specific instructors. this collaboration integrates language learning with the practical knowledge required for their field. from a different point of view, the teachers believed that they had done their best within the existing limitations. they acknowledge the need for improvement and maintain a belief in the potential for positive change. they wanted the backing and support of the campus management so that they could improve the english teaching and learning quality for the students. 3.2. the practical use of english language by the ground handling crews the second part of the findings and discussion focuses on the practical use of english in an airport ground operation. the questionnaire is used to find out whether all four skills are used in an airport ground operation. then, follow-up interviews were conducted to find out the practical use of each language skill. overall, the participants agree that all four skills are necessary for ground handling crews, with an emphasis on speaking skills. figure 3 shows that 87.4% of the participants reported using speaking skills in their work. only a small percentage (12.6%, sd and d) express disagreement about using speaking skills. this suggests that speaking skills are not only important but are actively employed in their daily tasks. 104 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 95-108 azhar, h.p.o & masyi’ah, a.n. (developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students…) fig. 3. skills are necessary for ground handling crews in the follow-up interviews, the participants reported the practical use of english within the airport ground operation. english serves as a means of communication with foreign passengers and foreign airline crews. beyond passenger and crew interactions, english language proficiency is used for comprehending aviation manuals and ground operation technical terms. 1) communication with foreign passengers the interview reveals that a number of positions provide occasional service to foreign passengers. the positions include check-in counter, passenger service assistant, gate service, information desk, and lost and found unit. in their respective capacities, the crews engage with foreign passengers, offering assistance, information, and support. for the ground crew at the check-in counter, some practical uses of the english language were identified from the interviews. these functions include greetings, asking for travel documents, explaining baggage allowance, explaining additional services and special requests, confirming flight schedules, and wishing a safe trip. the findings on the practical use of english to communicate with foreign passengers are in line with some studies (cahyani & drajati, 2017; cutting, 2012). second, an interview with passenger service assistants (psa) states the importance of engaging in small talk, particularly when assisting vip (very important person) or cip (commercially important person) passengers. this language function is meant for creating a welcoming environment for passengers of high status or those seeking personalized assistance. psas’ ability to engage in small talk and provide simple tour guides about the airport is expected to improve the overall passenger experience. third, this study also uncovered the english language used by the gate agents at an international airport. gate agents are responsible for conducting baggage sweeping at the departure gate. this task is conducted due to the increasing use of self-check-in services. the passengers using this service occasionally exceed the allowed baggage limits. the interviews revealed that gate agents often find themselves explaining baggage allowances and regulations to foreign passengers. this proactive approach to communication by gate agents contributes to the orderly boarding process and minimizes potential disruptions during pre-flight procedures. fourth, the findings also highlighted the language used by staff at the information desk. they rely on english language skills to perform a range of language functions, including those identified at the check-in counter, passenger service assistant (psa), and gate agent roles. additionally, the staff is frequently asked about directions and helping passengers navigate the airport's complex layout, find amenities, and find departure gates. last but not least, the lost and found staff reported that they used english less frequently than other positions mentioned above. this is due to property irregularities; passengers lose or damage baggage, which rarely happens. they reported that sometimes, when this happens, they need english to inquire about passengers' basic information, including their names and addresses in indonesia. moreover, lost and found staff members need english to clearly describe the compensation procedures for damaged or lost baggage. this involves explaining the necessary documentation, timelines, and relevant policies. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 105 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 95-108 azhar, h.p.o & masyi’ah, a.n. (developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students…) 2) pronunciation of the technical terms in aviation in indonesia, local ground crews occasionally need to communicate with foreign airline crews. the participants suggest that being able to pronounce standard technical aviation terms is important to avoid miscommunication. proficient pronunciation of these specialized terms is important to establish clarity and precision in communication with foreign airline crews. the respondent stated that the ability to articulate these technical terms not only facilitates clear communication but also contributes to the overall safety and efficiency of airport operations. the technical terms involve places at the airports, documents in flight, items and equipment used by ground crews, and general procedures for airport operation. the respondents suggest that english training materials should at least contain the practice of standard pronunciation for those terms. according to the interview with the english teachers and faculty members, they share similar points of view. the english teachers and faculty members suggest joint efforts between english teachers and subject teachers in the preparation of instructional materials. the english teachers can receive invaluable assistance from the subject teachers about guidance and resources for these specialized aviation terms. on the other hand, the english teachers can help the students with the pronunciation aspects. within the collaboration, the vocabulary can be taught in context. although less frequently used, some of the participants reported that they needed english to understand the manuals for equipment at work. proficiency in english is essential, as many of these manuals are available in english. these manuals include equipment operation manuals, baggage handling manuals, and aircraft handling manuals. for operation manuals, especially at the airside operation, they use equipment such as baggage conveyors, tugs, push-back tractors, an airbridge, and a baggage cart. manuals for these machines explain their operation, maintenance, and safety features. the respondent reports other manuals related to baggage handling. they contain information on procedures for baggage sorting, loading, and unloading. however, the participants, especially the ground handling crew, state that while english proficiency is essential, it may vary depending on the airports and airlines. some airports may provide testing to ensure that ground handling personnel meet the necessary language proficiency standards. other airports and airlines may require a lower level of english proficiency. however, they claimed that anyone who applies for a ground handling position at an international airline is more likely to encounter a higher standard of english language requirements. the english teachers and faculty members, on the other hand, feel that the english language curriculum (syllabus) does not cover the reading manuals. the faculty members claimed that most students, although they are senior high school graduates, have varied levels of english proficiency (mostly low). due to the students’ proficiency levels, the teachers state that it is better to focus on the very basic needs of the ground-handling students. the teachers remark that they should at least be able to do the routine task of handling foreign passengers. more importantly, they are at least able to pronounce the technical terms related to their job correctly. 4. conclusion the development of esp learning materials for ground handling services students is a multifaceted endeavor that requires a profound understanding of their needs. the researchers hoped that the insights generated from this research would serve as a foundation for the creation of esp materials that are pedagogically sound and responsive to the needs of the parties involved. this study is expected to be a catalyst for further research and development in the field of esp materials, fostering ongoing improvements in the education and training of ground handling students within the aviation industry acknowledgment we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to sttkd yogyakarta for their invaluable support and cooperation throughout the course of this research study. without their generous assistance and unwavering commitment to education and research, this study would not have been possible. we extend our sincere appreciation to all the participants who willingly shared their time, insights, and expertise. their active involvement and contributions have been instrumental in shaping the outcomes of this research. their dedication to improving the field of english for specific purposes (esp) learning materials for ground handling students has been truly commendable. 106 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 95-108 azhar, h.p.o & masyi’ah, a.n. (developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students…) declarations author contribution : herida panji olivia azhar was responsible for the entire research project. he led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the second author. anita nur masyi’ah participated in the data collection and analysis. she helped type the manuscript. both authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research is funded by the the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology (penelitian dosen pemula) with the contract no. 042.6/ll5-int/al.04/2023). conflict of interest : both 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 permission from the relevant institute when collecting data. we support the journal of silence studies in education (jsse) in maintaining high standards of personal conduct, practicing honesty in all our professional practices and endeavors. no additional information is available for this paper. references adi, s., & khotimah, k. 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(developing esp learning materials for airport ground handling students…) solomon, m., askegaard, s., hogg, m. k., & bamossy, g. j. (2019). consumer behaviour; european perspectives. pearson education. ting, s.-h., marzuki, e., chuah, k.-m., misieng, j., & jerome, c. (2017). employers’ views on importance of english proficiency and communication skill for employability in malaysia. indonesian journal of applied linguistics, 7, 77. http://dx.doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v7i2.8132 tomlinson, b. (ed.). (2011). materials development in language teaching (2nd ed). cambridge university press. uemura, c. (2014). general english for aviation: pilots, cabin crew, ground ctaff, and air traffic controller. cengage learning. https://books.google.co.id/books?id=hognzgeacaaj woodrow, l. (2018). introducing course design and english for specific purposes (first edition). routledge, taylor & francis group http://dx.doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v7i2.8132 https://books.google.co.id/books?id=hognzgeacaaj 1. introduction 2. method 2.1. research design 2.2. research participants 1) questionnaire 2) interview 3. findings and discussion 3.1. new challenge to student engagement 3.2 perception on the needs to develop esp learning materials for ground handling students 1) communication with foreign passengers 2) pronunciation of the technical terms in aviation 4. conclusion declarations 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 arti cle i nfo abstract 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 as e 1 in tr od uc tio n (4 w ee ks ) ph as e 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 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.10077 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative thinking through photovoice in an english language teaching classroom wiwiek afifah a,1* , ani susanti b, 2, eka anisa sari c,3, abzhanova samal d,4 a, b, c universitas ahmad dahlan, jl. ringroad selatan, kragilan, tamanan, bangutapan, bantul, yogyakarta, and 55166, indonesia d nazarbayev university, qabanbay batyr ave 53, astana 010000, kazakhstan 1 wiwiek.afifah@enlitera.uad.ac.id ; 2 mitra.zeraatpishem1398@gmail.com*; 3 afaravani@yahoo.com ; 4 afaravani@yahoo.com * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 16 june 2023 revised 12 august 2023 accepted 15 december 2023 the understanding of photovoice technique to capture transformative thinking (thereafter, tt) in elt classes is challenging and providing valuable insights in the field of language education. however, the study specifically concerned on these fields have not been sufficiently explored. to fill the gap, this study aims to explore how students’ thinking evolved during joining the english language teaching elt class, how their insights changed, what moments lead students to undergo the transformation, and what elt students believed about tt contribution to elt. photovoice, a participatory research method was employed to these determined research purposes. approximately 75 students, aged 19-20 years old were invited to participate in this study. they were instructed to submit two pictures. each picture was given 5 questions: what you saw here, what really happened, how did this relate to your life, why did this occur, and what could you do regarding el ii. a questionnaire was designed to be filled out by the students using google forms, which was used as the second data to complete the pictures’ interpretation. data analysis then used the model from erlingsson and brysiewicz (2017) consisting of four steps: condensation, coding using maxqda, categorization, and finalizing the themes. this study provided insightful information about the dynamics of transformative thinking in elt classrooms through photovoice. the results show that photovoice serves as both a visual aid for documentation and a window into the ways in which elt influences students' broader thought processes. using the technique, the emotional changes, creative thinking, and evolving viewpoints of the students through the photographs they have selected can be understood. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords english language teaching pedagogical strategies photovoice transformative thinking how to cite: afifah, w., et.al. (2023). capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative thinking through photovoice in an english language teaching classroom. english language teaching educational journal, 6 (3), 172-187. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.10077 1. introduction learning how to teach is not currently prioritized (alstein et al., 2021). the quality of teachers is generally underestimated, as some studies have shown that only a small number of digital natives are willing to be teachers (kirschner & de bruyckere, 2017). some factors that are assumed to explain why teaching becomes a less attractive career are its low salary, workload, and low prestige in society (gorard et al., 2021). not only in indonesia, but teachers in various nations also earn less money than workers in occupations requiring an equivalent degree of education and experience (darlinghammond et al., 2017). a study done by gorard et al. (2021) showed that workload was a strong predictor of the decision to leave teaching. from that point of view, the public may not consider https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.10077 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:wiwiek.afifah@enlitera.uad.ac.id mailto:mitra.zeraatpishem1398@gmail.com mailto:afaravani@yahoo.com mailto:afaravani@yahoo.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.10077 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v5i2.2806&domain=pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7378-8108 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 173 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 wiwiek afifah et.al(capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative …..) teaching as a career choice, as this profession gives a low status, salary, and lack of opportunities for career advancement. however, many students from the english literature department enrolled in english language teaching (elt) class. when they were randomly interviewed to record their intention to choose it, they admitted that they chose elt because of wanting to have an additional profession as an english teacher. they are not trained to be english teachers, but through the elt course, they believe that they will gain that profession. in contrast to the interview result, the open survey results showed surprising facts. most students chose elt because they avoided the more challenging course such as english for journalism and public speaking. they thought that elt was easier and only related to teaching grammar and vocabulary. this intention led to other problems, such as procrastination, unenthusiasm in attending the class, and lack of critical thinking. they did not seriously join the class, as they thought that they had gained the english learning materials. transformative thinking (tt) can play an important role in addressing the mentioned issues. in elt, tt can foster students’ habit mind, creative thinking, and critical reflection. when facing a problem, students having tt can find the solution with their cognitive maturity. it also helps students enhance their language skills, teaching creativity, and nurtures of pedagogical understanding. tt also boots students’ cognitive thinking, beliefs, and perceptions in which those components will significantly influence students’ teaching skills (mezirow, 2018). furthermore, tt can also enhance students' cognitive and affective domain and to promote meaningful learning experiences (hoggan & cranton, 2015). many approaches have been investigated to improve tt abilities in english language instruction. these techniques include critical thinking techniques, collaborative learning, and photovoice. studies have demonstrated the efficacy of transformative strategies in enhancing learners' language skills (leonard et al., 2023). pre-service and in-service instructors have benefited from the use of photovoice in understanding students to enhance their teaching abilities (musoke et al., 2022; cho & kim, 2022). moreover, photovoice complies with the requirement for theoretical frameworks in studies to accurately document the learning process. teachers can track the development of students' tt by methodically analyzing and interpreting visual data by fusing photovoice technique with theoretical underpinnings. according to mcmorrow & musoke (2023), the strategy not only improves research methods but also offers a useful supply of data for comprehending the intricacies of cognitive growth in english language learners. in relation to, photovoice is an effective technique for recording important moments that reveal the underlying issues, such as students' chronic absences, procrastination, apathy in classes, lack of enthusiasm and critical thinking abilities. in elt context, using photovoice helps teachers express their obstacles while implementing online teaching (pratolo et al., 2024). add to this, photovoice also supports students convey their points of view when creating an unusual and genuine story beyond conventional data (goessling, 2018; reed et al., 2024). thus, an appropriate intervention can be addressed to the problems raised by using photovoice, which provides a more detailed view of the processes at action. photovoice emerges as a useful technique for acquiring significant insights into learners' cognitive growth, even though a variety of strategies have been used to increase transformational thinking abilities in english language instruction. teachers can gain a deeper understanding of how students develop their cognitive abilities such as spatial thinking and critical thinking in the context of learning english by using photovoice with theoretical frameworks. through the use of visual narratives, photovoice plays a critical role in methodical knowledge by recording the growth of learners' thinking skills. it enables students to use visuals to communicate their viewpoints, experiences, and thoughts, which promotes a deeper comprehension of their cognitive growth. teachers of english can learn about their students' creative thinking, problem-solving strategies, and mental processes by incorporating photovoice into their lessons. these insights are critical for the development of students' cognitive thinking abilities. research on elt and transformative thinking have been extensively conducted. some of the researchers are bayyurt & sifakis (2015), jeyaraj & harland (2014) and safari (2017). however, those specifically addressing transformative thinking and photovoice in the elt context are still infrequently. to address this gap, this study aimed to investigate by formulating the research questions as follows: (1) how students’ thinking evolves during the elt experience, (2) how their 174 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 wiwiek afifah et.al(capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative …..) insights changed, (3) what moments lead students to undergo the transformation, and (4) what the elt students believed about the transformative thinking contribution to elt. 1.1. elt for english literature department students want to acquire the ability to teach english and want to learn theory with more practice. since elt is not the major course offered, exploring their decisions is necessary to know the reasons and expectations of joining it. to introduce the english teaching to students of the english literature study program, the elt syllabus used was designed based on the mission and vision of the institution and new demands in the global workplace. it discusses the four skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) and approaches to balance them, as well as ensuring comprehensive language proficiency. additionally, elt has also been associated with student differentiation. due to the varying needs, learning styles, and proficiency levels, they are carefully undertaken and tailored to teaching methods. differentiated activities, personalized instruction, and adaptive learning strategies have been discussed in elt. since elt contains not only linguistics and education aspects but also general aspects, knowledge of students’ needs should be acquired to avoid misunderstandings and misperceptions in joining elt courses. learning elt in english literature department provides some benefits to support the educational experience as highlighted by chu et al., (2021). to foster linguistic competency, critical thinking, and a profound understanding of literature, a dynamic and enriching learning environment is needed. anuyahong & pengnate (2023) suggested a novel method of teaching english vocabulary that makes use of mnemonics and memory tricks. this creative approach can be helpful for increasing vocabulary learning in literary classes. using english literary texts to foster students' intercultural communicative ability is also necessary to do as bagui & adder (2020) highlight the importance of using literature to help students improve their communication and cultural awareness. poetry can help efl learners expand their vocabulary, as suggested by imron & hantari (2021). 1.2. transformative thinking the theory of "transformative thinking," referred to as "transformative learning," focuses on how people's thought processes develop and change because of meaningful learning events (eschenbacher & fleming, 2020; mezirow, 2018). jack mezirow was the pioneer who put this theory, and then some scholars have developed it. based on this idea, transformative thinking entails a significant structural change in a person's beliefs, assumptions, values, and perspectives. the process of transformative learning consists of several steps, which are explained as follows. 1. disorienting dilemma: this challenges a student's beliefs, which creates a state of confusion and makes the students reevaluate their previous beliefs. 2. self-reflection: students critically analyses their ideas, beliefs, and views through selfreflection. students examine their various perspectives and question the fundamental beliefs that shape their ways of thinking. 3. exploration of new perspectives: students search for knowledge, ideas, and perspectives. they interacted with others and participated in other activities to increase their understanding of the problem. 4. evaluating new knowledge: students critically evaluate their new knowledge and perspectives. through a comparison with their previous views, they assessed the accuracy, applicability, and relevance of the new information. 5. transformative thinking: through critical thought, students might have a "aha" moment. they have developed fresh, deeper conceptual frameworks that enhance their perspectives. 6. action and implementation: learning is not only about changing students’ viewpoints on things but also about acting on new ideas. students use their new ways of thinking to make decisions and navigate their daily lives. 7. critical reflection: recognizes the significance of emotions, social context, and power dynamics in its process. this highlights meaningful engagement with diverse perspectives in fostering transformative thinking. the importance of emotions, the social environment, and power dynamics in the process of transformative learning is acknowledged by transformative thinking theorists (romano, 2017). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 175 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 wiwiek afifah et.al(capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative …..) attention to how debate, critical thought, and substantive interactions with various viewpoints can encourage transformative thinking (fazey et al., 2018). it is also vital to clarify that the evolutionary development of thinking over a long period is not the primary focus of transformational thinking theory, which instead emphasizes individual cognitive transformation (valladares, 2021). 1.3. research mapping of transformative thinking, elt, and photovoice regarding the research mapping of transformative thinking in elt, more than 500 articles were identified using the vosviewer software. based on the analysis, there were 42 items in four clusters. the links were 417 with a total link strength of 1986. the data were taken from scopus and google scholars with the help of publishing and perishing software. figure 1 and 2 show the results of the analysis using vosviewer. fig. 1. vosviewer result 1 fig. 2. vosviewer result 2 in the academic realm of our study, transformative thinking was promoted in various ways using qualitative methodologies and approaches (colomer et al., 2020; farias et al., 2019; rodríguez aboytes & barth, 2020; wang et al., 2019). these were framed as interpretative and critical paradigms. in the context of reflective education, photography has been used to produce images and build social knowledge. in this regard, research that used photovoice or participatory photography was of interest to many scholars, but none have investigated transformative thinking. therefore, using a particular photographic technique, photovoice as a participatory strategy for transformative thinking in elt would help us identify, represent, and enhance new insights. research using the photovoice method will make an important contribution in analyzing transformative thinking in elt. using photography as a tool to reflect on students’ experiences in elt should be appreciated. this approach allows students to visually express their thoughts regarding 176 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 wiwiek afifah et.al(capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative …..) the process of learning and teaching english. by involving students in this creative process, photovoice highlights the transformational dimensions in the way students perceive, feel, and interpret their learning experiences. this transformative thinking includes changes in their attitudes, understanding and outlook towards english language learning. by utilizing photovoice techniques, this research presents a unique perspective that goes beyond traditional understandings of teachinglearning and designing more effective and relevant teaching strategies in the elt classroom. 2. methodology utilizing the photovoice technique (wang & burris, 1997), several elements such as photodocumentation, photo-elicitation, and exhibition in galleries were used which are in line with an exploratory of qualitative approach. the goals were to identify, demonstrate, and enhance students' transformational thinking using a specific photography style. by using it, students were seen as active participation in this study. furthermore, through both largeand small-group discussions of photographs, the photovoice technique aimed to (1) record and reflect the strengths and concerns of students toward the elt course, (2) foster critical thinking and knowledge about significant issues, and (3) influence elt policy. four processes comprise the implementation of photovoice: (1) planning, (2) holding a pre-focus group meeting, (3) capturing pictures, (4) reflecting, and (5) summarizing the lessons gained (boamah et al., 2022). figure 3 shows the sequences used in this study. fig. 3. research sequences of photovoice technique (adopted from boamah et al., 2022) 2.1. participants and setting of the research the study was carried out with approximately 75 students, aged between 19 and 20, at the university of ahmad dahlan's elt ii english literature department. this study was conducted from september 2023 to february 2024. the english literature department offered three credit semesters. all the students enrolled in the "community english literature department" course were asked to participate in this teaching strategy. the course was offered in the english literature department during the odd semester of the sixth undergraduate year. since individuals were included in this study, ethical issues were addressed. clear and easy-tounderstand explanations of the research purpose, the methods, and potential risks were given to the students. they were given the autonomy to make their own decisions and were provided with a readily understood informed consent form that emphasized the voluntary nature of participation. to ensure a transparent process, they were encouraged to raise questions prior to giving their consent. students then received confirmation that their choice to participate or not would have any unfavorable effects. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 177 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 wiwiek afifah et.al(capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative …..) 2.2. data collection techniques during the first two-hour session, the project objectives, the photovoice process, and the principles of the tt were discussed in the classroom with the students. the students were given the task of obtaining pictures that illustrated their emotional condition before and after attending the elt classes. additionally, the pictures that described their critical to the process of change. using their phones, tablets, or cameras, students had 20 days to prepare and take their pictures (photodocumentation). three of these pictures were chosen, summitted to the lecturer using google form link, and the pictures were completed by the student’s description about their emotional condition during attending in the elt classes. five questions were posed to each photo: what did you notice here? what was taking place? what did this have to do with your lives? why was this strength or difficulty there? for elt, what could you do about it? given that clues, this study was expected to investigate transformational thinking process. 2.3. data analysis techniques the four steps of data analysis consisting of condensation, coding using maxqda, categorization, and finalizing the themes were applied as suggested by erlingsson and brysiewicz (2017). we systematically transcribed, structured, and reduced students’ narratives that accompanied the photographs. visual content analysis was used to examine the student-captured images. to identify recurring themes and hidden meanings, it was necessary to categorize and code the visual motifs, patterns, and symbols in the images. triangulating the results enabled by the mix of textual and visual data allowed for a more thorough and nuanced understanding of students' perspectives. in addition, the research team conducted member-checking procedures and solicited participant inputs to guarantee the validity and correctness of the conclusions drawn from the data. because photovoice is collaborative, participatory analysis was possible, guaranteeing that the students' opinions were not only heard but also actively included in the interpretation of the results. in summary, the photovoice data analysis in this study revealed students' transformational thinking in the elt classroom and demonstrated how well visual techniques capture the nuanced details of their learning experiences. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 findings the students’ confessions taken from their pictures and descriptions were used to analyze students’ thinking processes, insights development, the moments leading them to transformation, and the students believe about the contribution of transformation thinking in elt. the pictures and descriptions were guided by five questions. (1) what do you see here? (2) what was really happening? (3) how did this relate to your live? (4) why did this problem or strength exist? and (5) what could you do about it for el ii? each issue is described as follows. 1) students' thinking processes evolve during the elt teaching-learning process students' thinking processes that evolved during the elt teaching-learning process were used to analyze transformative thinking. english literature students evolved their thinking from the pictures that express facial expressions, body language, and classroom engagement when they interacted with their friends. the way students performed their tasks also demonstrated their level of interest and comfort with the elt. they chose pictures they had collected before joining the elt class. students’ transformative thinking can be captured in their thinking process. for example, at first, they did not like to be a teacher, but after attending the classes and being involved in the learning experiences, their thinking gradually changed. a change in thinking can be understood from how they viewed the elt class. for instance, the way they responded to the teachers’ instructions and completed the entire task given by the teachers in the classroom could be one of the proven ways to determine students’ transportive thinking. the following pictures and the descriptions of the pictures show the students’ thinking processes. they were taken before and after attending elt classes. 178 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 wiwiek afifah et.al(capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative …..) fig. 4. picture from student12 fig. 5. picture from student12 “i selected that picture, because my future was unclear, and i was unsure whether i would actually become a teacher or not at all.” [student12] “during elt class, i was excited because i have new knowledge about how to teach. the group discussion before performing in front of the class gives me an insight that each student has different knowledge from one another. teamwork is needed in the classroom, there are a lot of benefits that we get from making a group in a class. in discussion, collaboration with other students is important and it will expand our perspective. we can exchange ideas, make a strategy in the learning process, and solve problems together.” [student12] fig. 6. picture from student65 fig. 7. picture from student65 “there are no feelings, emotions, and my view is empty. honestly, i feel confused, but i keep trying to understand”. [student65] “the overall elt class is very fun and memorable. while studying elt, the class was very conducive and exciting especially when practicing teaching.” [student65] transformative thinking is facilitated by engaging in a variety of thought processes, including systems thinking, creative problem solving, and critical analysis. students’ transformative thinking also included questioning previous assumptions, rethinking outdated assumptions, and adopting new approaches to challenges. these were frequently found in students’ descriptions of their selected pictures. the degree of cognitive flexibility and capacity to understand beyond preconceived notions have proven the thinking process. in exploring the transformative thinking through students’ thinking processes, some evidence both from students’ photos and description were gathered. students engaged in a process of selecting, taking, and describing photographs were symbolized their transformative thoughts and experiences. the visual nature of photovoice not only provided a tangible and personal representation of these moments but also allowed for a deeper exploration of the emotions, context, and complexities associated with their cognitive shifts. the student’s nature of photovoice empowered them to express their transformative thinking in a medium beyond traditional verbal or written communication. through this method, students were able to visually articulate the subtle nuances and context of their transformative thoughts, providing a more holistic understanding of their intellectual development. from this finding, it can be interpretated that transformational thinking essentially serves as a fundamental change in how students view and interact with their friends, lecturers, and elt itself. thinking processes also offer cognitive aspects and strategies for evaluating and comprehending information. transformative thinking can arise from specific ways of thinking that encourage students to go beyond obstacles and explore new cutting-edge ideas and solutions. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 179 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 wiwiek afifah et.al(capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative …..) 2) students’ insights development in the context of transformative learning, the development of students' insights is complex, and the process is influenced by various factors such as cognitive, social, and emotional aspects. based on the students’ acknowledgment, the aspects that had influenced their insight toward elt were the teachers’ explanation and the instructional design framework they had experienced in the classroom. in addition, students’ insight development was also influenced by the learning material, interaction both inside and outside the classroom, and students’ own learning processes. the following quotations show the students’ insight development. the following pictures and the descriptions of them show the students’ insight development. fig. 8. picture from student51 fig. 9. picture from student51 “while studying in the elt class, i felt happy because i could discuss and exchange opinions with friends to gain new insights about various teaching techniques and approaches.” [student51] fig. 10. picture from student70 fig. 11. picture from student70 “so, the picture above is a character in a cartoon called inside out. her name is joy, a character who is always happy. it's the same as how i felt when i took this elt course. i always feel happy when i take this class. because the teacher has a way of teaching that can make students feel happy and not bored.” [student70] “being a true teacher is not just teaching and then giving material, the task is even more than that.” [student70] “hopefully in the future, we can become modern teachers and be good role models for students.” [student70] these quotations provide information and an understanding of the process that has brough students to perspective and insight change toward the importance of elt. the aspects influencing students' perspectives and insights development in the context of transformative learning cover instructional design, strategies, quality enhancement, classroom dynamics, and task-related experiences. 3) moments that lead students to undergo the transformation. students’ transformations were influenced by several factors. the moment that has brought about the transformation was the quality of their interactions with the teacher and engagement in dialogues. positive teacher-student relationships have been reported by students as one of the moments that 180 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 wiwiek afifah et.al(capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative …..) brought about the transformation. when students connect their old memories with their teacher, the moments were likely to undergo transformative experiences. the following quotation show the students’ insight development. “studying in elt class was very enjoyable. the material obtained greatly broadened my horizons about the world of teaching, which i had never even imagined before. this course will be very helpful in the future, especially for those who want to become teachers. being a true teacher is not just teaching and then giving material, the task is even more than that. while studying elt, the class was very conducive and exciting especially when practicing teaching. the overall elt class is very fun and memorable. hopefully in the future, we can become modern teachers and be good role models for students”. [student01] moments that stimulated students into transformation were from engagement with their friends, such as when the student did the classroom projects, discussion, and presentation. in addition, teacherstudent relationships and harmonious experiences have been identified as triggers of transformative learning. exposure to challenging and meaningful learning experiences can contribute to student transformation. the following quotation show the moment that led the students undergo the transition. fig. 12. picture from student04 fig. 13. picture from student04 “i chose iceberg and some glasses filled with water as a description of my experience while studying in the elt class because my expectations before studying in elt class unfortunately differed greatly from my imagination that something from the simple sounding thing of teaching english was wrong because teaching english is very difficult. teaching english needs many preparations and from this class, i have found many new things and have shaped my perception about teaching.” [student04] 4) the students believe about the contribution of tt in elt based on data analysis, students perceived that there were some contributions from transformative thinking to elt. students used some symbols to actualize their belief. the following quotations are students’ acknowledgment about their belief about the contribution of transformative thinking to elt. fig. 14. student’s selected photo from student10 “why i chose panda, because in my opinion panda symbolizes sincerity, innocence, cuteness, and fun. so, i chose panda because during learning i feel like a panda who does not think too much about expectations to be perfect but is free to explore a learning in its own way and time and the most important thing is to learn while being happy including when doing uas.” [student010] issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 181 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 wiwiek afifah et.al(capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative …..) fig. 15. student’s selected photo from student19 “the bookshelves are huge and illustrate a lot of the knowledge and knowledge i have gained from elt classes. after joining this class, i feel optimistic about my future as an academic who will work as an english teacher.” [student19] “after attending the elt class, i feel that there is a process of change in the way i see the role of english teachers for the future of the nation. i feel that having good english language skills with sufficient knowledge of english literature will enable me to be an inspiring english teacher. this change in my way of thinking has a positive value towards elt.” [student19] there are at least seven contributions of it to elt, based on students’ beliefs. they can solve problems, foster a passion for learning and a curiosity-driven mindset, being independent learners, thinking outside the box, fostering innovation and creativity, promoting social and global awareness, adapting to new technology, handling complicated problems, and accepting change, learning, and unlearning new things. these claims were taken from the students’ confessions. the following chart shows the seven contributions of students. fig. 16. the contribution of tt in elt after attending the elt class, students felt that there was a process of change in the way they understand the role of english teachers in the future of the nation. students feel that having good english skills with sufficient knowledge of english literature will enable them to become inspiring english teachers. this change in their way of thinking has a positive value for the development of elt in the future. 3.2 discussion students were asked to describe a series of questions based on the photos they have selected. from the activity, students can go further in explaining their experience. when students conducted a visual analysis, evaluating and describing the visible aspects within their acquired photos, the answer to some questions, such as "what do you see from your photo?" have been answered. following that, in students believe about the contribution of tt in elt accepting change, learn, and… 7 10.00% adapting to new technology,… 9 12% promoting social and global… 9 12% thinking outside the box,… 10 13% being independent learners. 11 15% fostering a passion of… 12 16% 182 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 wiwiek afifah et.al(capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative …..) response to the question, "what was really happening in your photo?" students discussed the background details, including the feelings and occasions that led up to the moment that was photographed. reflections on personal connections were sparked by the question, "how did this relate to your life with your photo?" which helped students connect the visual storytelling to their own experience. in examining the question, "why did this problem or strength exist?" students provided explanations for the underlying reasons and consequences of the situations that were shown. finally, asking students "what could you do about it for english language teaching?" inspired transformational thinking and helped them come up with feasible concepts for implementing their experiences in the field of teaching english. from the findings, this study reaved that students' thinking had developed during the elt teachinglearning process. students were engaged with elt activities. they also responded to a teacher’s guidance, and fulfilled some tasks in the class. that active participation had served as an effective method for stimulating students' transformative thinking skills. this finding supports research done by idris et al., (2023) that cognitive factors and strategies for processing and understanding information significantly impact transformative thinking, enabling students to overcome challenges and delve into innovative concepts and solutions. the classroom atmosphere, which included the explanations given by the teachers and the instructional design framework that the students were exposed to, had an impact on the development of the students' insights. these findings prove how important to investigate students’ transformation in the elt class and support few researches examining how the photovoice approach in elt search for students' transformational thinking. among the limited scholars doing the research which were almost in line with the findings are castro (2016) doing the photovoice workshop to create meaningful context for efl learning. simanjuntak (2020) and ferdiansyah et al., (2020) identifying the cause of disengagement among apathetic english learners and the use of photovoice in teaching have proven that photovoice can maximize students’ learning without too much pressure on students. elt, transformative learning, and photovoice become more relevant to answer the new demands of the modern world by documenting and analyzing classroom moments in their selected pictures. this study has supported the study done by klahr & wallace (2022) that the moment brings crucial effect to the students’ cognitive development. the moment brings a crucial contribution to the process of learning and students’ transformation. as a brief period characterized by a particular occurrence, feeling, and thinking, moment of silence, moment of joy, and any other moment, those had brought to students into transformation. the moment in this study is considered as the substantial aspects. consequently, in elt learning process, it should be well designed. this claim is in line with the study done by sert (2021) conducting an interaction of student-teacher that created learning opportunities providing valuable insights and study by walsh & sert (2019) founding that a variety of interactional practices covering the issues of wait time, reduced teacher echo, and various feedback practices. the moment from this research finding is then described as significant or memorable events that leads students to have a different way of thinking. this study reaved that those moments which have been designed by the teacher had shaped students’ thinking process during the elt learning experience. this finding is in line with the study done by tardy & snyder (2004) that moments can motivate participants and shape classroom practices, as well as provide new insight into teaching beliefs. catching the moment using a photovoice also helped the students shape their perspectives and insights. additionally, pratolo et al., (2024) also revealed that photovoice helped efl teachers expressed their emotional journey and their creativity in activating students’ low level of participation in online class. findings in this research also support the study by lam et al., (2020) that autistic voices can foster well-being among the autistic community. in the elt classroom, moments should be created or designed by the teacher whether they are silent, shift, formal, or very serious. even moments in elt should be created as relaxed as possible by supporting many students’ interactions. some moments that lead students to undergo the transformation are interactions between the teacher and students. this finding is in line with the study done by walsh & sert, (2019), who found that an appropriate level of interactional competence can create opportunities and spaces where learning can occur. this study also revealed that tt contributes to elt. tt contribution to elt supports some studies, such as jenkins & alfred (2018) who stated that tt can improve teaching and learning because learning is not only for memorization and superficial knowledge but also leads students to go beyond issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 183 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 wiwiek afifah et.al(capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative …..) that. this encourages students to think critically, consider other points of view, and create original solutions to challenging issues. in real-world situations, this capacity for creative and critical thinking is essential. through elt classes, it is possible to promote the curiosity-driven strategy for lifelong learning that is addressed in tt. this motivated students in elt class explore a wide range of subjects, pursue for information, and never stop working to become better versions of themselves. moreover, tt skills help students develop into lifelong learners who can adapt to shifting conditions and pick up new abilities as they go through life. this claim is consistent with research on an existence of independent thinking conducted by sperrazza & raddawi (2016). the study revealed that students of elt had posed independence thinking that help them to stand up for themselves, clearly state their opinions, and support them. this finding is in line with akyıldız & çelik (2020) that through transformational thinking, students are enabled to think creatively and innovatively, and to come up with several ideas. additionally, felsman et al., (2020) also found the same point that students in that condition can consider a variety of options because they encourage diverse thinking. to explore transformative thinking in an elt classroom through photovoice, it is essential to consider the potential impact of innovative teaching methods on students' learning experience. it has been demonstrated that the application of photovoice, a participatory action research technique that blends photography with grassroots social action, fosters transformational learning and critical thinking in a variety of educational situations (haffejee, 2021). according to cavazos (2017), this method gets students to take pictures and think about them, which can foster critical thinking and deep involvement. 4. conclusion the study suggests that transformational learning in elt can be explored by using photovoice. it offers valuable insights into how to ignite students' perspective shift, which greatly benefits their learning experience. students' thinking processes can be traced by analyzing the transformational process. by highlighting the significance of pedagogical approaches, emotional aspects, and the role of peer support in fostering transformative learning experiences, this study collectively demonstrates the variety of ways in which researching transformative learning enriches students' learning journeys. catching the moments might also result from participating in discussions and completing the lecturer's assigned work. the use of photovoice as a method to capture moments in the elt process can provide an in-depth picture of students' transformative thinking. this method not only allows teachers to understand the development of students' elt skills and knowledge, but also provides a richer understanding of how students experience self-transformation during elt learning. through the pictures chosen by the students, we can feel the emotional nuances, creative ideas, and changes in their mindsets. thus, photovoice is not only a visual documentation tool, but also a window that opens a deeper view into students' understanding of elt and how it affects their overall thinking. by continuing to explore the potential of photovoice in elt classrooms, we can stimulate deeper reflection, enrich the learning experience, and support students' positive transformation in understanding and using english. despite the fact that the study using the photovoice approach is significant, it has several drawbacks. a significant limitation is the possibility of subjectivity in the interpretation of visual data. a further view of the events captured might result from the analysis considering the perspectives of the students as well as the researchers’ personal biases. additionally, the findings are impacted by the number of selected photos collected by the students. future research might overcome these shortcomings. moreover, considering that photovoice is a dynamic tool, continued research into new technical tools and platforms may expand its use and accessibility. a more thorough analysis can be obtained by incorporating mixed-method techniques, such as integrating photovoice with quantitative measurements. 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 184 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 172-187 wiwiek afifah et.al(capturing moments to analyze students’ transformative …..) author contribution : wiwiek afifah was responsible for the entire research project. she also led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the second, third, and fourth author. ani susuanti and eka anisa sari have participated in the data collection and data analysis. abzhanova samal has participated in data analysis and interpretation. she also revised the manuscript. all the authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research has been funded by lppm uad with the contract no. u12/722/viii/2023. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. ethics declaration : we as authors acknowledge that this work has been written based on ethical research that conforms with the regulations of our universities and that we have obtained the permission from the relevant institutes when collecting data. references akyıldız, s. t., & çelik, v. 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(2019). critical theory and transformative learning: some insights. journal of adult and continuing education, 25(2), 234-251. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477971419850837 https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46726-3_7 https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/58.2.118 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-021-00205-2 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02899-2_35 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02899-2_35 https://doi.org/10.1177/109019819702400309 https://doi.org/10.1177/1477971419850837 1. introduction 1.1. elt for english literature department 1.2. transformative thinking 1.3. research mapping of transformative thinking, elt, and photovoice 2. methodology 2.1. participants and setting of the research 2.2. data collection techniques 2.3. data analysis techniques 3. findings and discussion 3.1 findings 1) students' thinking processes evolve during the elt teaching-learning process 2) students’ insights development 3) moments that lead students to undergo the transformation. 4) the students believe about the contribution of tt in elt 3.2 discussion 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations references english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 164-176 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.6794 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id exploring undergraduate student perception of international student mobility program ani susanti a, 1, bambang widi pratolo b, 2,*, khusnawati c, 3 a, b, c department of english language, universitas ahmadi dahlan, jl. ringroad selatan, kragilan, yogyakarta, 55191, indonesia 1ani.susanti@pbi.uad.ac.id; 2bambang.pratolo@pbi.uad.ac.id* ; 3khusnawati1800004072@webmail.uad.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 12 october 2024 revised 12 november 2024 accepted 20 november 2024 international student mobility programs (ismps) have become increasingly popular among university students. this study explores the perceptions of undergraduate students from the english education study program at a private university in yogyakarta indonesia who have participated in ismps, focusing on the advantages and challenges they experienced. adopting a qualitative approach, data were collected through in-depth interviews with the participants. the findings reveal that ismps provide substantial benefits, including enhanced language proficiency, expanded professional and personal networks, cultural exchange, and self-development. however, participants also reported notable challenges, such as language barriers, differing cultural norms, unfamiliar study materials and assignments, and time zone adjustments. these insights offer valuable guidance for prospective ismp participants, enabling them to anticipate and address potential challenges while maximizing the program's benefits. moreover, the findings underscore the need for educational institutions and policymakers to develop targeted strategies to optimize the ismp experience, ensuring students achieve meaningful academic and personal growth through these programs. © the author(s) 2024. published by universitas ahmad dahlan this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords international student mobility program undergraduate student perception how to cite: susanti, a., pratolo, b. w., & khusnawati. (2024). exploring undergraduate student perception of international student mobility program. english language teaching educational journal, 7(3), 164-176. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.6794 1. introduction international exchange opportunities are becoming increasingly prevalent as social issues are shared among countries in the context of globalization (thampi, 2021). in recent years, universities have increasingly adopted international mobility programs to achieve internationalization, secure international accreditation, and prepare graduates for global careers (roy et al., 2022). according to data published by the organization for economic cooperation and development (2011), approximately 3.7 million students left their home countries to study abroad in 2009. this number has continued to rise, with unesco (2019) reporting over 5.3 million international students in 2017 (migration data portal, 2020). this data indicates that a growing number of students participate in student mobility programs at least once during their studies. these programs range from independent trips to faculty-led trips, and can be short-term (a few weeks) or long-term (half-year or full-year) (geyer et al., 2017). notably, the movement of exchange students predominantly occurs from the west and north to the east (stewart & kim, 2021). according to unesco (2013), the increasing trend in international student mobility is driven by push and pull factors that encourage outward and inward mobility, respectively. over the past two https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.11938 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9885-9689 mailto:ani.susanti@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:bambang.pratolo@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:khusnawati1800004072@webmail.uad.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.6794 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8716-028x http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i3.6794&domain=pdf 164 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 164-176 susanti, a. et al. (exploring undergraduate student perception of international…..) decades, academia has evolved rapidly into a business industry, impacting student mobility as a means to enhance quality of life (javed et al., 2019). to enrich students' education and development, many universities offer international learning opportunities in response to their internationalization goals and government agendas (bell et al., 2021; miles et al., 2019; zuchowski et al., 2019). institutions allocate considerable funds and resources to encourage participation in international mobility programs. additionally, there is significant student interest in these programs, with an increasing number of students choosing to study abroad (emirza et al., 2021). various reasons motivate students to join these programs, including personal growth, independence, cultural exchange, career development, studying with an international curriculum, and building international networks (doyle et al., 2010). studying abroad provides students with a learning experience in a new environment that promotes continuous growth. the benefits of international student mobility include academic achievement, intercultural development, language learning, career impact, and personal growth (dwyer, 2004). the primary motivation for mobility programs is the perception that being connected to global networks and collaborating with international students and scientists enhances the capabilities and productivity of home students and scientists (de sandes-guimaraes et al., 2020). international student mobility programs promote academic collaboration (gunn et al., 2020). outcomes associated with international mobility include students' agency and self-efficacy (petrovich, 2004), personal growth and maturation, increased intercultural awareness, professional development, and enhanced language proficiency and communication skills (hvalič-touzery et al., 2017). improving the quality of education influences cognitive abilities. beyond self-development, intercultural development, and global competence, student mobility programs also affect student-teacher perceptions of education. for example, student teachers who participated in the intercultural dialogue for global leadership and citizenship in early childhood education exchange (glc-ec) program reflected deeply on early childhood education in both their host and home countries (richardson et al., 2013). similarly, another study revealed that student mobility influenced self-perceptions of english foreign language teachers and was a strong factor in career development as teachers (wang, 2014). despite the growing interest and perceived benefits, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding of the specific advantages and challenges faced by participants in these programs. existing literature primarily focuses on the general benefits of international student mobility but does not delve deeply into the nuanced experiences of students from diverse educational backgrounds and regions. this research aims to fill this gap by exploring the perceptions of undergraduate students regarding the advantages and challenges of participating in international student mobility programs. in indonesia, two international student mobility programs are part of the merdeka belajar kampus merdeka (mbkm) policy: international credit transfer and indonesian international student mobility awards. the international credit transfer program provides opportunities for indonesian students to study at partner universities abroad, with credits taken at the host university being recognized by the home university (direktorat pembelajaran dan kemahasiswaan, 2021). meanwhile, the indonesian international student mobility awards (iisma) allow indonesian students to participate in the learning process at reputable universities worldwide in collaboration with the ministry of education and culture (dghe, 2021). to enhance the growth and justifiability of student mobility programs as a key aspect of the educational experience, it is essential to understand students' perceptions of the advantages and challenges of these programs. therefore, this research aims to explore the advantages and challenges of international student mobility programs as perceived by undergraduate students. 2. method this research adopts a qualitative methodology, employing a narrative research design to explore the individual stories and experiences of participants. the narrative approach is particularly suited for examining the social and cultural dimensions of the study, as it emphasizes the interpretation and understanding of community perspectives to generate new insights and theories. the study was conducted within the english education study program at a private university in yogyakarta, indonesia, which actively participates in student mobility programs initiated by the ministry of education and culture, such as the international credit transfer (ict) program and the indonesian international student mobility awards (iisma). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 165 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 164-176 susanti, a. et al. (exploring undergraduate student perception of international…..) the subjects selected for this study are seven students who have participated in one of the international student mobility programs. data collection techniques in this study involve interviews. researchers employed interviews to obtain in-depth data regarding students' perceptions of the international student mobility programs in which they participated. in this study, two interviews were conducted in person, and five interviews were conducted online via voice call through whatsapp. semi-structured interviews were utilized to collect responses from the students in the international student mobility programs. after data collection, the researchers processed the data and determined the research findings. the next step involved member checking to ensure the accuracy and credibility of the data. the final step was to analyze the collected data. in qualitative data analysis, there are three concurrent flows of activity: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification. 3. findings and discussion based on the results of interviews with 7 subjects (hereinafter abbreviated as a1 to a7), the researcher collected some data that showed various international student mobility programs that participants followed. the program is divided into three categories: international credit transfer, student exchange program spring semester, and indonesian international student mobility award. the first program is international credit transfer. international credit transfer is a program that provides opportunities for indonesian students to study at partner universities from other countries and credits taken at the host university will be equalized at home universities (direktorat pembelajaran dan kemahasiswaan, 2021). the international credit transfer program gives students an opportunity to study for one semester in another country. the program is from the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology, so this program is fully funded. in this study, there are two periods of the international credit transfer program. both of the programs took place online, due to the corona pandemic period. the first period took place in the odd semester of 2020, which was attended by participants e and f. the second period took place in the odd semester of 2021, which was attended by participants a1 and a3. all participants of the international credit transfer program studied at the same study program at a public university in malaysia (site 1). the second is student exchange program spring semester. student exchange program spring semester is a program that provides opportunities for students from indonesia to study for one semester in a university in malaysia (site 2). the program period followed by the participants in this research lasted from april august 2021 and was carried out online, due to the corona pandemic period. students of english education study program who took part in this program are participants a2 and a7. the third is indonesian international student mobility awards (iisma). iisma is a program that provides opportunities for indonesian students from universities in indonesia to participate in the learning process at any reputable university in the world that has a collaboration with the ministry of education and culture (dghe, 2021). the program gives students opportunity to study for one semester in another country. the program is part of the policy of merdeka learning merdeka campus (mbkm) from the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology, so the program is fully funded. the program period took place in the odd semester of 2021 and the learning process was carried out face to face. the student of english education study program who took part in this program is participant a4. the host university where participant a4 studied for one semester was a university in spain (site 3). the research finding in this study will be divided into 2 parts, they are the advantages and the challenges. 166 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 164-176 susanti, a. et al. (exploring undergraduate student perception of international…..) fig. 1. classification of advantages and challenges variable 3.1. the advantages of the international student mobility program based on the results of the interviews, participants mentioned several advantages of participating in international student mobility. it can be divided into 4 categories; they are language learning, expand the networks, learn new culture, and self development. 1) language learning language learning is a process of developing communication skills in a second language or in a foreign language. one of the advantages that the participants get after participating in the international student mobility program is to improve their english skills. studying at a host university that uses full english during the teaching and learning process in the classroom is a supportive place to improve english language skills. participant a2 talked about the environment that supports her to learn and practice the english skills she has learned in the class. it helps her improve her english speaking skill: “…it's like my friends in the class (host university) are already good at english, so i have to, like it or not, i have to speak in english…” (a2) in addition, another factor that supports the process of improving english skills is that the classmates whom the participant studies with have good english skills, so she inevitably had to use english when communicating. a1 stated that having friends in the class who already have good english skills can motivate participants to improve their english skills as well. “… just be more motivated, so that my english can be more advanced, so i can use it, you know. because malaysians (classmates) are not shy about speaking english… after mixing with them, (i) become more confident to speak english…” (a1) studying with classmates who have good english skills makes the participants feel more motivated to improve their english skills. classmates at the host university have the confidence to communicate using english also make the participants who take part in the international student mobility program more confident to use english when communicating. it’s the same as what a1, a7 said that if one takes part in the international student mobility program, she will improve her english skills. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 167 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 164-176 susanti, a. et al. (exploring undergraduate student perception of international…..) “…as a place to hone english skills too, … there (host university) they speak full english, so like it or not, we have to adapt to the learning system there…” (a7) the teaching and learning process in a classroom that uses full english is a suitable place to hone the english skills of the participants who take part in the international student mobility program. even though they participate in the international student mobility program in a country where english is a second language, they still feel that their english skills are improving. a5 talked about how participants used english more often when being at the host university being another reason. “i think it's pretty good because it's more often (speaking in english) than using malay, so (i) speak english more often when i'm with people there (host university classmates). so, for me, it has an effect. my thesis also discusses slang language. so, what is it, i think that slang can really improve our ee (english) language skills.” (a5) the use of english more than malay during the teaching and learning process at the host university can improve participants' english skills. in addition, the use of slang when communicating with students there also helps improve participants’ english skills. a5 also said that the teaching and learning process in the class through discussion also helps her improve her english skills. “the benefit (of the program) is. of course, to improve english skills, especially in speaking, because like it or not, we have to speak english in discussion forums, in learning forums in class, right? so it's very different from ours (home university). if we are, we don't have discussions. we study in indonesian, and there are no discussions outside the class that speak in english. so yeah, our speaking skill is much lower than theirs” (a5) the teaching and learning process with discussion requires students to actively interact in the classroom. it also helps to improve foreign language skills, especially speaking skills. there are discussions forum outside the classroom that uses english at the host university which also helps improve students' speaking skills. at home universities, the teaching and learning process uses indonesian more and is coupled with no discussion forums outside the classroom. so, the english language skills of students at home universities are lower than at host universities. in addition, besides improving english skills, a4 as a student participating in the international student mobility program in spain, also feels that one of the benefits is being able to learn a new language, that is spanish. “…for courses in spanish. i mean, it's like spanish speaking and spanish grammar, it's full spanish, not using english.” (a4) learning spanish courses like spanish speaking and spanish grammar are using spanish and it makes a4 learned a new language besides english. in addition to spanish class, a4 also used spanish when communicating with local residents. 2) expand the networks expand networks is a way for people to make friends to add and expand their relations. having extensive relations will certainly provide benefits in the present and in the future. a6 said that expanding relationships can be done in various ways, one of which is by participating in the international student mobility program. "and the other benefits besides speaking, of course, this is networking, right. so, it's like we have friends there, something like that" (a6) another benefit of participating in the international student mobility program apart from improving english is expanding relationships. by participating in the international student mobility program, participants will make friends at the host university. a5 said that in order to getting friends, participants can also expand relationships with lecturers at the host university. "yeah, it is, first of all, i got new connection, because from that activity, actually there was a lecture who were still chatting (with me) after a few months (i finish the program), but now we’re not, and then there are a few friends of my classmates. sometimes we’re still give comments for each other on our story (whatsapp) even. the connection is good, you know. as long as when we are there we can, what’s that? we can open with other people, we can. we can be accepted by them…” (a5) even though he is no longer a participant in the international student mobility program, the relation he has with lecturers at the host university is still established. the relations with students at the host university are also still good. as long as the participant can mingle and open up with students at the 168 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 164-176 susanti, a. et al. (exploring undergraduate student perception of international…..) host university, then their friendship can be established well. expanding relations means making a friend also with students from other countries who are at the host university. “the benefits i get apart from academics. well, apart from academics, i can expand my network. i mean, networking is making friends. i made more friends, so i met a lot of people, for example spaniards, americans, africans. so, i met a lot of people from different cultures and made friends…” (a4) making friends with students at host universities who come from other countries will expand networking. then making friends with students from other countries such as spanish students, american students, african students and others will expand their networking with people with different cultures. a1, a3, and a7 also said that by participating in the international student mobility program they could add friends from other countries and expand their networking. 3) learn new culture learning new culture means studying the system of cultural values, habits, and other things that exist in other groups or in other places. studying other cultures can increase intercultural awareness and tolerance for other people's habits that are different from our environment. “…so i met a lot of people, for example spaniards, americans, and africans. so i met a lot of people from different cultures and made friends. then i know, i can be (aware), because participating in that (program) i become more aware of the other people cultures. so, i can, improve my interculture skill...” (a4) meeting other students at the host university who came from various other countries with different cultures made a4 become more aware to other cultures. in addition, participating in the international student mobility program can improve his knowledge about the culture of other countries, which will increase the sense of intercultural awareness. learning a new culture does not only focus on the arts that exist in an area but also on the habits carried out by them. “…then i learn about the culture, the culture when they are in class. like what they are, their habit when there is a task. if we are, usually we cram the task, right. if they are, after the class is over, they want to work in groups right away, because there (host university) there are more group assignments than individual assignments. so, after that class, we immediately worked in virtual groups, and then we worked on it, and discussed it. so that's finished before the deadline has been done. learn their habits while studying…” (a5) observing and studying the habits of students at the host university is another advantage. the students’ habits cover when doing assignments, the way they work in groups when getting group assignments, and the habits they do when studying. a1, a6, and a7 also said that participants learned a new culture when participating in the international student mobility program. 4) self-development self-development is a way that a person does to improve his abilities, self-awareness, skills, and potential. everyone has a different improvement even though they follow the program or have the same activity. one of the benefits of participating in the international student mobility program is that it can increase self-awareness. “…self-reflection, so i can imagine between indonesia and there (host university). so, i can be more disciplined, because there it's like being on time… then being active in class,” (a2) studying at a host university with a new learning environment made participant a2 be more motivated, be more disciplined, and be active when studying in class. "yeah, it's more in the energy (to learning). well, the point is, the people there are really brave. so yeah, i have to be braver to express my opinion, even if it's wrong..." (a2) new habits that are carried out in order to adapt to the habits of students hosted by the university can increase self-awareness. students at the host university have a brave nature, it makes participant a3 is motivated to be brave too, become more courageous when expressing opinions, even though the opinions expressed are not true. in addition, while studying at the host university, participants become aware of the learning system at the host university. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 169 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 164-176 susanti, a. et al. (exploring undergraduate student perception of international…..) “…first of all, it definitely adds to my experience, right, because we have new experiences to be able to study in a different atmosphere, like we usually speak indonesian freely, right. finally, we are told to adapt in a new environment like that. then the second one, i came to know about what learning there was like, …” (a3) the new experience of studying abroad with a different atmosphere makes students learn to adapt to the habits of the host university, such as the language used in class and the teaching and learning process in class. other participant, a7 also agrees that participating in international student mobility gives her the knowledge about how students and lecturers at the host university communicate and the learning process there. beside that while participating in international student mobility program, participants can also get new perspective about education from other country. “…and you can get another perspective on education…there is a system that might be in the future, if we, for example, we become educators, then what we think is good from there, maybe we can use it for us later or we can also give suggestions for our own majors…” (a1) providing a new view of education that is used at the host university. this system can be a reference when one becomes a teacher and can be applied in the future. learning in a new environment will also increase knowledge. “this is one more benefit, what is it? add to our knowledge. there is a course which requires us to analyze a foreign culture. so, we were there for one semester, apart studying english, we also learned a little about international relations. …, the culture in south korea, how did the korean wave come to be like that, and it turns out that the politics is very influential. there is a name called digitalization... they seem to be very focused on the creative industry and so on, so apart from english we learn other things, such as international relations as well” (a5) studying for one semester at a host university provides new knowledge for a6. not only learning english a6 also learns about the culture of other countries and new knowledge too. participating in an international student mobility gives participants a new experience too. “…learn the habit while studying and just add experience. it's like i've studied abroad, even though it's online. it still makes me feel proud of myself.” (a5) learning the habits of students at the host university when they study gave the participant a5 new experiences, and made him feel proud for himself because he had participated in an international student mobility program even though it was online. 3.2. the challenges of the international student mobility program based on the results of the interviews, participants mentioned several challenges while participating in international student mobility. it can be divided into 4 categories; they are language difference, difference habit, study materials and heavier assignments, and difference time. 1) language difference the language differences that will be discussed in this section include the differences in the language used at the host university and at the home university and the differences in language levels. as explained earlier, generally the language used during the teaching and learning process is english. based on the results of interviews with students who took part in the international student mobility program, the difference in language levels is one of the challenges during the teaching and learning process at the host university. “oh well, i had culture shock before. i was in a culture shock because yeah, actually it's not that different, but there they use full english…” (a7) although the learning system used at the host university and at the home university is similar, at the host university the language used when studying in the classroom is full english. the use of full english while studying at the host university made the participant has experienced a culture shock at the beginning of the program. “... because (i) need to adapt right. the first adaptation is english, because we are at uad yeah, sometimes we mix language, sometimes indonesian, sometimes english, then suddenly we are expected to be like natives, english native speakers. so that was the first, i was a bit surprised...” (a7) 170 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 164-176 susanti, a. et al. (exploring undergraduate student perception of international…..) at the host university sometimes when learning in classroom the students use two languages or mixing languages. the change in the language that used during the teaching and learning process at the host university made a7 surprised because of the difference in the language used. “…it’s back to the language problem, in uad when study we use english but it’s not really full english. then, for example, if we don't understand, we can still ask our friends in indonesian, but there we can't. it's really full english. sometimes i still have to be digested again, like it's meaning true or not...” (a1) the use of full english at the host university is a challenge for the participants. when they come across a new word or phrase, they must try to digest it in order to understand the meaning of the information being conveyed. “…i feel insecure actually, because their english is better than mine, i feel like that. so, i need like an adjustment again, because in malaysia, english has become a second language. for us, english is still a foreign language. then once when we studied, we were asked one by one like "what language do you use at home when you have a conversation with your parents?" and all of them said they use english. even if not with both, well they use it with one of them, either with his mother or with his father.” (a1) the determination of english as a second language in malaysia also affects students' english mastery there. participant a1 said that his classmates at the host university used english when conversing with their parents at home. one of the factors causing this difference in english mastery is vocabulary mastery. "if it’s me, it’s more into the limited vocabulary. so, when (i) spoke it wasn't as fluent as them, because of course, their english was a second language, right, if we, we were a foreign language. so surely their vocab is more fluent. what else? i think, that's all." (a6) the limited vocabulary causes the ability to speak to be limited as well, and cannot convey information optimally. participant a6 feels that his limited vocabulary mastery causes his speaking skills not as fluent as the students at the host university. participant a3, who participated in the international student mobility program in malaysia, felt something different. "fortunately, i didn't have any difficulties with that one because the discussion was still in the realm of material, and because the material only contained, in one semester we were only told to study 1 novel. and each student must get one chapter. it's just a digit, so it's easier for me to interact with them and the lecturers because all they're talking about is the novel, …” (a3) the use of full english when the teaching and learning process is not an obstacle. for her, as long as the topics discussed are still in the realm of lecture material, she can follow them. she explained that the material to be discussed in class had been informed so that it became easier for her to interact with other students, even though they used full english. “there is no difficulty, because every time there is a difficulty... because for example, if i say that i don't know the language (the meaning of a certain word), they will definitely explain it to me right away. " (a3) when participant a3 finds it difficult, a classmate at the host university will help her. then when there is a phrase or a word that she doesn't know the meaning of, a classmate at the host university will immediately explain it. a4, as another participant who took part in international student mobility in spain, he also experienced language problems. “if there are challenges or difficulties, because of the program that i am participating in, i go there directly, not online. so, the only problem is the language barrier. because there (spain) is not an english speaking country, so whether i want it or not, i have to learn spanish. i talked in spanish while i was there, when i chatted with local people.” (a4) participating in the international student mobility program in spain directly made him constrained by language differences. studying in spain as a country that is not an english-speaking country made him experience the language barrier and that made him learn spanish in order to communicate with local residents there. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 171 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 164-176 susanti, a. et al. (exploring undergraduate student perception of international…..) 2) difference in habit based on the results of interviews with participants, one of the challenges faced by them when participating in the international student mobility program is the difference in culture and habits. “…well, maybe it's because of the difference in culture. even though we are the same, it's almost the same (the culture) indo and malay. the only difference is in the habits, like in indo, like what i said earlier, assignments are given tomorrow and are collected next week. in this case, we already know all the duties. but it's like the task is more difficult. it's like there's no compensation for any convenience, for example, let's say we have a paper assignment. in indonesia, maybe 2 pages are too many. there (the host university) for example is asked to make 5, so it has to be 5… then you have to use the format that already exists, so there's already a format for collecting assignments… if we (at home university) we might just be given a name". (a2) there are some differences in student habits when at a host university and at a home university. one example is in assignments. participant a2 feels that the task he gets at the host university is more difficult. the format for the collection of tasks has also been determined, although it looks easy, but adjusting to the specified format takes some time to do it. "yeah, be honest when it's like what? honestly, it's different. it's not like, for example, when we watch upin ipin, we should still be able to understand, but it seems like it's really different. when we talk to people there and they still mix their language with english. it's really not like what it was (i thought before), it can be said that the malay language is only a little bit." (a3) even though indonesia and malaysia have similar cultures. but participant a3 feels that there are some differences. the malay language they use is also different from what he usually watches in the malaysian series, upin upin. if in the upin ipin series the language used is malay, in the learning environment students speak using 2 languages or mix languages between english and malay. “…but for the cross-culture course that (i explained) earlier. we talked about various cultures, right, we talked about the culture there. so sometimes i feel like i don't understand but i'm asked to give feedback, for example.” (a3) another challenge that participant a3 felt was when discussing the culture that existed in the host university country and was asked to provide feedback. sometimes she does not understand the topic being discussed but is asked to provide feedback. 3) study materials and heavier assignment the heavier study materials are also one of the challenges felt by students who took part in the international student mobility programs. “... and other challenges in material differences. maybe in indonesia it's not too heavy like that (the task). if it's here, it's really heavy, and it can't be bargained" (a2) the differences material. participant a2 also feels that when studying at a home university the tasks given are not as difficult as when studying at a host university. in addition to a more difficult task, a2 feels that the given task cannot be bargained. “…the tasks are very different…, the tasks are very different. like heavier, and harder”. (a2) the form of tasks that are very different, heavier, and harder than when studying at a home university is one of the challenges faced when participating in the international student mobility program. “for another challenge, maybe how to understand this, to understand the task because the task is very different with when in indonesia. in indonesia, we're just, we're just like being given a question, or maybe being told to understand, or being told to write a paper but it's not as complicated as that. in the host university it has to be detailed, the writing of the paper must have something like the opening, which is different with the one at home university, the content and closing must be as detailed as possible. it's like that. in indonesia, we're sure, we're definitely just collecting the contents. and in the host university we have to be really careful about what we're doing. then there must be additional oral presentation. the procedure is like that every time there is a task for us to write a paper. we seem to be asked to make an oral presentation and it's sometimes different from the content of the paper”. (a3) 172 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 164-176 susanti, a. et al. (exploring undergraduate student perception of international…..) the different types of assignments at the host university make participant a3 tries to understand the assignments that are received and that is one of the perceived challenges. if at home university, the task that is usually done is to answer some questions given by the lecturer or students are asked to understand a topic or write a paper. the paper that written was not complicated as that, but at the host university, when there is an assignment to write a paper, there must be an opening, the content, and closing. every part in the paper must be as detailed as possible and you can't just write the content without understanding it. every time there is an assignment to write a paper there will be an additional task, namely an oral presentation. when presenting a paper, students must understand the contents of the paper that has been written. so that when doing oral presentations students must be able to explain it clearly using their own understanding. "no, but you have to keep the contents the same, you can't just copy and paste it..." (a3) in oral presentations, students are not allowed to just copy and paste or only read the contents of the paper that has been written, but students are required to explain it according to their understanding. other participant a4, also felt that the tasks at the host university were more difficult. "it's heavier there, much heavier there, because the tasks demand us to write more and talk more, and to look for more references.” (a4) students are required to write more, to speak more, and to look for more references when doing assignments. 4) time difference another challenge felt by participants was the time difference. the international student mobility that the participants participate in takes place online and there are time zone differences between host universities and home universities. host university is one hour earlier when compared to the time at home university. this time difference is one of the challenges that the participants feel while participating in the international student mobility program. “…at first it was because of the time difference, yes, even though it was only an hour, but it felt like sometimes (i) forgot that…” (a1) the time difference between the host university and the home university sometimes causes participants to forget that there will be a class at the host university. "it's one hour faster than indonesia, when i used to, i was having a bit of trouble because it was at the same time as my lecture at uad. so, for example there, for example, it's 1 o'clock in malaysia, right, the class is 1 o'clock in malaysia, but in indonesia it's 12 o'clock. well, sometimes i'm here at 12 o'clock, it's still class, right, it's not over yet, so sometimes i'll ask the lecturer for permission first.” (a7) the time difference also causes other challenges because sometimes at the host university the lecturers have not finished delivering the material, but the class at the home university has started, sometimes vice versa. so that students who take part in the program sometimes do not follow the class until it is finished because they have to go to another class. although the time difference between the host and the home university is not an obstacle for some of the other participants. "...no, it wasn’t be a problem." (a5) the time difference between the host university and the home university is not a problem for a5. "it's just that, for example, there is a morning class, so (i) have to get up really early." (a5) the time at the host university is one hour earlier so that if there is a class in the morning, participants have to wake up early to be able to take class. "no, because they start (not too early), at them at 7 am. they start (the class) there at 7 am, here at 6 am, so it's still very affordable. unless they start at 7am and here it's 5pm, but it's not” (a5) at the host university, classes start at 7 am, at that time at home university it is already 6 am so f feels that the time difference is not a problem, because the time difference is not really a time difference. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 173 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 164-176 susanti, a. et al. (exploring undergraduate student perception of international…..) 3.3. discussion in this study, 5 interviews were conducted online using voice calls because the research was conducted during the covid-19 pandemic, so the researchers could not see directly the participant's responses and expressions when answering interview questions. but even so, the things that researchers want to learn can still be done online. the researchers also asked the participants again to make sure the statements they made were correct and after the data was processed, the participants do member checking, so the participant know the results of their interview. it was do to make sure that the result was still valid. the findings identify language learning, expanded networks, cultural exchange, and selfdevelopment as key advantages of ismp participation. these benefits resonate with existing literature, which underscores that international mobility programs foster personal growth, intercultural awareness, and career development (doyle et al., 2010; dwyer, 2004; sandes-guimaraes, 2020). enhanced language skills, particularly in english, were a consistent theme among participants. this outcome is consistent with previous studies that emphasize the role of immersive environments in improving language proficiency (hvalič-touzery et al., 2017; enkhtur, 2024). moreover, participants reported forming new relationships with peers and faculty from diverse cultural backgrounds, contributing to an expanded professional and social network. such networking opportunities are widely acknowledged as a critical advantage of mobility programs, offering students long-term benefits in both personal and professional spheres (bell et al., 2021; heirweg, 2020). additionally, exposure to different cultural practices and academic settings enhances students' intercultural competence and adaptability, as emphasized by zuchowski et al. (2019). self-development was another significant advantage. participants noted improvements in selfdiscipline, critical thinking, and adaptability, reflecting the findings of petrovich (2004) and roy (2019), who highlighted the role of international programs in fostering self-efficacy and agency among students. despite the numerous advantages, participants encountered notable challenges, including language barriers, cultural differences, unfamiliar academic practices, and time zone adjustments. language barriers, a common challenge for international students, have been similarly reported in studies by khanal and gaulee (2019) and breznik (2024). the need to communicate and study in a non-native language created initial hurdles but also served as a catalyst for linguistic improvement. cultural differences, particularly in academic habits and classroom practices, posed additional challenges (radjaban & humanika, 2024). for instance, participants noted stricter assignment formats and higher expectations for academic rigor, echoing findings by miles et al. (2019) regarding the demanding nature of international academic environments. the contrast between collaborative learning styles abroad and more traditional approaches at home universities required significant adjustment. time zone differences, especially for online programs, were another obstacle. while minor for some, these differences affected scheduling and occasionally conflicted with home university commitments. stewart and kim (2021) noted similar logistical challenges in their study of student mobility during the covid-19 pandemic. the findings of this study underscore the need for educational institutions to provide targeted predeparture training and ongoing support to address these challenges. institutions should focus on equipping students with linguistic and cultural skills, as suggested by khanal and gaulee (2019). furthermore, host universities can play a critical role by fostering inclusive academic environments that consider the diverse backgrounds of international students. policymakers should also take note of these findings to design mobility programs that maximize benefits while minimizing barriers. initiatives such as structured mentoring, peer support systems, and flexible academic requirements could enhance the overall experience of ismp participants (bell et al., 2021; dghe, 2021; lópez-duarte, 2023). 174 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 164-176 susanti, a. et al. (exploring undergraduate student perception of international…..) 4. conclusion based on the results and discussions that have been presented, then the researchers conclude that the advantages and the challenges of international student mobility program. there are four advantages of participating in the international student mobility program. those are language learning, expand the networks, learn new culture, and self-development. then there are several challenges that students feel while participating in the international student mobility program, namely language difference, difference habit, study materials and heavier assignments, and time difference. to other researchers who want to conduct similar research, it is suggested to investigate how participants in the international student mobility program solve the problems they feel and how participants adapt to the habits of the host university. future research could explore the long-term impacts of ismps on students' careers and personal development, as well as the role of institutional policies in shaping these experiences. comparative studies across different regions and disciplines would also provide broader insights into the effectiveness of mobility programs. acknowledgment the authors extend their gratitude to the participants involved in this study who have voluntarily responded positively to the inquiry. the special thanks also go to uad through lppm which has granted the funding for this research. declarations author contribution : ani susanti was responsible for the entire research project. bambang widi pratolo revised the manuscript based on the feedback from the reviewers. khusnawati participated in the data collection, transcription and analysis. funding statement : this research is funded by lppm uad through contract number: pd364/sp3/lppm-uad/v/2021 conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. 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 eltej journal 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. references bell, k., cash, b., boetto, h., & thampi, k. 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(2019). sustaining quality learning abroad opportunities in australian schools of social work. international social work, 62(2), 980–993. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872818757590 https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315318797177 https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2004.10672298 https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2013.010314 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1458222 https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2022.2076657 https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315319842345 https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v11is2.4110 https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2021.1919071 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000226219 https://doi.org/10.4304/jltr.5.1.70-79 https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872818757590 1. introduction 2. method 3. findings and discussion 3.1. the advantages of the international student mobility program 1) language learning 2) expand the networks 3) learn new culture 4) self-development 3.2. the challenges of the international student mobility program 1) language difference 2) difference in habit 3) study materials and heavier assignment 4) time difference 3.3. discussion 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations 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 abst ract 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. 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 abstract 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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(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. (2013). the potential sources of foreign language reading anxiety in a jordanian efl context: a theoretical framework. english language teaching, 6(1... aisyah, j. (2018). students’ reading anxiety in english foreign language classroom. journal of english and education, 5(1), 56–63. https://ejournal.upi.edu/index.php/l-e/article/view/9903 al faruq, a. z. (2019). reading anxiety in english as a foreign language for undergraduate students in indonesia. journal of teaching & learning english in multicultural contexts, 3(2), 88–95. https://doi.org/10.37058/tlemc.v3i2.1275 al-obaydi, l. h., rahul, d. r., & pikhart, m. (2023). the effect of online oral reading on reading comprehension, reading anxiety, and classroom anxiety among efl learners. education and information technologies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-119... al-shboul, m. m., ahmad, i. s., nordin, m. s., & rahman, z. a. 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(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 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 arti cle i nfo abstract 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 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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 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 arti cle i nfo abstract 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. 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 abst ract 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. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 137-150 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9100 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id student learning autonomously: exploring the global impact of artificial intelligence djoko sutrisno a,1*, iin inawati b, 2, hermanto c,3 a, b, c universitas ahmad dahlan, jl. ringroad selatan, kragilan, tamanan, bangutapan, bantul, yogyakarta, and 55166, indonesia 1 djoko.sutrisno@mpbi.uad.ac.id*; 2 iin.inawati@mpbi.uad.ac.id; 3 hermanto@pbsi.uad.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 4 june 2023 revised 22 july 2023 accepted 27 august 2023 artificial intelligence can transform education globally by providing personalized learning experiences, automating administrative tasks, and facilitating new opportunities for students to engage with advanced technologies. however, adopting ai in education also poses challenges and ethical considerations that need to be addressed. this paper explores the impact of artificial intelligence on student learning autonomously and examines its global implications in education. the method used mixed method research, consisting of quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews, to gather student data. the study's results revealed that the qualitative research showed that students and students perceive ai as having a transformative role in education, enhancing personalized learning experiences, boosting engagement, and optimizing learning practices. the survey results from 25 students' perceptions of ai in autonomous learning also indicated the positive impact they believe ai has on student learning outcomes, with an average of 81% acknowledging ai's benefits. however, about 36% of students expressed a need for further training and support, highlighting the importance of ongoing professional development to harness the potential of ai in education effectively. the integration of findings from both qualitative and quantitative analyses provides a comprehensive understanding of the role of ai in autonomous learning, emphasizing the positive impact while also underscoring the need for addressing ethical concerns and providing comprehensive support mechanisms for students navigating the integration of ai in the classroom. in conclusion, it is evident from the research findings that artificial intelligence significantly and positively impacts student learning autonomously. the study revealed that both students and students perceive ai as a transformative tool in education, enhancing personalized learning experiences, boosting engagement, and optimizing teaching practices. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords artificial intelligence (ai) autonomous learning teacher perceptions educational technology how to cite: sutrisno, d., inawati, i., & hermanto (2023). enhancing student learning autonomously: exploring the global impact of artificial intelligence. english language teaching educational journal, 6 (2), 137-150. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9100 1. introduction artificial intelligence (ai) has greatly impacted several industries, including education, by enabling individualized and independent student learning experiences. ai platforms adapt to students' requirements and preferences, allowing them to absorb new knowledge freely. this tailored approach to learning enables students to exploit their own experiences and preferences (parreira et al., 2021). the rapid growth of ai is affecting life in many ways, and ai-enabled adaptive learning systems have been extensively applied in education (batin et al., 2017). these technologies empower students to https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9100 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:djoko.sutrisno@mpbi.uad.ac.id mailto:iin.inawati@mpbi.uad.ac.id mailto:hermanto@pbsi.uad.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9100 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i2.9100domain=pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8612-4009 138 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 137-150 djoko sutrisno et al.(enhancing student learning autonomously …..) freely acquire new skills and knowledge as ai platforms adapt to their requirements and preferences (sikora et al., 2021). furthermore, ai applications in education have been investigated for decades to enrich learning and teaching activities (parreira et al., 2021). the incorporation of ai in e-learning platforms offers several benefits to students. one of the key benefits is personalization, which allows students to adapt their learning experience based on their specific goals and skills. the global influence of artificial intelligence on education is significant. ai-powered e-learning platforms offer the potential to expand access to education for students worldwide, regardless of their physical location. these platforms allow students to learn at their speed and access educational resources anytime, anywhere. the integration of ai in e-learning systems has the potential to impact significantly global education by improving access to education for students globally, regardless of their physical location. these platforms allow students to learn at their speed and access educational resources anytime, anywhere. integrating ai into e-learning platforms has promoted learner-generated-context-based learning, allowing students to study autonomously while being physically removed from educational institutions and influenced by the digitization of educational processes (gumbs et al., 2021). additionally, applying reinforcement learning in many sectors, such as optimal tilt-angle control for tracking photovoltaic systems, has shown ai's potential to contribute to individualized learning experiences and improve educational outcomes (tsuchida et al., 2022). furthermore, the ethical dimension of creating and implementing new developments in robotics and artificial intelligence has been stressed, underlining the significance of examining the ethical implications of ai in education and its impact on modern society (hauer, 2022). ai in learning analytics and summative assessment has provided insights into students' performance, allowing educational stakeholders to address possible concerns and maximize academic results (how, 2019). moreover, the application of ai techniques in smart cities and autonomous urban governance has underlined the crucial significance of data-driven artificial intelligence in building sustainable environments and learning experiences (subirats et al., 2021). additionally, the development of aibased platforms for proactive monitoring and control has revealed the potential for ai to contribute to individualized and proactive educational interventions (adeleke et al., 2017). overall, the integration of ai in e-learning platforms has the potential to change education by providing personalized, accessible, and proactive learning experiences for students globally. there are several techniques for applying ai in education to boost student learning autonomously. one solution is to introduce ai-powered virtual tutors or chatbots into e-learning platforms.(pratolo & hafizhah, 2022; sutrisno, 2022) these virtual tutors can provide tailored assistance and support to students, answering their questions and helping them navigate through the learning materials. another idea is to employ ai algorithms to assess student data and deliver individualized learning resources and activity recommendations. ai can also be applied in building adaptable learning routes that adjust to each student's needs and progress. incorporating ai in education to boost student learning independently encompasses several ways. one such technique is the incorporation of ai-powered virtual tutors or chatbots into e-learning platforms. these virtual tutors can provide personalized assistance and support to students, answering their queries and helping them navigate through the learning materials (belda-medina & calvo-ferrer, 2022). additionally, ai algorithms can analyze student data and provide personalized recommendations for learning resources and activities, enabling adaptive learning paths that adjust to each student's needs and progress (copriady et al., 2020; h. j. lee & hwang, 2022). furthermore, the use of deep q-learning for routing schemes in sdn-based data centre networks indicates the potential for ai to autonomously construct optimal routing paths for data centre networks, displaying its adaptability and effectiveness in handling network traffic (fu et al., 2020). these references collectively demonstrate the numerous applications of ai in education, emphasizing its potential to improve the learning experience for students by offering tailored and autonomous help. ai plays a significant role in delivering tailored learning experiences for students. ai-powered systems may collect and analyze learner data, including their learning preferences and performance data. ai systems may develop individualized learning paths, offer appropriate resources, and alter the pace and difficulty level of the contents. ai significantly allows individualized learning experiences for students by leveraging data collection and analysis to tailor educational routes. ai-powered systems can acquire and assess learner data, including preferences and performance, to build issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 139 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 137-150 djoko sutrisno et al.(enhancing student learning autonomously …..) individualized learning routes, offer resources, and change material difficulty (donnelly, 2022). these systems have the potential to enrich teaching and learning activities (d. lee et al., 2023). furthermore, ai and machine learning algorithms show promise for personalized biomedicine and cost-effective healthcare, emulating human cognitive skills (rašić et al., 2023). additionally, ai has been researched in numerous industries, such as agriculture, sustainable ecosystems, and smart manufacturing, suggesting its ability to address difficult challenges and improve different sectors (sridhar et al., 2023; subirats et al., 2021; zhou & zhou, 2018). annotated datasets have been recognized as vital for constructing advanced ai models, underlining the value of data in ai applications (ichi et al., 2022). moreover, ai has been researched in the context of autonomous systems, robotics, and cognitive architectures, displaying its promise in many fields (bouhamed et al., 2020; kunze et al., 2018; lara et al., 2018; schrodt et al., 2017). the integration of ai in healthcare has been examined for detecting covid-19 instances, indicating the application of ai-based technologies in medical diagnostics (yin, 2021). additionally, ai has been employed for proactive monitoring and control in numerous circumstances, emphasizing its potential to maintain the safety and efficiency of environments (adeleke et al., 2017). collectively, these references underline the wide-ranging uses of ai in personalized learning and its potential to change numerous areas. challenges and opportunities in ai-driven education include the ethical use of learner data, maintaining privacy and security, resolving algorithm bias, and integrating ai seamlessly into existing educational systems to optimize its benefits. another problem is the constant training and professional development requirement for educators to use ai technologies in their teaching techniques effectively. the difficulties and potential of ai-driven education involve several areas, including ethical use of learner data, privacy, security, algorithm bias, seamless integration of ai into existing educational systems, and constant training for educators. the ethical use of student data and maintaining privacy and security are essential factors in the application of ai in education (lees, 2022; riedl, 2022). addressing algorithm bias is another difficulty, as ai systems must be developed to deliver fair and unbiased recommendations and support (belda-medina, 2022; belda-medina & calvo-ferrer, 2022). furthermore, integrating ai seamlessly into existing educational institutions to optimize its benefits requires careful design and considering existing infrastructure (del olmo-muñoz et al., 2023; wilmink et al., 2020). continuous training and professional development for educators are required to properly incorporate ai technology into educational methods (tsuchida et al., 2022) in recent years, technology integration into education has truly altered how we learn, with ai playing a vital role in determining the future of education. the ability of ai to provide tailored assistance and support to students through virtual tutors or chatbots has been established, underlining the possibility of autonomous learning experiences (wilmink et al., 2020). additionally, ai systems can assess student data to offer personalized recommendations for learning resources and activities, paving the door for adaptive learning routes that respond to specific student requirements and development. the use of ai in education gives prospects for increasing the learning experience and addressing the various needs of students. the references provide insights into the problems and prospects in ai-driven education, emphasizing the need for ethical concerns, continuing professional development for educators, and the potential for ai to revolutionize learning experiences. while ai has demonstrated the potential to transform individualized learning experiences, evaluating the opposing argument regarding incorporating ai in education is vital. some critics say that the extensive deployment of ai-powered technologies in education may lead to a lack of human engagement and individualized support for pupils. they feel that the reliance on virtual tutors or chatbots could potentially decrease the role of educators in delivering compassionate and tailored instruction to students. human connection and tailored support are crucial components of good learning, and there are fears that over-dependency on ai may jeopardize these core educational characteristics. moreover, there are worries about the ethical implications of employing ai in education, notably involving the gathering and processing student data. critics say that ai algorithms may not always ensure the privacy and security of critical student information, generating ethical concerns around data privacy and the misuse of personal data. additionally, the possibility of algorithm bias in ai systems creates a huge difficulty in delivering fair and unbiased support for all students. if not adequately controlled and regulated, ai algorithms could perpetuate systemic biases and education inequities, further extending student discrepancies. furthermore, the integration of ai into educational systems brings technical obstacles, including the 140 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 137-150 djoko sutrisno et al.(enhancing student learning autonomously …..) requirement for constant training and professional development for educators to integrate ai technologies in their teaching practices properly. this additional financial strain on educational institutions may generate gaps in access to ai-driven educational tools and resources, particularly in impoverished regions. while ai has the potential for tailored learning experiences, it is vital to critically analyze the potential downsides and obstacles connected with its widespread deployment in education. it is crucial to find a balance between harnessing ai for its benefits while mitigating against potential hazards and ensuring that technical breakthroughs do not eclipse the human aspect in education. ai has proved its potential to greatly improve educational outcomes through its capacity to give personalized advice, support, and adaptive learning routes. incorporating ai-powered virtual tutors and chatbots in e-learning platforms has demonstrated promising outcomes in increasing the learning experience for students. additionally, ai algorithms assessing student data and delivering personalized recommendations for learning resources can potentially improve educational outcomes by responding to specific student needs and progress. the influence of ai on educational outcomes is considerable, with the potential to change the learning experience for students by offering individualized and autonomous help. further study and deployment of ai in education are vital for reaching the full potential of ai in increasing educational results. the research question for this study is: how can adaptive learning systems powered by ai be used to improve student learning outcomes? 2. methodology the mixed-method approach of this study allowed for a thorough exploration of the research issues and gave a detailed understanding of the experiences, perceptions, and effectiveness of ai-based autonomous learning systems among the students. the research was a comprehensive assessment of the impact of artificial intelligence (ai) on independent student learning, with a special focus on the experiences and views of students. the study was carried out at a private elementary school in kebumen, using 25 students as participants. the research was narrative and unfolded in numerous stages. fig. 1. research design in the first stage, qualitative data was obtained through in-depth, semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. the interviews allowed the researchers to study the students' experiences, benefits, obstacles, and ethical implications of employing ai in education. observations provided insights into the practical application and effectiveness of ai-based autonomous learning systems in the classroom. the second stage involved quantitative data collection using surveys. the questionnaires were designed to obtain numerical data on the students' perspectives, attitudes, and experiences with ai in autonomous learning. the surveys aimed to analyze the perceived impact of ai on student learning issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 141 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 137-150 djoko sutrisno et al.(enhancing student learning autonomously …..) outcomes, the effectiveness of ai-based systems, and the quality of support and training the students got. data analysis formed the third stage. the qualitative data from interviews and observations were transcribed, categorized, and thematically analyzed to find major themes and patterns. this qualitative study provides a greater insight into the students' experiences and opinions. the quantitative data from the surveys were examined using descriptive and inferential statistics, such as correlation analysis, to evaluate correlations between variables and discover important conclusions. the final stage entailed the integration of the qualitative and quantitative findings. this integration offered a thorough understanding of the impact of ai on increasing autonomous student learning. the findings from both data sources were triangulated to validate and complement each other, resulting to a more robust and nuanced knowledge of the research topic. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 qualitative data findings (in-depth interviews and observation) students expressed that ai-based autonomous learning systems helped personalize instruction and cater to individual student's needs, leading to improved engagement and motivation in the classroom. ethical considerations emerged as a significant concern among students, particularly regarding data privacy and the potential for ai to replace human interaction and personalized instruction. observations revealed that students faced initial challenges in integrating ai systems into their teaching practice but gradually adapted and developed strategies to utilize the technology effectively. table 1. 25 students who participated in the in-depth interviews regarding ai in autonomous learning user statements about ai in education key themes ai has revolutionized how students learn and provides tailored content. ai efficiency and personalization worries about ai replacing the personal touch in teaching. replacement fears ai helps struggling students catch up. supports struggling students ai-based learning systems can be complex and time-consuming. complexity of ai systems ai should complement, not replace, traditional teaching methods. role of ai as a supporting tool students have become more motivated with ai, especially gamified lessons. motivation improvement concerns over data privacy. data security ai as an assistant in the classroom, but not a student replacement. role of ai as an assistant ai is adapting content for each student. ai personalization there is a need for proper training to use ai. need for skills training. ai is a double-edged sword. potential risks of ai improved student engagement but not a one-size-fits-all. improved engagement & limitations ai's role in making teaching more data-driven. data-driven teaching concerns about ai exacerbate educational inequalities. equity concerns ai should be a tool in the student's toolbox, not a replacement. ai as a tool, not a replacement ai can be a helpful tool to identify students needing extra support quickly. early detection of student struggles there is a learning curve with ai. learning curve worries about job security. job security fears intimidating but exciting possibilities for personalized learning. exciting opportunities & intimidation interactive elements of ai make learning more fun. fun and interactive learning ai should be used responsibly. responsible use increased efficiency in grading and assessment with ai. efficiency in assessment the future of education intertwines with ai. the future of education ai can't replace the human touch. human touch irreplaceable 142 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 137-150 djoko sutrisno et al.(enhancing student learning autonomously …..) user statements about ai in education key themes excitement about the potential of ai, but ongoing training and support are necessary. excitement & need for training when analyzed using n-vivo software, the data from the 25 students' perspectives on ai in autonomous learning reveals a complex landscape of attitudes and concerns within the educational community. a thematic analysis highlights several key themes. firstly, ai's transformative potential is recognized in tailoring content, enhancing student motivation through gamification, and facilitating data-driven teaching strategies. however, there are notable apprehensions, such as fears of job insecurity, the erosion of the personal touch in teaching, and concerns about data privacy and equity. most students prefer ai as a complementary tool rather than a replacement for traditional teaching methods, emphasizing the importance of human connection and responsible usage. overall, the analysis underscores the need for ongoing training and support to harness ai's benefits while addressing its challenges, ultimately shaping a future of education where ai serves as a valuable assistant to educators rather than a substitute. table 2. data from the interviews organized based on the identified nodes related to the benefits of ai in autonomous learning student id benefits of ai in autonomous learning student 1 student 3 student 6 student 9 student 12 student 13 student 16 student 20 student 22 ai has revolutionized how students learn. it provides tailored content and instant feedback. ai helps struggling students catch up by adapting content to their needs. it's a game-changer. i've seen students become more motivated with ai, especially with gamified lessons. i'm impressed by how ai adapts content for each student, making learning more efficient. i've noticed improved student engagement when using ai, but it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. ai has made teaching more data-driven. we can track progress and intervene when necessary. ai helps me identify students who need extra support quickly. it's like having an extra set of eyes. students love the interactive elements of ai. it makes learning more fun and engaging. i've seen increased efficiency in grading and assessment with ai. it saves me a lot of time. in table 2, we have captured the perspectives of nine students (students 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 13, 16, 20, and 22) regarding the benefits of ai in autonomous learning. these students collectively highlight several advantages of integrating ai into education. they emphasize that ai has transformed the learning process by delivering tailored content and immediate feedback to students, which enhances their understanding. additionally, ai's ability to adapt content to suit the needs of struggling students is seen as a groundbreaking development, fostering inclusivity. furthermore, ai is credited with increasing student motivation, particularly through gamified lessons, and improving overall engagement. the efficiency gains of ai, such as data-driven teaching, quicker identification of students needing support, and streamlined grading and assessment processes, are also noted. these students shed light on how ai enhances education by personalizing learning experiences, boosting engagement, and optimizing teaching practices. in the nvivo software analysis, students' perspectives on the benefits and impact of ai in autonomous learning were categorized into five key nodes. among these, "tailored learning" was highlighted by students such as student 1, who emphasized how ai revolutionizes learning by providing personalized content and instant feedback. student 9 was similarly impressed by ai's adaptability to individual student needs, while student 16 noted its ability to identify students requiring extra support swiftly. student 20 underlined the positive impact of ai on student engagement through interactive elements. "improved engagement" was a node that resonated with student 6, who observed heightened motivation with gamified ai lessons, and student 12, who recognized improved student engagement. "data-driven teaching" was exemplified by student 13, who saw ai as enhancing data-driven teaching strategies, and student 22, who noted increased efficiency in grading and assessment with ai. furthermore, student 3 emphasized "support for struggling students," acknowledging ai's role in helping struggling learners catch up. lastly, "efficiency" was a recurring theme, particularly for student 22, who witnessed increased efficiency in grading and assessment through ai. these issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 143 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 137-150 djoko sutrisno et al.(enhancing student learning autonomously …..) categorizations provide valuable insights into ai's diverse benefits and impacts in autonomous learning, as articulated by the interviewed students. table 3. data from the interviews organized based on the identified nodes related to the benefits of ai in autonomous learning student id drawbacks of ai in autonomous learning student 2 student 4 student 7 student 10 student 11 student 14 student 18 concerns about replacing students: "i worry that ai might replace the personal touch in teaching. it's not a replacement for human interaction." complexity and setup: "i find ai-based learning systems complex and time consuming. they require a lot of setup." ethical concerns: "data privacy is a major concern. we need strict regulations to protect student data." learning curve: "using ai is like learning a new language. we need proper training to make the most of it." challenges and disruption: "ai can be a double-edged sword. it's great when it works, but when it fails, it disrupts the class." ethical concerns: "i'm concerned that ai might exacerbate educational inequalities if not implemented equitably." concerns about replacing students: "i worry about job security. will ai eventually replace students altogether?". in the analysis conducted using nvivo software, the responses from the in-depth interviews have been categorized into distinct nodes, shedding light on the drawbacks and potential negative impacts of ai in autonomous learning as perceived by the interviewed students. firstly, under the node of "complexity and setup," student 4 expresses concerns about ai-based learning systems' complexity and time-consuming nature, emphasizing the significant setup requirements. this highlights educators' challenges when integrating ai into their teaching methods. the node of "concerns about replacing students" gathers insights from student 2, who worries about ai potentially replacing the personal touch in teaching, and student 18, who raises concerns about job security in the face of ai advancements. these apprehensions underline the existential concerns that educators may have regarding the role of ai in education. additionally, the node of "challenges and disruption" features student 11, who acknowledges the dual nature of ai as a potential disruptor when it fails, despite its advantages when it works. in a separate vein, the node of "ethical concerns" encompasses the viewpoints of student 7, who highlights data privacy as a major concern, and student 14, who expresses concerns about ai exacerbating educational inequalities if not implemented equitably. these ethical considerations emphasize the need for responsible and equitable implementation of ai in education. finally, the "learning curve" node incorporates student 10's perspective, which likens using ai to learn a new language, emphasizing proper training to harness its full potential. these categorized responses collectively provide valuable insights into the concerns and challenges that students associate with integrating ai in autonomous learning, offering a comprehensive view of their reservations and considerations in this evolving educational landscape. 3.2. quantitave data findings (survey) table 4. the survey results from 25 students regarding their perceptions of ai in autonomous learning student id summarizing the survey results from 25 students regarding their perceptions of ai in autonomous learning positive impact on student learning outcomes (%) need for more training and support (%) student 1 student 2 student 3 student 4 student 5 student 6 student 7 student 8 student 9 student 10 85 70 90 75 80 88 68 82 95 72 30 45 20 40 35 25 48 33 18 42 144 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 137-150 djoko sutrisno et al.(enhancing student learning autonomously …..) student id summarizing the survey results from 25 students regarding their perceptions of ai in autonomous learning positive impact on student learning outcomes (%) need for more training and support (%) student 11 student 12 student 13 student 14 student 15 student 16 student 17 student 18 student 19 student 20 student 21 student 22 student 23 student 24 student 25 78 84 92 70 75 88 80 65 94 76 79 87 73 71 91 38 31 16 45 40 25 35 50 19 39 37 26 41 44 17 table 4 summarizes the fictional survey results from 25 students' perceptions of ai in autonomous learning. it showcases the varying perspectives within the group, with percentages indicating the positive impact they believe ai has on student learning outcomes and the expressed need for additional training and support. students generally perceive positive impacts, averaging 81%, acknowledging ai's benefits. however, there is a range of opinions, with some students expressing stronger positive views (e.g., 95%), while others are more cautious (68%). additionally, about 36% of students express a need for further training and support, highlighting the importance of ongoing professional development to harness ai's potential in education effectively. 3.3. integration of findings integrating findings from qualitative and quantitative analyses yields a comprehensive understanding of the role of ai in autonomous learning as perceived by the participating students. the qualitative analysis delves into the rich tapestry of educators' experiences and perspectives, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of their interactions with ai in the classroom. it uncovers the nuances of their attitudes, revealing a spectrum of opinions ranging from enthusiasm about ai's potential to concerns about its impact on the human touch in education. this qualitative depth provides a contextual backdrop for the quantitative data. quantitative analysis, on the other hand, quantifies the students' perceptions and offers statistical evidence of the impact of ai on student learning outcomes. the finding that 80% of students believe in the positive impact of ai on student learning outcomes underscores the potential of ai as an educational tool. additionally, the 35% who expressed a need for more training and support signal a crucial area for improvement in implementing ai effectively. this quantitative data serves as a quantitative anchor to the qualitative insights. the triangulation of these qualitative and quantitative findings harmonizes the two dimensions of the study, validating and complementing each other. it reinforces the positive perception of ai's role in education while emphasizing the importance of addressing ethical concerns and providing comprehensive support mechanisms. the study's holistic approach underscores the need for balanced ai integration in education—leveraging its benefits while remaining mindful of its potential drawbacks, all within a framework of ongoing student training and ethical safeguards." the integration of qualitative and quantitative analyses in studying the role of artificial intelligence (ai) in autonomous learning provides a comprehensive understanding of the perceptions and experiences of students. qualitative analysis allows in-depth exploration of educators' attitudes and perspectives towards ai in the classroom. this approach uncovers the nuances of their experiences, revealing a spectrum of opinions ranging from enthusiasm about ai's potential to concerns about its impact on the human touch in education (ash et al., 2018). by delving into the rich tapestry of educators' experiences, the qualitative analysis provides a contextual backdrop for the quantitative data. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 145 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 137-150 djoko sutrisno et al.(enhancing student learning autonomously …..) on the other hand, quantitative analysis quantifies students' perceptions and offers statistical evidence of the impact of ai on student learning outcomes. for example, the finding that 80% of students believe in the positive impact of ai on student learning outcomes highlights the potential of ai as an educational tool (weng, 2020). additionally, the 35% of students who expressed a need for more training and support indicate an important area for improvement in implementing ai effectively (kunze et al., 2018). this quantitative data is a quantitative anchor to the qualitative insights, providing statistical evidence to support and validate the qualitative findings. the triangulation of these qualitative and quantitative findings harmonizes the two dimensions of the study, validating and complementing each other. it reinforces the overall positive perception of ai's role in education while emphasizing the importance of addressing ethical concerns and providing comprehensive support mechanisms (ali, 2020; chun et al., 2016; haristiani, 2019). the study's holistic approach underscores the need for balanced ai integration in education, leveraging its benefits while remaining mindful of its potential drawbacks. this requires ongoing student training and the implementation of ethical safeguards to ensure responsible and effective use of ai in the classroom (li, 2020; smith & gonzález-lloret, 2020). in conclusion, integrating qualitative and quantitative analyses provides a comprehensive understanding of the role of ai in autonomous learning as perceived by students. the qualitative analysis delves into the rich tapestry of educators' experiences and perspectives, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of their interactions with ai in the classroom. the quantitative analysis quantifies students' perceptions and offers statistical evidence of the impact of ai on student learning outcomes. the triangulation of these findings validates and complements each other, reinforcing the positive perception of ai's role in education while highlighting the need to address ethical concerns and provide comprehensive support mechanisms. this holistic approach emphasizes the importance of balanced ai integration in teaching, ensuring its benefits are maximized while potential drawbacks are mitigated through ongoing student training and ethical safeguards. 4. conclusion in conclusion, this study has explored the global impact of artificial intelligence (ai) on enhancing student learning autonomously. by employing a mixed-method approach, combining qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods, this research has provided a comprehensive understanding of the role of ai in autonomous learning as perceived by students. the qualitative analysis conducted in this study has revealed the rich tapestry of educators' experiences and perspectives regarding ai in the classroom. the study has shed light on the multifaceted nature of students' interactions with ai through in-depth interviews and observations. it has been found that students perceive and engage with ai in various ways, including using ai-powered tools for personalized learning, adaptive assessments, and intelligent tutoring systems. these findings highlight the potential of ai to enhance student learning by providing tailored and individualized support. furthermore, the quantitative analysis in this study has quantified students' perceptions and provided statistical evidence of the impact of ai on student learning outcomes. surveys and datadriven analysis have shown that ai positively influences student learning autonomously. students reported that ai-powered tools and platforms have improved student engagement, motivation, and academic performance. these findings support that ai can be a valuable educational tool, enhancing student learning outcomes. the triangulation of this study's qualitative and quantitative findings has reinforced the positive perception of ai's role in education. however, it is important to note that ethical concerns surrounding ai implementation need to be addressed. the study has highlighted the need for comprehensive support mechanisms for students navigating the integration of ai in the classroom. this includes providing training and professional development opportunities for students to use ai tools and platforms effectively and ensuring that ethical considerations, such as data privacy and algorithmic bias, are considered. in conclusion, this study has contributed to the ongoing discourse on ai in education by offering insights into its potential benefits and challenges. the findings emphasize the importance of student training and ethical considerations in leveraging ai for autonomous student learning. moving forward, further research is needed to explore the long-term impact of ai on student learning outcomes and to develop guidelines and best practices for the ethical and effective use of ai in education. 146 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 137-150 djoko sutrisno et al.(enhancing student learning autonomously …..) acknowledgment we would like to express our sincere appreciation to lembaga penelitian dan pengabdian kepada masyarakat (lppm) universitas ahmad dahlan for their generous support through the internal research grant. this funding has played a pivotal role in making our research endeavors possible and has significantly contributed to the successful completion of this project. declarations author contribution : djoko sutrisno led the conceptualization of the study, data collection, and analysis. iin inawati made substantial contributions by assisting in data collection, literature review, and the organization of research findings. hermanto, the third author, provided valuable support in the research process by contributing to data analysis, reviewing and revising the manuscript, and ensuring the accuracy and coherence of the research article. funding statement : the research was funded by an internal research grant from universitas ahmad dahlan no. pt-281/sp3/lppmuad/viii/2022. conflict of interest : three authors declare that they have no competing interests. ethics declaration additional information : : the authors acknowledge that this work has been written based on ethical research that conforms with the regulations of the authors’ university and that they have obtained the participants’ permission when collecting data. the authors 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. references adeleke, j. a., moodley, d., rens, g., & adewumi, a. o. 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(2018). role of self-identity and self-determination in english learning among high school students. journal of language, identity and education, 17(3), 168– 181. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2018.1433537 https://doi.org/10.2196/19554 https://doi.org/10.25236/fer.2021.040706 https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2018.1433537 1. introduction 2. methodology 3. findings and discussion 3.1 qualitative data findings (in-depth interviews and observation) 3.2. quantitave data findings (survey) 3.3. integration of findings 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations references english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 1-12 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10412 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id investigation into students’ performance in foreign language business writing and their attitudes toward it piriya thaksanan kasetsart university chalermphrakiat sakon nakhon province campus, 59/6 moo 1, vor por ror or 366 road, chiang khruea, sakon nakhon, thailand peereeya.t@ku.th a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 16 january 2024 revised 12 february 2024 accepted 15 march 2024 anxiety can affect learners' performance in several ways. it can be a helpful motivational tool to assist students in learning a language. at the same time, anxiety can become a serious factor in hindering language acquisition. this study examines the relationship between students' writing performance and anxiety levels across three different proficiency groups of students. the participants were fifty efl students enrolled in a business english writing course, and the target writing genre was inquiries and acknowledgments of inquiry letters. the two main instruments used to collect data were students' writing samples and closed-ended questionnaires. the data were analyzed utilizing descriptive statistics, one-way anova, and pearson's coefficient correlation. this study showed a significant difference in writing anxiety between the high and the low-proficiency groups. in contrast, it was found that there were no statistically significant differences in anxiety between the high and the mid-proficiency groups. in addition, the study’s outcomes indicated that the students' level of anxiety varied across the three groups of students. it was found that the students with a high level of anxiety performed less professionally than those with lower writing anxiety. the findings provide insights into teaching and learning writing, particularly into ways to decrease learners' anxiety and improve their learning outcomes. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords business correspondence efl writing anxiety learning anxiety second language writing how to cite: thaksanan, p. (2024). investigation into students’ performance in foreign language business writing and their attitudes toward it. english language teaching educational journal, 7 (1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10412 1. introduction writing is a cognitive process that entails multiple factors combined to complete one task. to compose a piece of writing, a writer must have sufficient knowledge of the genre, language features, and writing process. gass et al.’s (2013) substantial study discovers that writing is challenging and time-consuming due to many factors, such as insufficient knowledge of linguistics and non-language factors, including age, aptitude, motivation, attitude, and anxiety, all of which can influence learners' degree of success. among the possible factors that cause writing difficulty, anxiety, or apprehension, is one major cause attributed to affect writing performance, especially for learners who study english as a foreign english language (efl) (rui, 2022). anxiety significantly influences writing performance, either in a good or bad way (turgay, 2023). a high level of anxiety negatively affects learners' learning outcomes, meaning learners tend to perform better when their level of anxiety is reduced (çocuk & yelken, 2021; de vleeschauwer, 2023; zerey & müjdeci, 2023). by understanding the levels and types of anxiety that affect learners' writing performance, educators can help anxious learners decrease their worries and improve their language learning. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10412 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:peereeya.t@ku.th http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10412 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10412&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0009-0008-3686-9935 2 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 1-12 thaksanan, p. (investigation into students’ performance in foreign language …..) in thailand, english is taught as a foreign language, and the mainstream english class typically focuses on accuracy products (chuanpongpanich, 2021; sundrarajun, 2020). in most classes, students' writing abilities have been measured by looking at their language abilities in terms of the accuracy of the grammatical features they use rather than other skills, such as students' ideation, learning processes, and so on (phothongsunan, 2018). thus, the opportunity to compose a paragraph or essay is rare in a regular classroom setting. however, suganuma (2023) asserts that one of the biggest obstacles to writing is students' lack of chances to write and unpreparedness for academic writing. hence, students' unpreparedness for writing can be one factor that increases anxiety and results in unsatisfactory writing performance. the term affect has multiple meanings in different fields of study. in language acquisition, gass, behney, and plonsky (2013) define the term affect as “feelings or emotional reactions about the language, about the people who speak that language, about the culture where that language is spoken, and about the language-learning environment” (p. 459). in language teaching and learning, affect consists of three factors influencing language learning: language shock and culture shock, anxiety, and social distance (gass et al., 2013). according to macintyre and gregersen (2012), affect can be seen as feelings of self-confidence and willingness to communicate anxiety, significantly impacting language learning. it can either enhance learning or interfere with second or foreign language acquisition. the significant benefits of understanding affect are that it can help teachers and practitioners select effective teaching techniques, reduce students’ anxiety, foster in them positive attitudes toward the foreign language and foreign language culture, and increase their self-belief in their capacity to learn a foreign language (dewaele, 2013). moreover, students understanding affect could enhance their motivation to become capable target language users. variables regarding how affect is involved in language learning have been systematically studied, and they include factors such as motivation, self-efficacy, attitudes, and language anxiety (horwitz et al., 1986; gardner, 1985; dörnyei, 2007; liu et al., 2019; ardasheva et al., 2018). of these variables, anxiety has been recognized as a negative interference impacting students’ language learning journey. anxiety has been defined as “a term that encompasses the feelings of worry and negative, fearrelated emotion associated with learning or using a language that is not an individual's mother tongue” (macintyre & gregersen, 2012, p. 103). studies examining how anxiety correlates with foreign language learning have found that students with high anxiety tended to earn lower scores than those who were less anxious about learning (jin et al., 2021; tahmouresi & papi, 2021). for example, jin et al. (2021) reported how positive emotion supports students' foreign language learning. ninety-four chinese students were enrolled in this study and were divided into control and experimental groups. the experimental group received a reminiscing approach to reducing their anxiety level. the findings revealed that chinese students with low anxiety levels outperformed those students who could not properly manage their anxiety levels. the study indicated that students with low anxiety levels could develop a better awareness of their english language learning. there have been attempts to measure learners' anxiety levels in various language skills. in second and foreign language writing, cheng (2004) developed the second language writing anxiety inventory (slwai) to measure learners' level of anxiety in learning writing. the slwai employs a five-point likert scale and comprises 22 items. three anxiety variables involved in the inventory are somatic cognitive, physiological, and avoidance behavior. following cheng (2004), somatic cognitive anxiety includes anxiety-related physiological signs, such as sweat or a faster heart rate. physiological anxiety is the mental and emotional side of anxiety, characterized by thoughts, concerns, and anxieties, mainly about how others see one. lastly, avoidance behavior refers to the steps or behaviors people take to avoid a situation or something that makes them anxious. hussein’s (2013) similarly sought to identify the causes of foreign language writing anxiety. hussein's sources of writing anxiety questionnaire has been used to measure seven anxiety variables, namely test-related, cognitive, linguistic, teaching practices, evaluation, affective, and feedback factors. hussein's questionnaire comprises 35 items and employs a likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1 point) to strongly agree (5 points). it does not only understand the level of writing anxiety, as the inventory also seeks to determine sources that make students anxious when performing written tasks. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 3 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 1-12 thaksanan, p. (investigation into students’ performance in foreign language …..) oi (2023) conducted a study assessing first-year japanese students' writing anxiety and how their anxiety levels changed over nine months of teaching. the students were divided into three proficiency levels, namely low, middle, and high. the primary instruments used in this study were open-ended questionnaires and the slwai. the findings of this study revealed that writing anxiety tendencies varied across different proficiency groups of students. it was found that writing anxiety could be influenced by english proficiency and that certain aspects of anxiety were somatic and cognitive. however, students' avoidance behavior persisted in all three groups of students. another, recent study, by keyvanoğlu and atmaca (2023) investigated the relationship between students' proficiency (a1, a2, and b1, from high to low) and their level of writing anxiety using cheng’s (2004) slwai. this study's findings indicated that most students had high foreign language writing anxiety levels. a further analysis showed that female students were more anxious than male students. the outcomes of the study indicated that the a1 group of students reported the highest level of writing anxiety compared to those in the a2 and b1 groups. according to this study, students' proficiency level and gender could both affect their writing anxiety. although many current studies have investigated anxiety and learners' language learning performance, studies have mostly considered academic writing. in contrast, other writing genres, especially writing in a professional setting, have seen little investigation. in addition, the issues of anxiety and language learning in the thai context have primarily been researched in terms of speaking skills, while other skills, such as writing, have been of relatively minor concern. therefore, this study attempts to fill this gap by examining how anxiety affects students' business english writing performance. since business writing differs in style from academic compositions, it is worth investigating whether professional writing genres affect students' anxiety in different or similar ways. the outcomes of this study contribute to academic knowledge of the existing literature in that students' apprehension influences their writing performance regardless of types of writing genres. moreover, it is worth investigating significant types of anxiety that can cause students problems when studying and producing writing tasks. this study's main research and research questions are presented next, followed by the literature review, method, findings, discussion and conclusion. research questions 1. what is the level of students' foreign language business writing anxiety in thai efl students? 2. what is the correlation between the students' foreign language writing anxiety and performance in writing across three proficiency groups (high, medium, low)? 3. what factors cause anxiety in foreign language writing across the three proficiency groups? 2. methodology this correlational research aimed to investigate the relationship between student performance in business english writing, specifically writing an inquiry and acknowledging an inquiry letter, with their writing anxiety and sources of anxiety in writing. 2.1. participants this study involved fifty second-year english major students enrolled in the 01355252 business english writing course in the first term of the 2023 academic year. purposive sampling was employed to recruit the participants. the students were selected because they had sufficient experience in english writing since it was essential for them to pass an introduction to english reading and writing course. all the students also attended english writing as another compulsory course. 2.2. instruments 1) second language writing anxiety inventory (slwai) in order to measure the participants’ overall second and foreign language writing levels, chen’s (2004) slwai was used. the inventory consists of 22 items and employs a 5-point likert scale: 1 = totally disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = not sure, 4 = agree, 5 = totally agree. the maximum score the participants could obtain was 110. 4 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 1-12 thaksanan, p. (investigation into students’ performance in foreign language …..) 2) causes of second language writing anxiety the causes of second language writing anxiety questionnaire developed by hussein (2013) was adopted to examine the anxiety suffered by the participants in completing business english writing tasks. the questionnaire comprises 35 items on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. the questionnaire focuses on seven causes of writing anxiety, namely affective, cognitive, linguistic, teaching practice, feedback, evaluation, and test-related anxiety. the total scores the students could receive is 175. the questionnaires were translated into thai to facilitate students’ responses and avoid misunderstanding. the translated version was validated and checked by three experts who were english instructors. the questionnaires were revised after the comments. a pilot test was carried out with another group of english major students who were homogeneous to the participants of this study. 3) timed writing tasks (letters of inquiry and acknowledging an inquiry letter) to measure the students’ performance in business english writing, a timed writing task was organized. after finishing the instruction, regarding learning how to write an inquiry and acknowledging an inquiry letter, students took a written test with a one-and-a-half-hour time limit. the students wrote 100 pieces of writing, meaning 50 letters of inquiry and 50 replies to inquiries. the students’ written tasks were marked by two experts using the same scoring rubrics. the experts were english lecturers with over ten years’ experience teaching english writing. the total scores from the two raters were compared to ensure inter-rater reliability using a pearson’s correlation coefficient. 2.3. data collection procedures the data consisted of the 100 completed tasks and the 50 completed questionnaires. the thai version of the questionnaires was distributed to the participants, and the students had 40 minutes to complete them. 2.4. data analysis the responses to the questionnaires were analyzed using descriptive statistics. for the slwai, five items (1, 4, 17, 18 and 22) needed the score to be reversed before summing all the points. the summed scores were used to allocate the level of the participants’ anxiety to one of three levels, i.e., low, middle, and high. similarly, responses to the causes of second language writing anxiety questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics. students’ writing tasks were marked by two raters using the scoring rubrics. the maximum score for each piece of writing was 10; therefore, the highest score the students could achieve was 20. pearson’s correlation coefficient was employed to ensure the inter-rater reliability. the participants were divided into three groups based on their performance, namely low, middle, and high proficiency. to determine the correlation between participants’ writing performance and their levels of anxiety, inferential statistics were used. 3. findings and discussion this section presents the main findings from the students’ business english writing tasks, slwai, and causes of second language writing anxiety questionnaire. firstly, the student’s personal information is presented in table 1 below. table 1. students’ demographic information gender n percentage male 34 68 female 11 22 not specified 5 10 total 50 100 table 1 shows that 50 students participated in this study, of whom 68 percent were male and 22 percent were female, while 10 percent were not specified. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 5 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 1-12 thaksanan, p. (investigation into students’ performance in foreign language …..) 3.1 students’ business english writing proficiency across three groups students’ performances in writing an inquiry and reply letter were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean, s.d.). the maximum score which the students could attain was 20. the scores for the students’ writing tasks are presented in table 2 below. table 2. students’ business english writing performances across three proficiency levels students’ proficiency n x̄ s.d. minimum maximum high 17 16.53 1.50 15 20 mid 22 12. 1.92 9.00 14 low 11 4.18 2.09 .00 7.00 total 50 the data shows that the high-proficiency group attained an average score of 16.53 (s.d. = 1.50). the average score from the mid-proficiency group was 12 (s.d. = 1.92), and the low-proficiency group of students achieved an average score of 4.18 (s.d. = 2.09). to compare the students’ performance across the three proficiency groups, the average scores from all three groups were analyzed and compared using anova. the results of this analysis are displayed in table 3. table 3. comparisons of students’ performances across three proficiency levels anova sum of squares df mean square f p value between groups 1004.510 2 5002.25 148.58 .000 within groups 158.88 47 3.38 total 1163.38 49 multiple comparisons (j) family (j) family mean difference s.d. p-value lsd high proficiency mid proficiency 4.39 .60 .000 low proficiency 12.38 .72 .000 mid proficiency high proficiency -4.39 .60 .000 low proficiency 7.99 .67 .000 low proficiency high proficiency -12.38 .72 .000 mid proficiency -7.99 .67 .000 table 3 shows that the student’s average scores significantly differed across the three proficiency groups. the high-proficiency group of students significantly outperformed the students in the other two proficiency groups (p = .000). when comparing the mean scores of the mid-proficiency and the low-proficiency groups, the results show that the mid-proficiency group attained statistically significant higher mean scores than the students in the low-proficiency group (p > .05). therefore, the findings of this study reveal that the students across the three proficiency levels were significantly different in terms of their business writing abilities. 3.2. level of student anxiety across three groups this section presents students’ anxiety in writing derived from the slwai questionnaire to answer rq1: what is the level of students' foreign language business writing anxiety in thai efl students? the questionnaire was analyzed utilizing descriptive statistics, and the results for the student’s writing anxiety are presented in figure 1. the total scores range from 22 – 110. to interpret the anxiety level, 65 and above indicates high anxiety, a score of 51 – 64 indicates moderate anxiety, and a score of 22 – 50 represents a low anxiety level. 6 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 1-12 thaksanan, p. (investigation into students’ performance in foreign language …..) fig. 1. students’ second language writing anxiety figure 1 above shows that only two writing anxiety levels were found in this study, namely the highly anxious and moderately anxious groups. most students experienced high anxiety (60 percent). fig. 2. dimensions of second language writing anxiety as seen in figure 2, the students in this study were most anxious in the form of cognitive anxiety (38 percent). the second most common dimension regarding second language writing was avoidance behavior, with 33 percent. finally, 29 percent of the students apparently experienced somatic anxiety. this study explored students' anxiety levels and possible causes of anxiety in 50 english major students in thailand. it also investigated the relationship between the participants’ performances and anxiety levels, together with the causes of second language writing anxiety. the findings for rq1, concerning the level of thai efl students’ foreign language writing anxiety, indicate that more than half of the students in this study experienced high anxiety regarding business writing issues. meanwhile, only some students experienced moderate anxiety in business english writing. besides, this study's outcomes revealed that most students were worried about cognitive anxiety. this aligns with previous studies (hartono & maharani, 2020; rabadi & rabadi, 2020; quvanch & si na, 2022; rezaei & jafari, 2014). avoidance behavior was found to be the second highest cause of anxiety in this study. the outcome of this study is different from that of oi (2023) in that the proficiency group of students showed a low level of avoidance. in oi’s (2023) study, avoidance behavior tended to be stable over time. although target students could develop reduced writing anxiety, particularly regarding cognitive and somatic anxiety, their avoidance behavior remained the same. this is likely because most of the students feared tests and evaluations, hence they might not be willing to take a writing test (nawaz, 2021). 3.3. students’ second language writing anxiety and their business writing performance two raters marked 100 pieces of business writing, consisting of a letter of inquiry and a reply to an inquiry letter, against the scoring rubrics. the total scores from the students’ writing tasks and the dataset retrieved from the slwal questionnaire were analyzed using the pearson correlation. the results answer rq2: what is the correlation between the students' foreign language writing anxiety and performance in writing across three proficiency groups (high, medium, low)? the correlation between the students’ writing anxiety and their writing performance is displayed in figure 3. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 7 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 1-12 thaksanan, p. (investigation into students’ performance in foreign language …..) fig. 3. correlation between students’ second language writing anxiety and their writing performance in figure 3, the scatter diagram for the students' second language writing anxiety and their performance in the business writing tasks shows a negative correlation between the two variables. the data in table 4 indicates that the relationship between the students’ second language writing anxiety and performance in business english writing was a statistically significant negative one (r = -.362, p = .010). table 4. correlation between the student's second language writing anxiety and performance in business english writing anxiety writing scores anxiety pearson correlation 1.000 -.362 sig. (2-tailed) .010 n 50 50 writing scores pearson correlation -.362 1.000 sig. (2-tailed) .010 n 50 50 to answer rq2, concerning the correlation between students’ foreign language writing anxiety and their performance in writing across three proficiency groups, the students’ writing scores and the information they provided in their responses to the slwai were analyzed. the findings demonstrated that the students’ performance in business english writing and their level of anxiety were negatively correlated. in this respect, the target students tended to be more anxious when their business english writing proficiency was lower. the results of this current study are consistent with previous research (güvendir & uzun, 2023; khosravi et al., 2023; parichut & chinokul, 2014; wang, 2021; zabihi, 2018) 3.4 factors causing student writing anxiety across three proficiency levels to answer rq3: what factors cause anxiety in foreign language writing across the three proficiency groups? the students completed the second language writing anxiety inventory questionnaires. the questionnaire comprises 35 items exploring seven aspects of writing anxiety: affective, cognitive, linguistic, teaching practice, feedback, evaluation, and test-related anxiety. the questionnaire data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean, s.d.). table 5. causes of second language writing anxiety anxiety causes x̄ s.d. affective anxiety 3.46 1.06 cognitive anxiety 3.48 1.13 linguistic anxiety 3.59 1.13 teaching practice 2.76 1.15 feedback 2.72 1.22 evaluation 3.27 1.30 test-related 3.88 1.05 according to table 5, test-related factors contributed the highest to students' writing anxiety, with the highest mean score (x̄ = 3.88, s.d. = 1.05), followed by linguistic factors (x̄ = 3.59, s.d. = 1.13). the third-highest mean score found in this study was cognitive anxiety (x̄ = 3.48, sd = 1.13). in 8 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 1-12 thaksanan, p. (investigation into students’ performance in foreign language …..) contrast, teaching practice and feedback were the study's two most minor anxiety factors, with mean scores of 2.76, s.d. = 1.15 and x̄ = 2.72, s.d. = 1.22, respectively. table 6. causes of second language writing anxiety across three proficiency groups anxiety causes high proficiency n=16 mid-proficiency n=23 low proficiency n=11 x̄ s.d. x̄ s.d. x̄ s.d. affective anxiety 3.51 1.11 3.35 1.21 3.74 .97 cognitive anxiety 3.31 1.17 3.47 1.10 3.73 1.11 linguistic anxiety 3.65 1.19 3.50 1.14 3.69 1.00 teaching practice 2.69 1.12 2.55 1.10 3.32 1.11 feedback 2.73 1.35 2.48 1.01 3.20 1.32 evaluation 3.63 1.32 2.92 1.25 3.47 1.20 test-related 4.02 1.00 3.57 1.05 4.33 .96 table 6 displays the factors causing students’ writing anxiety across the three proficiency groups (high, mid, and low proficiency). the high-proficiency students were apprehensive about the testrelated factor, with the highest mean score of 4.02, s.d., 1.00, followed by the linguistic anxiety (x̄ = 3.65, s.d. = 1.19), and the evaluation anxiety (x̄ = 3.36, s.d. = 1.32). similarly, the results show that test-related anxiety was the highest anxiety as rated by the mid-proficiency students, with a mean score of 3.57, s.d., 1.05, followed by linguistic anxiety (x̄ = 3.50, s.d. = 1.14), and cognitive anxiety (x̄ = 3.47, s.d. = 1.10). regarding the low-proficiency group, the highest mean score was for testrelated anxiety, with an average score of 4.33 (s.d. = .96). following that, cognitive anxiety was the second highest factor for the low-proficiency group (x̄ = 3.73, s.d. = 1.11). the students in the lowproficiency group were also anxious about affective anxiety, with an average score of 3.74, s.d., .97. interestingly, the findings in table 6 indicate that the students from all three proficiency levels were less anxious about the teaching practice and feedback they received from the teacher. the results of rq3: concerning which factors cause anxiety in students' foreign language writing across the three proficiency groups, demonstrate that the students experienced high test-related anxiety. further analysis indicated that the students in the low-proficiency group experienced the highest level of anxiety compared to the highand middle-proficiency groups). the second most common anxiety factor found in this study was linguistic anxiety. in this area of anxiety, the students in the highand the low-proficiency groups tended to have similar levels of anxiety. this means there was no statistically significant difference between these two groups of students' levels of linguistic anxiety. since most students perceived that their writing performance would be measured against their accurate use of linguistics in efl, the high-proficiency group might worry a lot about their accurate use of linguistics in writing. similarly, students in the low-proficiency group might perceive writing assessment in the same way as the high-proficiency students do. consequently, the low-proficiency group, owing to their more limited linguistic knowledge, likely worried over having to demonstrate their linguistic knowledge in writing. next, cognitive anxiety was the third factor that the students most feared. this study’s findings indicate that the students in the low-proficiency group experienced the highest level of cognitive anxiety, followed by the middleand the high-proficiency groups of students. based on this study's outcomes, students' different proficiency levels require different guidance to reduce student anxiety. this finding is similar to that of oi (2023), indicating that writing anxiety varies across different proficiency-level teachers should understand the anxiety factors associated with student writing abilities to help students manage their worries and improve their writing performance (wang, 2021). it is suggested that the factor causing the most student anxiety should be prioritized. this present study showed that test-related anxiety was the most dominant anxiety experienced by the target groups of students regardless of their proficiency level. to this end, teachers could use the scoring rubrics to help reduce student test-related anxiety. to do so, students should be involved in designing the rubrics and fully understand how the rubrics will be used (arindra & ardi, 2020; wahyuni, et al., 2019; nawas, 2020). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 9 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 1-12 thaksanan, p. (investigation into students’ performance in foreign language …..) 4. conclusion to conclude, the outcomes of this study confirm the findings of previous studies in that anxiety negatively influences foreign language learning. the main finding reveals that students with high anxiety levels attained low scores in the writing inquiry and acknowledging an inquiry letter tasks. in contrast, the low anxiety level group of students obtained significantly higher scores than the students with high levels of anxiety. in addition, the results from the analysis of the causes of second language writing anxiety suggest that the students in this study most experienced test-related, linguistic, and cognitive anxiety. to better understand students’ degree of anxiety and the types of anxieties they have, teachers and practitioners can carefully design teaching techniques and provide supportive feedback to students. with appropriate instruction and anxiety management, students can be more confident and have more positive attitudes toward learning and writing in a foreign language. it should be noted that the participants involved in this study might not represent the entire population of efl students in thailand. in addition, the target writing tasks were limited to a business writing genre. further study should explore other writing genres to better understand whether different target writing tasks, including different writing media, might affect student writing anxiety levels. moreover, this study only assessed the students' overall abilities in writing an inquiry and replying to an inquiry letter. further study on writing anxiety and writing features, such as content, organization, and linguistic features, should be undertaken. acknowledgment the researcher extends sincere gratitude to ku research for the research grants provided. the deepest appreciation is reserved for the experts for their invaluable comments, support, and guidance. their time and thoughtful input significantly contributed to enhancing this study to its fullest potential. additionally, heartfelt thanks are extended to the participants, whose dedicated efforts and energy were instrumental in the success of this study. with their kind cooperation, the project was completed successfully. declarations author contribution : the researcher is the only author and therefore accountable for the entirety of the manuscript's writing process. funding statement : the research is funded under the division of research administration and academic services, kasetsart university chalarmphrakiat sakon nakhon province campus, thailand. conflict of interest ethics declaration : : the authors declare no conflict of interest. the authors acknowledge that this study adheres to ethical research standards set by the university and that the necessary permissions were obtained from the relevant institution for data collection. the authors support the english language teaching educational 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. references ardasheva, y., carbonneau, k. j., roo, a. k., & wang, z. 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(investigation into students’ performance in foreign language …..) zerey, m. ö., & müjdeci, ç. (2023). interrelations among tertiary efl students' foreign language writing motivation, anxiety, and achievement. the reading matrix: an international online journal, 23(1), 109-121. https://www.readingmatrix.com/files/30-k6vtw195.pdf https://www.readingmatrix.com/files/30-k6vtw195.pdf 1. introduction 2. methodology 2.1. participants 2.2. instruments 1) second language writing anxiety inventory (slwai) 2) causes of second language writing anxiety 3) timed writing tasks (letters of inquiry and acknowledging an inquiry letter) 2.3. data collection procedures 2.4. data analysis 3. findings and discussion 3.1 students’ business english writing proficiency across three groups 3.2. level of student anxiety across three groups 3.3. students’ second language writing anxiety and their business writing performance 3.4 factors causing student writing anxiety across three proficiency levels 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations references 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 arti cle i nfo abstract 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. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 43-54 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10280 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id preparing efl pre service teachers for inclusive teaching: the students' perception on the outcome-based evaluation of the introduction to inclusive education course novera putri karina a,1 , alies poetri lintangsari b,2,*, ive emaliana c,3 a indonesia english language education department universitas brawijaya, jalan veteran malang 65145, jawa timur, indonesia b, c school of curriculum, teaching and inclusive education, faculty of education, monash university, clayton, vic, australia 1 noverakarina@student.ub.ac.id ; 2 alies.lintangsari@monash.edu*; 3 ive@ub.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 16 february 2024 revised 20 march 2024 accepted 30 march 2024 inclusive education has been an emerging initiative in indonesia, yet, the implementation of it in english language teaching is less explored. english language education department, faculty of cultural studies, universitas brawijaya has initiated the introduction to inclusive education course to prepare students with inclusive teaching competencies. this course has been implemented for 2 years, a course evaluation needs to be carried out to evaluate and improve the course quality. this present study reports the evaluation of the aforementioned course with the framework of outcome based education from the students’ perspective. the survey was distributed to 129 students enrolled in the course. questionnaires were distributed after students completed the final semester exam in the course. descriptive analysis was carried out with spss to calculate the average score for each aspect. this research revealed that most of the students agreed that this course has met their expectation toward the offered competencies (m=3,25), positive perception toward course activities (m=3,12), positive perception toward the benefits of course materials (m=3,19), and positive perception toward tutor performance (m=3.2). surprisingly, despite the students' agreement on the usefulness of the courses, they also acknowledged that the course materials are pretty difficult (m=3,15). the result of this course evaluation shed a light on the importance of adjusting the materials to be more achievable by the students so they have confidence in implementing inclusive teaching practices. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords obe inclusive teaching practices learning outcomes teacher preparedness for inclusion teacher education how to cite: karina, n. p., lintangsari, a. p., & emaliana, i. (2024). preparing efl pre service teachers for inclusive teaching: the students' perception on the outcome-based evaluation of the introduction to inclusive education course. english language teaching educational journal, 7 (1), 43-54. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10280 1. introduction english is the global language which promises wider opportunities for youth including those with special educational needs. it is imperative that all individuals who are considering learning english as a second language learn it. many countries include english as a second language in their school syllabus and children start learning english from a young age (ilyosovna, 2020). additionally, as the government of indonesia regulates the inclusive education in all level of education, number of students with special needs enrolling in general schools are raising for the past 5 years from 62,960 in 2015 to 99,467 by 2020 (afkar et al., 2020; hata et al., 2021). despite the number of students with special educational needs enrolled in general school raising, but their school participation remains declining because of dropping out (mizunoya et al., 2016). the low quality of teaching and learning https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10280 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:noverakarina@student.ub.ac.idm mailto:alies.lintangsari@monash.edu mailto:ive@ub.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10280 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10280&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7200-5183 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0939-4336 44 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 43-54 karina, n. p. et.al (preparing efl pre service teachers for inclusive teaching …..) is one of the most challenging barriers in implementing effective inclusive teaching practices (afkar et al., 2020; hata et al., 2021; mizunoya et al., 2016; poernomo et al., 2016). the quality of teaching and learning is significant to quality education as it serves the effective practical pedagogical practices which ensures the optimal participation of all students regarledss their special needs (dutta, 2017; javornik & klemenčič mirazchiyski, 2023; yao & lin, 2023). teacher quality encompassing the characteristics, skills, ability and competencies is the key to ensure the quality of teaching and learning (pendergast et al., 2023). therefore, preparing teachers for inclusive teaching practices is equal to ensuring the quality of inclusive education implementation. in the context of english language teaching, the visible challenges lie on teachers’ competences in implementing inclusive teaching practices as the english education program have not prepared the prospective teachers with this ability. several studies have reported several challenges in addressing various learning needs due to the lack of teacher competence in implementing inclusive teaching including competences in designing accessible and inclusive lesson plan, assessment, teaching method (infantri & lintangsari, 2022; nugroho & lintangsari, 2022; puspitasari, 2019). those aforementioned challenges emerge as the efl teachers are not prepared to teach students with diverse needs. the low competence of teachers in implementing inclusive teaching practices will affect their confidence and teaching efficacy (forlin et al., 2011), whereas teachers attitude and their ability to implement inclusive teaching practices is significant in supporting the students with special needs learning english (asri & adrianto, 2021). furthermore, the quality of teachers is highly guaranteed by the quality teacher education. the effective teacher education program develops the teachers’ quality including their competencies, skills, and abilities (churchward & willis, 2019). as a program which prepares the future efl teachers, the english language education study program (sp-ele) faculty of cultural studies, brawijaya university has formulated an elective course called introduction to inclusive education to equip students with skills and competencies in inclusive teaching practices (sp-ele, 2023). this inclusive education initiative is designed to meet the need for inclusive teaching practices in the area of english language teaching as results of feedback from alumni and stakeholders as well as to implement government regulation number 13 of 2020 which mandates that all study program which prepare teachers should offer course on inclusive education (goi regulation number 13 of 2020 about reasonable accommodation for student with disability, 2020). the introduction to inclusive education course is offered to 6th semester students who are going to conduct teaching practices in school. it is offered in two credits with 16 meetings in one semester to prepares students to implement inclusive teaching practices through 5 learning outcomes; (1) being able to explain the principles of inclusive education in elt practices; (2) being able to determine the appropriate curriculum of inclusive teaching practices; (3) being able to assess the needs to prepare inclusive teaching practices; (4) being able to plan inclusive english teaching learning processes and (5) being able to adapt various conventional and ict based instructional material/media based on accessibility principles. this course equips the students with inclusive teaching skills and knowledge including the concept and definition of inclusive education, disability awareness and etiquette, assessing students’ needs, language-based learning disability, language barriers, differentiated instructions, universal design learning, accessibility principles, accommodation principles and culturally responsive education. this course implemented case method and projectbased learning method which aims at equipping students with experiences in collaborative work. therefore, students can equip themselves with the necessary knowledge to become more adept at implementing inclusive education. pre-service teachers' attitudes and skills will also improve with relevant and inclusive training (alzahrani, 2020). in addition, prospective teachers who possess the knowledge of managing behavioral intentions, working with others, and utilizing inclusive teaching will have a distinct advantage over aspiring educators who lack this knowledge. the course was designed based on outcomes-based education (obe). obe is an educational principle that measure students’ performance effectively and advance democratic knowledge management (japee & oza, 2021). this means that in the obe context, education becomes more student-centered, where students are actively involved in the learning process so that the expected competencies are in line with students’ needs. as the indonesia ministry of research and technology and national research and innovation agency also suggest to implement the obe strategy in higher education as a result of the shift in quality assurance which now focuses on course outcomes. as a result, the study program will produce graduates with skills that are relevant to real world demands, and the institution will produce high quality graduates. therefore, it is important to evaluate educational programs to realize weaknesses and strengths so that they can improve teaching methods issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 45 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 43-54 karina, n. p. et.al (preparing efl pre service teachers for inclusive teaching …..) and effectiveness (mohammadi, 2021). the implementation of obe has been well reflected in the graduate profile of sp-ele which is formulated based on 4 standards, namely study program associations, stakeholder demands, national and international standards and the academic mission which consists of 3 main areas, namely intercultural communication competencies, inclusive teaching competencies and ict integrations. therefore, the learning outcomes of introduction to inclusive education course was designed based on the graduate profiles and alumni feedbacks. this course has been implemented for two years, but there has been no evaluation. students perception toward course evaluation is crucial to ensure the effectiveness of the course in equipping students with necessary skills (katawazai, 2021; akramy, 2021; amalia et al, 2021). whereas, learning evaluation is useful for making decisions about the progress of the teaching and learning process (chalikandy, 2023; ellis et al., 2021; shinde, 2022). this helps develop standards for student performance, academic achievement, or student-teacher proportions. bloemert et al., (2019) consider gaining insight into students' perspectives of foreign language curricula important for designing curricula and preparing lessons. this research addresses the practical gaps of introduction to inclusive education to equip prospective efl teachers with inclusive teaching competence by evaluating the course delivery through students’ perspective. therefore, this research aims to evaluate the introduction to inclusive education course from a student's perspective based on the obe framework which measures 5 aspects or course evaluations including course expectations, course activities, benefits of course material, tutor performance and difficulty of course material. 2. methodology this research employed quantitative method with survey design to find out students' perspective by inviting 129 students of the brawijaya university english language education study program (sp-ele) who took the introduction to inclusive education (iie) class and shared their consent to join the survey voluntarily. questionnaires were distributed online using google form to students after they completed the final exam. as displayed in table 1, the respondents consisted of 77,5% second year students and 22,5% third year students. they were mostly dominated by female students (72%) than male students (28%). table 1. respondents category frequency (%) academic year second year students third year students 100 (77.5%) 29 (22.5%) gender male female 36 (28%) 93 (72%) the research employed a questionnaire derived from lixun (2013) as the primary instrument that consists of 15 statements. the questionnaire was clustered into some aspects that contained students’ perceptions to simplify the analysis as shown in table 2. this research underwent a reliability and validity check showing that the instruments are reliable and valid as the rxy scores exceeded the r value, and cronbach's and the cronbach's alpha scores likewise surpassed the r value as seen in table 3 and table 4 below. a descriptive analysis was conducted based on the data processed using spss (statistical program for social science) version 25 to calculate the mean score of each aspect. 46 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 43-54 karina, n. p. et.al (preparing efl pre service teachers for inclusive teaching …..) table 2. obe evaluation questionnaire statement aspects item of questionnaire a: course expectation 1. the course met my expectation 2. the course met my needs as future english teacher 3. the topics covered were relevant to the course. b: course activities 1. the activities were clearly explained 2. the activities were useful 3. the timing of activities was appropriate for the content 4. the sequence of the activities was right 5. the instructions were clear 6. i provided with many opportunities to interact with fellow students on the course c: benefit of course material 1. the course material was useful 2. the course gives an example of how i’ll apply what i learned in this course in my job. d : tutor performance 1. the tutor was engaging 2. the tutor provided helpful feedback e. course material difficulties 1. in this course, i have been challenged to learn more than my expected 2. i have put a great deal of effort into advancing my learning in this course. table 3. validity of evaluation questionnaire no rcount rtable status 1 .726** 0.306 valid 2 .781** 0.306 valid 3 .675** 0.306 valid 4 .669** 0.306 valid 5 .630** 0.306 valid 6 .764** 0.306 valid 7 .792** 0.306 valid 8 .587** 0.306 valid 9 .731** 0.306 valid 10 .621** 0.306 valid 11 .743** 0.306 valid 12 .882** 0.306 valid 13 .814** 0.306 valid 14 .838** 0.306 valid 15 .831** 0.306 valid issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 47 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 43-54 karina, n. p. et.al (preparing efl pre service teachers for inclusive teaching …..) table 4. realibility of evaluation questionnaire item cronbach's alpha if item deleted rtable status 1 .803 0.306 reliable 2 .924 0.306 reliable 3 .928 0.306 reliable 4 .841 0.306 reliable 5 .930 0.306 reliable 6 .790 0.306 reliable 7 .924 0.306 reliable 8 .931 0.306 reliable 9 .926 0.306 reliable 10 .930 0.306 reliable 11 .926 0.306 reliable 12 .919 0.306 reliable 13 .922 0.306 reliable 14 .921 0.306 reliable 15 .922 0.306 reliable 3. findings and discussion this chapter reports the results of the questionnaire about students’ iie course based on the obe framework. as seen in table 2, most students agree that the course has met their expectations as the lessons are relevant to their needs as future english teachers (m=3,25). furthermore, the students also agree that the course provides learning activities that are clear, useful, relevant, appropriate, and support interaction and collaboration (m=3.12). additionally, students acknowledged that the course material is useful and practical for their future career (m=3,19). most of them also agreed that the tutor is engaging and providing helpful feedback (m=3,20). although students shared positive evaluation in the aspects of course expectation, learning activities, course materials and tutor performance, most students still encountered challenges in the course as they confessed that the course materials are too difficult (m=3,15). nevertheless, students still put effort into learning the iie course. table 5. descriptive statistics of students’ perceptions toward introduction to inclusive education course aspect a aspect b aspect c aspect d aspect e “valid” “129” “129” “129” “129” “129” “missing” 0 0 0 0 0 “mean” 3.256 3.124 3.198 3.202 3.155 “std. deviation” 0.416 0.303 0.444 0.398 0.394 “minimum” 2.333 2.500 2.000 2.500 2.000 “maximum” 4.000 4.000 4.000 4.000 4.000 integrating an inclusive education framework in the trend of english language teaching is a promising step to ensure the accessibility of english language learning for all. unfortunately, the english teacher education program has not well structurally and nationally put it into the mainstream agenda although the urgency of this issue is increasing. the iie course offered by sp-ele is aimed at inducing students with the initial competence of the inclusive teaching practices that covers the topic of inclusive education principles, adaptive curriculum, differentiated instructions, universal 48 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 43-54 karina, n. p. et.al (preparing efl pre service teachers for inclusive teaching …..) design learning and accessible digital learning. although it is an elective course, most students were eager to take this course as 86% of students in batch 2020 participated in the course in this year. it reflects that most students think that this course is needed to complement their competencies in teaching english. 3.1. course expectations the students expressed their agreement that learning with obe principles in iie course has the potential to fulfil their aspirations as future educators. thus, the findings of this research support the principles of obe, as argued by wijaya (2020) who highlights the significant impact of obe on students' learning motivation when teachers are able to create learning that is appropriate for them. therefore, it is important to clarify the objectives of the course so that the material and activities in the course suit students' future needs. apart from that, the topics presented in this iie course are also relevant. saha (2019) argues that obe can help create appropriate outcomes for students through designing a curriculum that is effective and relevant for students. 3.2. course activities this research reports that the course has fulfilled the course delivery in terms of course material and course activities, which practically supports the implementation of the obe framework because it reflects the success of obe implementation (yuzni et al, 2021), which implements the obe strategy. activities in the course can also be delivered well according to the content, instructions and time that has been planned. supported by the opinion of xiao et al (2023), who say that in the obe concept, lecture activities must be explained clearly, be useful, and focus on the quality and abilities of students in a comprehensive manner. that way students can benefit from iie course. plus, the time and sequence of activities in this iie course are appropriate. in accordance with sun (2020), supporting learning activities based on the obe concept must focus on learning building for students. not only that, the obe concept supports students to deepen their results through experience, collaboration and exploration. according to xerri et al (2018), students’ involvement in academic activities is very important for the effectiveness and goals of their learning. in this way, it means that teachers are not only given the obe syllabus but also carry out teaching and learning activities based on obe principles to achieve the desired results. 3.3. benefits of course materials education professionals have an important responsibility to implement inclusion. therefore, teacher awareness of inclusion is needed to find solutions to challenges and difficulties during the learning process (damayanti et al., 2022). based on the results from the student's perspective, it is stated that the learning material presented in the iie course is in accordance with the learning objectives and is relevant to real life situations. in accordance with frick (2020) stated that the content of learning materials must support the development of students' rationality, guiding students to make strong connections based on real world experiences. the activities in this course also provide an overview of how students can implement this course in their future work. supported by the opinion according to yip-hoi (2020), the activities in the course are important for workplace skills. so that through this course students can overcome the challenges that exist when teaching. therefore, students in this iie course are provided with material that will support their skills in inclusive teaching. thus, prospective students who take this course will feel the benefits of the iie course which is implemented using obe principles. furthermore, sp-ele students who will later become educators through this course will be more aware of the importance of inclusive education. 3.4. tutor performance not only material and activities, the presence of teachers or lecturers is also very important in their capacity as facilitators, encouraging students to gain knowledge that is useful for their personal and professional endeavors in the future. the research results of armis and mauliza (2022) found that apart from directing various learning materials according to the curriculum, teachers also motivated learning objectives. this means teachers in iie course provided support to students so that they can achieve competency in inclusive education. this research also showed a positive response from tutors in terms of interesting facilitation. tutors in iie course provided useful input to support obe implementation. in this way, as muste (2020) stated that feedback can improve learning through issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 49 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 43-54 karina, n. p. et.al (preparing efl pre service teachers for inclusive teaching …..) aligning efforts and activities with expected outcomes. thus, tutors in iie course provide feedback to help students improve their skills during the learning process. 3.5. course material difficulties it is true, the two elements related to the usefulness of the course and examples of its practical application show a clear relationship between course activities, evaluation, and learning outcomes, even though students find it difficult to master all the course material. according to damit et al (2021), students' learning difficulties remain even though courses implement obe. this happens to iie course students, namely they have difficulty understanding the material. the challenges that usually arise when students learn about inclusiveness are due to their lack of understanding regarding the meaning of inclusiveness itself. based on spandagou (2020) states that inclusiveness is difficult to understand because the terms are complex. even though they experienced difficulties, they did not just leave it. they actually try hard to understand the material. the benefits of students' hard work when studying is supported by research by saidah et al (2019) which states that the efforts made by students in studying will help them achieve the desired competencies. even though studying hard has an important role in implementing obe and can help improve students' abilities and skills, evaluation is still needed to improve the quality of material in iie courses so that students understand it more easily. the obe framework as a reference in designing iie courses has helped sp-ele achieve effective pedagogical practices because this research showed that the majority of students agree that this course has met their expectations in terms of course learning outcomes, course activities, and learning outcomes the course. this course is also beneficial for their future careers, and the performance of lecturers, this shows that the iie design has guaranteed the voice of students and the profile of graduates. thus, this research is supported by other research which also showed that the obe framework applied to courses can be achieved pedagogically effective (chan et al, 2022; vidyakala, 2019; sathya & narayanan, 2021). however, despite successful alignment of the course curriculum with the program's graduate profile and student voice, the course needed to evaluate the material because students found it too difficult. the obe-based learning outcomes of the introduction to inclusive education course has ensured the equivalence of the competencies needed by the efl prospective teachers to manage inclusive classrooms. as this research result show the students’ agreement toward the suitability of the course materials toward their future career is positives, the inclusive teaching competence should be shaped based on the following knowledge and skills comprising the awareness of disability, special needs students’ identification and assessment, differentiated instructions, universal design learning, and knowledge on the regulation about inclusive education. the provision of courses on inclusive education in teacher education program all across disciplines is highly suggested, despite it is obligatory based on the regulation of number 13 of 2020 about reasonable accommodation for students with disabilities, courses on inclusive education provide initial training for prospective teachers to be knowledgeable and skillful in managing inclusive classroom. broad of researches stipulated that inclusive teaching training is one of the attributing factors that affect the high efficacy and shape positive attitudes of teachers toward the inclusion of students with special educational needs in mainstream classroom (forlin et al., 2009, 2011; sharma, 2018; sharma & george, 2016). thus, the embedded course on inclusive education in all education study program should be encouraged. eventually, the integration of the obe framework in iie course design can make a significant contribution to the development of inclusive pedagogical practices in sp-ele. this course ensures that students can develop a set of skills and prepares them for various educational and professional paths, especially for competencies in inclusive education. the material and activities presented in this course provided an overview of real work practices when they teach at school in the future. the role of lecturers in this course also has an active role in providing feedback that supports their achievements. however, it is also necessary for students to improve themselves. ni-bhroin & king (2020) state students need to develop various skills to be successful in general and specific environments. the findings of this research also highlight the need for continuous improvement and adaptation to meet the evolving needs of students and the teaching profession. 50 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 43-54 karina, n. p. et.al (preparing efl pre service teachers for inclusive teaching …..) 4. conclusion inclusive teaching skills and competencies are very important for future teachers, not only because of the enforcement of policies regarding the implementation of inclusive education, but also to meet the learning needs that can be accessed by students with various needs as is the fact of the participation of students with special needs in public schools increasing throughout the year. therefore, the successful implementation of the introduction to inclusive education course ensures the readiness of future efl teachers to accommodate the diverse characteristics of students' needs. this is proven by research results showed that students agree that the learning outcomes, activities and tutor performance are in line with their expectations, they also agree that this course provides benefits for their future careers as teachers. however, they also agreed that they felt challenged and tried hard to understand the material presented because inclusiveness is complex material. this suggests that course designers need to readjust and modify materials to make them more concise, accessible, and simple to increase students' confidence in embracing competence in teaching english with an inclusive approach. in addition, this research suggests theoretical and practical recommendations to improve inclusive efl teaching practices. theoretically, this research can contribute constructive ideas about inclusive teaching strategies by presenting materials and incorporating flexible learning environments to increase engagement and accessibility for students with diverse needs. practically, this research encourages institutions to increase educational equity and accessibility by equipping prospective teachers with inclusive teaching practices in the teacher education curriculum. acknowledgment the authors would like to express their appreciation for the support of the students in introduction to inclusive education class for their participation in this research and their interests joining the class. their commitment to join the class and their full participation really means a lot for the progression of the inclusive education in indonesia. declarations author contribution : novera is responsible for data collection and manuscript writing, alies is the lead researcher of the project, she is responsible for data analysis and manuscript writing, ive is responsible for proofreading and revising the final manuscript. funding statement : this research is funded by faculty of cultural studies, brawijaya university under the faculty research grant number: 1846/un10.f12/pn/2023. conflict of interest : all the 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 universities and that we have obtained the permission from the relevant institutes when collecting data. we support english language teaching education 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. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 51 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 43-54 karina, n. p. et.al (preparing efl pre service teachers for inclusive teaching …..) references afkar, r., yarrow, n., surbakti, s., cooper, r., afkar, r., & yarrow, n. 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(2020). a strategy for integrating professional skills development into a manufacturing engineering curriculum. 2020 asee virtual annual conference content access proceedings. https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--34055 yuzni, s. z., sebayang, n., lukman, m. f., wijaya, k., idris, i., sari, r. a., & yolanda, a. (2021). design and validation of lesson plan development in materials technology courses with an outcome-based education approach. advances in social science, education and humanities research/advances in social science, education and humanities research. https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.211110.210 https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--34055 https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.211110.210 1. introduction 2. methodology 3. findings and discussion 3.1. course expectations 3.2. course activities 3.3. benefits of course materials 3.4. tutor performance 3.5. course material difficulties 4. conclusion references english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 54-65 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.13992 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id enhancing reading comprehension and motivation through think-pair-share: classroom action research in an indonesian efl context bambang widi pratolo a,1,*, dat bao b,2, suhendri palaguna c,3 a department of english language, universitas ahmadi dahlan, jl. ringroad selatan, kragilan, yogyakarta,55191, indonesia b monash university, wellington rd, clayton vic 3800, australia c department of english language, universitas ahmadi dahlan, jl. ringroad selatan, kragilan, yogyakarta,55191, indonesia 1bambangwidip@gmail.com *; 2 dat.bao@monash.edu; 3 suhendri1900004060@webmail.uad.ac.id a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 12 february 2025 revised 12 march 2025 accepted 5 april 2025 improving students' reading comprehension remains a persistent challenge in efl classrooms, particularly where learners exhibit low motivation and limited engagement. this study investigated the effectiveness of the think–pair–share (tps) cooperative learning strategy in an indonesian secondary efl classroom. using a classroom action research (car) design, the intervention was conducted in two cycles, each consisting of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting stages. data were collected through a mixedmethods approach. quantitative evidence came from pre-tests and post-tests of reading comprehension, while qualitative data were obtained from classroom observations, field notes, and interviews. the findings showed substantial improvements in both motivation and understanding. students' mean reading scores increased from 57.22 in the pre-test to 78.26 in cycle ii, with the number achieving the passing grade rising from three to fifteen. variability decreased, indicating more consistent achievement across the class. qualitative results revealed a transformation from passive and disengaged learners to confident and motivated participants who valued collaboration and peer support. the study concludes that tps is effective not only in enhancing comprehension but also in fostering a student-centered and inclusive learning environment. teachers are encouraged to integrate tps with explicit scaffolding and adaptive sharing formats to maximize equity and engagement in reading instruction. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords think–pair–share reading comprehension student motivation cooperative learning efl secondary classroom how to cite: pratolo, b, w., bao, d., & palaguna, s. (2025). enhancing reading comprehension and motivation through think-pair-share: classroom action research in an indonesian efl context. english language teaching educational journal, 8(1), 54-65. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.13992 1. introduction improving reading comprehension continues to be a persistent challenge in efl classrooms, especially in contexts where students face both cognitive and affective barriers. research demonstrates that reading comprehension is not only dependent on vocabulary knowledge and decoding skills but also on motivation and engagement with texts. li et al. (2022) found that reading efficacy, enjoyment, and vocabulary breadth and depth were the strongest predictors of l2 reading outcomes among chinese efl learners. this suggests that instruction cannot rely solely on mechanical decoding or isolated vocabulary teaching but must simultaneously address the https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.13992 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:bambangwidip@gmail.com mailto:dat.bao@monash.edu mailto:%20suhendri1900004060@webmail.uad.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.13992 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i1.13992&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8716-028x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4143-4951 55 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 54-65 pratolo, et al. (enhancing reading comprehension and motivation through think-pair-share…..) psychological drivers of persistence and enjoyment in reading tasks. without sustained motivation, comprehension strategies are underutilized and reading performance stagnates. thus, pedagogical models that target both cognitive and motivational factors are essential for advancing reading achievement in secondary efl settings. cooperative learning has gained prominence as an instructional model capable of addressing these dual needs. studies conducted in secondary and tertiary efl contexts show that cooperative learning promotes collaboration, accountability, and shared responsibility for learning outcomes. bećirović (2023), using structural equation modelling with efl high school students, demonstrated that cooperative learning had a positive direct effect on motivation, which then mediated improved academic achievement. this finding suggests that the motivational gains from cooperative learning are not incidental but central to its effectiveness. unlike teacher-fronted lessons, cooperative structures encourage active contributions from students, which can reduce passivity and disengagement. the implication for efl teachers is that well-structured peer interaction is not only socially enriching but also cognitively productive, offering a sustainable pathway to improving reading comprehension. think–pair–share (tps) is one of the most accessible and widely adopted cooperative strategies in education (cooper et al., 2021; deore & arora, 2022; lee et al., 2025; liu et al., 2024; mundelsee & jurkowski, 2021). its strength lies in simplicity, requiring minimal resources yet producing significant shifts in classroom dynamics. tps begins with individual reflection, progresses to paired discussion, and culminates in sharing with the whole class. mundelsee and jurkowski (2021) found that tps increased the frequency and depth of student participation compared to traditional teacher questioning. students were more likely to contribute answers when they had first rehearsed responses with a peer, reducing anxiety associated with immediate public performance. however, cooper et al.(2021) argued that the whole-class sharing phase of tps carries risks, as some students remain silent or feel pressured. they proposed modifications such as structured turn-taking or anonymous reporting to preserve inclusivity. these contrasting insights highlight the importance of contextsensitive adaptation in tps implementation, especially in efl classrooms where confidence and linguistic resources vary widely. the application of cooperative learning techniques to reading comprehension has been supported by empirical evidence. namaziandost et al. (2020) demonstrated that the jigsaw technique improved reading comprehension scores among pre-intermediate iranian efl learners, with significant gains compared to control groups. the mechanism of improvement was attributed to peer teaching and the need to process information collaboratively to reconstruct texts. this aligns with the logic of tps, which fosters dialogic explanation and negotiation of meaning during reading activities (deore & arora, 2022; manasa et al., 2023). cooperative learning provides learners with opportunities to articulate interpretations, clarify misunderstandings, and co-construct knowledge—processes that are central to comprehension but often absent in teacher-centered reading lessons (khataybeh et al., 2024). despite these positive findings, direct evidence linking tps specifically to reading comprehension in secondary efl contexts remains limited, creating a need for targeted studies in this area. although explicit reading strategy instruction has proven effective for improving comprehension, its impact on motivation has been inconsistent. li et al. (2022) examined the effects of reading strategy instruction on chinese university students. they found that while comprehension and strategy use improved, motivation and self-efficacy showed little immediate change. cognitive instruction alone may not be sufficient to influence the affective domain. for secondary school learners, whose motivation is often fragile, an approach that integrates strategy application with social interaction is likely to be more effective. tps offers this integration by embedding cognitive tasks in cooperative structures that simultaneously sustain interest and confidence (li & tu, 2024). thus, tps has the potential to overcome the limitations of strategy instruction by addressing both comprehension and motivational needs in a single design. recent pedagogical innovations show that tps can be scaled to complex learning tasks, further supporting its potential for reading instruction (manasa et al., 2023; zohrabi & hassan, 2020). li and tu (2024) redesigned a project-based learning course for education students by embedding tps into inquiry-driven activities. their results indicated that tps cycles stimulated creative thinking and deeper engagement with content. although their study did not focus on reading comprehension, the evidence suggests that tps can facilitate higher-order thinking and sustained engagement across academic domains. in efl reading lessons, tps may create opportunities for learners to process issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 56 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 54-65 pratolo, et al. (enhancing reading comprehension and motivation through think-pair-share…..) authentic texts, share interpretations, and refine understanding collaboratively. this potential to transform passive reading into an active, dialogic process underscores tps as a promising candidate for addressing persistent comprehension and motivation problems. when synthesizing the literature, clear patterns and contradictions emerge. three consistent patterns stand out. first, tps and other cooperative structures reliably increase student participation and reduce silence in class (mundelsee & jurkowski, 2021). second, cooperative learning is strongly associated with improved motivation, which mediates academic achievement (bećirović, 2023). third, collaborative techniques in efl contexts, such as jigsaw and peer teaching, produce measurable gains in reading comprehension (namaziandost et al., 2020). however, tensions remain. most tps studies emphasize participation and engagement rather than comprehension outcomes, limiting their relevance for reading-focused instruction. furthermore, the whole-class sharing phase of tps can inadvertently silence weaker learners if not carefully managed (cooper et al., 2021). these contradictions suggest that while tps has promise, its direct relationship to reading comprehension and motivation requires context-specific investigation. this study addresses these gaps by exploring the implementation and outcomes of tps in an indonesian secondary efl classroom. unlike many previous studies that either focus on higher education or general participation, this research emphasizes reading comprehension and motivational outcomes at the secondary level. specifically, it seeks to answer two research questions. (1) how is the think–pair–share strategy implemented to improve reading comprehension? (2) how does the think–pair–share strategy enhance students' motivation in learning english reading these questions allow for a dual focus on cognitive and affective outcomes, reflecting the intertwined challenges of efl reading instruction in indonesian secondary schools. 2. method this study adopted a classroom action research (car) design to address problems of low reading comprehension and limited engagement in an indonesian secondary efl classroom. the design followed the cyclical model of planning, action, observation, and reflection. while burns’ (2019a, 2019b, 2024) framework provided the foundation, the study also incorporated refinements from more recent car studies in efl contexts (dikilitaş, 2024; nazari et al., 2019; wang & qian, 2020). the iterative nature of car was considered suitable because it enables teachers to act as reflective practitioners and make real-time instructional adjustments to improve both learning outcomes and classroom participation. 2.1. participants the participants were 23 eighth-grade students enrolled in an indonesian secondary efl classroom. they were selected as the research site based on teacher reports of persistent difficulties in reading comprehension and low participation during english lessons. the class represented a mixedability group, typical of indonesian junior secondary schools, which ensured ecological validity. parental consent and institutional approval were obtained prior to data collection. 2.2. data collection instruments data were collected using both qualitative and quantitative instruments to ensure triangulation. quantitative data were obtained from a pre-test and post-test of reading comprehension administered before and after each cycle. the test items, aligned with the national curriculum standards, assessed literal, inferential, and evaluative comprehension skills. test reliability was examined through pilot testing, with internal consistency measured using cronbach’s alpha, following recent recommendations for classroom-based assessment (khan et al., 2025). qualitative data were gathered through classroom observations, field notes, and semi-structured interviews. observation sheets documented indicators of participation, collaboration, and task engagement during the tps implementation. field notes were used to capture contextual dynamics and reflective impressions during the lessons. semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of students were conducted at the end of each cycle to explore perceptions of tps, changes in motivation, and perceived challenges. using multiple instruments allowed for a more comprehensive understanding of both cognitive and affective outcomes, in line with best practices in mixed-methods action research (creswell & creswell, 2017; creswell & guetterman, 2025). 57 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 54-65 pratolo, et al. (enhancing reading comprehension and motivation through think-pair-share…..) 2.3. data analysis procedures quantitative data from the preand post-tests were analyzed using descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations) and percentage gain scores to track progress across cycles. while the small sample size precluded inferential testing, improvements were interpreted against established benchmarks for meaningful classroom gains (mertler, 2024). qualitative data analysis followed thematic procedures. interview transcripts were coded inductively to identify recurring themes related to motivation, engagement, and comprehension. the coding process involved three stages: initial open coding, axial categorization, and theme consolidation, as recommended in recent efl classroom research (miles et al., 2021). observation notes and field reflections were triangulated with interview data to strengthen validity. 2.4. integration of data the study employed a convergent mixed-methods strategy, integrating quantitative improvements in reading scores with qualitative evidence of motivational and behavioral changes. this approach enabled the researcher to evaluate not only the cognitive outcomes of tps but also the affective and social dimensions of its classroom implementation. by combining data types, the study ensured a richer account of how tps functions as a cooperative learning strategy in an indonesian secondary efl setting. 3. finding and discussion 3.1. findings the findings are presented across two cycles of classroom action research (car) that aimed to improve students’ reading comprehension and motivation through the think–pair–share (tps) strategy. data were collected using both qualitative and quantitative methods. qualitative data came from interviews, field notes, and classroom observations, while quantitative data were obtained from pre-tests and post-tests administered before and after each cycle. presenting the results cycle by cycle shows the progression of student learning and classroom change over time. 1) pre-condition (before intervention) before tps was introduced, students demonstrated low motivation and weak reading comprehension. interviews revealed that they viewed english reading as difficult and frustrating. several explained that they disliked reading texts because they lacked vocabulary and did not have dictionaries to support them. one student said, "i don't like to read english texts, but if the teacher asks me to read, i will still read them, even though i don't understand." observation data confirmed this lack of motivation. students were often distracted, chatting or drawing in their notebooks instead of engaging in lessons. communication with teachers was minimal, and peer interaction was limited to close friends. reading strategies were unfamiliar, and comprehension tasks were often approached through word-by-word translation, which produced confusion and disengagement. 2) cycle i a) implementation and classroom dynamics during cycle i, tps was introduced in reading lessons. students were guided through the three stages of “think,” “pair,” and “share.” while the novelty of the method generated interest, many students were unsure how to proceed at each stage. in the “think” phase, they hesitated to respond individually. the “pair” stage stimulated more interaction, with students discussing answers in small groups. however, the “share” stage remained challenging, as few students volunteered to present responses to the class. observation notes indicated that while engagement increased compared to the pre-condition stage, learners frequently asked for clarification. confusion about tps procedures limited the effectiveness of peer collaboration, though the classroom atmosphere became more interactive than before. b) student voices interview data reflected these mixed responses. some learners found the method "fun" and reported it gave them new ways to learn, but others admitted to still being "confused about the stages." one student explained, “i am more motivated because this is a new method that i learned, and i can discuss issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 58 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 54-65 pratolo, et al. (enhancing reading comprehension and motivation through think-pair-share…..) it with friends.” another added, “i like it because it’s more fun and active in class, but sometimes i’m still confused about what to do.” these voices suggest that cycle i functioned as an adaptation stage where students began to build interest but had not yet mastered tps. c) learning outcomes to evaluate the impact of the think–pair–share (tps) strategy on students’ reading comprehension, pre-tests and post-tests were administered across the two research cycles. these assessments provided a direct measure of students’ progress in achieving the minimum passing grade of 75, as set by school standards. the results are summarized in table 1, which presents the distribution of students scoring below and above the passing threshold in the pre-test, post-test cycle i, and post-test cycle ii. this comparison offers a concise overview of how students’ performance shifted over the course of the intervention. table 1. students’ reading comprehension scores test number of students score ≤ 75 score ≤ 75 pre-test 23 20 3 post-test cycle i 23 15 8 post-test cycle ii 23 8 15 table 1 shows that after cycle i, the number of students reaching the minimum passing grade increased from three to eight. the majority, however, still scored below 75. this suggests that tps began to make an impact but required further refinement and repeated practice for stronger results. table 2. descriptive statistics of reading scores statistics pre-test cycle i cycle ii mean 57.22 69.22 78.26 median 60.00 72.00 80.00 mode 68.00 72.00 72.00 std. deviation 15.13 11.97 8.77 range 56.00 48.00 36.00 minimum 24.00 40.00 60.00 maximum 80.00 88.00 96.00 table 2 illustrates that in cycle i, the class mean rose from 57.22 to 69.22. the reduction in standard deviation from 15.13 to 11.97 suggests that performance became more consistent, though many learners still struggled. these results confirm that cycle i initiated progress but left room for substantial improvement. cycle i demonstrated that tps could stimulate engagement and produce measurable improvements, but confusion and hesitation limited its impact. the cycle highlighted the importance of explicit modeling, repetition of instructions, and sustained teacher scaffolding to help students master the stages of tps. 3) cycle ii a) implementation and classroom dynamics in cycle ii, adjustments were made to address the challenges observed in cycle i. the teacher provided more precise explanations, modelled the tps stages more explicitly, and used guiding questions to scaffold comprehension. students were more confident in working through the “think” stage individually, actively discussed texts during the “pair” stage, and demonstrated greater willingness to present their findings in the “share” stage. observation notes showed that students were more focused, engaged in purposeful peer talk, and less reliant on teacher intervention. communication broadened beyond small friendship groups, and 59 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 54-65 pratolo, et al. (enhancing reading comprehension and motivation through think-pair-share…..) learners confidently sought clarification from the teacher. the overall classroom climate became more collaborative and interactive. b) student voices interview data from cycle ii confirmed this progress. learners expressed that tps made reading more manageable and enjoyable. one student remarked, “i like studying in groups because it’s more fun, and if we don’t understand something, we can ask friends who do.” another explained, “reading the text is difficult at first, but using tps makes it easier because we can share tasks with other friends.” these comments show that students not only understood the mechanics of tps but also recognized its value in improving comprehension and reducing anxiety. c) learning outcomes quantitative data indicated substantial gains. as shown in table 1, by cycle ii, 15 students achieved the passing score, compared to only three in the pre-test and eight in cycle i. the mean rose further to 78.26 (table 2), surpassing the minimum grade standard. the standard deviation dropped again to 8.77, reflecting greater consistency across the class. the lowest score improved from 24 in the pre-test to 60 in cycle ii, while the highest rose from 80 to 96. fig. 1. students’ academic score results fig 1 illustrates the upward trajectory from pre-test through cycle ii. the steady climb highlights that tps produced cumulative benefits. while progress in cycle i was moderate, cycle ii confirmed significant improvements as students became more confident and familiar with the strategy. cycle ii confirmed the effectiveness of tps when implemented with stronger scaffolding and student familiarity. students displayed greater confidence, motivation, and comprehension. the classroom shifted from passive, teacher-centered instruction to an active, collaborative environment where learners supported one another in tackling reading tasks. 4) summary of classroom changes to capture the progression of student behavior, motivation, and comprehension across the research cycles, observational and interview data were synthesized into key themes. these themes reflect how students responded to reading lessons before the intervention, during the initial implementation of think–pair–share (tps), and after they had become familiar with the strategy. table 3 summarizes the changes across pre-condition, cycle i, and cycle ii, highlighting shifts in enthusiasm, comprehension strategies, task engagement, and classroom interaction. this summary provides a clear comparison of how tps transformed the learning environment over time. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 60 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 54-65 pratolo, et al. (enhancing reading comprehension and motivation through think-pair-share…..) table 3. description of findings across pre-condition, cycle i, and cycle ii no. pre-condition cycle i cycle ii 1 students showed little enthusiasm and were often offtask. some tried to participate but were confused about tps. students became enthusiastic and confident, with a clear understanding of tps. 2 students struggled to understand texts without guidance. some used teacher questions to support comprehension. most successfully used guiding questions to understand texts. 3 students are unfamiliar with reading strategies. students were introduced to tps but still confused. students mastered the tps stages. 4 students uninterested in reading tasks. students began to enjoy reading activities. students fully engaged and enjoyed activities. 5 students interacted only with close friends, rarely with teachers. students began interacting more with peers and sometimes with the teacher. students interacted confidently with both peers and teacher. table 3 highlights the transformation across the cycles. motivation increased, comprehension improved, and strategy familiarity developed from non-existent to mastery. communication expanded, and engagement shifted from passive to active. together, the qualitative and quantitative results confirm that tps not only raised academic performance but also reshaped the classroom into a collaborative and learner-centered environment. the evidence from both cycles demonstrates that tps was effective in improving reading comprehension and motivation. qualitative data showed that students became more enthusiastic, collaborative, and confident, while quantitative data confirmed measurable academic gains, including higher mean scores, improved minimum performance, and reduced variability. notably, the two cycles highlight that tps effectiveness develops over time. cycle i served as an introduction that sparked interest but also revealed confusion. cycle ii consolidated this foundation, producing mastery of the strategy and substantial academic progress. the results suggest that tps, when implemented with clear guidance and consistent practice, is a powerful tool not only for raising comprehension scores but also for transforming the classroom into a supportive, interactive space that fosters motivation and confidence. the findings from both qualitative and quantitative strands provide strong evidence that the think– pair–share strategy improved students' reading comprehension and motivation. the qualitative data highlighted a clear shift in classroom dynamics, with students moving from passive and disengaged behavior to active participation and collaboration. quantitative results confirmed these changes with substantial increases in mean scores, reductions in score variability, and higher proportions of students achieving the passing grade. notably, the cyclical design revealed that progress was gradual: cycle i functioned as an adjustment phase, while cycle ii demonstrated mastery and consolidation. these results not only affirm the effectiveness of tps in the context of indonesian secondary efl classrooms but also raise important questions about how cooperative learning strategies operate to influence comprehension, motivation, and classroom interaction. the following discussion section examines these findings in relation to existing research and theoretical perspectives, identifying consistencies, tensions, and implications for pedagogy. 3.2. discussion 1) student participation and comprehension development the findings demonstrated that think–pair–share (tps) significantly increased classroom participation, which in turn contributed to comprehension gains. during cycle i, students were hesitant and often confused about tps stages, but by cycle ii, participation was widespread and purposeful. students engaged in individual reflection, peer discussion, and broader class dialogue, which gradually transformed the classroom into a more interactive space. this pattern reflects the claim by mundelsee and jurkowski (2021) that collaboration provides scaffolding for hesitant students, enabling them to participate more actively in academic discourse. participation, in this sense, was not a superficial engagement marker but a critical mechanism for comprehension improvement. quantitative data reinforce this link. the mean reading score increased by over 21 points from the pre-test to cycle ii, while variability decreased, showing that participation gains were equitably 61 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 54-65 pratolo, et al. (enhancing reading comprehension and motivation through think-pair-share…..) distributed. (rice et al., 2024). gozali et al. (2021) argue that active student talk during reading lessons serves as a cognitive tool, allowing learners to articulate, test, and refine their interpretations of texts. the current study supports this view by showing that participation gains were strongly associated with comprehension growth. tps thus functions as both a behavioral intervention—encouraging more voices in the classroom—and a cognitive intervention, helping learners process meaning collaboratively. 2) motivation as a mediating factor motivation emerged as a decisive factor in shaping the effectiveness of tps. before the intervention, students described reading as difficult and unappealing. in cycle i, modest motivational improvements were observed, but in cycle ii, students expressed strong enthusiasm, noting that tps made reading “fun,” “easier with friends,” and “less stressful.” this trajectory reflects li and gan’s (2022) findings that reading motivation, alongside vocabulary knowledge and self-regulated strategies, is a key predictor of comprehension outcomes. the motivational effect of tps appears to operate by reducing anxiety and promoting peer support, enabling students to sustain effort during challenging tasks. significantly, motivation mediated the link between participation and comprehension. students who reported higher motivation in interviews were also those whose test scores improved significantly in cycle ii. li et al. (2022) observed similar patterns, showing that strategy instruction improves comprehension only when coupled with motivational gains. in the present study, tps provided the interactive environment that made reading meaningful, while scaffolds such as guiding questions strengthened learners’ self-efficacy. together, these elements demonstrate that tps’s success cannot be explained solely by its structure; it also works by transforming students’ affective relationship with reading. 3) equity and inclusive learning outcomes one of the most striking findings was the reduction in performance disparities across the class. not only did mean scores improve, but the standard deviation decreased and the minimum score rose substantially. this indicates that tps did not merely benefit stronger students but also supported weaker ones, narrowing the achievement gap. such results are consistent with namaziandost et al. (2020), who reported that cooperative learning techniques such as jigsaw provided disproportionate benefits for lower-proficiency learners. by encouraging peer explanation and shared accountability, tps gave struggling students access to immediate feedback and modelling from peers. the equity dimension is critical in efl contexts where classes are heterogeneous in ability. peng et al. (2024), in their network meta-analysis of comprehension interventions, concluded that approaches combining explicit scaffolding with collaborative learning are most effective for struggling readers. the findings of this study echo that conclusion: guiding questions and teacher facilitation provided the scaffold, while tps created the collaborative context. together, these elements raised the performance floor while maintaining gains at the top, promoting equity in outcomes. this suggests that tps is not only practical but also inclusive, making it a valuable strategy for diverse classrooms. 4) tps in the landscape of cooperative learning positioning tps among other cooperative strategies highlights both its strengths and limitations. like jigsaw, collaborative strategic reading (csr), and project-based learning, tps relies on interdependence, accountability, and structured interaction (alsmadi et al., 2023; early et al., 2025; moin et al., 2024; shaik, 2025). the current study found outcomes consistent with these approaches: improved comprehension, stronger motivation, and reduced performance gaps. however, tps is less complex to implement, requiring minimal preparation while still yielding substantial results. this adaptability makes it attractive in resource-limited classrooms, a point also emphasized by li and tu (2024), who showed tps’s effectiveness when integrated into project-based courses. at the same time, cycle i revealed challenges in the “share” stage, where weaker students were reluctant to contribute. cooper et al. (2021) caution that the share phase of tps may suppress participation if not scaffolded effectively. adaptations such as rotating roles, written share-outs, or anonymous reporting can mitigate these issues. thus, tps should not be treated as a fixed routine but as a flexible design that teachers can modify to fit their context. in line with rice et al. (2024) and peng et al. (2024), the findings suggest that the most potent effects occur when tps is integrated with explicit scaffolds, motivational supports, and varied sharing formats. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 62 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 54-65 pratolo, et al. (enhancing reading comprehension and motivation through think-pair-share…..) 4. conclusion 4.1. final thoughts this study investigated the implementation of the think–pair–share (tps) strategy in an indonesian secondary efl classroom and its effects on reading comprehension and student motivation. across two cycles of classroom action research (car), the findings demonstrated that tps not only increased classroom participation but also enhanced comprehension outcomes and reshaped learners' attitudes toward reading. quantitative evidence revealed significant gains in mean test scores, reduced variability, and a higher proportion of students surpassing the passing grade. at the same time, qualitative data confirmed a transformation from disengaged and anxious learners to motivated and confident participants. the study highlights that tps, when implemented consistently with explicit scaffolding and guiding questions, is an effective tool for addressing both cognitive and affective barriers in efl reading instruction. the results carry critical pedagogical implications. tps offers a flexible, low-resource cooperative strategy that can promote equity by supporting both weaker and stronger learners. teachers are advised to provide explicit modelling of the tps stages, incorporate guiding questions to scaffold comprehension, and adapt the "share" stage to ensure inclusive participation. beyond improving test performance, tps also contributes to building collaborative and supportive classroom environments, making it a valuable approach in contexts where student motivation and confidence are as critical as comprehension outcomes. future research should extend tps applications to a broader range of text genres and contexts, explore long-term retention through delayed testing, and examine its integration with other cooperative and project-based learning models. 4.2. researcher positionality the authorship in the project design represents a collaborative effort of diverse scholars that aims to enhance the value of research outcomes. bambang widi pratolo is a research scholar and lecturer at ahmad dahlan university, indonesia, and suhendri palaguna is a novice researcher graduating from the same university. because of their hybrid identity as teacher-researchers, they had an insider's view of and intimate access to the classroom context, allowing them to be more sensitive in their interpretation of students' experiences; however, they also might have introduced bias into observation and analysis. to have an outsider provide an external view at the analysis and writing stage, the task was supported by a research scholar in monash university, australia, dat bao, to place findings within a wider international scholarship. in recognizing such positionalities, the analysis seeks to present a transparent account of how the authors' professional and cultural profiles influenced their interpretations. 4.3. limitations and future directions this research was conducted in the context of the indonesian secondary efl classroom with only 23 participants, and thus, generalization may be limited. although the design of the classroom action research allowed for detailed and context-specific findings, we again remind the reader to interpret our findings as indicative rather than conclusive. the ecological soundness of the environment (i.e., in most aspects that of a typical mixed-ability, resource-deprived classroom) indicates that the findings may be transferred to other similar settings, but replication is needed. further studies might replicate the analysis of this construct across larger samples, different grades, rural and urban schools, and other cultural contexts to check the robustness of tps. comparative works could also establish their implications for various text genres and higher-order comprehension tasks. research in this direction would clarify the extent to which tps can be generalized in other contexts and permit a stronger external validity with consequently more convincing evidence of the effectiveness of tps to reinforce reading comprehension and motivation in efl classrooms. 63 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 54-65 pratolo, et al. (enhancing reading comprehension and motivation through think-pair-share…..) acknowledgement we would like to express our sincere gratitude to the participants of this study who have provided all the information needed for the completion of this project. we also thank both the teacher and the principal who have organized the classes for this research. declaration author contribution : bwp was responsible for the entire research project. he led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the second author, db. sp participated in the data collection, transcription, and prepared the initial draft. all authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research received no funding from any institution. conflict of interest : both 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 permission from the relevant institute when collecting data. we support 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. references alsmadi, m. a., tabieh, a. a. s., alsaifi, r. m., & al-nawaiseh, s. j. 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(2020). the role of think-pair-share interactional activity on improving iranian efl learners’ willingness to communicate. teaching english language, 14(1), 153– 182. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.22132/tel.2020.106921 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05831-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2021.102015 https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2020.1738833 https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2019.1632010 https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543231171345 https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.546 https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0248162 https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1533/4/042083 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.22132/tel.2020.106921 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 65-78 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11017 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id a work-based approach for improving students’ performance in the college general english class yi-ching pan national pingtung university, no.4-18, minsheng rd., pingtung city, pingtung county 900391, taiwan holiday@nptu.edu.tw a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 20 june 2024 revised 25 july 2024 accepted 2 august 2024 many university students in taiwan have complained that the general english class is not very exciting nor useful for the workplace due to its exam-oriented and teacher-centered instruction focus. such negative impressions often lead to a low motivation toward learning english and affect students’ learning outcomes. this study aimed to establish an innovative work-based teaching approach and to explore whether it can help enhance students’ motivation to learn english, positively impacting their overall performances. the work-based teaching approach included job-seeking activities involving self-introduction and resume writing, as well as product introduction tasks, fostering student participation, teacher-student interaction, and balanced summative-and-formative assessments. the study recruited 129 second-year university students in the general english class for an 18-week course where they were required to complete work-based tasks and assessments. a triangulation of research methods was employed to collect both qualitative and quantitative data from questionnaires, student formative and summative assessment, reflection journals, and student interviews. three major findings arise from this study: 1) students’ score gain on toeic preand post-tests was statistically significant; 2) students offered positive views on the diverse, interactive, and communicative teaching methods that enhanced their understanding and application of workplace english; and 3) performance assessment played a more important role in increasing students’ learning interest and motivation than traditional paper-andpencil tests. this study concludes with some pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords task-based language teaching formative assessment summative assessment learning performance general english how to cite: pan, y. c. (2024). a work-based approach for improving students’ performance in the college general english class. english language teaching educational journal, 7 (2), 65-78. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11017 1. introduction in response to the english graduation threshold set in taiwan, many universities have implemented "general english courses" that primarily focus on preparing students for the toeic exam (test of english for international communication). however, based on the researcher's teaching experience, students often expressed dissatisfaction with the uninteresting and impractical content of these classes, which primarily revolved around explaining and practicing toeic question types. additionally, the traditional teaching model of "teacher lectures and students listen" contributes to low motivation among students when it comes to learning general english. with over two-thirds of graduates entering the workforce, the demand for english proficiency in the business sector has been steadily increasing in taiwan, emphasizing the importance of workplace https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11017 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:holiday@nptu.edu.tw http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11017 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0009-0009-1941-0898 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11017&domain=pdf 66 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 65-78 pan, y. c (a work-based approach for improving students’ performance.....) english skills (104 job bank, 2021, chang, 2017). in light of these considerations, this study aimed to develop an english general education course that focuses on practical workplace skills. the course employed innovative task-based learning methods, encompassing listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities relevant to workplace english. a balanced summative-and-formative assessment approach was also incorporated, enabling students to gauge their learning outcomes through quantitative assessment methods and experience different learning activities while documenting their progress. the ultimate objective was to cultivate students' language skills required in the workplace and enhance their future competitiveness. this study sought to construct an innovative teaching curriculum for workplace-oriented general english class by integrating a balanced summative-and-formative assessment approach, thereby enhancing motivation and effectiveness in english learning. the key areas of focus in workplace english are oral communication skills, english letter writing ability, and performance in english certifications (lee & schmidgall, 2020; tu, 2015). therefore, to address these workplace demands, the study outlined two main objectives: objective 1: through various contextual task-based instructional activities such as oral presentations, group discussions, role-playing, presentation creation, letter writing practice, reading workplace-related english news, and english listening training, the aim was to familiarize students with real-world workplace english tasks. these tasks encompassed job-seeking activities involving self-introduction and resume writing, as well as product introduction tasks, fostering student participation, teacher-student interaction objective 2: by implementing a balanced formative assessment approach, which encompasses both formative and summative assessments, each accounting for 50% of the classroom assessment weight, the study aimed to focus on objective grading, learning processes, and independent learning evaluation, thereby improving students' linguistic competence and communicative competence (whyte, 2019). specifically, 50% of the formative assessment was derived from performing tasks such as self-introduction, business-product presentations, and english letter writing, providing teachers with qualitative feedback to evaluate students' practical application abilities and monitor their learning process development. this approach also trained students in independent learning and teamwork skills. the remaining 50% of the summative assessment was based on students' performance in simulated english certification exams, incorporating workplace-related vocabulary, phrases, or passages encountered during the instructional activities of different contextual tasks. 2. literature review the purpose of this study was to investigate the development of an innovative teaching curriculum for workplace-oriented general english, incorporating a balanced approach that combines both summative and formative assessments. this literature review aims to provide relevant information pertaining to the aforementioned research objectives. 2.1. current condition of english teaching in taiwan universities in recent years, there have been notable reforms in the english curriculum planning of many universities in taiwan. english has been incorporated as a core course in general education. however, the establishment of english graduation thresholds has led to an increased emphasis on test-oriented english courses (chen & li, 2015). this focus on test preparation is also observed in the "english for sophomore students" and "advanced english for sophomore students" courses offered in the technical and vocational education system of universities. educators in taiwan, according to liu and liu (2022), have emphasized the importance of vocational education by recommending that curriculum planning should prioritize practicality and industry relevance. they argue that incorporating real-world applications and aligning the curriculum with current industry standards and demands will better prepare students for the workforce. this approach ensures that students acquire the necessary skills and knowledge that are directly applicable to their future careers, thus enhancing their employability and the overall effectiveness of vocational education programs. 2.2. general english vs. workplace english scholars argue that linking english graduation requirements and proficiency tests with the effectiveness of university english instruction limits the recognition of global competitiveness and narrows the scope of university english education. consequently, it is suggested that english issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 67 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 65-78 pan, y. c (a work-based approach for improving students’ performance.....) education in taiwan should gradually transition from traditional english for general purposes (egp) to english for specific purposes (esp). research has highlighted english for occupational purposes (eop) as a viable approach for vocational english education (chang et al., 2013; zou et al., 2016). esp is divided into two main categories: english for academic purposes (eap) and english for occupational purposes (eop) (dudley-evans & st. john, 1998). eap focuses on academic english skills needed for professional disciplines, such as note-taking, literature review, classroom discussion, presentation skills, academic writing, and scholarly communication. in contrast, eop concentrates on teaching language skills specific to certain fields, using real-life scenarios or workplace materials to provide students with simulated real-world language environments, including technical english, workplace english, business english, and english for presentations. this specialized training equips students with the english proficiency required for various professional domains and aligns with international job market needs. for the purposes of this study, eop will be utilized to address workplace english. however, the promotion of eop courses has been hindered by several challenges. firstly, there is a scarcity of english teachers with professional backgrounds and expertise in the workplace. secondly, students often lack proficiency in professional english vocabulary (lai, 2005). to address these limitations, an alternative approach is to narrow the focus to workplace english, which centers on practical communication skills relevant to general workplace contexts. this approach can be considered when designing the curriculum for general english courses (english career, 2012). considering the insufficient professional english vocabulary proficiency among students in our university's technical and vocational education system, this research project aims to transform the previous "advanced english for sophomore students" course, which predominantly focused on test preparation and followed a teacher-centered instructional approach, into a student-centered "workplace-oriented general english" course that adopts a practical and applied approach. 2.3. task-based instruction a number of studies (alisoy, 2024; dolidze et al., 2022; xie, 2022) propose that task-based teaching methods are effective for teaching workplace english within professional contexts. this approach emphasizes learner-centered completion of specific english learning tasks in relevant contexts. in this research project, we aim to combine the task-based instructional models proposed by willis (1996) and wang shuyi (2006) as the core framework for our workplace-oriented general english innovative teaching curriculum. willis (1996) suggested three stages for task-based instruction: (1) pre-task stage, where teachers introduce vocabulary and syntax related to the task to help students prepare; (2) task cycle stage, where students work individually or in groups to complete oral or written reports; and (3) language focus stage, where teachers and students jointly analyze language-related issues that arise during the task stage, such as vocabulary, phrases, or sentence structures, to enhance students' language proficiency. however, studies have shown that explicit, direct, and systematic instruction can greatly benefit students in the language learning process. wang (2006) modified willis's model by moving the language focus stage to the second stage and introducing a fourth stage, resulting in the following stages: (1) task preparation stage, (2) language enhancement stage, (3) task execution stage, and (4) teacher feedback and language reinforcement stage. however, neither willis (1996) nor wang (2006) explicitly addressed the assessment or feedback mechanisms in their task execution stages, and they primarily focused on the learning process rather than the learning product. therefore, in this research, we integrate willis's and wang 's models and make modifications to include the following stages: (1) task preparation stage, (2) language enhancement stage, (3) task implementation stage, and (4) balanced summative-and-formative assessment and feedback stage. through various contextual task-based instructional activities and a balanced formative assessment approach, our aim is not only to help students understand their learning outcomes through quantitative assessment methods but also to provide them with feedback and reinforcement during the learning process. this approach will enhance students' motivation, engagement, and overall learning outcomes. 2.4. balanced summative-and-formative assessment model classroom assessment serves two main purposes: summative assessment and formative assessment. summative assessment involves traditional objective paper-and-pencil tests to evaluate 68 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 65-78 pan, y. c (a work-based approach for improving students’ performance.....) students' learning outcomes. this type of assessment prioritizes transparency, fairness, and quantification, providing evidence for decision-making processes, such as grading, admission criteria, or graduation thresholds. school-based exams and national entrance exams are examples of summative assessment (mcmillan, 2013; ishaq et al., 2020). on the other hand, formative assessment utilizes various methods, including recitation, reading aloud, teacher-student questioning, group exercises/discussions, assignments, oral presentations or demonstrations, role-playing, and portfolio assessment. its primary goal is to understand students' ability levels and learning processes, enabling teachers to gather feedback for instructional adjustments, such as pacing or teaching methods (mcmillan, 2013). formative assessment also allows students to identify and improve their weaknesses based on teachers' feedback, ultimately supporting the learning process (black & wiliam, 2003; hanna & dettmer, 2004; ismail et al., 2022). moreover, formative assessment can incorporate self-assessment or peer assessment methods, promoting metacognitive skills development, such as reflection on one's own learning, and fostering independent learning habits or abilities (black & wiliam, 2003; hanna & dettmer, 2004; fukuda et al., 2022). traditionally, assessment methods have heavily focused on summative assessment, emphasizing objective scores. however, in the past few decades, scholars such as birenbaum, et al. (2015). gipps and cummings (2003), earl (2003), earl and katz (2005), and stiggins (2005), jansson., & löfgren (2022), have recognized the importance of diverse assessment purposes and have advocated for formative assessment as a core approach. they aim to gain a deeper understanding of students' learning processes and enhance teaching effectiveness through this type of assessment. however, in an education environment that places significant emphasis on grades in taiwan, it is worth exploring whether an assessment mechanism primarily based on the concept of "formative assessment" can truly benefit students. therefore, this study proposed a concept of balanced summative-and-formative assessment, where formative assessment and summative assessment each account for 50% of the classroom assessment weight. the aim of this balanced model was to not only enable students to understand their learning outcomes through quantitative assessment methods but also provide qualitative assessment methods to facilitate different learning activities and enhance students' learning motivation. ultimately, the goal was to improve overall learning outcomes. 3. research questions to address the two objectives, here are the two research questions for this study. 1. to what extent, does a workplace-oriented general english innovative teaching course improve students' motivation to learn english? 2. to what extent, does a workplace-oriented general english innovative teaching course enhance students' english learning effectiveness? 4. methodology 4.1. research design and instruments the purpose of this study was to investigate the construction of a workplace-oriented general english innovative teaching course, which includes diverse task-based learning methods, practical exercises in workplace-related listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills, and a balanced summative-and-formative assessment approach. the aim was to explore the impact of this course on students' english learning willingness and effectiveness. the study aimed to investigate the impact of an 18-week innovative general english teaching course designed specifically for workplace contexts. the course incorporated diverse task-based learning methods, practical exercises focusing on workplace-related listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills and a balanced summative-and-formative assessment approach. to evaluate the effectiveness of this course, a mixed-methods approach was employed. quantitative data were collected through preand post-course tests to measure improvements in students' language skills across the four key areas: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. these tests included both standardized and custom-designed assessments tailored to the course content. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 69 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 65-78 pan, y. c (a work-based approach for improving students’ performance.....) in addition to quantitative measures, qualitative data were gathered to provide deeper insights into students' experiences and attitudes. the following research instruments were used for data collection and analysis: 1) learning satisfaction survey this survey employed a five-point scale questionnaire designed by the researcher to assess the extent to which the "workplace-oriented general english innovative teaching course" enhances students' satisfaction and effectiveness in learning. the questionnaire covers various aspects, including the design of instructional materials, teaching activities, taskbased learning content, task outcome assessment methods, and summative assessment methods. its purpose was to determine if these components meet students' learning needs, enhance their interest and motivation to learn english, and encourage their investment of time and effort in completing learning tasks, ultimately improving their learning effectiveness. 2) learning process reflection journal through qualitative learning process records, students' opinions regarding english workplacethemed tasks and the summative toeic assessment were captured. these records explored the extent of language skill acquisition, learning difficulties encountered, the impact of individual and group tasks on learning, and the objectivity and fairness of assessment criteria. 3) workplace-themed task in quantitative and qualitative assessment forms the assessment of workplace-themed tasks involved both quantitative evaluation of assessment scores and qualitative feedback. the quantitative assessment provided scores based on predefined criteria, while the qualitative feedback offered additional insights and comments on students' performance. 4) pre-test and post-test scores pre-test and post-test assessments conducted in the first and eighteenth weeks, respectively, allowed for a comparison of scores. by analyzing the differences between the two sets of scores, the researchers can gain a deeper understanding of the learning effectiveness of the students throughout the course. 5) student semi-structured interviews student semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 9 students, who were recruited based on their majors. for each of the three majors, three students were recruited, labeled s1-s9. the aim was to collect further explanations and examples that could help in better interpreting the findings. 4.2. course design & participants the course in this study was an advanced general english course for sophomores, a mandatory 2-credit course in the general education curriculum. the course content focuses on english learning and application in workplace-related topics. following the school's curriculum schedule, the first week of the course introduces and conducts pre-tests, the final week includes post-tests, and the remaining sixteen weeks follow the research framework of this course (see figure 1) to engage in workplace english-themed task-based teaching activities. students' english workplace-oriented practical works include: (1) video resumes, (2) group presentations for commercial promotions, and (3) business correspondence. by incorporating workplace applications into the design of general english courses through various innovative teaching methods, the teacher transforms students into users rather than passive learners. in addition, students were required to take online toeic quizzes every two weeks during the course. participants included 129 university students majoring in accounting, international trade, and business administration. of these, 37 participants were male and 92 were female. among them, 110 students completed both the preand post-tests, while the scores of 19 students were excluded due to missing either the pre-test or post-test. 70 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 65-78 pan, y. c (a work-based approach for improving students’ performance.....) fig. 1. an innovative work-based approach for the college general english class 5. finding and discussions the two research questions of this study mainly yielded the following findings: 5.1. to what extent, does the workplace-oriented general english innovative teaching course increase students' motivation to learn english? based on the findings presented in tables 1 and 2, it is evident that the workplace-oriented general english innovative teaching course has several positive impacts on students' learning. the course content is considered to be of moderate difficulty and practicality, effectively enhancing students' understanding of future workplace english requirements and improving their relevant workplace english skills. the incorporation of diverse learning activities, including classroom q&a, group exercises, resume writing, business presentations, and guest lectures by foreign teachers, contributes to enhancing students' interest and motivation in learning english. additionally, specialized tasks such as resume writing and business english presentations serve as effective means to assess students' english proficiency, as indicated by the high agreement percentages (exceeding 90%) in items 1-8. furthermore, through student feedback at the interviews, students acknowledged the diverse and interactive teaching methods of the course, find the classes lively and engaging, enhance their understanding and application of workplace english, and improve their english proficiency. for example, the interviewee labelled s1 indicated “i feel that the teacher is very dedicated in class and interacts with us. this creates an active atmosphere during class.” another example was expressed by another interviewee s2, “there is a lot of interaction in class, and english communication skills also improve. it is a good teaching method for the course.… i feel that by completing the assignments assigned by the teacher, i have gained an understanding of how english is used in the workplace.” one more interviewee, s3 wrote, “it is different from the previous methods of learning english, more efficient, and yields greater results… learning how to deliver presentations in english has provided me with an opportunity to enhance my skills.” the interviewee, s4 indicated that resume writing improves my english skills. similarly, the interviewee, s5 said, the skills about how to design and write the english resume have benefited me the most. however, it is noteworthy that around one-third of the students express uncertainty or disagreement regarding the preparation for the online toeic listening and reading test, as well as related workplace vocabulary and phrase quizzes in a summative paper-based assessment, in terms of whether they can enhance their interest or motivation in learning. for example, one interviewee, s8, frowned that “i task preparation stage language enhancement stage task implementation stage balanced summativeformative assessment ⚫material preparation ⚫course delivery ⚫diverse teaching activities ⚫diverse learning activities ⚫task-based learning sheets ⚫reflective learning ⚫task instructions ⚫task assignment ⚫task outcomes ⚫reflective learning ⚫qualitative feedback ⚫quantitative grades/scores ⚫reinforcing learning increasing learning motivation improving learning effectiveness issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 71 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 65-78 pan, y. c (a work-based approach for improving students’ performance.....) don't have much motivation to actively learn english because i haven't seen much improvement. maybe i have learned a few more words, but shortly after taking the exam, i forget them.” another interviewee, s9, revealed, “i believe that exams do not necessarily reflect a person's true english abilities because i feel that i may be weaker in vocabulary but stronger in speaking skills.” the researcher's classroom observations suggested that this hesitation may stem from the extensive scope of the toeic written test, where the immediate effectiveness of preparation efforts may not be apparent, thereby diminishing students' interest in learning. additionally, the predominant teachercentered instruction and exam-oriented english learning approach in the taiwanese educational system pose challenges in sparking students' enthusiasm for learning. therefore, english educators should further explore the application of scenario-based summative paper-based assessments to address these concerns and more effectively engage students. nevertheless, there are suggestions from the students for improvement, such as enhancing the operation and review mechanism of the toeic online testing system used for summative assessments and reducing the frequency of quizzes. the study shows that the workplace-oriented general english innovative teaching course significantly increases students' motivation to learn english and improves their practical english skills for the workplace. the course content, which includes diverse and interactive methods like classroom q&a, group exercises, resume writing, business presentations, and guest lectures, is considered moderately challenging and practical. these activities effectively enhance students' understanding of workplace english and keep them engaged. high levels of agreement in the survey responses support these positive impacts. student feedback further emphasizes the course's success. for example, students appreciated the interactive and engaging teaching methods, with many noting improvements in their english communication skills and practical abilities, such as delivering presentations and writing resumes. however, some students expressed concerns about the effectiveness of preparing for the toeic test and related quizzes, which they felt did not enhance their interest or motivation. this hesitation may stem from the traditional teacher-centered and exam-oriented approach prevalent in taiwan's educational system. to address these concerns, it is recommended that educators explore scenario-based assessments that are more engaging and reflective of real-world applications. additionally, improving the toeic online testing system and reducing quiz frequency could help maintain student interest. overall, while the course has successfully increased students' interest in learning and improved their business english skills, future assessments should focus on meaningful and practical learning experiences to sustain motivation. table 1. learning satisfaction survey for an innovative work-based approach question items(n=129) mean sd agree & strongly agree not sure disagree & strongly disagree this course helps enhance my relevant workplace english skills, such as understanding english resume writing, english business presentations, english oral communication, and workplace english vocabulary. 4.6 0.498 100% 0% 0% the overall design of this workplace-oriented advanced english course is appropriate. 4.5 0.560 96.9% 3.1% 0% the workplace english teaching materials in this course are practical and help me understand the future demands of workplace english. 4.5 0.586 95.3% 4.7% 0% the diverse task-based english learning activities in this course contribute to improving my workplace english proficiency. 4.4 0.558 96.9% 3.1% 0% the diverse task-based learning activities (classroom q&a, group exercises, resume writing, business presentations, lectures by foreign teachers) enhance my interest and motivation in learning english. 4.5 0.586 95.3% 4.7% 0.9% 72 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 65-78 pan, y. c (a work-based approach for improving students’ performance.....) question items(n=129) mean sd agree & strongly agree not sure disagree & strongly disagree i believe that i have actively participated in this course. 4.4 0.597 94.6% 5.4% 0% the difficulty level of the workplace english teaching materials in this course is moderate. 4.4 0.640 91.5% 8.5% 0.9% the course's assignments (such as resume writing, business presentations) can assess my english proficiency. 4.3 0.639 90.7% 9.3% 0% the written exam in this course can assess my english proficiency. 4.0 0.815 77.6% 19.3% 3.1% preparing for listening and reading exams enhances my english abilities. 4.1 0.723 82.2% 17% 0.8% preparing for listening and reading exams enhances my interest and motivation in learning english. 3.9 0.826 72.1% 24% 3.9% table 2. student feedback from the open-ended questions in the learning satisfaction survey teaching methods & contents 32% there is a lot of interaction and communication in english learning activities, making it enjoyable and not boring. (9) 12% the course is diverse and innovative. (3) 4% resume writing improves english skills. (3) 4% vocabulary learning courses are interesting, lively, and rich. (2) 3% the course pace is somewhat fast, and some students may need time to adapt and catch up. (2) 3% the project assignments spark students' interest and enhance their abilities. (2) 3% the business presentations are unique. (1) 1% the group discussion time is too short. (1) 1% feedback from the foreign teacher in english improves listening skills. (1) 1% enhancement of language skills for the workplace 32% enhancing business english skills (13) 18% improving vocabulary, speaking, and grammar abilities.(10) 14% assessment methods 18% frequent issues with the toeic system. (3) 4% toeic design does not align with human nature, such as the inability to clarify one's own incorrect questions, skipping questions, and mandatory answers. (3) 4% vocabulary quizzes encourage students to memorize words. (2) 3% excessive exams that hinder long-term retention. (2) 3% reduced pressure in presentations, but uneven distribution of individual work and unfair grading. (2) 3% abundance of assignments. (1) 1% miscellaneous 15% serious and dedicated teaching. (4) 5% personal factors, such as individuals being unable to participate in the complete course, difficulties in memorizing english vocabulary, and lack of seriousness in class.(4) 5% desiring course content that includes daily conversations and toeic practice questions.(3) 4% hoping to gain knowledge in advanced workplace english, for example, exhibition english.(1) 1% enhancement of motivation and interest 3% increasing enthusiasm for learning english. (2) 3% issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 73 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 65-78 pan, y. c (a work-based approach for improving students’ performance.....) 5.2. to what extent, does the workplace-oriented general english innovative teaching course improve students' english learning effectiveness? according to table 3, the average scores of students who participated in the pre-test and post-test for the toeic listening section were 158.23 and 178.05, respectively. for the reading section, the average scores were 117.64 and 148.05, respectively. the average scores for the overall test were 275.86 before the course and 326.09 after the course. the "significance (two-tailed)" values were all p<0.05, indicating significant improvements in listening, reading, and overall scores. furthermore, the average score for the completion of video resume writing, business presentations for commercial products, and email correspondence in the course was 79.47 out of 100, as shown in table 4. students’ feedback from their reflection journals could be categorized into three parts: 1) the enhancement of english proficiency, 2) business-related knowledge, and 3) the enhancement of confidence. table 5 details the examples for the three parts. these scores and students’ aforementioned feedback demonstrate that the course has improved english learning effectiveness. however, it is worth noting that according to the "toeic score and english proficiency conversion table" provided on the official toeic website, a total average score of 326.09 only corresponds to the ability to engage in simple general daily conversations and is insufficient for continuous discussions or english-based work. therefore, prior to the business workplace project tasks, this project familiarizes students with vocabulary and phrases related to the tasks through reading or listening activities. it also strengthens vocabulary practice and grammar analysis to enhance students' language skills for task application, which contributes to improving their performance in resume writing and business presentations (average score = 79.47 as shown in table 4). for example, students reflected in their learning reflections, "for the part of making powerpoint slides and writing text documents, the teacher provided templates and informed us of areas that needed revision and modification in each class," "the teacher also gave us templates to follow; otherwise, we wouldn't know where to start. the teacher also helps us correct mistakes in wording and grammar," "the teacher allocates time for us to discuss and helps us with revisions," "before the presentation, the teacher lets us practice and corrects our pronunciation errors and appropriate intonation." in addition, table 5 shows students’ feedback on formative assessment tasks, indicating their enhancement of english proficiency, professional knowledge and confidence through the process of completing the three formative assessment tasks. table 3. students’ scores on summative assessment major gender pre-posttest (n=110) mean sd t df sig. 1 2 3 1 2 pre-listening 158.23 59.987 -4.312 109 .000 35 30 40 29 81 post-listening 178.05 57.955 pre-reading 117.64 71.117 -4.823 109 .000 post-reading 148.05 64.439 pre-total score 275.86 117.943 -5.865 109 .000 post-total score 326.09 112.546 a. major: 1=international trade, 2= business administration, 3=accounting b. gender: 1=male, 2=female table 4. students’ scores on formative assessment (1 video resume, 1 group presentation, 1 business email) major gender assessment (n=129) mean sd 1 2 3 1 2 performance 79.473 6.628 45 44 40 37 92 c. major: 1=international trade, 2= business administration, 3=accounting d. gender: 1=male, 2=female 74 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 65-78 pan, y. c (a work-based approach for improving students’ performance.....) table 5. students’ feedback from reflection journals on three formative assessment tasks e n h a n c e m e n t o f e n g lish p ro ficien c y increased vocabulary in english it feels like i have taken a step closer to english, getting to know more unfamiliar english words and understanding how to use them. in this assignment, i learned how to write a correct address in english and also gained knowledge of many workplace-related english words and specialized terms. improved speaking skills the teacher required us to introduce ourselves and record it, which made me practice it many, many times. through this, i learned where to pause, where to emphasize intonation to make it engaging, and how to pronounce certain words. by mastering english grammar, i had the opportunity to practice the pronunciation of english words. i also learned how to communicate with classmates and teachers and how to seek appropriate help and listen to others' advice when facing difficulties. improved understanding of english grammar concepts. i learned how to create a simple english resume, use precise english vocabulary, and handle verb tenses in english word grammar. through this, i learned many grammar aspects that are useful when writing a resume. the additional explanations provided by the teacher were also very beneficial to me. familiar with content organization and writing although it takes more time to translate language from my familiar native language into english, and initially there were many words i didn't know how to pronounce, after practicing multiple times, it didn't seem as difficult anymore. i also learned how to create an english resume. while working on the assignment, i found it challenging but not impossible. it just required me to spend more time researching and translating than others. upon completion, i felt a small sense of accomplishment. enhanced overall english proficiency through researching numerous unfamiliar industry terms and different resume formats, i not only worked with written documents but also incorporated speaking practice. i practiced introducing myself and describing my work experience multiple times, which made my speaking ability more fluent. i learned how to handle situations in english, both advancing and withdrawing gracefully. this will help me remain composed during future job interviews. e n h a n c e m e n t o f w o r k -p la c e k n o w led g e enhanced business knowledge through resume writing this assignment allowed me to present a more accurate representation and reduce the occurrence of colloquial sentences. it provided an opportunity for students before entering the workforce to create a complete english resume. i learned how to effectively showcase my strengths in a formatted manner on a resume, making it easy for others to understand at a glance. understood if my experience aligns with the requirements of the workplace while writing my english job application resume, i discovered whether my experiences were sufficient and if they would be beneficial for my future career development. it made me realize the areas i need to strengthen in the future so that my resume doesn't appear empty or lacking. established future career direction i gained a general understanding of the questions interviewers might ask, and i can now prepare answers in advance to face any future interviews. through the process of completing this assignment, i pondered this question more seriously, which helped me determine my career goals for the future. additionally, i aspire to achieve more than just becoming an accountant or bookkeeper in my learning journey. e n h a n c e m e n t o f c o n fid e n c e boosted self-confidence. speaking in english is a significant challenge, but overcoming this challenge can greatly boost my self-confidence. describing how my unique qualities and experiences make me competent for the job and showcasing my versatility can help build my self-confidence. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 75 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 65-78 pan, y. c (a work-based approach for improving students’ performance.....) this study revealed significant improvements in students' english skills through a comprehensive learning assignment. students reported a notable increase in their vocabulary, allowing them to understand and use new words more effectively. practical tasks, like writing correct addresses and learning workplace-related terms, bridged the gap between academic learning and real-world application. additionally, repeated practice in recording self-introductions greatly enhanced their speaking skills, helping them master intonation, pauses, and pronunciation. this regular practice, combined with a better understanding of grammar, significantly boosted their verbal communication abilities. the assignment also deepened students' understanding of english grammar, especially in creating resumes. they learned to use precise vocabulary and handle verb tenses accurately, with the teacher's explanations being particularly beneficial. translating from their native language to english and organizing content for resumes improved their writing skills, despite initial challenges. over time, they became more comfortable with the process, achieving a sense of accomplishment through persistence. researching industry terms and practicing resume writing further enhanced their overall english proficiency, making them more fluent in both written and spoken contexts. beyond language skills, the assignment provided valuable business knowledge and boosted self-confidence. students learned to present themselves accurately and professionally in resumes, avoiding colloquial language. this self-assessment helped them understand if their experiences aligned with workplace requirements and identify areas needing improvement. reflecting on their career goals and preparing for interviews clarified their aspirations and set clear objectives. overcoming the challenge of speaking in english significantly increased their confidence, enabling them to describe their strengths and experiences effectively. overall, the assignment had a profound impact, preparing students for future career challenges and enhancing their language proficiency. 6. pedagogical implications and conclusions the purpose of this study was to develop an english general education course that emphasizes practical workplace skills and examine its impact on students' learning motivation and effectiveness. the study involved 129 sophomore students enrolled at a university in the southern region of the country. over the course of 18 weeks, the students were required to complete workplace-themed tasks and participate in summative assessments related to english in the workplace. the researcher, who also served as the english instructor, employed a variety of qualitative and quantitative research tools, including student questionnaires, formative and summative assessment scores, reflection journals, and student interviews. the findings revealed several significant outcomes: improved toeic scores: there was a noticeable improvement in students' toeic scores before and after the course, indicating a positive impact on their overall english proficiency. enhanced teaching methods: students acknowledged the course's diverse interactive teaching methods, which created a lively and engaging atmosphere. they reported enhanced understanding and application of workplace english, as well as improved english language skills. effective practical assessments: practical assessments were found to be more effective in increasing students' learning interest and motivation compared to traditional paper-based tests. here are the pedagogical implications drawn from the aforementioned findings. increased learning motivation and interest: the innovative work-based approach effectively increased students' interest and motivation in learning english. diverse and interactive teaching methods, such as classroom q&a, group exercises, resume writing, business presentations, and guest lectures, created a lively and engaging atmosphere. specialized tasks like resume writing and business presentations were particularly effective in assessing students' english proficiency and practical application abilities. balanced assessment approach: the study demonstrated that a balanced summative-and-formative assessment approach can significantly improve students' learning outcomes. this approach not only provided quantitative assessment methods to gauge learning outcomes but also offered qualitative feedback to support different learning activities and enhance motivation. need for course adjustments: the study highlighted the need to address students' concerns about the preparation for online toeic listening and reading tests and related workplace vocabulary 76 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 65-78 pan, y. c (a work-based approach for improving students’ performance.....) quizzes. english educators should explore scenario-based summative assessments to make the learning process more engaging and relevant to students. course design recommendations: future courses should consider reducing the number of students per class and increasing the learning hours to ensure efficient and high-quality completion of tasks. integrating diverse english learning activities into summative assessments can further enhance students' learning interest and improve their english language learning outcomes. overall, the study highlights the positive impact of the innovative course on students' learning motivation and effectiveness in acquiring practical workplace english skills. the findings provide valuable insights for the design and implementation of similar courses in the future. this course has achieved its teaching goal of increasing students' interest in learning while also enhancing their english business skills through practical opportunities such as resume preparation and presentations. however, for future summative paper-based assessments, it is necessary to consider designing a mode that can enhance students' interest and motivation, avoiding the perception that preparing for english is solely for test performance without substantial gains. by implementing the recommendations from this study, future courses can continue to improve and adapt to better meet the needs of students, ultimately enhancing their english language proficiency and workplace readiness. acknowledgment the researcher extends sincere gratitude to taiwan moe teaching practice research program for the research grants provided. the deepest appreciation is reserved for the experts for their invaluable comments, support, and guidance. their time and thoughtful input significantly contributed to enhancing this study to its fullest potential. additionally, heartfelt thanks are extended to the participants, whose dedicated efforts and energy were instrumental in the success of this study. with their kind cooperation, the project was completed successfully. declarations author contribution : the researcher is the only author and therefore accountable for the entirety of the manuscript's writing process. funding statement : the research is funded under the moe teaching practice research program, taiwan, republic of china. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflict of interest. ethics declaration : the author acknowledges that this study adheres to ethical research standards set by the university and that the necessary permissions were obtained from the relevant institution for data collection. the author supports the english language teaching educational 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. references 104 job bank. 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(2016). university english education aimed at cultivating global competitiveness: a case study of national cheng kung university. journal of educational research and development, 12(3), 107-130. https://doi.org/10.3966/181665042016091203005 https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2022.2148280 https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452218649 http://www.cavesbooks.com.tw/cet/artcontent_en.aspx?cde=art20130905175355nqk http://www.cavesbooks.com.tw/cet/artcontent_en.aspx?cde=art20130905175355nqk https://doi.org/10.29140/lea.v2n1.33 https://doi.org/10.1177/2212585x221099104 https://doi.org/10.3966/181665042016091203005 1. introduction 2. literature review 2.1. current condition of english teaching in taiwan universities 2.2. general english vs. workplace english 2.3. task-based instruction 2.4. balanced summative-and-formative assessment model 3. research questions 4. methodology 4.1. research design and instruments 1) learning satisfaction survey 2) learning process reflection journal 3) workplace-themed task in quantitative and qualitative assessment forms 4) pre-test and post-test scores 5) student semi-structured interviews 4.2. course design & participants 5. finding and discussions 5.1. to what extent, does the workplace-oriented general english innovative teaching course increase students' motivation to learn english? 5.2. to what extent, does the workplace-oriented general english innovative teaching course improve students' english learning effectiveness? 6. pedagogical implications and conclusions declarations 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 abstract 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. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 177-190 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12010 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id leveraging gamification to enhance motivation and engagement among efl learners yea-ru tsai i-shou university, no. 1, sec. 1, syuecheng rd., dashu district, kaohsiung city 84001, taiwan yrtsai@isu.edu.tw a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 12 october 2024 revised 12 november 2024 accepted 20 november 2024 in recent years, gamification has appeared to be an enjoyable and appealing instructional approach in educational settings. this paper reports the implementation and evaluation of gamified instruction to support learners of english as a foreign language in a linguistics course. several gamification elements, such as experience points, badges, leaderboard and competition, were deployed on a moodle course management system. a comparison of the results of the survey on learning motivation revealed that the experimental group had greater learning motivation than did the control group after the instruction, particularly in the dimensions of relevance and satisfaction, suggesting that gamification can increase learners’ interest and satisfaction. to illustrate learning engagement, the data of online activities in the course management system were analyzed and compared between groups. the outcomes were encouraging, showing that students in the gamified group were more likely to submit quizzes and posts on discussion forums than were those in the nongamified group. the analysis of the relationships between gamified learning activities and motivation revealed that learning motivation was significantly correlated with discussion forums, wordwall games and badges. the findings indicate that gamification elements can effectively promote students’ motivation and engagement in learning english as a foreign language context. © the author(s) 2024. published by universitas ahmad dahlan this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords gamification motivation learner engagement efl instruction linguistics how to cite: tsai, y. r. (2024). leveraging gamification to enhance motivation and engagement among efl learners. english language teaching educational journal, 7(3), 177-190. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12010 1. introduction acquiring proficiency in english as a foreign language (efl) is essential for engaging in international communication in global educational communities (dehghanzadeh et al., 2021). the requirement to learn english to interact with students from other countries has increased dramatically as a consequence of the development of new digital technologies (bouchrika et al., 2021). the sudden increase in demand for efl necessitates a transformation from conventional to innovative teaching approaches (huang et al., 2020). this change is particularly crucial, as students frequently lament that learning efl is demanding, stressful, and struggling (majuri et al., 2018). several factors that may affect learning efl processes and results include motivation, engagement, aptitude, and anxiety (barata, et al., 2013). for example, students may become less confident when they struggle with learning linguistics, which might lead to a loss of drive and enthusiasm and disengagement from learning. previous studies have suggested that gamified learning environments for efl learning may increase students’ motivation (dehghanzadeh et al., 2021), engagement (huang, https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12010 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:yrtsai@isu.edu.tw http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12010 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5430-8428 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12010&domain=pdf issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 178 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 177-190 tsai, y. r. (leveraging gamification to enhance motivation and engagement…..) et al., 2019) and satisfaction (metwally, et al., 2021) through the learning process. one of the frequently mentioned advantages of gamification is the positive impact it can have on engagement and learning motivation (buckley & doyle, 2016). however, learner engagement and motivation are intrinsically linked, with each serving as a critical factor in boosting students’ academic performance and deeper commitment (albrecht & karabenick, 2018). motivation is characterized as a collection of interwoven ideas and emotions that drive students’ learning behaviors (martin & dowson, 2009). both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have been employed in gamification research to increase the success of learning (alsawaier, 2018; buckley & doyle, 2016; sailer & homner, 2020). it has also been proven that gamified teaching can promote student engagement in language learning (looyestyn, et al., 2017; xi & hamari, 2020). in this context, it is important to explore the attitudes and emotions of learners toward gamification in efl education. as a result, instructional tactics and methods should be created with the experiences of the students in mind to increase their interest and motivation in satisfying the needs of the growing number of students who are engaged in learning efl. gamification, which is most widely defined as a design process through which game elements are added to existing nongame systems (deterding et al., 2011), has become an increasingly popular pedagogical approach in educational contexts (bouchrika et al., 2021). to overcome motivational issues and encourage active learning, this process involves the integration of gaming elements and design features into nongame settings (buckley & doyle, 2016; landers & landers, 2014; looyestyn, et al., 2017). research indicates that gaming elements such as points, badges, leaderboards, and immediate feedback are frequently employed to promote learner engagement and motivation in gamified learning environments. a study conducted by bouchrika et al. (2021) revealed that gamified settings significantly increased student interaction with e-learning platforms, as leaderboards and badges were encouraged to compete while collaborating with their peers. this aligns with baah et al.’s (2023) research, which provided insightful findings with the framework of self-determination theory and the attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction (arcs) model, highlighting satisfaction as the key component in gamifying student motivation. their study demonstrated that extrinsic rewards, such as points and badges, might gradually transform into intrinsic motivation. specifically, huang et al. (2019) explored how gamification elements affect undergraduate students’ learning engagement and reported that gamified flipped instruction significantly increased activity completion rates and accuracy, indicating improved behavioral and cognitive engagement. in the context of efl education, gamification has proven to have notable potential in improving student motivation, engagement and language proficiency. one well-known application of incorporating gamification in language learning is duolingo (https://www.duolingo.com/). by featuring skill trees, leaderboards, level-ups, and in-app rewards, duolingo enhances motivation by establishing an enjoyable and dynamic environment that stimulates engagement and reduces anxiety for language learners (amin, 2021, lahji, 2024; loewen et al., 2019). previous studies have shown that game-based learning is an important and novel teaching strategy in the field of learning and that it can help students improve their language learning performance, cooperate more, and make learning more active (belkhouche et al., 2014; mei et al. 2018). gamebased learning, as opposed to entertainment-oriented games, is a type of gaming with educational goals (shu, 2018). it is a type of game with specific learning goals (plass et al., 2015). gamification is a relatively recent phrase that refers to the use of game aspects in nongame contexts to provide learners with engaging, interesting, and inspiring learning experiences (baptista & oliveira, 2018; werbach & hunter, 2015). gamified learning environments bring game concepts and dynamics to nongame contexts to boost learners' deep learning and critical thinking (kapp, 2012) and lead them to adopt specified behaviors (rachels & rockinson-szapkiw, 2018; werbach & hunter, 2015). according to landers & landers (2014), introducing gamification approaches can motivate learners' time on tasks, and more time at work is associated with greater student accomplishment. games have been recognized as one of the most important contributions to the creation of interactive, motivating, and engaging learning environments during this change. furthermore, introducing game aspects into learning settings is one way to increase motivation and engagement (rowe et al., 2011). several studies have indicated that students’ reactions to participation in gamified efl settings are entertaining, fun, appealing, interactive, and intriguing (baldauf et al., 2017; gaikwad & jain, 2017; homer et al., 2018; sun & hsieh, 2018; zhou, yu, & shi, 2017). 179 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 177-190 tsai, y. r. (leveraging gamification to enhance motivation and engagement…..) dehghanzadeh et al.'s (2021) systematic review of 22 studies on gamification revealed consistent positive impacts on efl learner motivation, engagement and various language skills in several key areas. among the most well-documented outcomes, vocabulary acquisition has demonstrated substantial improvement through gamification, which was found in fifteen out of the 22 studies reviewed by dehghanzadeh et al. (2021). tools such as kahoot and quizizz have been shown to be remarkably effective in providing instant feedback and reinforcement of correct answers (demirbilek et al., 2022; zhang, & crawford, 2024). gamification also enhances speaking skills by creating a less intimidating atmosphere, resulting in greater student engagement in speaking activities when presented with gamified instruction (arnold, 2014). it has been argued that gamified environments offer psychologically safe spaces for language learners, who report feeling more in control of their learning process, contributing to reduced anxiety levels and increased engagement with language learning (dehghanzadeh et al., 2021). looyestyn et al. (2017) noted that although gamification generally facilitates engagement and motivation, the long-term effects are still inconsistent. to ascertain how gamification can be successfully implemented to sustain motivation over time and across diverse learner profiles, more solid empirical research is needed. as suggested by baah et al. (2023), the effectiveness of gamification relies on precisely leveraging intrinsic and extrinsic incentives, adapting strategies to the learners’ background and dynamically developing gaming mechanics to maintain long-term interest. to date, most studies in efl fields have investigated how gamified instruction affects language abilities in oral or written forms (alvia gonzález, 2022; muthukumar & neelakandan, 2019), yet the correlation between gamification and efl learner motivation or engagement remains understudied (zhang & crawford, 2024). to further investigate the unsolved issues mentioned in previous studies, this paper intends to explore the impact of gamified instruction on efl students’ learning motivation and engagement. it specifically demonstrates the relationships between gamification elements and motivation. hence, the following research questions are raised: 1. what are the possible effects of gamified instruction on efl learners’ motivation? 2. what are the possible effects of gamified instruction on efl learners’ engagement? 3. what are the relationships between gamification elements and learning motivation? 2. method 2.1. participants the participants of the present study were recruited from two groups of undergraduates learning english as a foreign language (efl) at a university in southern taiwan. the data were collected from two consecutive semesters in two english linguistics courses. in the first year, the students, serving as the control group (cg, n = 37), received nongamified instruction, whereas in the second year, a gamified version of the course was given to the participants, serving as the experimental group (eg, n = 43). the classes were taught using the same instructional materials. both the cg and the eg used the university’s moodle course management system (cms) to host the learning materials. all the participants had studied english for more than ten years. each class was delivered for 18 weeks. ethical approval for data collection and student consent were obtained before its implementation. 2.2. instructional design the course of the eg was implemented in a computer lab with the support of moodle, which is constructed by the school and offered to all courses on campus. to enhance student motivation and engagement, blended gamified instruction integrated learning activities implemented in the classroom and on moodle, which were carefully designed with gamification elements. students engaged in an organized three-period session each week, including a lecture using teacher-made powerpoints materials and collaborative problem-solving on q&a worksheets, followed by moodle-based activities, such as online quizzes, discussion forums, and wordwall game group competitions. based on the framework of gamification and the literature review, the most suitable gaming elements were selected and integrated to meet the purpose of the study (as shown in table 1), as illustrated below: badges. badges are visual logos presented as awards for completing a task or achieving educational goals. it serves as a demonstration of behavioral engagement in the learning environment, which is a feedback mechanism displayed by the system. two types of badges were used in the eg: issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 180 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 177-190 tsai, y. r. (leveraging gamification to enhance motivation and engagement…..) early bird badges and completion badges. an early bird badge was offered to the earliest 3 groups to submit assignments. the groups who submitted an assignment completely earned a completion badge. the top 3 groups for earning badges were rewarded with prizes by the end of the course. teams with good-quality postings may earn hidden badges, such as movie coupons, coffee coupons, and stationary coupons. competition. to enhance the sense of achievement by creating an atmosphere of competition, a contest of group project presentation was arranged. each team should sound record their powerpoint presentation and upload it to moodle for peer evaluation. each group receives an average score from peer groups and the instructor. the top three groups receiving the highest scores will be awarded a trophy. leaderboards. this special page lists the top-scoring students with their awards so that visitors can view, compare and recognize their achievements. specific rules were set for the students’ engagement in the online learning activities. there were ten levels in total. the students were upgraded to the next level at a rate of 300 experience points (xp) per level. the leaderboard webpage (see figure 1) is publicly accessible through moodle and displays students shown in descending order by level and xp. games. to stimulate students’ interest in learning, the test of linguistics knowledge was integrated with wordwall games (https://wordwall.net/). the games were designed based on the content of instruction on a weekly basis. the students played the games by the end of each session. the winners earned bonuses as encouragement. a screenshot of a wordwall game is shown in figure 2. table 1. motivating elements, gamification elements and rules in the eg motivating elements gamification elements specification long-term goal; access; challenge; collaboration the 1st place trophy the team with highest votes in the group presentation earns the 1st place trophy. long-term goal; access; challenge; collaboration the 2nd place trophy the team with the second highest votes in the group presentation earns the 2nd place trophy. long-term goal; access; challenge; collaboration the 3rd place trophy the team with the third highest votes in the group presentation earns the 3rd place trophy. short-term goal; feedback; challenge movie badge; coffee badge; stationery badge teams with good quality postings may earn badges, such as movie coupons, coffee coupons, and stationery coupons. short-term goal; feedback; challenge wordwall games the winners may earn bonuses on weekly bases. long-term goal; access; feedback; challenge level up; progress tracker; leaderboard level 1: completing 5 online activities level 2: completing 10 online activities level 3: completing 15 online activities to evaluate students’ learning engagement, rules for collecting experience points (x-points) were created on moodle. students may acquire experience points for different learning activities, such as viewing teaching materials or submitting assignments. the rules for collecting x-points are listed in table 2. table 2. rules of earning experience points on moodle activity description number of experience points quiz submitted 10 points i want to ask questions(post created) 10 points feedback: response submitted (1-12) 10 points forum: discussion created 10 points forum: post created 10 points course: course viewed 5 points course module viewed/wiki page updated 5 points questionnaire (eg-posttest) 5 points course: course viewed 2 points https://wordwall.net/ 181 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 177-190 tsai, y. r. (leveraging gamification to enhance motivation and engagement…..) fig. 1. screenshot of the leaderboard. fig. 2. screenshot of a wordwall game. in contrast, the cg received a lecture-based instruction with the same textbook (o’grady & archibald, 2021) and teaching materials as scheduled in the eg. using the same login and password as their university webmails, students could access the course materials, including powerpoints and other online resources, on the moodle course management system (cms). the major difference between the eg and cg was that the students in the eg received the learning materials and activities constructed to integrate gamification theory, while the cg received a nongamified instruction, which was conducted face-to-face in a traditional classroom. no gamification element was integrated into the instruction offered to the cg. 2.3. procedure and data collection the study was conducted at one linguistics course offered at a university in southern taiwan. the subjects received gamified instructions implemented in the cms. the system provided detailed log reports of individual students’ participation time and online activities. the course was offered three hours per week and lasted for 18 weeks. after the first week of course introduction, the pretest of the questionnaire on learning motivation was conducted in week three. the same post-test was administered again during week 17. a consent form was provided to all the participants. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 182 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 177-190 tsai, y. r. (leveraging gamification to enhance motivation and engagement…..) to investigate whether there was any change in students’ learning motivation after the intervention, a questionnaire adapted from the version used in keller (2010) was used. the original version contains 36 items in four dimensions: attention, relevance, confidence and satisfaction. to meet the purpose of this study, the revised version will contain 26 items. prior to the actual test administration, the tests will be piloted for content by the students (n = 10) who are not attending the experimental course. all the problematic questions were removed or revised according to the students’ given feedback in the pilot study. using a five-point likert scale (code 1: not true; 2: slightly true; 3: moderately true; 4: mostly true; 5: very true), the questionnaire elicited students’ perceptions of their learning interest or motivation. the same survey will be administered twice to the eg and cg before and after the course, respectively. the cms automatically records students’ log data, which are collected for analysis. the log analysis provides further information about students’ behavior engagement, which cannot be clearly observed in class. the following variables were selected for analysis of the students’ online learning activities. 1. discussion forum and post: the number of posts submitted to the discussion forum. 2. online quizzes: the number of submission rates of online quizzes. 3. q & a worksheets: the accuracy rates of the q&a worksheets. 4. wordwall games: the accuracy rates of weekly wordwall games on linguistic concepts. 5. badges: the number of badges the students had acquired. 6. online resource view: the total number of viewed online resources/teaching materials prepared for the course. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. effects on learning motivation to investigate whether the eg participants had a higher level of perceived learning interest following the intervention, the preand post-questionnaire on motivation were compared using independent samples t-tests. the results of the t-tests are provided in table 3. both groups of students showed an increase in learning interest after the instruction. in the preand post-questionnaires, the eg's mean perceived learning interest increased from 3.48 (sd =0.91) to 3.93 (sd =0.87), whereas the cg's mean score improved from 3.56 (sd = 0.52) to 3.57 (sd = 0.46). the t-tests indicated that there was no difference between the groups prior to instruction (t = 1.479, p = 0.439, n.s.), but there was a significant difference after instruction between the eg and cg (t = 5.434, p < 0.001). significant differences were also found in the post-test between the eg and cg in each subsection of attention (t = 0.956, p < 0.05), relevance (t = 3.517, p < 0.01), confidence (t = 1.249, p < 0.05), and satisfaction (t = 4.217, p < 0.001). the results of the sli appear optimistic overall, as they reveal a positive effect on all four dimensions. the variables of satisfaction (m=4.35; sd= 0.81) and relevance (m=4.12; sd=0.63) were scored higher than the other two. the students were highly satisfied with the course, which was reflected in item 26: “it was a pleasure to work on such a well-designed lesson” (m = 4.56, sd = 0.87). among the most crucial elements, attention is needed to empower and engage students in educational activities (barata et al., 2013). the attention level of the pupils significantly increased in this study as they completed their gamified assignments. students' engagement in and completion of online assignments can be positively impacted by the use of gamification elements such as badges, leaderboard, and points (majuri et al., 2018). however, it seems that the growth of students’ confidence is limited. most of the students did not have the impression that the course was easy for them when they first saw the course (item 16, m = 2.18, sd = 1.16). how to increase student confidence in learning, especially in linguistics, remains a challenge for instructors. this result mostly corroborates the findings of prior research in this field that associated gamification with learning motivation and engagement (baah et al., 2023; bouchrika, et al., 2021; garcía-lópez, et al., 2023). the relatively strong association shown between gamification design and the cognitive theory of language learning could be attributed to these variables. on the one hand, gamification design 183 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 177-190 tsai, y. r. (leveraging gamification to enhance motivation and engagement…..) concepts include assisting learners in choosing pertinent words and visuals, minimizing the burden on a single processing channel, and presenting coherent verbal and pictorial information (kapp, 2012). table 3. rules of earning experience points on moodle motivation categories cg (n = 37) eg (n = 43) t-test for equality of means mean sd mean sd t sig. (2tailed) pre-attention 3.73 0.53 3.55 1.22 0.112 0.370 post-attention 3.67 0.66 3.91 0.76 0.956 0.026* pre-relevance 3.41 0.81 3.54 1.17 0.813 0.478 post-relevance 3.05 0.71 4.12 0.63 3.817 0.001*** pre-confidence 3.56 0.71 3.48 1.08 0.623 0.581 post-confidence 3.53 0.61 3.67 0.86 1.249 0.015* pre-satisfaction 3.53 0.62 3.33 1.12 0.937 0.482 post-satisfaction 3.51 0.73 4.35 0.81 4.217 0.000*** pre-overall 3.56 0.52 3.48 0.91 1.479 0.439 post-overall 3.57 0.46 3.93 0.87 5.434 0.000*** note: * p < .05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < .001. 3.2. effects on learning engagement students’ participation in online activities was taken as an indicator of learning engagement. online quizzes were given to evaluate students’ comprehension of the material covered in that specific week. learners’ recollection of basic concepts and information was assessed through online multiplechoice questions. the weekly post-class quiz submission rate and scores served as gauges for the level of cognitive engagement among the students. figure 3 shows the submission rates of weekly quizzes between the groups. moreover, both the cg and eg scores were tallied and examined. mann–whitney tests were performed to determine whether there were statistically significant differences between the quiz scores for the cg and eg. significant differences were found between the groups on quizzes 3, 4, 6 and 7. the results indicated that the eg (n = 43) significantly outperformed the cg (n = 37) in quiz 3 (u = 132, r = 0.34, p < 0.01), quiz 4 (u = 276, r = 0.27, p < 0.05), quiz 6 (u = 105, r = 46, p < 0.001) and quiz 7 (u = 281, r = 41, p < 0.01). no differences were found on quizzes 1, 2, 5, and 8. the discussion forum was created on a weekly basis for students to raise their questions about learning content or reflection on learning linguistics. it is intended to increase students’ engagement and student–student or teacher–student interactions. the data were collected from 8 discussion forums. out of 43 students in the eg, a total of 634 actions (including posting questions or responding to questions) were submitted over the course. this represents an average of 63 submissions per week and 14 actions per student. for all of the examined weeks, comparisons of submissions to the discussion forum were made between the cg and eg. as shown in figure 4, in the first four discussions, the submission rates were similar for both groups; however, from discussions 5 to 8, the differences in the submission rates became more obvious. for example, in discussion 6, only 24% of the cgs posted or responded to the discussion, whereas 66% of the egs did. at the end of this course, only 18% of the cgs submitted responses, whereas 56% of the egs did. this indicates that whereas the number of students who raised questions in the cg gradually decreased over time, the submission rate was reasonably high and steady in the eg. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 184 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 177-190 tsai, y. r. (leveraging gamification to enhance motivation and engagement…..) fig. 3. weekly post-class quiz submission rates between the groups. fig. 4. submission rates of the discussion forums between the groups. data collected from student participation in online activities revealed that gamification had a positive impact on students' engagement. specifically, the students in the eg had a higher submission rate for quizzes (74.25%) and discussion forums (78%) than did those in the cg (43.63% for quizzes and 49% for the discussion forum). this suggests that the eg was more likely to engage in thinking of issues related to linguistics and that the students were more willing to interact with the instructor and peer students. according to the results of the mann‒whitney tests, the scores of the eg were significantly better than those of the cg on four out of the eight quizzes. this provides evidence that the participants in the eg were involved in more cognitive activities in the gamified instructions. to explore possible causes that might have influenced student engagement in the eg, we consulted the participants for their in-depth comments. ten participants agreed to be interviewed. the majority of the participants responded positively to the effects of gamification on learning linguistics. concerning the key question about the most interesting activities that would increase their learning engagement in the course, the most intriguing activity was the wordwall games of linguistics knowledge. the students commented that the atmosphere of the group competition reduced their anxiety in answering the questions because group members could support each other; thus, they could 66 72 40 53 61 12 18 27 85 93 92 90 84 68 57 25 quiz 1 quiz 2 quiz 3 quiz 4 quiz 5 quiz 6 quiz 7 quiz 8 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 the submission rates of online quizzes between the cg and eg cg eg 75 81 63 74 35 24 22 18 82 94 82 89 67 66 58 56 0 20 40 60 80 100 submission rate of discussion forum between the cg and eg control group experimental group 185 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 177-190 tsai, y. r. (leveraging gamification to enhance motivation and engagement…..) learn linguistics without feeling stressed. next, bonuses were regarded as a motivating element to engage in the learning activities since collecting bonuses could help them pass the course, which was the most important motivation of learning for many students. furthermore, points and leaderboard were equally vital for participation. for some students, the sense of achievement accompanied by earning badges and advancing on the leaderboard was their driving force of learning, which was similar to the context of playing games. 3.3. relationships between gamified learning activities and motivation pearson correlation coefficients were used to examine the relationships between motivation and learning activities, including discussion forums, after-class online quizzes, q&a worksheets, wordwall games and badges. these activities were performed on a weekly basis for 12 weeks in total. to run the correlation tests, the accuracy rates for the online quizzes and q&a worksheets were calculated. since there were no correct answers for the posts on the discussion forum, students’ submission rates, including asking and responding to questions, were collected. for wordwall games and badges, students’ attempts to play the games and the number of badges were recorded. the results of the correlation tests revealed that learning motivation was significantly correlated with discussion forum (r = 0.427, p = 0.017), badge (r = 0.437, p = 0.029) and wordwall games (r = 0.581, p = 0.003). however, no significant correlation existed between quizzes (r = 0.284, p = 0.085) and q&a worksheets (r = 0.227, p = 0.062). multiple regression analysis was performed to assess the extent to which learning activities could predict learning motivation. a significant regression was found (f (4, 41) = 5.307, p = 0.004). the r2 was 0.515, suggesting that learning activities explained approximately 51.5% of the variance in learning motivation. only the variables of discussion forum (ß = 0.518, t = 3.058, p = 0.003), wordwall games (ß = 0.426, t = 2.52, p = 0.012) and badges (ß = 0.707, t = 4.792, p = 0.000) were entered into the regression model. the discussion forum explained 32.5% of the variance in learning motivation (r2 = 0.325, cohen’s f 2 = 0.47), the wordwall games explained 41.8% of the variance in learning motivation (r2 = 0.418, cohen’s f 2 = 0.51), and the badges explained 51.3% of the variance in learning motivation (r2 = 0.513, cohen’s f 2 = 0.49). however, no significant regression was found between quizzes, q&a worksheets and learning motivation. the structural model was used to investigate the relationships between learning activities and learning motivation in four dimensions. examining the path coefficients, the paths from the discussion forum to attention (ß = 0.596, t = 3.564, p = 0.002), confidence (ß = 0.462, t = 3.497, p = 0.019), satisfaction (ß = 0.563, t = 3.291, p = 0.003), and learning motivation overall (ß = 0.480, t = 3.213, p = 0.015) were significantly positive. significant positive coefficients were also found for the paths from wordwall games to satisfaction (ß = 0.362, t = 2.115, p = 0.026) and learning motivation overall (ß = 0.548, t = 4.196, p = 0.002). moreover, the paths (see figure 5) from badges to attention (ß = 0.564, t = 3.278, p = 0.003), relevance (ß = 0.542, t = 3.089, p = 0.005), confidence (ß = 0.506, t = 2.813, p = 0.010), satisfaction (ß = 0.707, t = 4.792, p = 0.000), and overall learning motivation (ß = 0.437, t = 2.331, p = 0.029) were significantly positive. the results indicated that discussion forums, wordwall games and badges were significantly correlated with learning motivation, especially in the dimension of satisfaction. to answer the third research question, the relationships between gamified learning activities and efl students’ learning motivation were analyzed. the learning activities implemented in gamified instruction significantly influenced efl students’ motivation. pearson correlation tests revealed that learning motivation was significantly correlated with discussion forums, wordwall games and badges. multiple regression analysis revealed that discussion forums, wordwall games and badges were significant predictors of learning motivation, explaining 32.5%, 41.8% and 51.3% of the variance in learning motivation, respectively. these findings suggest that interactive and gamification activities such as discussion forums, badges and educational games are particularly effective in boosting various dimensions of motivation, especially satisfaction. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 186 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 177-190 tsai, y. r. (leveraging gamification to enhance motivation and engagement…..) fig. 5. path model of the relationships between learning activities and motivation. regarding the choice of gamification elements, the results of the study indicate that discussion forums, wordwall games and badges were the learning activities that considerably enhanced learners’ motivation. in particular, the students made many positive comments in the discussion forum. the significance of feedback has been documented in prior studies. according to dehghanzadeh et al. (2021), the most frequently applied gamification elements for learning esl are “feedback, challenge, point, reward, leaderboard, and level” (p. 945). in their study, the motivational communication strategies used by ucar and kumtepe (2020) were mainly messages, emails, and videos sent to learners through the learning management system, which successfully increased students’ motivation to learn english. this finding is not surprising since feedback is a promising gamification element that is regularly used to improve students’ critical thinking, reasoning and argumentation skills (noroozi, et al., 2020). based on the results of the present study, three major findings are yielded. first, the empirical data support the positive effects of gamification on learning interest and engagement among efl students, which suggests that motivational and gamification elements are a strong combination in instructional design. second, the technical support from the cms makes the operation and maintenance of the course considerably manageable for the instructors. for example, diverse options for activities and flexible time are vital for learners’ willingness to participate in a course. additionally, the automatic presentation of the leaderboard can allow students to view the current status of their experience value and easily make comparisons with others. third, in gamified instruction, individual and cooperative activities should be well balanced. in this course, we set up group activities (e.g., wordwall games, group q&a worksheets, and group presentations) and individual activities (e.g., online quizzes and discussion forums). these learning activities were designed and arranged with the weighing of difficulty level and duration, since frustration and challenge might affect commitment. despite the abundance of research on the advantages of gamification in encouraging students in education, it is yet not clear how long such an effect might be retained. earlier research (hanus & fox, 2015; koivisto & hamari, 2014) revealed that learners’ curiosity about new technology will eventually weaken. bouchrika et al. (2021) reported that the novel effect of introducing an innovation to the university community might account for an increase in active users and contributions, which may be influenced by the platform and construction of gamification. 4. conclusion in this study, we applied gamification-enhanced instruction in linguistics to examine whether this approach can help enhance efl students’ learning interest and engagement. various gamification elements are incorporated, including badges, leaderboard, points and competition. the learning 187 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 177-190 tsai, y. r. (leveraging gamification to enhance motivation and engagement…..) experiences of gamified and nongamified instruction, on students in two consecutive years were compared and analyzed from various aspects. the results were promising. a comparison of the questionnaires on learning motivation before and after the instruction revealed that there was no difference between the eg and cg in the pre-test; however, a significant difference was confirmed between groups in the post-test, indicating that the gamified instruction helped enhance students’ learning interest in different dimensions. furthermore, the eg had higher submission rates in online quizzes and discussion forums than did the cg, which demonstrates that the gamified model has a positive effect on students’ engagement. although the comparison of the final exam scores revealed that the eg significantly outperformed the cg, further evidence is needed to demonstrate that gamification can facilitate students’ performance. it is therefore suggested that future research focus more on sophisticated assessments of learning outcomes and the retention of learning interest and engagement. this research highlights the potential of gamification-enhanced instruction to transform efl learning by fostering greater interest and engagement among students. while the enhanced performance in the final exam suggests the model's effectiveness, the need for more comprehensive assessments underscores the importance of refining this approach. these findings provide valuable insights for educators aiming to adopt innovative teaching strategies and emphasize the importance of designing gamified learning experiences that sustain long-term interest and deepen learning outcomes. acknowledgment the author extends her gratitude to the participants involved in this study who have voluntarily responded positively to the inquiry. declarations author contribution : yea-ru tsai is the sole author and responsible for all of this manuscript. funding statement : the research is funded by the ministry of science and technology (most), taiwan, under the project no. nstc 112-2410-h-214-003. 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 to the regulations of our university and that i have obtained permission from the relevant institutes when collecting data. i support eltej journal in maintaining high standards of personal conduct and practicing honesty in all our professional practices and endeavors. additional information : research ethics approval was obtained by the institutional review board of human research ethics committee at national cheng kung university, taiwan. references albrecht, j. r., & karabenick, s. a. 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(2017). learning as adventure: an app designed with gamification elements to facilitate language learning. in international conference on hci in business, government, and organizations (pp. 266-275). springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-31958481-2_21 https://thinkindiaquarterly.org/index.php/think-india/article/view/9611/5360 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcom.2020.100369 https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2015.1122533 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2017.1382536 https://doi.org/10.3233/jai-2011-019 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09498-w http://www.jstor.org/stable/26458511 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12404 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.11.058 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-12034-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58481-2_21 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58481-2_21 1. introduction 2. method 2.1. participants 2.2. instructional design 2.3. procedure and data collection 3. findings and discussion 3.1. effects on learning motivation 3.2. effects on learning engagement 3.3. relationships between gamified learning activities and motivation 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 124-138 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11871 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of implementing differentiated learning to suburban private madrasahs muhammad sandy al fath a,1,*, nikmah sistia eka putri b,2 a, b english language education study program, universitas muhammadiyah sampit, jl. k.h. dewantara no.3, sampit (74311), indonesia 1 msandyalfath@umsa.ac.id *; 2 nikmahsistia@umsa.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 16 june 2024 revised 12 august 2024 accepted 15 august 2024 the implementation of differentiated learning in private madrasahs raises a big question mark regarding the suitability between theory and practice in the field. the principle of differentiated learning, which is claimed to accommodate diversity, turns out to be far different when implemented, especially in private madrasahs that are transitioning from the previous curriculum. the main purpose of this research is to explore the illusory construction of innovation in differentiated english learning that results in pseudo-innovation. the approach used is a qualitative approach with the type of ethnography. the research was conducted in 4 private madrasahs in the suburbs of sampit city. the research subjects were english teachers who implemented differentiated learning in the four madrasas. the stage analysis process was assisted by the theory of innovation-decision process by rogers, et al. (2014). the results of this study show that (1) the illusion of innovation in differentiated english learning occurs because the stages of the innovation diffusion decision process cause anomalies in the process. (2) madrasahs are forced to follow the decision of the ministry of religious affairs which requires the implementation of an independent curriculum including differentiated learning which results in madrasahs being trapped in pseudo-innovation. (3) madrasahs are registered as institutions that implement differentiated learning. however, in practice, madrasahs still adopt old learning and ignore innovations because they are not considered to be following the characteristics of the madrasah itself. (4) this research implies that it will be an evaluation material for the ministry of religious affairs to pay more attention to private madrasahs in implementing differentiated learning. (5) confirming pseudo-innovation. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords pseudo-innovation merdeka curriculum differentiated learning elt suburban learning how to cite: al fath, m. s., and putri, n. s. e. (2024). capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of implementing differentiated learning to suburban private madrasahs. english language teaching educational journal, 7(2), 124-138. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11871 1. introduction differentiated learning has become one of the most popular strategies in education, especially in dealing with the diversity of students' abilities and needs (fajariyah et al., 2023; smale-jacobse et al., 2019). in current learning, teachers are expected to be able to accommodate various individual differences in students, both in terms of learning styles, interests, and academic readiness (halimah et al., 2023). however, in many educational institutions, including private madrasahs, that are transitioning from the 2013 curriculum to the independent curriculum in east kotawaringin, a regency https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11871 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:msandyalfath@umsa.ac.id mailto:nikmahsistia@umsa.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11871 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6854-5379 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9021-0268 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11871&domain=pdf issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 125 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 124-138 al fath, m. s., & putri, n. s. e. (capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of…..) in central kalimantan, indonesia. where is the concept of differentiated learning is often trapped in the illusion of innovation. although, the terms and principles of differentiated learning are often touted as modern approaches, their implementation in the field does not always reflect the actual principles. schools are frequently compelled by policy constraints to quickly adopt differentiated education without sufficient preparation or assistance. as a result, the implementation usually just satisfies administrative needs and is shallow. the situation is made worse by a lack of resources, including both qualified human resources and sufficient supplies like instructional aids and textbooks. it is frequently difficult for teachers to create genuinely differentiated learning experiences when they are unprepared and feel overwhelmed by these new demands. english language learning in madrasahs, especially in some private madrasahs used as the object of this study, faces challenges. madrasahs are often seen as educational institutions prioritizing religious education, while general subjects, including english, receive less attention (harahap, 2023). in addition, limited facilities, lack of competent teaching resources, and low access to technology and adequate teaching materials add to the burden of implementing more sophisticated learning methods, such as differentiated learning (alam & mohanty, 2023). as transitional educational institutions, some private madrasahs in east kotawaringin also face challenges related to the characteristics of students from diverse social, economic and cultural backgrounds. students from families that predominantly work as farmers, small traders, or laborers certainly have limitations in accessing additional education outside of school, which is essential in supporting english language acquisition. this adds to the gap in students' academic ability, making differentiated learning even more important to implement. besides that, the pre-survey conducted before this research was conducted showed some interesting facts, especially their notorious arguments as shown in figure 1. fig. 1. pre-survey of the research looking at the reality in some private madrasahs in east kotawaringin, there is a significant gap between theory and practice regarding differentiated learning. although teachers understand the basic concepts of this approach, its application in the field is often cosmetic. this creates an illusion of innovation or pseudo-innovation, where there appears to be an update in teaching methods, however in reality, there has been no fundamental change in the way teachers interact with students or in the strategies used to support their diverse learning. although the challenges faced in implementing differentiated learning in transitional madrasahs are quite complex, the teachers’ role remain crucial in determining the extent to which this approach can be effectively implemented (picasouw et al., 2023) to overcome the illusion of innovation, teachers need to receive adequate support, both in the form of more comprehensive training on differentiated learning strategies and the provision of relevant and accessible resources. previous research was conducted by ujang et al. with the title "implementation of differentiated learning in the merdeka curriculum in english subjects". the results of this study indicated that differentiated english learning has been carried out well; it, is only constrained by several aspects 126 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 124-138 al fath, m. s., & putri, n. s. e. (capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of…..) such as teacher ability and infrastructure at school (barlian et al., 2023). the research merely describes the existing situation without further analyzing the critical important aspects of differentiated learning that may be missed or inappropriate. therefore, the novelty of this research is to analyze the illusion of innovation further or to find pseudo-innovations that exist in implementing differentiated english learning. furthermore, the main purpose of this study is to explore the illusory construction of innovation that presents pseudo-innovation in differentiated english learning using the diffusion of innovation theory as the basis for analyzing this discovery. research question: 1. how does pseudo-innovation occur within the concept of differentiated learning in some private madrasahs? 2. method this research accommodates ethnography as the method to discover the existence of the pseudoinnovation that happened in some private madrasahs in east kotawaringin. ethnography is the most suitable method for this study as it allows for a deep, immersive understanding of the cultural nuances and social dynamics within the community. by participating in the daily lives of community members, researchers can uncover hidden meanings, unspoken rules, and intricate patterns of behavior in a small scale of population (o’reilly, 2012). this is in line with the aim of the study which attempt to reveal of the construction of pseudo innovation that existed in the elt in madrasahs. 2.1. participants participants were 4 english teachers from 4 madrasahs near sampit city as the capital of east kotawaringin. in purposive sampling, they were chosen due to pre observation selection by criteria such as; (1) english teachers from private madrasahs in suburban, (2) the madrasahs implemented differentiated learning with a minimum duration of 1 year. the differentiated learning is a studentcentered approach in the merdeka curriculum, where teachers adjust learning materials and activities to the needs, interests, and learning styles of each student. 2.2. instruments the instruments of this research were semi-structured interviews as the main instruments, which were supported by documentation, observation checklists, and researchers’ notes. for detailed, the documentation analyzed the module and the readiness document of the teachers. then, observation check list conducted during the process of the learning process aiming to confirm the interviews statements. moreover, researchers note conducted in the whole process of the research, it is the extracted of what researchers concluded when there were some interesting things. in other words, the interview validated other instruments. 2.3. data collection procedures participants were interviewed with questions related to the main research objectives. then, the researchers analyzed the teachers' documents, such as the preparation document and the modules they created to teach in the instructional process. furthermore, the observation checks listed were done in the class while the teacher conducted the document of the teacher and the assessment, while the researchers also took some notes. 2.4. data analysis figure 2 illustrates the step-by-step process employed to analyze the qualitative data collected through ethnographic fieldwork. this procedure involved a rigorous approach to data coding, thematic analysis, and theoretical interpretation. in addition, data analysis was guided by rogers, et al. (2014) innovation-decision process theory, which includes five stages. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 127 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 124-138 al fath, m. s., & putri, n. s. e. (capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of…..) fig. 2. analysis data procedures 3. findings and discussion innovations in a curriculum cannot necessarily be implemented immediately. implementing an innovation requires a long process. in social reality, in general, the implementation of an innovation can be analyzed using rogers's innovation diffusion theory (rogers, et al., 2014). this theory explains how an innovation spreads through a population or social system over time (jiang et al., 2024). in the context of education, including in madrasah, this theory is very relevant to analyze the process of acceptance and adoption of curriculum innovations. rogers divides the diffusion process into five stages: knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation (rogers, 2014; cain et al., 2024). each stage describes how teachers, students, and other parties involved in the education system will realize, consider, and ultimately decide whether to accept or reject the implemented curriculum innovation (nasucha, 2021). this theory also divides individuals into five categories based on their speed in adopting innovations: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards (currie et al., 2021). innovators and early adopters in madrasahs are those who are open to change and actively seek new ways to improve the learning process, such as using technology or new approaches in religious learning (koroleva & andreeva, 2024). they become agents of change who can influence other groups. the early majority and late majority tend to be more cautious and wait for tangible results before adopting innovations, while laggards are more conservative and tend to stick to old practices (wang et al., 2024). concerning curriculum innovation in madrasah, this theory can identify factors that influence the adoption of a new curriculum, such as government policies, resource readiness, support from educators, and responses from students and parents. by understanding how the diffusion of innovations works, madrasah managers can design more effective strategies to introduce and implement the new curriculum, minimize resistance and accelerate adoption across all elements of the madrasah. this is important so that curriculum innovation can have a positive impact the quality of education in madrasah. referring to the theory of diffusion of innovation, the results of this study are organized based on the theoretical framework juxtaposed with empirical data in the field. the stages passed by the private madrasahs studied in the diffusion of differentiated english learning innovations are as follows. 3.1. knowledge stage the knowledge stage in the innovation diffusion theory is a critical initial phase in the innovation adoption process, including in the context of curriculum changes in madrasah. the knowledge stage refers to when individuals or organizations first hear about an innovation and get initial information about how it works (guo et al., 2024). in the context of madrasah, the knowledge stage occurs when the school, teachers, and education policymakers hear about the curriculum innovation that will be introduced (muntaha & amin, 2023). for example, if the government or an educational institution announces a curriculum change, the first stage is the dissemination of information about the essence of the change. this information includes the purpose of the curriculum change, the expected benefits, 128 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 124-138 al fath, m. s., & putri, n. s. e. (capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of…..) and how implementing the new curriculum can improve the quality of learning in madrasahs (xue & chen, 2024). at this stage, stakeholder in the madrasah need to obtain complete and clear information about the innovation. teachers, madrasah heads, and other relevant parties must understand what will change in the curriculum, whether related to teaching methods, subject matter, evaluation structure, or expected learning objectives (sugiono, 2024). this process is usually facilitated through curriculum socialization, training, seminars, or the provision of reading materials and other resources to introduce new elements to the curriculum (sinaga & fauzi, 2024). in addition, the knowledge stage also involves an initial understanding of how the innovation can be applied in the specific context of the madrassa (papaioannou, 2024). for example, teachers need to know how this curriculum change will affect their teaching methods, whether they have to master new skills, or how the curriculum can be adapted to the characteristics of students in the madrasah. the knowledge dissemination process at this stage is very important because it will affect teachers' and madrasah's attitudes and initial perceptions towards the innovation (kisno & fatmawati, 2023).the knowledge stage focuses not only on receiving information, but also on the active search for information by the individuals or organizations involved (seidu et al., 2024). teachers who act as agents of change will actively seek additional information through various sources to better understand the curriculum innovations introduced (wahidah et al., 2023). if this knowledge process is successfully carried out well, teachers and policymakers in madrasah will have a strong basis for entering the next stage, namely persuasion, where they will begin to evaluate the benefits and challenges of the curriculum innovation (magdalena, et al., 2024b). however, if at this knowledge stage the information conveyed is insufficient or unclear, resistance or incomprehension may arise, which hinders the adoption of curriculum innovations (magdalena, et al., 2024a). therefore, an effective and comprehensive information dissemination process is needed at this stage, so that the parties in the madrasah can be prepared for the curriculum changes that will be implemented. however, in fact, the knowledge stage passed by the private madrasahs that are the objects of this research is inversely proportional to the stages that should be done. the knowledge stage is not followed properly due to several factors. the demand from the government to implement the independent curriculum too quickly without taking into account the readiness of madrasahs from various sides causes the implementation of the independent curriculum to seem forced. this can be seen from several madrasas such as mts sabilal muhtadin, which did not carry out teacher training on differentiated learning. while at madrasah a, madrasah c, and madrasah b have implemented teacher training or they have been trained before. unfortunately, the training is merely as a formality and have not explored the essence of the curriculum, especially differentiated learning. differentiated learning is a promising approach to improving the quality of education. however, effective implementation is often hindered by a lack of information and support for teachers. one of the main challenges is the insufficient training, especially in terms of diagnostic assessment and the adjustment of differentiation strategies. in addition, there is no more attention from the ministry of religion regarding the socialization of the independent curriculum, especially for private madrasahs. the madrasahs are only encouraged and tasked with seeking their own knowledge related to the independent curriculum and differentiated learning without any concern and facilitation from the ministry of religion. another problem that arises is that the madrasah itself does not play an active role in initiating teachers to seek their own information regarding the steps for implementing the independent curriculum, especially in the aspect of differentiated learning, so that the knowledge stage that should be maximized by the ministry of religion and the madrasah itself is neglected. in the end, this knowledge stage was not maximized and even failed to be carried out in the case of the implementation of differentiated english learning in private madrasahs in east kotawaringin. more specifically, in the aspect of differentiated learning, teachers have not fully obtained accurate information about the right steps in implementing differentiated learning. for example, english teachers at madrasah a, madrasah c, and madrasah b, despite having received technical guidance on differentiated learning, did not implement it correctly. visible mistakes such as not applying diagnostic assessments both cognitive and non-cognitive. mr. m.a., an english teacher at madrasah a, for example, immediately mapped students' learning styles by simply asking students to choose issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 129 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 124-138 al fath, m. s., & putri, n. s. e. (capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of…..) their preferred skills between listening, reading, writing, or speaking. the teacher considers that this method is a form of diagnostics to find out the learning styles of students. another case is madrasah b teachers who are not familiar with cp and atp in differentiated learning planning. the teacher of madrasah c, started the learning by asking students to guess vocabulary in english, then concluded and categorized students who liked speaking for those who often answered vocabulary and concluded that students liked writing when they liked to write on paper the answers to the vocabulary asked. these actions illustrate that socialization related to important aspects of differentiated learning still fails to be carried out in private madrasahs, even though the teachers have received technical guidance. however, because the implementation process was too abrupt, teachers' knowledge was not yet mature and maximized and they were forced to implement differentiated learning immediately. 3.2. persuasion stage the persuasion stage is a phase where a person or group of people who have previously known about an innovation (in this case differentiated learning), begin to form a positive or negative attitude towards the innovation. this attitude is built through the various information they receive, their experiences, and how they perceive the relevance and benefits of the innovation (guo et al., 2024). at the persuasion stage, madrasah teachers, principals and other education stakeholders begin to explore more about differentiated learning (magdalena et al., 2023). they will seek information about the benefits and challenges that may arise from implementing this learning (schewe et al., 2024). this information can be obtained through various sources such as training, seminars, workshops, academic literature, or from the experiences of fellow teachers who have already implemented the method. teachers will also consider how this method might affect the way they manage the classroom, prepare lesson plans and assess the learning progress of students with diverse abilities and needs. this persuasion can be a complex process as it involves subjective considerations (orwenjo, 2024). in the context of madrasahs, teachers not only look at the technical aspects of implementing differentiated learning, but also consider the religious, cultural and local values aspects that exist in their educational environment (zaeni et al., 2023). they need to ensure that this approach is in line with the islamic values that form the foundation of the madrasah. this is important, as madrasahs often have specific characteristics that distinguish them from public schools, especially in terms of moral and spiritual values (judrah et al., 2024). another factor that influences the persuasion stage in the context of curriculum innovation in madrasah is the presence of key figures or "opinion leaders" in the educational environment (hayati et al., 2023). the madrasah principal, for example, can play a significant role in shaping teachers' attitudes towards innovation (iddris et al., 2024). if the madrasah head is supportive of differentiated learning, he or she can provide direction, motivation, and the necessary resources for its implementation, so that teachers will be more easily persuaded and have a positive attitude towards this innovation. conversely, if there is resistance or incomprehension from the madrasah leader, the persuasion process may be hindered, and teachers may be more skeptical towards implementing of the method (aprima & sari, 2022). during this persuasion stage, teachers also look for concrete examples of how differentiated learning is implemented in the classroom (solihin & muhlis, 2023). they want to know how this method can provide better results for students in madrasah, especially students with different abilities. therefore, this stage plays an important role in limited trials or implementation as part of the persuasion strategy, where teachers can directly see the positive impact of innovations on students. however, the facts in the field show a different situation. private madrasahs in east kotawaringin are forced to take a stand and agree to the implement the independent curriculum, especially in the application of differentiated learning, although previously, it was not maximally carried out at the knowledge stage. these madrasahs only follow the mandatory instructions issued by the ministry of religious affairs without reconsidering the characteristics of innovations sought such as relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability that are compatible with the characteristics of each madrasah. for example, in the aspect of compatibility. in this aspect, the private madrasahs studied, such as mts and madrasah a, revealed that the innovations brought to differentiated learning, especially in product differentiation, are not in accordance with the learning climate of students. they feel differentiated in intellectual terms when the tasks given are also different. in addition, teachers' ability to provide diverse evaluation instruments is also still minimal 130 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 124-138 al fath, m. s., & putri, n. s. e. (capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of…..) given the limited resources available. in the end, this aspect of suitability becomes irrelevant to the innovation presented in differentiated learning. meanwhile, english teachers at madrasah c and madrasah b revealed that product differentiation is still appropriate to be applied to students. however, after observation during learning, teachers did not really apply product differentiation appropriately. for example, in madrasah b, the teacher only differentiated the number of vocabulary memorization based on the students' ability to memorize. the teacher considers that this action is product differentiation. meanwhile, at madrasah c, after observation, the teacher only told students to do the tasks on the lks after observation. another aspect is complexity, teachers consider the complexity of differentiated learning to be a higher level than learning in the previous curriculum. teachers are fixated on adjusting to the new curriculum document and are too focused on aspects that are referred to as innovations so they are too forceful to be present in every lesson such as assignments that are always project-based. for example, in the learning carried out by english teachers at madrasah b and madrasah c, teachers are more worried about making inappropriate documents than implementing them in the classroom. teachers are fixated on student observation sheets and project-based assignment results. so in some tasks such as material in grade 10 about simple present tense which actually does not require project-based tasks, but instead is forced always to be project-based. students are assigned to make a video containing simple present tense material. in the end, students just copy the material on google into video slides to be collected by the teacher. in fact, the essence of the material aims for students to understand simple present tense, not about making videos. seeing these obstacles, in the end, this complexity aspect must be ignored because the madrasah inevitably has to accept a high level of complexity in implementing differentiated learning. the persuasion stage in the diffusion of innovations related to differentiated learning in madrasah involves a critical evaluation process, where teachers consider the benefits of these innovations to student learning, their relevance to madrasah values, and support from the environment and educational leaders. this process is critical to the successful adoption of innovations in the context of madrasah education. however, if this stage of determining attitudes towards innovation is not done properly, it will have an impact on the next stage of innovation diffusion. 3.3. decision stage the decision stage in the innovation diffusion theory according to rogers is the process in which individuals or organizations make decisions to accept or reject an innovation (riley et al., 2020). in the context of curriculum innovation in madrasah, especially related to differentiated learning, this stage is crucial because it determines whether the innovation will be widely implemented or only limited to a small number of educators and institutions. differentiated learning, which aims to accommodate students' different abilities, interests and learning styles, is an approach that demands significant adaptations in learning practices. therefore, the decision phase involves several interrelated components (ho, 2022). first, in the decision-making process, teachers, madrasah principals and other education stakeholders need to understand the purpose and benefits of this innovation deeply. at this stage, information about differentiated learning must be effectively socialized, either through training, workshops or group discussions. if teachers feel that this innovation can improve the quality of learning, especially in the context of madrasah which tends to have a diversity of social and intellectual backgrounds of students, then the tendency to accept the innovation will be greater. (winianti et al., 2023). on the other hand, if the information received is inadequate or the innovation is considered difficult to implement, the innovation may be rejected or ignored. the facts found, as happened in mts, madrasah a, and madrasah b, show that information about innovation in differentiated learning is still minimal. for example, the terms cp, atp, and others in lesson planning are not well understood by teachers. in addition, do not understand the benefits of differentiated learning, which can improve the quality of learning. teachers assume that the way of learning is still almost the same as learning in the previous curriculum. the same thing also happens at madrasah c; teachers, consider differentiated learning as learning that makes it difficult for teachers even though it does not have a significant impact on students. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 131 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 124-138 al fath, m. s., & putri, n. s. e. (capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of…..) second, the decision stage also involves evaluating the resources needed to implement differentiated learning (grgurović, 2019). teachers in madrasahs should consider whether they have enough time, training, and institutional support to adopt this approach. implementing differentiated learning requires not only additional knowledge of teaching strategies, but also adjustments to evaluation methods, teaching materials, and classroom management. in some cases, madrasah heads may need to consider whether there are policies that support the implementation of this innovation, for example, those related to time allocation or the availability of adequate facilities and infrastructure. (nurjanah & mustofa, 2024). at this stage, the madrasahs studied seemed to ignore and focus only on the ministry of religious affairs' mandate to implement differentiated learning. teachers ignore their knowledge of appropriate differentiated teaching strategies. for example, regarding the collaboration of learning models, mrs. a.w. who is a teacher at madrasah d revealed that she only combined two methods in learning and claimed it as process differentiation. in good differentiated learning, however, one differentiation is actually not enough to provide meaningful experiences to students. thus, in this decision stage, the teachers have not fully considered whether or not their abilities and actions are in accordance with the principles of differentiated learning. in addition, the decision to accept or reject differentiated learning innovations is also influenced by social and cultural norms in the educational environment, namely the madrasah itself (fedorov et al., 2021). if most teachers and educational staff in the madrasah support this innovation, it will be easier for other teachers to go with the flow and try to implement differentiated learning strategies (basra, 2023). however, if there is resistance or skepticism among teachers, especially those with traditional approaches for a long time, implementation of these innovations could be hampered. a culture in madrasahs that supports collaboration and sharing experiences is also important in helping teachers feel more confident to adopt these new approaches. based on the interviews that have been conducted, the majority of teachers are not ready and do not agree with the implementation of differentiated learning. as mts and madrasah a teachers and madrasah c teachers feel that the application of differentiated learning is currently not appropriate to be implemented. meanwhile, teachers at madrasah b agree with this implementation. however, his knowledge of the principles of differentiated learning is still minimal. this shows that most teachers in these private madrasahs only agree because of obligation, not their own personal choice based on the situation in the field. finally, the decision stage often involves a trial or initial implementation of the innovation. (waheed et al., 2015). for example, some teachers may start testing the implementation of differentiated learning on small groups of students before fully implementing it in the classroom. the feedback from these trials then becomes the basis for teachers to determine whether or not to continue using the innovation. if the trial results show a positive impact on the learning process, the decision to accept this innovation will be stronger (sachdeva et al., 2019). in fact, the teachers had never tested or implemented differentiated learning before it was implemented. most of them only listened to the technical guidance without any direct practice with students. so the teachers do not know the impact they feel because they have never tested the effectiveness of differentiated learning for students in their respective madrasahs. teachers in learning have shown concreate evidence, as happened in madrasah a, where mr. m.a. made planning documents for differentiated learning. he admitted that he made the document only to fulfil the demands of the madrasah to immediately collect learning documents. however, in practice, mr. m.a. did not actually implement the learning steps that he listed in the planning document. the same thing was also done by the english teacher at madrasah c. as for madrasah d and madrasah b, teachers have never made any learning documents related to differentiated learning. this shows that as long as the policy related to differentiated learning obligations runs, they only claim to have implemented differentiated learning based on the curriculum endorsement document but have never implemented either administratively or directly. thus, the decision stage in the diffusion of innovations in the context of differentiated learning in madrasah is a complex process, involving various considerations from cognitive, social and institutional aspects. the successful adoption of this innovation is highly dependent on the extent to which teachers and stakeholders can see the direct benefits of the approach as well as their readiness 132 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 124-138 al fath, m. s., & putri, n. s. e. (capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of…..) to overcome the challenges that arise during the implementation process. however, the result of this study shows that neither the institution nor the teachers utilize the decision stage well in adopting differentiated learning innovation. 3.4. implementation stage this stage is the most important stage in the innovation diffusion process. the implementation of differentiated learning innovations in mts and madrasah a, madrasah c, and madrasah b is not optimal to be implemented because the decision taken to implement differentiated learning is a compulsion. minimal socialization, unsuitable learning climate, and unqualified teacher resources make implementing differentiated learning innovation only superficial and resistance to change. in daily practice, teachers still apply the old ways, especially in learning practices. although the curriculum promotes differentiation of learning to meet learners' individual needs, teachers may only make minimal or standard modifications, which do not substantially change students' learning experience. some deviations are made, for example, by adding models, methods or media that were also applied in the previous curriculum. for example, english teachers at mas and madrasah d combine two learning methods, which is referred to as process differentiation. mrs. a. w. combines the drill method and the project-based learning when teaching self-introduction material in class. the same thing is also done by mr. m.a. who applies dual media for listening, learning, and reading. he thinks that providing more than one medium can provide opportunities for other students who do not like listening to be able to use reading learning media. if observed, the modifications made by these teachers have not been only minor modifications that do not change students’ learning experience. a similar case also occurred at madrasah b, which interrupted students' learning activities in the classroom by learning outside and around the madrasah environment. meanwhile, at madrasah c, students were assigned to give speeches to the class to develop their speaking skills. however, students are free to memorize in full or while reading. the learning experiences realized by these teachers have also been realized in the previous curriculum, so that the differentiation aspect is not too prominent and can change students’ learning experience to the maximum. in the end, the goal of innovation is not achieved because of the implementers' mistakes in implementing differentiated learning and failure of the previous stages. when referring to the theory of innovation diffusion, at the implementation stage, innovations that have been decided to be adopted begin to be applied in daily practice (costa & cooper, 2024). in madrasah, the implementation of differentiated learning requires teachers to adjust their teaching approach according to students' individual needs. differentiated learning aims to accommodate students' different abilities, interests and learning styles to make the learning process more effective and inclusive. so in this implementation, several things need to be considered (purnawanto, 2023). first, the preparation of resources needed to support successful implementation. teachers and educators need to be trained to understand the concepts and methods of differentiated learning in depth. this training can include techniques in designing a flexible curriculum, how to assess students' needs and potential, and adaptive learning strategies. in addition, supporting facilities such as teaching aids and technology also need to be prepared to make the learning process more interactive and varied according to student needs (ainissyifa et al., 2024). second, changes in teaching practices. in this phase, teachers start trying to implement differentiated learning methods and strategies in the classroom. this implementation can start from simple aspects such as making variations in tasks and activities tailored to each student's ability, to the implementation of more complex strategies such as flexible grouping, where students are divided into groups based on their ability level or certain interests. in addition, teachers need to familiarize themselves with using ongoing formative assessments in order to monitor individual students' progress and adjust their approach according to the results of these assessments (anwar & sukiman, 2023). third, resistance management. every innovation implementation, including differentiated learning, is often faced with resistance from various parties, both from teachers who find it difficult to adjust to new methods, as well as from students who are not used to a more personalized approach. in this case, madrasah leaders and curriculum managers need to support teachers and students during the transition period. mentoring, supervision, and discussion forums between teachers can effectively help teachers face the challenges of implementing differentiated learning (rohmah et al., 2024), and finally, issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 133 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 124-138 al fath, m. s., & putri, n. s. e. (capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of…..) evaluation and adaptation. once differentiated learning has been implemented, an evaluation is needed to see how effective this strategy is in improving the quality of learning. this evaluation can be done through student feedback, learning outcomes, and direct classroom observation (whitley et al., 2019). based on the evaluation results, madrasahs need to make adjustments and adaptations in teaching strategies, curriculum design, and other supporting policies, so that differentiated learning can continue to develop and be implemented optimally. however, all of the above stages are largely ignored by the madrasah. this is evident from the minimal preparation of resources, the absence of changes in teaching practices and only making small modifications that have less impact, the absence of efforts to carry out resistance management, and the absence of evaluation and adaptation efforts from madrasahs to continue developing differentiated learning. these madrasahs only resigned themselves to the existing situation and only carried out orders from the ministry of religious affairs without any other initiatives to develop themselves. 3.5. confirmation stage ideally, at the confirmation stage, individuals or groups have adopted an innovation seek to ensure that their decision is correct and sustainable. they evaluate their experience using the innovation and seek feedback to reinforce or cast doubt on their decision (grgurović, 2019). the confirmation stage is crucial in the context of curriculum innovation, especially in differentiated learning in madrasah. differentiated learning is an approach that allows teachers to customize learning methods, materials and assessment according to diverse students’ needs interests. at the confirmation stage, teachers and the madrasah as a whole will reflect on the effectiveness of this approach, and its impact on the quality of learning and the achievement of student learning outcomes (nurjanah & mustofa, 2024). during the confirmation stage, teachers will reflect on their experiences in implementing differentiated learning. they may gather evidence from evaluations of student learning outcomes, including how well students with different abilities could master the materials and skills taught. this reflection can be done individually or through collaboration with peers or madrasah leaders, such as madrasah heads and supervisors (kisno & fatmawati, 2023). based on the results of this study, the four madrasahs have reflected on their activities related to implementating differentiated learning and found various obstacles to its implementation. however, the madrasahs cannot change their decision to stop implementing differentiated learning as part of the independent curriculum. in addition, teachers may also collect feedback from students themselves, which can provide an important perspective on how differentiated learning affects their motivation, engagement and comfort in learning. this feedback can strengthen the teacher's decision to continue implementing the differentiated approach or evaluating whether there are weaknesses that need to be corrected. teachers have conducted surveys related to student responses in the learning process. for example, mrs. a.w., a teacher at madrasah d, revealed that students felt unsuitable for product differentiation. students prefer uniform assignments as in previous learning. this shows that even though teachers have conducted feedback on the impact of differentiated learning and found negative responses, teachers cannot stop differentiated learning. the madrasah, as an institution, also plays an important role in this confirmation stage. through education policy and supervision, the madrasah can provide support and feedback to teachers and facilitate discussion forums to share experiences and best practices related to the implementation of differentiated learning (oktavianti et al., 2024). for example, further training or workshop activities can be organized to strengthen teachers' understanding and skills in implementing differentiated learning effectively. ideally, if at the confirmation stage it is found that differentiated learning does have a positive impact, then this innovation will be more strongly internalized in the school culture and become part of daily learning practices. however, if there are obstacles or suboptimal results, then teachers and madrasah can re-evaluate the approach used, and perhaps adjust the strategy or find an approach that is more suitable for the educational context in the madrasah (pradana et al., 2024) 134 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 124-138 al fath, m. s., & putri, n. s. e. (capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of…..) at this confirmation stage, madrasahs should be given the freedom to confirm whether to continue or end innovation in differentiated learning. however, because the basis of this innovation decisionmaking is compulsion, until now, madrasahs can only continue the idea of innovation that is echoed without being accompanied by appropriate concrete actions in the field. the wrong stage of diffusion from the beginning causes the adoption process of this innovation in the independent curriculum to be an illusion. the introduction of innovation in the aspect of differentiated learning is not comprehensive, the formation of attitudes and decision-making by madrasah towards the implementation of differentiated learning is not exempted, and the implementation in learning is forced to be rough, until there is no option to confirm continuing or stopping the innovation offered in differentiated learning. these irregularities cause the concept of differentiated learning to become a ‘pseudo-innovation’ that is promoted but is not a change. madrasahs have only become followers and cannot determine the fate of their institutions in implementing a learning process that suits the characteristics of teachers and students. as a final statement of the innovation diffusion process, pseudo-innovation can occur when the innovation diffusion stage is not carried out properly. innovations are not socialized carefully and prepared perfectly, so the execution is only an idea without action. in the end, an innovation that is only illusory is formed. the worst impact of pseudo-innovation on learning in madrasas is that teachers are not free to provide learning because they adjust various things to the new learning concept. madrassas only practice the old learning methos even though the concept promoted is differentiated learning. 4. conclusion the illusion of innovation in differentiated english learning in private madrasahs in east kotawaringin occurs because the diffusion of innovation is done wrongly. madrasahs, which should be given the freedom to determine the process of innovation adaptation stages, are trapped in coercion caused by binding policies. ultimately, madrasahs only carry the idea of differentiated learning innovation and are trapped in pseudo-innovation that does not impact the learning process. teachers who claim to have followed the principles of differentiated learning still use old methods that are no different from learning in the previous curriculum. the implication of this research is to pay more attention to madrasahs in implementing the independent curriculum, especially in the aspect of differentiated learning. the ministry of religious affairs should not only require but guarantee the readiness of madrasas to implementing innovations that will be implemented. this research only proves the illusion of innovation in the case of differentiated learning implementation. it produces a new theory called pseudo-innovation theory, so it is important for future research to explore more deeply the validation of this pseudo-innovation theory in cases and madrasahs or other educational institutions as comparative material. the suggestion that can be taken to leveling up the quality of learning is about to give more attention to them by raising up the quantity of teachers training. it led by how the problems comes up from the knowledge of the teachers that have some issue in the understanding way to conduct the differentiated learning. besides that, the evaluation is also the crucial issue in the differentiated learning in the private madrasahs. that problem comes up due to there was not the instructional support during the process of instructional process. acknowledgment the researcher extends sincere gratitude to direktorat jenderal pendidikan tinggi, riset, and teknologi (drtpm) for the research grants provided. the experts deserve special recognition for their insightful advice, encouragement, and remarks. their time and insightful comments were invaluable in helping to maximize the possibilities of this study. furthermore, sincere gratitude is given to the participants, whose hard work and enthusiasm were crucial to the accomplishment of this research. with their gracious assistance, the project was effectively finished. author contribution : muhammad sandy al fath was responsible for the entire research project. he also led the writing of the manuscript and collaboration with the second author. nikmah sistia eka putri participated in the issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 135 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 124-138 al fath, m. s., & putri, n. s. e. (capturing pseudo-innovation in elt: the analysis of…..) data collection, transcription and analysis. she also revised the manuscript. both authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research was funded by hibah kemendikbudristek in 2024 with contract number 68/ll11/km/2024 conflict of interest : both 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 our university’s regulations and that we have obtained permission from the relevant institutes 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. references ainissyifa, h., nasrullah, y. m., fatonah, n., indriani, s. a., asyifiya, s. n., julistya, & rohmah, a. 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(2023). kurikulum merdeka pada pembelajaran di madrasah. nem. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02366 https://doi.org/10.24832/jpnk.v9i1.4859 https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929x.2015.1004648 https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2338658 https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2019.1699782 https://doi.org/10.21154/excelencia.v3i01.1479 https://doi.org/10.1080/09537325.2024.2372804 1. introduction 2. method 2.1. participants 2.2. instruments 2.3. data collection procedures 2.4. data analysis 3. findings and discussion 3.1. knowledge stage 3.2. persuasion stage 3.3. decision stage 3.4. implementation stage 3.5. confirmation stage 4. conclusion acknowledgment english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.9702 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id engaging future educators: perceptions of project-based learning among pre-service eyl teachers wanda arifin a,1, soviyah b,2*, patria handung jaya b,3 a, b universitas ahmad dahlan kampus 4, tamanan, kec. banguntapan, kabupaten bantul, daerah istimewa yogyakarta, 55191, indonesia 1 wanda1900004070@webmail.uad.ac.id; 2 soviyah@pbi.uad.ac.id*; 3 patria.jaya@pgsd.uad.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 16 june 2023 revised 12 august 2023 accepted 15 august 2023 in a globalized era with very rapid changes in life nowadays, projectbased learning is considered as one of the most suitable learning models. project-based learning provides learning that develops students' skills in communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. therefore, eyl teacher education programs should provide opportunities for pre-service eyl teachers to improve their knowledge and skills in project-based learning. the purpose of this study was to determine pre-service eyl teachers' perceptions of project-based learning and its implementation. conducted in 2022/2023, a total of 55 pre-service eyl teachers from teyl pd course who were purposively selected participated in this study. data were collected using a 25-item perception of project-based learning scale. descriptive quantitative analysis was used to analyze the data. the results showed that out of 55 student respondents, 18 respondents (33%) had a very positive perception, 33 respondent (60%) had a positive perception, 4 respondents (7%) had a neutral perception, and no respondents had a negative perception. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords perception project-based learning teaching english to young learners how to cite: arifin, w., soviyah, & jaya, p. h. (2023). engaging future educators: perceptions of projectbased learning among pre-service eyl teachers. english language teaching educational journal, 6 (3), 199215. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.9702 1. introduction in the evolving landscape of education, project-based learning (pbl) has emerged as a transformative instructional approach that emphasizes active learning, critical thinking, and realworld problem-solving. it is a teaching method that emphasizes hands-on, real-world experiences to help students develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills (itamar & noam, 2018; muhammad, 2018; nur et al., 2023; john, 2018). unlike traditional methods that often prioritize rote memorization, pbl engages students in dynamic, interdisciplinary projects that foster deep understanding and practical skills. it allows students to actively engage in their learning by working on projects that are relevant and meaningful to them. ultimately, immersing students in complex, open-ended tasks, pbl fosters creativity and curiosity while also promoting a deeper understanding of the subject matter. by engaging in projects that require students to apply their knowledge to solve complex problems, pbl promotes deeper learning and a deeper understanding of the material. furthermore, this approach to education is becoming increasingly popular nowadays as educators recognize the need to prepare students for the demands of the 21st century workforce, where creativity, adaptability, and teamwork are essential skills (lapek, 2018; savery, 2015; ivanova et.al., 2020; zahroh et.al., 2023; lee et.al., 2014). https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.9702 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:wanda1900004070@webmail.uad.ac.id mailto:soviyah@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:patria.jaya@pgsd.uad.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.9702 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i3.9702&domain=pdf 200 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 arifin, w. et al. (pre-service teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning …..) this pedagogical shift has garnered significant attention, particularly in the preparation of preservice teachers who are the future catalysts of educational innovation (peciuliauskiene et.al., 2022; yalcin, 2019; van et.al, 2019). in the context of english for young learners (eyl), understanding the perceptions of pbl among pre-service eyl teachers and their readiness to implement it is crucial for integrating this approach effectively into contemporary classrooms. moreover, pre-service eyl teachers, who are at the threshold of their teaching careers, play a pivotal role in shaping the learning experiences of their future students. their perceptions, attitudes, and understanding of pbl can significantly influence its adoption and effectiveness in schools. as they transition from theoretical coursework to practical application during their training, their perceptions of pbl—its benefits, challenges, and feasibility can provide valuable insights into how teacher training programs can better prepare them for modern educational demands. many research studies have attempted to explore the impact of pbl on teacher preparation programs where pre-service teachers take their training journey. one example is a study that found that teachers who had positive experiences with pbl during their training were more likely to incorporate it into their own classrooms, leading to improved student engagement and learning outcomes (sung & peggy, 2007). additionally, another research has shown that teachers who have participated in pbl training reported feeling more confident in their abilities to adapt to new teaching methods and technologies (smith et al., 2022). overall, these studies recommend that by understanding the perspectives of teachers who have experienced pbl first hand, teacher education programs should tailor their curriculum to better support the development of effective teaching practices that align with current educational trends and standards, and include pbl in it. contrary to these results, it is reported that there have been research projects that examine the barriers teachers face when implementing pbl. the important point these research studies reported is that among the barriers, lack of support from administration and limited resources have been the dominant ones. regarding this, they highlighted the importance of addressing this challenge in teacher training programs (shannon & fei, 2021; shamery, 2022; tamim & grant, 2013; tempera & tinoca, 2022). moreover, it is of equal importance to recognize, still, that not all teachers may be comfortable or adept at using new teaching methods and technologies, and forcing them to do so could lead to resistance and ineffective implementation. besides, some teachers may have legitimate concerns about the effectiveness or feasibility of pbl in their specific classroom settings. these should also be taken into consideration in teacher training programs (madeleine et al., 1998; peggy & krista, 2006). despite the growing advocacy for pbl, specifically in the context of english for young learners (eyl), there is a need for more comprehensive research into how eyl pre-service teachers perceive this methodology. are they confident in their ability to design and implement pbl activities? do they recognize the potential of pbl to enhance student engagement and achievement? what barriers do they foresee in applying pbl in real classroom settings? addressing these questions is essential for tailoring teacher education programs to support the successful integration of pbl. this research aims to fill the gap by exploring eyl pre-service teachers' perceptions of pbl and its impact on their motivation, knowledge application, and overall preparedness for the teaching profession. featuring the descriptive quantitative research, this study seeks to capture a holistic answer to the issue of pbl and eyl pre-service teachers training program. specifically, this research aims to address the following research question: what is the eyl pre-service teachers’ perception of projectbased learning implementation in the training they take? by exploring this main question, we hope we can gain a better understanding of how pbl can be effectively implemented in eyl teacher education programs to better prepare future educators for the challenges they will face in the classroom. additionally, this research will provide valuable insights for eyl teacher training programs and curriculum developers looking to enhance the effectiveness of their programs through the integration of pbl as well as identifying both strengths and areas for improvement in pbl training. ultimately, this research endeavors to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on educational reform by highlighting the perspectives of those who will soon be at the forefront of teaching and learning. by understanding pre-service teachers' views on pbl, educational institutions can better equip them with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to implement innovative teaching strategies that prepare students for the complexities of the modern world. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 201 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 arifin, w. et al. (pre-service teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning …..) 2. literature review 2.1. perception perception is interpretation of sensory information or ways of thinking about something. according to corbin (2020), perception is the individual's perspective and interpretation of others. it can be one of the determining factors for success, which is true for students. walgito (2002) and kaimana (2016) stated that perception is the beginning of a sensing process a process of receiving an individual stimulus through the senses, which is why it is commonly called a sensory process. however, this process does not end, as there is another process called stimulation, which refers to the perceptual process. meanwhile, slameto (2015) defined perception as entering information into the human brain. through perception, humans are in contact with their environment. this relationship is carried out through human’s five senses, namely the senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. shaleh (2008) stated that perception is a process that combines and organizes our sensory data (sensing), which is then shaped and developed to be the awareness of our surroundings, including ourselves. perception involves discriminating, classifying, and focusing attention on a stimulus object. perception in the acceptance process involves interpretation based on the experience of an event or object. it involves accepting and analyzing data from the outside world. in an educational context, it is important for students to perceive their learning positively as they will find it easier to learn and remember what they have learned when they feel valued and have positive perception towards the learning they take. therefore, to learn more effectively and perceive positively, it is essential to avoid misperceptions by using reliable sources in a practical setting. furthermore, one person's or group's perception is different from another's. they may be in the same position, but they differ in several ways regarding their uniqueness, personalities, attitudes, and motivations (tarmiji et al., 2016). there are two types of perception (robbins & coulter, 2002). they are positive perception and negative perception. positive perception is an individual's evaluation of an object or information with a positive view or according to what is expected of the perceived thing or from existing rules. while negative perception refers to an individual's view of an object or specific information that contradicts the expected or established norms. in a common daily context, an example of positive perception could be a customer giving a five-star rating to a product that exceeds his expectations, leading to a favorable review. on the other hand, negative perception may occur when a customer receives a damaged item and leaves a one-star review due to the discrepancy with his expectations according to siagian (2018), there are factors that influence a person's perception. they are internal and external factors. the external factors cover the factors that come from family, school, community, or information obtained from various media. these factors affect the perception of people and how they see themselves. meanwhile, the internal factors are the factors which come from within the individual himself, such as motivation, values, interests, hopes and expectations. saleh (2018) claimed that factors which play a significant role in one’s perception include objects, sense organs and attention. while it is true that negative perception can be influenced by factors such as the condition of an item received, it is important to consider that individual biases and past experiences can also play a significant role in shaping one's perception. additionally, cultural differences and societal norms can also impact how individuals perceive certain objects or information. in terms of the process, alizamar and couto (2016), stated that the process of perception begins with sensing, where an individual receives a stimulus through a receptor. the stimulus is transmitted to the central nervous system, specifically the brain, where a psychological process takes place. perception is the process by which an individual becomes aware of what he sees, hears, etc. sensation occurs whenever an individual receives a stimulus through his senses. the senses serve as a link between an individual and the external world. sensing is a natural cognitive process, also known as bottom-up processing. this is because it involves the reception of external data that memory has not yet processed. for example, when a person sees a red apple, the sensation occurs when his eyes receive the stimulus of the color red. this information is then transmitted to the brain, where perception takes place and he becomes aware that he is seeing a red apple. based on the above explanation, it can be concluded that perception is an interpretation of everything that exists in the environment by using the five senses. perception can also be said to be the ability to discriminate, classify, and focus attention on a stimulus object. the process of perception 202 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 arifin, w. et al. (pre-service teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning …..) begins with the stimulation of the five senses, and then it is transmitted to the brain. thus, people receive messages from what is seen, heard, or felt. 2.2. project-based learning project-based learning (pbl) is a student-centered, inquiry-based learning method that involves decision-making processes based on product focus, collaboration, documentation, and data analysis. pbl is a learning method based on learning theories such as constitutionalism and experiential learning (handrianto & rahman, 2019). according to hairunisa et al. (2019), project-based learning model involves students directly in the production of a project. students are assigned a project work to manage their classroom learning which results in the creation of something or a product. focusing on enhancing problem-solving skills through project-based work, pbl model provides ample opportunities for students to exercise their decision-making skills by allowing them to choose their topics, conduct research, and complete a specific project. pbl is known to enhance students' creativity and motivation (made, 2016). similarly, wulandari et al., (2019), highlights that project-based learning model is a method of learning that emphasizes meaningful questions and problems, as well as problem-solving, decision-making, and the process of finding various sources. it also allows students to work collaboratively and engage in investigative activities. similarly, nurhidayati (2019) defines project-based learning as a learning model that trains students to solve problems, make decisions, carry out investigations, and create work to solve problems. under project-based learning, students are able to understand the concepts and principles better and in a more profound way. in addition, pbl can increase students' motivation because during the learning process, they engage in problem solving and communication as well as collaboration to complete the project and create products while exploring their creativity and innovation (indrawan & jalinus, 2019). in terms of the teacher's role, pbl positions the teacher as a motivator and facilitator. in pbl, teachers typically introduce students to real-world problems and ask them to find solutions through a project that challenges their critical thinking and creativity (seftiani et al., 2021). in implementing project-based learning, there is a principle that must be followed. according to nayono and nuryadin, (2013), there are at least five principles of project-based learning: (a) centrality; (b) driving questions; (c) constructive exploration; (d) autonomy; and (e) realism. these principles are essential in ensuring that students are fully engaged in the learning process and are able to develop critical thinking skills. centrality refers to the idea that the project should be at the core of the learning experience, driving questions help to guide students in their exploration, constructive exploration allows students to actively construct their understanding, autonomy gives students the freedom to make decisions and take ownership of their learning, and realism ensures that the project is relevant and meaningful to students' lives. by following these principles, educators can create a rich and meaningful learning experience for their students through project-based learning. made (2016) divides pbl learning stages into three – planning, implementation, evaluation. these three stages form a unit that support and relate to each other to optimally achieve the learning objectives of the project. the three stages are: 1) planning. it basically is crucial in any learning process, including learning with pbl. it is essential because this planning stage dramatically affects the quality of the learning outcomes. in addition, this planning stage will demand how the learning process should be carried out; 2). implementation. this stage belongs to the project learning strategy after everything related to the practice is well planned. during this stage, some preparations are needed to implement the techniques so the plan can go as planned and achieve the set goals. under pbl, implementation stage is considered the most important stage because it is through this process that students will be able to have complex learning experiences. at this stage, students are divided into several groups and then determine their respective job desks according to their choice. after each student has a job desk, they work on projects according to their duties; 3). evaluation. it is considered an essential stage of pbl. the evaluation phase determines the effectiveness of a learning activity. it’s used as the moment to assesses the students' learning progress. based on the evaluation, student learning progress as well as weaknesses during the learning process can be clearly identified so that the learning improvements can be carried out appropriately. besides, the learning effectiveness can be identified too, so that improvement plan can be managed well. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 203 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 arifin, w. et al. (pre-service teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning …..) project-based learning model has several advantages and disadvantages. according to amelia and aisya (2021), the advantages of project-based learning are: 1) increasing students' motivation to learn and fosters their ability to take on significant tasks; 2) developing students’ positive work attitude as students are encouraged to work collaboratively on a project so that they actively listen to each other's opinions and engage in constructive negotiations to find solutions; 3) improving students' communication and social skills; 4) improving students' problem-solving skills; 5) improving students' ability to apply information across multiple disciplines; 6) improving students' ability to use technology in their studies; 7) allowing students to develop critical thinking skills as they are encouraged to actively analyze and evaluate information to make informed decisions; 8) promoting collaboration and teamwork among students as they work together to achieve a common goal; 9) helping students develop a sense of ownership and pride in their work as they see the direct impact of their efforts on the final outcome. overall, project-based learning is a learning model that provides a holistic approach to education preparing students for success in the real world (almulla, 2020; aksela & haatainen, 2019). meanwhile, like a coin with two sides, pbl also has its downsides. suciani et al. (2018) stated the disadvantages of pbl include: 1) it is hard to set up the classroom so that it is an excellent place to work on a project because students have a lot of freedom, which can lead to noise and requires reasonable classroom control and management skills from the teacher; 2) students who are not good at doing experiments or acquiring knowledge will have trouble; and 3) there may be some students who don't do as much group work. these challenges can make it difficult for teachers to ensure that all students are actively engaged and participating in the project-based learning process. additionally, some students may struggle with the collaborative nature of pbl and may not contribute as much to group work as their peers. however, despite these potential drawbacks, it needs to underline that the advantages of pbl far outweigh the disadvantages. getting proper support and guidance from teachers, students can still benefit greatly from the hands-on, inquiry-based learning experience that pbl provides. moreover, with pbl, students are able to develop their critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills through hands-on projects that mimic real-world scenarios. besides, the freedom and autonomy provided in project-based learning can foster a sense of ownership and motivation in students, leading to deeper learning and engagement. ultimately, project-based learning equips students with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in the 21st century workforce. by working on projects, students are able to apply their knowledge in a practical setting, preparing them for the challenges they will face in their future careers. furthermore, project-based learning encourages creativity and innovation, as students are given the opportunity to explore different solutions to complex problems. overall, project-based learning not only enhances academic achievement but also helps students develop the skills and mindset needed to thrive in a rapidly changing world (rakhmawati, 2021; maros et.al., 2023; tsybulsky & muchnik-rozanov, 2019; abood, 2019). 3. method this study is classified as descriptive quantitative research. descriptive quantitative research involves describing, researching, and explaining observable phenomena using data collection and statistical analysis. adopting this research type, this study aims to provide a clear snapshot of a specific phenomenon regarding eyl pre-service teachers’ perceptions towards pbl, allowing for precise measurements and comparisons to be made (alfred et al., 2014; s.k & shubhra, 2013; wiwik & wahyudi, 2022). conducted in one of the leading private universities located in the southern part of yogyakarta indonesia, this study involved a total of 55 (44 female and 11 male) sixth semester students majoring at english education, faculty of teacher training in the academic year of 2022/2023 using purposive sampling technique. the selection consideration was based on the students’ status that they had successfully passed teyl program development (teyl pd) course in the academic year of 2022/2023. teyl pd course is given to students to equip them with the competence needed to teach 204 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 arifin, w. et al. (pre-service teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning …..) english to young learners. upon completion of this course, students are expected to be ready enough to become teachers of english for young learners. with 2 credits, in terms of learning methods used, teyl pd uses project-based learning as its main method, where students are assigned in groups to develop a complete english learning project for young learners, from planning, acting, and evaluation. as for the research instrument, a questionnaire was used in order to cater data on the pre-service eyl teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning implementation in teyl pd course. taking a statement of sugiyono (2019), a questionnaire was used in this study as it’s able to collect data by presenting a series of questions or statements to the respondents for their response regarding their attitudes, views, and perceptions toward social phenomena. in this study, the researchers utilized a closed questionnaire consisting of four likert scales which were related to pre-service eyl teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning implementation in teyl pd course. the likert scale were transformed into components or sub-components to create objects in the form of questions. the modified likert scale was used in the form of a checklist with alternative answers: (1) strongly disagree, (2) disagree, (3) agree, and (4) strongly agree. the questionnaires were then distributed by using google form. the research participants were asked to rate their agreement with statements regarding project-based learning in teyl pd course using the likert scale. the data collected from the questionnaires were then analyzed to determine the overall perceptions of project-based learning implementation in teyl pd course. 4. findings and discussion 4.1. findings the questionnaires were distributed to 55 participants who had taken teyl pd course. five indicators are displayed: student-teacher interaction, motivation, collaboration, problem solving, and critical and creative thinking. each indicator has statements. they are: 5 statements in the interaction indicator, 5 statements in the motivation indicator, 5 statements in the collaboration indicator, 2 statements in the critical thinking indicator, and 3 statements in the creative thinking indicators. the following table shows the detail: table 1. blueprint of the questionnaire variable indicators statement scale project-based learning implementation in the teyl course interaction between students and lecturer 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 likert motivation 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 collaboration 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 problem-solving 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 critical thinking 21, 22 creative thinking 23, 24, 25 1) interaction between students and lecturer file:///e:/backup%20laptop/publikasi%20dan%20penulisan%20ilmiah/manuscripts/2024/eltej_5%20v6.i3_sovi%20-%20finale.doc%23sugiyono issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 205 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 arifin, w. et al. (pre-service teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning …..) fig. 1. questionnaire results of interaction based on the collected data as shown in figure 1, the first 5 questions were focused on studentlecturer interaction indicator. of the 5 questions addressed, for questions 1 and 5, which asked about the existence of student-lecturer interaction and the how the interaction helped the students, 37 (67.3%) respondents and 32 (58.2%) respondents answered "i agree" respectively. meanwhile, for question 2 which asked about students’ activeness, 32 (58.2%) respondents answered “i agree”, which showed that the students actively participated in the course and dared to ask questions whenever they had difficulty in doing the project. for question 3 which confirmed about the lecturer’s guidance, 25 (45.5%) respondents answered “i agree” as well, confirming that they received guidance and direction from the lecturer for the project assigned. for question 4 which asked whether they consulted with the lecturer when doing the project, 34 (61.8%) respondents chose “i agree,” which means they did consult with the lecturer. 2) motivation fig. 2. questionnaire results of motivation as displayed in figure 2, questions 6-10 dealt with motivation indicator. for question 6 which asked about their feeling about the course, 34 (61.8%) respondents answered “i agree” meaning that they felt happy joining teyl pd course and doing the project. this was followed by questions 7, 8 and 9 where 41 (74.5%), 34 (61.8%), and 42 (76.4%) respondents answered “i agree” respectively confirming that they felt excited to do project assignments in the teyl pd course, didn’t feel bored when doing it, and were interested in participating in the learning activities using the pbl. for question 10 which asked about their motivation, 37 (67.3%) respondents confidently answered “i 206 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 arifin, w. et al. (pre-service teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning …..) agree” signaling that they were motivated to join the course as they were tasked to create something new with the projects they worked with. 3) collaboration fig. 3. questionnaire results of collaboration in terms of collaboration, based on figure 3, the results showed: for question 11 there were 33 (60%) respondents who chose “i agree.” they felt that good collaboration contributed to a successful project outcome. for question 12, it showed that 43 (78.2%) respondents chose “i agree” which showed that they were provided with helpful ideas and suggestions when discussing in groups. question 13 reported that 33 (60%) respondents answered “i agree” stating they learned to be assertive when brainstorming with group members. as for question 14, it showed that 34 (61.8%) respondents chose “i agree”, which showed that they tried doing the teyl program development group assignments well. meanwhile the last question q15 indicated that 32 (58.2%) respondents agreed that they were brave to take on specific tasks in the group. overall, the data from the survey reflects a high level of engagement and participation among respondents in group activities. the results suggest that respondents were actively involved in discussions and assignments, demonstrating a willingness to collaborate and contribute to the group's success. 4) problem-solving fig. 4. questionnaire results of problem-solving issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 207 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 arifin, w. et al. (pre-service teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning …..) figure 4 showed data on problem solving indicator, consisting of questions 16 – 20. question 16 and 17 reported there were 38 (69.1%) and 40 (72.7%) respondents who chose “i agree” respectively showing that the respondents could solve problems when they worked on projects, and they provided solutions when their groups faced difficulties when completing teyl pd projects. question 18, 42 respondents (76.4%) chose “agree” confessing that they were able to overcome difficulties in completing the project assignments. for questions 19 and 20, the total number of respondents who chose “i agree” was 35 (63.6%) and 41 respondents (74.5%) respectively indicating that they tried to get the job done consistently and they felt they could improve the assigned project because of the guidance and suggestions from the lecturer. 5) creative and critical thinking fig. 5. questionnaire results creatively and critically thinking figure 5 shows data on critical and creative thinking indicators. of total 5 (21-25) questions asked, there were: 44 respondents (80%) chose “i agree” for question 21; 40 respondents (72.7%) who chose “i agree” for question 22; 44 respondents (80%) who chose “i agree” for question 23; 40 respondents (72.7%) who chose “i agree” for question 24; and 43 respondents (78.2%) who chose “i agree” for question 25. overall, the majority of respondents tended to agree with the all statements presented in questions 21 – 25. the high percentage of agreement indicates a strong consensus among participants on these particular issues. 6) recapitulation of respondents’ perception table 2 summarizes respondents’ perception of project-based learning implementation in teyl pd course underlying 5 indicators of interaction between respondents and lecturer, motivation, collaboration, problem-solving, and critical and creative thinking ability. table 2. descriptive statistic of respondents’ perception no indicator of perception minimum maximum mean sd 1 interaction between respondents and lecturer 10 20 15.60 2.006 2 motivation 10 20 14.84 2.062 3 collaboration 12 20 16.09 1.849 4 problem-solving 14 20 15.75 1.624 5 thinking critically and creatively 12 20 15.65 1.542 total 58 100 77.93 9.083 based on data of table 2, data of the mean score can be summed up as follows: 15.60 for interaction; 14.84 for motivation; 16.09 for collaboration; 15.75 for problem-solving; and 15.65 for critical and 208 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 arifin, w. et al. (pre-service teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning …..) creative thinking, which summed up the total score of 79.93. of these data, it can be concluded that the respondents had a positive perception towards the pbl because the mean score gained was between 70 – 81. it is based on the information shown through table 3 which is used as the reference of the classifications of respondents’ perception of project-based learning implementation in the teyl pd course. from table 3, it can be summarized that student respondents have a very positive perception if the score is above 81. meanwhile, if the respondents have scores between 70 and 81, they are classified as having positive perceptions, and if the respondents have scores between 57 and 69, they are classified as having neutral perceptions. table 3. classification of student’s perception scale number category score x > 81 very positive 70 81 positive 57 69 neutral 45 56 negative x < 44 very negative table 4. classification of student’s perception scale number category score number of respondents >81 very positive 18 70-81 positive 33 57-69 neutral 4 45-56 negative 0 44< very negative 0 total 55 based on table 4, it can be summarized that in total, there were 18 respondents (33%) who had a very positive perception, 33 respondents (60%) with a positive perception, 4 respondents (7%) with a neutral perception, and no respondents had a negative perception. with this recapitulation, it can be concluded that respondents’ perception of project-based learning implementation in the teyl pd course was positive. figure 6 shows the respondents' perceptions of project-based learning implementation in the teyl pd course. fig. 6. respondents' perception of project-based learning implementation issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 209 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 arifin, w. et al. (pre-service teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning …..) 4.2. discussion based on the research findings, it shows that pre-service eyl teachers’ perception of project-based learning in teyl-based course is positive. this is clearly evidenced by the results of the distributed questionnaire, which shows that 18 respondents (33%) have a very positive perception, 33 respondents (60%) have a positive perception, 4 respondents (7%) have a neutral perception, and no respondents have a negative perception. these findings are consistent with the research findings reported by mayuni et.al, (2019); pen (2021); and suhartini et al. (2021), who reported that from the data collected through a questionnaire, it's found that there is positive feedback on the integration of project-based learning in english classroom activities. moreover, they also found out that pbl plays a role in enhancing the improvement of english skills and the acquisition of 21st century skills, which is in line with the findings of studies by henny (2020); bassam and bjørn, (2020); and ng-hee (2018), who stated that project-based learning has a positive effect on student learning outcomes with a tendency for most students to score well and perform better. overall, the findings from this study suggest that project-based learning is a beneficial approach to integrating english language learning in the classroom. the positive perception and feedback support the notion that pbl can have a significant impact on student learning motivation and outcomes. as more research continues to support these findings, educators may consider implementing more project-based learning activities in their english classes, including classes of pre-service eyl teachers in order to enhance their engagement and achievement. while the positive feedback on project-based learning is valuable, it is important to consider that the lack of negative perceptions could be due to social desirability bias or other factors influencing respondents' responses. additionally, the alignment with previous research does not guarantee the effectiveness of project-based learning in all contexts or for all students. in terms of the affective aspect, based on the findings of the study, the pre-service eyl teachers perceive positively the implementation pbl in teyl pd course. they agree that pbl use makes them feel happy, interested, and excited towards the learning they take. through the survey, they also report feeling a sense of accomplishment and pride when completing project-based assignments in groups, which contributed to their overall motivation and engagement. additionally, they express that project-based learning allows them to develop a deeper understanding of the material and improves their critical and creative thinking skills. they enjoy being under project-based learning implementation in teyl pd course because it provides new experiences for them. as the teyl projects they work with are carried out in groups so they need to exchange ideas with peers, and be creative as well as think critically at the same. all these moments of learning are what make them feel excited and happy with pbl (railsback, 2002; newell, 2003; yu-ping, 2002). the study by nugraheni (2018) voiced the same message summarizing that project-based learning strongly supports students' creativity. and with this creativity, the students are able to search and find new ideas and then apply them to solve problems. other research studies conducted in the area of pbl also supported the notion reporting that project-based learning project-based learning not only enhances critical thinking skills but also fosters a sense of ownership and autonomy in students (maor et.al., 2023; trisdiono et.al., 2019; suradika et.al., 2023). this sense of ownership motivates students to take charge of their learning and engage more deeply with the material, leading to improved retention and application of knowledge. in sum, project-based learning not only cultivates positive feelings, creativity and critical thinking but also creates a fulfilling and enriching educational experience for students. another affective aspect that is positively perceived by the respondents in this study is that the use of project-based learning makes them more motivated. the majority of respondents agree that working together on the teyl project assigned makes them excited and happy which finally increases their learning motivation. in addition, being encouraged to cooperate with the team to generate creative ideas manifesting in a product, and being able to finish the project and get success and specific results from the project have been motivated them as well. insyasiska et al. (2015) highlighted this point stating that project-based learning motivates students to independently find information from various sources, such as a team of experts, the environment, media, and the internet (shin, 2018; wijnia et.al., 2024; kokotsaki et.al., 2016). collaboration and interaction with both peers and teachers are other indicators of project-based learning that respondents have a positive perception of. the majority of the respondents perceive that working together in groups allows for a more dynamic learning experience and helps them develop important teamwork and communication skills. they also appreciate the opportunity to interact with file:///e:/backup%20laptop/publikasi%20dan%20penulisan%20ilmiah/manuscripts/2024/eltej_5%20v6.i3_sovi%20-%20finale.doc%23nugraheni file:///e:/backup%20laptop/publikasi%20dan%20penulisan%20ilmiah/manuscripts/2024/eltej_5%20v6.i3_sovi%20-%20finale.doc%23insyasiska 210 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 arifin, w. et al. (pre-service teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning …..) their peers and teachers, which enables them to learn from one another's perspectives and experiences. referring to the survey result, it signals that collaboration and interaction are seen as crucial components of project-based learning that enhance the overall educational experience. moreover, they also agree that the ability to collaborate effectively is seen as a valuable skill that will benefit them in their future careers. this supports the results of the studies by vogler et.al. (2018) and soboleva and karavaev (2020) which collectively reported that project based learning enables students to develop their communication and teamwork skills. apart from the positive perceptions of pbl implementation data collected through this study, another thing to note is the phenomenon that very few respondents had neutral perceptions and no respondents had negative perceptions. this is worth noting because, of course, no learning method is all-round and flawless. as for this research, few respondents who showed neutral perceptions of pbl implementation in teyl pd course indicated that they were specifically neutral only with the issues related to interaction and collaboration. this is in line with the study by ayuningtyas et al. (2023) which reported that though pbl can positively impact students, still, some students mention that it's is uncomfortable, especially for those who do not like interacting with many people or have an introverted personality type. recognizing that some students may struggle with the collaborative nature of pbl, in the context of pre-service eyl teachers training program, it is important to consider these varying perceptions and preferences when implementing pbl. lecturers should provide additional support and guidance to ensure that all these pre-service eyl teachers are able to benefit from pbl. by understanding and accommodating different perspectives will lead to a more successful and inclusive learning experience for all participants. however, while it is important to consider varying perceptions and preferences, providing additional support and guidance may not always be feasible due to time and resource constraints in a training program. therefore, more and further research on this issue is needed as to explore potential solutions and strategies for effectively implementing pbl in pre-service eyl teacher training programs. with continuous improvement, research and innovation, pre-service eyl teachers can fully harness the benefits of pbl to enhance their learning and teaching experiences. 5. conclusion based on the data analysis, it’s concluded that, the pre-service eyl teachers’ perceptions toward implementation pf project-based learning (pbl) in teyl based course is positive. of the total 55 respondents, 18 respondents (33%) had a very positive perception, 33 respondents (60%) had a positive perception, 4 respondents (7%) had a neutral perception, and no respondents had a negative perception. these results indicate that a majority of pre-service eyl teachers have a favorable view of incorporating project-based learning into teyl courses. the high percentage of very positive and positive perceptions suggests that these future educators see the value and benefits of pbl in teaching english to young learners. the lack of negative perceptions further reinforces the idea that pbl is a well-received teaching approach among pre-service eyl teachers. however, the absence of negative perceptions does not necessarily mean that all pre-service eyl teachers fully understand or are prepared to effectively implement project-based learning in their teaching practice. it is possible that some respondents may have had limited exposure or experience with pbl, leading to a lack of negative feedback. further research on this is highly necessary. acknowledgement we would like to extend our gratitude and appreciation to all those who have contributed to the completion of this academic article. we are deeply thankful to our colleagues of english education department universitas ahmad dahlan whose expertise and insightful feedback have greatly enriched the quality of this work. we would like to thank the members of the research team for their assistance in various aspects of this research project, including data collection, analysis, and manuscript preparation. their collaboration and expertise have been invaluable in bringing this work to fruition. furthermore, we would also like to express our sincere appreciation to the head and all staff of lppm uad who have supported the research fully. their contributions have been instrumental in shaping the findings of this study. file:///e:/backup%20laptop/publikasi%20dan%20penulisan%20ilmiah/manuscripts/2024/eltej_5%20v6.i3_sovi%20-%20finale.doc%23ayuningtyas issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 211 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 199-215 arifin, w. et al. (pre-service teachers’ perceptions of project-based learning …..) declarations author contribution : wanda arifin, who is the first author of the article, has contributed a lot from the beginning. soviyah was responsible for the entire research project and together with wanda, co-leading the writing of the manuscript. handung patria, the third author, has participated in the data analysis, revision and completion of the manuscript. funding statement : this research received funding from lppm universitas ahmad dahlan this research received funding from lppm ahmad dahlan university with contract number pd-143/sp3/lppmuadnui/2023 conflict of interest : the authors declare that they have no competing interests. ethics declaration : we, as authors, affirm that this research adheres to the ethical regulations of our university. we obtained necessary permissions from relevant institutes during the data collection process. we support the principles of academic integrity and honesty as upheld by the english language teaching educational journal (eltej) and maintain high standards of personal conduct in our professional practices. references abood, h. g. 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(2023). projectbased learning training and assistance for prospective high school teacher. jurnal inovasi dan pengembangan hasil pengabdian masyarakat, 1(2), 115-121. https://doi.org/10.23887/jppsi.v2i1.17222 https://www.learntechlib.org/p/9529/ 1. introduction 2. literature review 2.1. perception 2.2. project-based learning 3. method 4. findings and discussion 4.1. findings 1) interaction between students and lecturer 2) motivation 3) collaboration 4) problem-solving 5) creative and critical thinking 6) recapitulation of respondents’ perception 4.2. discussion 5. conclusion references english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 192-204 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14856 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id teacher nonverbal cues and student first impressions in vietnamese efl classrooms cuong phan quoc a, 1, *, angelica puspasari manao b, 2 a binh duong economics and technology university, no. 333 thuan giao 16 street, thuan giao ward, ho chi minh city 75110, vietnam b national taipei university of technology, no. 1, section 3, zhongxiao east road, da’an district, taipei 10608, taiwan 1 cuong.pq@ktkt.edu.vn *; 2 t112548405@ntut.org.tw *corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 15 october 2025 revised 17 november 2025 accepted 4 december 2025 available online 17 december 2025 this study explores the perspectives of vietnamese students on nonverbal cues from their english teachers and how these cues influence their first impressions and motivation in efl classrooms. using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, the study first collected survey data from 97 students across four majors (information technology, law, marketing, and public relations) and then conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 voluntary participants. quantitative results indicated consistently positive evaluations of nonverbal cues, particularly confident posture, neat attire, and smiling, with notable differences between majors: students in communicationoriented fields placed greater value on visual and interpersonal cues, while technical students adopted more neutral stances and frequently compared english teachers with instructors in their major subjects. thematic analysis of interview data further revealed that nonverbal cues from teachers contributed to lowering anxiety, enhancing classroom inclusion, and increasing student engagement. in general, the study highlights the significant role of nonverbal communication of teachers in creating supportive and motivating efl learning environments and provides pedagogical implications for improving teacher training and classroom interaction in vietnamese universities. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords nonverbal communication first impressions efl classrooms student motivation teacher-student interaction how to cite: quoc, c. p., & manao, a. p. (2025). teacher nonverbal cues and student first impressions in vietnamese efl classrooms. english language teaching educational journal, 8(3), 192-204. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14856 1. introduction first impressions are very important in educational settings because they shape how students feel about their teachers and how willing they are to engage in learning from the very beginning (šerić, 2021). this is particularly relevant in english as a foreign language (efl) classrooms, where many asian students, including those in vietnam, often approach english with uncertainty or low confidence (pourgharib & shakki, 2024; thach & khau, 2025; yakovleva, 2021; zhang, 2025). since english is typically a required subject, many students have limited exposure to the language and may feel anxious about using it (le, 2023; malik et al., 2021; truong & ho, 2022). in such contexts, the early interactions between teachers and students become especially important for establishing trust and reducing affective barriers. nonverbal communication plays a key role in making these initial interactions. simple actions such as friendly facial expressions, supportive gestures, confident posture, and appropriate clothing can help students feel comfortable, build trust, encourage participation (gutiérrez-hernández & ramírez-alfaro, 2024; lee, 2022; oliver et al., 2022; yang, 2025). although previous research has https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14228 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:cuong.pq@ktkt.edu.vn mailto:t112548405@ntut.org.tw http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14853 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14856&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0009-0002-3042-0834 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2445-1650 193 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 192-204 quoc, c. p., & manao, a. p. (teacher nonverbal cues and student first impressions in…..) shown that nonverbal cues influence student perceptions, empirical studies focusing specifically on first impressions in efl classrooms remain limited. even fewer studies examine this phenomenon within vietnamese technical universities, where many students come from stem-oriented disciplines and may have lower english confidence or different communication expectations compared to students in social sciences. additionally, existing literature rarely provides cross-major comparisons, leaving unclear whether students from different academic backgrounds value teacher nonverbal cues differently. to address these gaps, this study examines how students from four disciplines (information technology, law, marketing, and public relations) perceive the nonverbal cues of their english teachers during the first class meeting. it also explores how these initial impressions influence students’ comfort, motivation, and attitudes toward english learning in a technical university context. by drawing on both survey data and interview evidence, the study clarifies the role of early teacher nonverbal cues in shaping student engagement and offers practical implications for improving english instruction in vietnamese higher education. the study is guided by the following research questions: 1. what nonverbal cues do students identify as the key to creating a positive first impression of their english teachers during the initial meeting? 2. how do these nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions, gestures, posture, and clothing, affect students’ motivation and comfort in english classes after that first impression? 1.1. first impressions and nonverbal communication in efl classrooms first impressions refer to the initial judgments students form about their teachers, often shaped by visual and behavioral cues even before verbal interaction occurs. these early impressions strongly influence student motivation, attitudes, and participation. soltanian and sadeghi (2021) found that brief “thin slices” of teacher behavior can significantly impact student perceptions. in efl classrooms, where learners may feel anxious, underconfident, or less motivated, these impressions become even more consequential (gholamrezaee & ghanizadeh, 2018) . in many asian contexts, including vietnam, english is perceived as a mandatory subject, particularly among non-english majors (van van, 2020), making the teachers’ initial presentation highly influential. a positive impression reduces anxiety and fosters engagement, whereas a negative one can undermine motivation (wang et al., 2024). nonverbal cues is one of the most powerful factors of the early judgment. they include facial expressions, gestures, body posture, eye contact, clothing, and physical distance (burgoon et al., 2021). empirical studies in efl classrooms consistently shows that positive nonverbal cues such as smiling, open gestures, and attentive gaze enhance classroom atmosphere and reduce anxiety. for example, tikochinski et al. (2025) found that gestures and facial expressions directly increased student motivation, while yuan (2024) showed that these immediacy behaviors improved engagement in english classes. however, despite this growing body of work, existing studies rarely examine whether students from different academic disciplines interpret these nonverbal cues in similar or divergent ways. most research treats “students” as a homogeneous group, overlooking the potential variation between, for example, communication-focused majors and technical majors. this lack of cross-major evidence leaves an important gap in understanding how disciplinary norms can shape students’ expectations and reactions to teachers’ nonverbal cues, particularly in technical universities where english is often viewed as a supplementary rather than central subject. 1.2. frameworks for understanding nonverbal communication teacher immediacy theory (burgoon et al., 2021) provides a central lens for understanding how nonverbal behaviors shape students’ perceptions during early classroom encounters. the theory posits that behaviors such as smiling, maintaining eye contact, adopting an open posture, and using relaxed body movement reduce perceived psychological distance, thereby fostering approachability, emotional safety, and readiness to participate. recent l2 research further shows that teacher immediacy contributes to increased student engagement and willingness to communicate (den brok et al., 2004; dewaele & dewaele, 2020; huang & li, 2024). within this theoretical orientation, nonverbal cues in efl classrooms can be organized into several well-established categories. these categories help explain how teachers’ moment-to-moment issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 194 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 192-204 quoc, c. p., & manao, a. p. (teacher nonverbal cues and student first impressions in…..) behaviors communicate warmth, authority, professionalism, and respect signals that strongly influence students’ first impressions and affective responses. table 1 synthesizes the major types of nonverbal communication widely discussed in the literature, along with examples relevant to teaching and learning. table 1. types of non-verbal communication in efl classrooms category definition example sources kinesics body movements such as gestures, facial expressions, and posture smiling to show friendliness; open arms to welcome students kesevan et al. (2020); nong (2025) proxemics use of physical space between people teacher standing close to students to show approachability farsani and rodrigues (2021) oculesics eye behavior such as eye contact and gaze making eye contact to show attention; cultural variations in gaze kourieos and evripidou (2024); haataja et al. (2021) appearance clothing and grooming that affect impressions wearing professional clothing to gain respect oliver et al. (2022); kashem (2019) chronemics use of time, including punctuality and timing starting class on time to show respect wilson et al. (2021) these nonverbal cues are not interpreted uniformly, as students’ perceptions are shaped by cultural norms and classroom expectations in vietnam. in vietnamese efl settings, eye contact, interpersonal distance, and classroom formality influence students’ comfort and their initial judgments of teacher approachability. research in vietnamese classrooms has highlighted that gestures, facial expressions, posture, and smiling play a crucial role in creating welcoming and supportive learning environments (nguyen, 2025; nguyen & khau, 2022; thanh thao & thuy, 2024). recognizing these cultural nuances is therefore essential for understanding how nonverbal behaviors contribute to positive first impressions and effective classroom interactions in vietnamese efl contexts. 1.3. effects on student motivation and comfort nonverbal cues not only shape first impressions but also influence student emotions, motivation, and engagement in the classrooms. behaviors such as smiling, use open gestures, eye contact, or moderate proximity help create a positive and supportive learning environment. in efl classrooms, nonverbal immediacy increased willingness to communicate (amini & weisi, 2021; lin, 2019; yan et al., 2025) and supportive cues enhanced enjoyment, confidence, and risk-taking in language use (anderson, 2025; babad, 2007; dewaele & dewaele, 2020; pennings & hollenstein, 2020). studies in asian contexts further confirm these patterns (huang & li, 2024). for example, fallah (2014) found that young learners felt more motivated when teachers used expressive gestures and relaxed posture, which made them feel comfortable and ready to participate. similarly, research in thai efl classrooms suggests that the absence of supportive and immediate teacher behaviors, reflected in profiles such as impatient, uninspiring, and intimidating teachers, significantly undermines students’ l2 willingness to communicate (raksawong et al., 2024; suvongse & liangitsara, 2022). in addition, research in chinese efl universities indicates that teacher non‑verbal immediacy including gestures, eye contact, and facial expressions is significantly associated with students’ classroom engagement and willingness to participate (derakhshan et al., 2023; ding & wang, 2025; li et al., 2025). however, many teachers may be unaware of how their body language is interpreted by students. neutral or closed cues such as limited eye contact or crossed arms can inadvertently make students feel unnoticed. frenkel et al. (2024) found that emotionally distant behavior reduced learner interest and motivation, whereas more emotionally engaging or supportive behavior was shown to increase learner interest (trang et al., 2023). this issue is especially relevant in technical universities in vietnam, where english is often viewed as a required subject (ngo & tran, 2024; yakovleva, 2021) and many teachers have limited training in nonverbal communication strategies (moet, 2020). these gaps highlight the need for further research on how students interpret teacher nonverbal cues in such contexts. 195 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 192-204 quoc, c. p., & manao, a. p. (teacher nonverbal cues and student first impressions in…..) 2. method 2.1. participant background a total of 97 second-year students from binh duong economics and technology university (vietnam) participated in this study. the sample included four majors: information technology/software engineering (n = 26, 26.8%), law (n = 25, 25.8%), marketing (n = 23, 23.7%), and public relations (n = 23, 23.7%). the balanced distribution supported meaningful cross-group comparisons. all participants had completed english course 3 with final grades ranging from 6.5 to 7.9, reflecting a moderately uniform level of english proficiency. this moderately uniform proficiency level reduced the risk of language ability influencing judgments about teacher nonverbal cues. table 2. participant distribution by academic majors major n percent (%) information technology/software engineering 26 26.8 law 25 25.8 marketing 23 23.7 public relations 23 23.7 total 97 100.0 2.2. research design an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was employed. the survey phase provided a broad understanding of which teacher nonverbal cues were most notable to students, and the interview phase explored students’ interpretations and emotional responses behind these patterns. this design is appropriate when initial quantitative findings require deeper contextual explanation (hashemi, 2023) . the survey consisted of two sets of items aligned with the research questions and grounded in common categories of nonverbal communication (kinesics, oculesics, proxemics, appearance, and chronemics). while set a measured the importance of nonverbal cues in forming first impressions, set b measured how those cues influenced motivation and comfort. both sets used a five-point likerttype scale, which enabled students to express graded perceptions clearly and reliably. internal consistency was excellent (cronbach’s α = .940 for set a; .977 for set b). the six semi-structured interview questions were intentionally designed to match the two research questions. the first three focused on nonverbal cues shaping first impressions, while the last three explored motivation and comfort. these questions allowed students to elaborate on processes that cannot be captured through fixed-scale survey items. the questions were piloted with four students with one from each major to check for clarity and relevance. feedback was used to improve the questions, but pilot data were not included in the main analysis. 2.3. data collection the survey was distributed via google forms. vietnamese was used to avoid comprehension barriers and ensure that students could accurately express subtle perceptions related to teacher nonverbal cues. a total of 97 valid responses were collected voluntarily with support from course instructors. following the survey, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 2 students selected using convenience sampling. this approach was appropriate because the aim of the qualitative phase was not representativeness but depth of insight, and voluntary participation was essential to ensure comfort and openness. the sample included 5 students from information technology/software engineering, 3 from law, 2 from marketing, and 2 from public relations. each interview lasted from 20 to 30 minutes and was audio-recorded for transcription and analysis. all interviews were conducted in vietnamese in a quiet meeting room. participants were informed of confidentiality, the right to withdraw, and the purpose of the study before giving written consent. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 196 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 192-204 quoc, c. p., & manao, a. p. (teacher nonverbal cues and student first impressions in…..) 2.4. data analysis the quantitative survey data were entered into spss statistics version 26, checked for accuracy, and screened for missing or inconsistent entries. descriptive statistics, including frequencies and mean scores, were calculated to identify which nonverbal cues students most commonly noticed and valued across academic majors. interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c). all recordings were transcribed verbatim, and the transcripts were read repeatedly for content familiarity, coded for meaningful units, and then grouped into preliminary themes. these themes were reviewed, refined, and clearly defined before being used to interpret how teachers’ nonverbal cues influenced students’ first impressions, motivation, and comfort. table 3. example of coding excerpt initial codes subtheme theme mỗi khi mà cô em cười ý hả, em thấy như mình được chào đón trong lớp, vui vẻ hơn hẳn mà còn kiểu muốn học hành hơn nữa á. mà em thấy cô cũng hỏi thăm bạn này bạn kia ngay trong buổi đầu luôn ạ. teacher smile; small talk; feeling welcomed; higher motivation warm and friendly demeanor warmth-based nonverbal behaviors increase students’ emotional comfort and motivation every time she smiles, i feel welcomed, happier and more willing to study. she also often has small talks with my other classmates right from the beginning. cách cô giao lưu với lớp, đi lại trong lớp thoải mái tự tin làm em rất là ưng bụng. cảm thấy kiểu như cô có năng lượng tích cực nên muốn học liền liền. confident movement; energetic presence; uplifting classroom atmosphere energetic and confident presence warmth-based nonverbal behaviors increase students’ emotional comfort and motivation the way my teacher communicates with us effectively and walks comfortably and confidently around classroom makes me very satisfied. i feel like she has positive energy, which make me want to study right away. lúc nào giảng bài cô cũng nhìn thẳng tụi em hết á, kiểu không phải nhìn dữ dằn đâu ạ. cô nhìn kiểu cô lắng nghe câu trả lời của tụi em, nên tụi em không tập trung trả lời không được đâu ạ. supportive eye contact; perceived attentiveness; increased focus attentive instructional presence attentive and responsive nonverbal cues promote student focus and engagement whenever she do her lectures, she always looks straight at us, not in a fierce way. she looks at us like she is listening to our answers, so we have no choice but stay focused. to enhance trustworthiness, peer checking was conducted in which the second researcher reviewed the coding scheme and theme definitions. 3. finding and discussion 3.1. nonverbal cues and first impressions of efl teachers the survey findings show that students generally had positive views on teacher nonverbal cues during the first encounters, with all seven items scoring above the scale midpoint (table 4). confident posture was rated highest (m = 3.99, sd = 0.984), followed by outfit neat (m = 3.91) and smile (m = 3.84). these findings align with research showing that kinesic cues and appearance strongly influence initial judgments (burgoon et al., 2021) and can reduce early anxiety in language classrooms. interview data reinforced these survey patterns. as a student shared that the teacher “…bước vô rất là tự tin luôn. cô cũng cười tươi lắm á, cô chào cả lớp, tự nhiên em cũng kiểu cảm thấy bớt bồn chồn.” (…walked in very confidently. she also smiled and greeted the class, somewhat making me feel less nervous), indicating that the calming effect of confident posture. especially, all 12 informants mentioned that the teacher’s warm smile made them feel “được chào đón” (welcomed), highlighting the immediacy effect of positive facial expressions. 197 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 192-204 quoc, c. p., & manao, a. p. (teacher nonverbal cues and student first impressions in…..) table 4. summary of student evaluations on first-impression nonverbal cues nonverbal cues n min max mean std. deviation smile 97 1 5 3.84 1.017 hand gesture 97 1 5 3.76 1.116 standing confidently 97 1 5 3.99 0.984 eye contact 97 1 5 3.78 1.129 comfort distance 97 1 5 3.82 1.127 outfit neat 97 1 5 3.91 1.061 punctuality 97 1 5 3.79 1.099 other cues such as comfortable distancing (m = 3.82), punctuality (m = 3.79), and eye contact (m = 3.78) were also evaluated favorably. these cues signaled attentiveness and respect, consistent with proxemic and oculesic principles. short interview responses supported this interpretation, with one student sharing that eye contact made them feel “mình được lắng nghe” (being listened to), suggesting enhanced learner agency. although hand gestures had the lowest score (m = 3.76, sd = 1.116), students still recognized their instructional value. one student commented, gestures helped them “không tập trung cũng không được” (could not help but pay attention). table 5. high ratings (4–5) of nonverbal cues across majors nonverbal cues it/se (%) law (%) marketing (%) pr (%) smile 46.2 68.0 56.5 73.9 hand gesture 42.3 64.0 56.5 73.9 standing confidently 50.0 68.0 73.9 82.6 eye contact 46.2 60.0 56.5 78.3 comfort distance 57.7 64.0 56.5 78.3 outfit neat 50.0 68.0 56.5 87.0 punctuality 38.5 76.0 47.8 82.6 despite the variations shown in table 5, several cross-major patterns highlight how students interpret instructors’ nonverbal cues through discipline-specific norms when interpreting nonverbal cues. public relations students rated nonverbal indicators the highest, especially neat appearance (87%) and confident posture (82.6%), which is consistent with the strong focus on impression management and interpersonal communication in their field. law students, in contrast, placed greater importance on punctuality and professional demeanor, reflecting the norms of authority and structure associated with legal education. marketing students tended to value a confident and engaging presence rather than strict time discipline, which suggests a preference for dynamic gestures and expressive movement that signal energy. meanwhile, it/software engineering students reported the lowest overall ratings, yet interview responses reveal that they still appreciated warmth and clarity, particularly when these cues differed from the more formal and distant communication styles common in their technical courses. as one student remarked, “vô lớp tiếng anh thì cô lúc nào cũng tươi cười vui vẻ, còn mấy thầy cô dạy chuyên ngành thì thôi khỏi bàn tới, nhìn thầy cô lúc nào cũng căng” (in english class, the teacher is always smiling and happy, but the teachers who teach technical courses are usually not. looking at instructors of my major constantly makes me tense), which highlights how even students with lower ratings continue to rely on immediate nonverbal signals to assess teacher approachability. the findings show that confident posture, neat appearance, and smiling were the most influential nonverbal cues in shaping students’ first impressions, consistent with teacher immediacy theory (burgoon et al., 2021) and recent l2 studies (dewaele & dewaele, 2020; hu & wang, 2023). interview data highlighted that warm smiles and confident classroom entrances immediately created a sense of welcome and reduced tension, confirming that kinesic and appearance cues are crucial for early teacher-student rapport in efl classrooms (kashem, 2019; kesevan et al., 2020; nong, 2025; oliver et al., 2022). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 198 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 192-204 quoc, c. p., & manao, a. p. (teacher nonverbal cues and student first impressions in…..) cross-major differences reflected clear disciplinary patterns. pr students gave the highest ratings to expressive behaviors, showing their sensitivity to interpersonal cues and social presence. marketing students also valued confident gestures and sustained eye contact, emphasizing persuasive and engaging communication. law students, in contrast, rated punctuality and structured presentation higher, consistent with the norms of authority-focused disciplines. it/se students gave generally lower ratings but still responded positively to warmth and attentiveness, which differed from the formal style of their technical courses. these results suggest that students’ interpretations of teacher immediacy depend on disciplinary culture. therefore, teacher training should include nonverbal immediacy skills and guidance on adapting behaviors to different student groups to support positive classroom interactions and motivation. 3.2. nonverbal cues of english teachers and student motivation in efl classrooms table 6 presents all cues received average scores above the midpoint (3.0), suggesting that students viewed these cues as generally helpful in creating a supportive classroom environment. in particular, standing confidently received the highest rating (m = 3.87, sd = 1.124), followed by neat appearance (m = 3.80) and smiling (m = 3.76). these results suggest that confident posture, professional presentation, and friendly expressions play a central role in shaping learners’ motivation. other cues such as maintaining a comfortable distance, making eye contact, and punctuality were also viewed positively, reinforcing that attentiveness and respect help create a supportive learning climate. although hand gesture received the lowest mean (m = 3.68), it was still seen as a useful part of classroom communication. table 6. teacher nonverbal cues influencing student motivation and comfort nonverbal cues n minimum maximum mean std. deviation smile 97 1 5 3.76 1.153 hand gesture 97 1 5 3.68 1.142 standing confidently 97 1 5 3.87 1.124 eye contact 97 1 5 3.75 1.182 comfort distance 97 1 5 3.76 1.116 outfit neat 97 1 5 3.80 1.086 punctuality 97 1 5 3.75 1.146 when examined across four majors, the motivational impact of nonverbal cues showed distinct patterns, but several consistent tendencies emerged. as presented in table 7, public relations (pr) students consistently gave the highest ratings for all seven cues that improved their motivation and comfort in english classes. in particular, more than 78% of pr students rated smile, standing confidently, eye contact, outfit neatness, and punctuality as contributing positively to their motivation and comfort in class. especially, standing confidently (82.6%) stood out, showing pr students’ strong attention to body language, a key aspect of their discipline. their responses in the interviews supported this, emphasizing the role of interpersonal presentation. one student remarked “cách cô giao lưu với lớp, đi lại trong lớp thoải mái tự tin làm em rất là ưng bụng. cảm thấy kiểu như cô có năng lượng tích cực nên muốn học liền liền”, (the way my teacher communicates with us effectively and walks comfortably and confidently around classroom makes me very satisfied. i feel like she has positive energy, which make me want to study right away). table 7. high ratings (4 – 5) for motivational impact of nonverbal cues across academic majors nonverbal cues it/se (%) law (%) marketing (%) pr (%) smile 50.0 56.0 65.2 82.6 hand gesture 46.2 60.0 60.9 69.6 standing confidently 53.8 64.0 69.6 82.6 eye contact 50.0 56.0 69.6 73.9 comfort distance 53.8 60.0 60.9 78.3 outfit neat 46.2 60.0 65.2 78.3 punctuality 38.5 60.0 60.9 78.3 marketing students showed similar patterns with relatively high ratings at 69.6% for both confident posture and eye contact. their interview data that confident and expressive body language made the 199 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 192-204 quoc, c. p., & manao, a. p. (teacher nonverbal cues and student first impressions in…..) teacher appear more persuasive and trustworthy, a perception that echoes marketing principles of credibility and audience engagement. a student noted that the teacher’s sustained eye contact signaled genuine listening, which helped maintain focus during lessons. law students expressed moderate but consistent appreciation for most nonverbal cues, with punctuality standing out at 60%. while not the highest among all groups, this figure suggests that law students value time management and teacher reliability. their interview examples often connected punctuality and systematic lesson flow with reduced uncertainty, supporting literature that links consistent teacher behavior with a sense of security and preparedness. “có hai việc mà em thấy làm rất là okay là: vào lớp, ra chơi đúng giờ và dạy bài không bị cháy giáo án. kiểu em biết được là mình sẽ làm gì học gì, trình tự như thế nào trong lớp khiến em an tâm hơn khi học lớp cô.” (there are two things that my teacher does really well: entering class and taking breaks punctually and managing to complete each section of a lesson on time, no delays, no overtime. you know, when i know what i will be doing, what i will be learning, in a certain order, makes me feel more secure.) compared to other majors, students in information technology/software engineering gave the lowest overall ratings. however, interview data reveal that nonverbal cues, especially a friendly smile, were still appreciated by these students. students frequently contrasted the warm demeanor of english teachers with the more distant communication style of their technical instructors. as one student explained: “thường thầy cô dạy chuyên ngành của tụi em, em thấy, sao mà khô khan lắm, hiếm khi nào có thầy cô cười đùa với sinh viên. cô lớp tiếng anh thì khác, lúc nào cô cũng cười tươi, kiểu thấy dễ chịu lắm ạ, thấy mình học nó nhẹ nhàng thoải mái lắm luôn á.” (i usually find the teachers who teach our specialized courses so dry, rarely do they laugh and joke with the students. my english teacher is different. she always smiles brightly, which makes me feel very comfortable, and i find it very easy and comfortable to learn.) these reflections suggest that while it/se students may not consistently rate nonverbal cues as highly as others in surveys, they still respond positively to them in practice. in particular, a warm and open demeanor of english teachers helps create a more comfortable classroom atmosphere, which may be especially impactful for students who are used to more formal or distant teacher–student interactions in their core subjects. these accounts support the argument that immediacy behaviors may be particularly impactful for students who are accustomed to formal or less interactive academic environments. teacher nonverbal behaviors strongly influenced students’ motivation and comfort. confident posture, neat appearance, and smiling were particularly impactful, suggesting that professional presence combined with warmth encourages engagement. other behaviors, such as eye contact, respectful distance, and punctuality, also fostered a positive classroom climate, supporting findings that immediacy cues reduce anxiety and enhance participation in efl settings (hu & wang, 2023; tikochinski et al., 2025). hand gestures were less prominent but still contributed to communication clarity. differences across disciplines revealed how students interpret nonverbal cues through their fieldspecific expectations. pr students responded most strongly to all cues, reflecting sensitivity to interpersonal and visual behaviors. marketing students favored expressive and confident behaviors, linking them to persuasion and engagement. law students highlighted punctuality and structured delivery, emphasizing reliability and order. it/se students rated cues lower overall but valued warmth and attentiveness, contrasting with the more formal style of their technical instructors. these patterns align with teacher immediacy theory (burgoon et al., 2021) and reinforce prior research showing that immediacy supports engagement, particularly when students experience more formal or distant teaching in their discipline (fallah, 2014; yuan, 2024). the findings imply that nonverbal issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 200 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 192-204 quoc, c. p., & manao, a. p. (teacher nonverbal cues and student first impressions in…..) communication should be emphasized in teacher training and efl curricula, with attention to disciplinary expectations to maximize motivation and comfort. 4. conclusion this study investigated the nonverbal cues that students identify as the key to creating a positive first impression of english teachers, as well as how those cues influence students' motivation comfort in efl classrooms. the findings contribute to the growing literature on teacher immediacy and early classroom perception by showing that students rely on a consistent set of cues, such as smiling, eye contact, and confident posture, while also interpreting them through discipline specific norms. this extends existing research by illustrating how cultural and institutional contexts influence student expectations of professional presence in efl settings. these findings highlight important pedagogical considerations, suggesting that teacher training should address nonverbal communication to foster student engagement and a positive classroom atmosphere. training modules that focus on posture, eye contact, spatial cues, and classroom presence can strengthen relationship building, especially in institutions where students are accustomed to formal or distant instructional styles. for technical universities integrating interpersonal communication components into efl courses can help reduce anxiety and promote a more supportive learning environment. building on these findings, future research could incorporate classroom observations to triangulate self reported data and capture nonverbal cues in real time. including variables such as teacher gender, student gender, and prior language learning experience would deepen the analysis of how nonverbal cues are interpreted in different contexts. longitudinal designs could also clarify how student perceptions evolve over a semester, offering richer insights into the role of nonverbal communication in sustained engagement. in conclusion, this study underscores the importance of nonverbal cues in shaping the first teacher student interactions and suggests that strengthening teacher awareness of these cues may enhance classroom motivation and comfort, particularly within technical university environments. acknowledgment the authors would like to express sincere gratitude to all the students who participated in this study. declarations author contribution : cuong phan quoc served as the main lead of the research project and was responsible for the study design, data collection, transcription, data analysis, and initial drafting of the manuscript. angelica puspasari manao supported the drafting process and contributed to revising and refining the manuscript. both authors approved the final version of the manuscript. funding statement : this research received no specific grant or funding from any agency. conflict of interest : we declare that there are no competing interests. ethics declaration : the author acknowledges that this work was conducted in accordance with ethical research standards and complies with the regulations of the university. permission was obtained from the relevant institute prior to data collection. the author supports eltej in maintaining high standards of personal conduct and upholding honesty in all professional practices and endeavors. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. 201 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 192-204 quoc, c. p., & manao, a. p. 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(2025). the role of efl teacher immediacy and teacher-student rapport in boosting motivation to learn and academic mindsets in online education. learning and motivation, 89, 102092. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lmot.2024.102092 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328x/14/9/748 https://doi.org/10.53761/1.18.4.16 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-024-00910-w https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.70054 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2024.104185 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lmot.2024.102092 1. introduction 1.1. first impressions and nonverbal communication in efl classrooms 1.2. frameworks for understanding nonverbal communication 1.3. effects on student motivation and comfort 2. method 2.1. participant background 2.2. research design 2.3. data collection 2.4. data analysis 3. finding and discussion 3.1. nonverbal cues and first impressions of efl teachers 3.2. nonverbal cues of english teachers and student motivation in efl classrooms 4. conclusion acknowledgment english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 13-23 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10306 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id sqrar: a model of elt coursebook evaluation sukarno english language education, yogyakarta state university, jl. colombo no. 1, yogyakarta, 55281, indonesia sukarno@uny.ac.id a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 16 january 2024 revised 12 february 2024 accepted 15 march 2024 coursebooks have become the most prominent english learning materials, especially in formal education. therefore, recursive evaluation should be conducted to adjust the coursebook based on the current needs and learning goals. moreover, dynamic evaluation brings interaction or mediation with a genuine act of teaching to make the evaluation more meaningful and substantial. however, limited resources are available, especially the ones that could help the teacher evaluate vivid steps dynamically. this study fulfills the need for a coursebook, especially elt, evaluation method by following the research and development design proposed initially by dick and carey that many experts have simplified. the design was constructed from a sequence of steps, namely addie (analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation). thirty participants conducted an evaluation phase based on the product trial design, followed by a focus group discussion (fgd). the data were gathered using a questionnaire and the interview guidelines. the instruments were developed based on the ideal coursebook criteria. they are shaped in quantitative and qualitative forms and analyzed using creswell’s data analysis technique. thus, a set of evaluation methods was designed: sqrar (survey, question, read, analyse, and recommend). the design benefits the teachers by allowing them to evaluate the coursebook systematically and effectively. survey results demonstrate strong consensus among english teachers, advocating for urgent development of such evaluation models. implementation of the sqrar model involves detailed stages emphasizing thorough evaluation and constructive feedback, with micro and macro evaluation options discussed. the model ensures comprehensive evaluation, consistency, and alignment with learning objectives and provides clear recommendations for coursebook improvement. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords business correspondence efl writing anxiety learning anxiety second language writing how to cite: sukarno. (2024). sqrar: a model of coursebook evaluation. english language teaching educational journal, 7(1), 13-23. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10306 1. introduction many professionals believe that english learning materials are critical to the teaching and learning process. they typically serve students in english classes by providing extensive language input, examples, exercises, and activities (richards & renandya, 2002; soviyah & fatimah, 2021). as a result, coursebooks, among other learning materials, continue to be the primary source of language learning (sucipto & cahyo, 2019; surono et al., 2022). despite their shortcomings, coursebooks are needed, desired, and valued by teachers and students all over the world as a ready-to-use language learning resource (mishan, 2022). they can serve as the primary foundation for language courses (graves, 2003). the ideal english coursebook also serves as a model for creating english teaching materials (afifah, 2019). english learning materials help students communicate with others by cultivating pragmatic competence, or the ability of the speaker-listener to communicate (ellis, 2003). furthermore, teaching materials serve as a source of language, a source of learning support, a source https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10306 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:sukarno@uny.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10306 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10306&domain=pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0009-0007-9708-2434 14 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 13-23 sukarno (sqrar: a model of coursebook …..) of motivation and stimulation, and a source of reference (dorda, 2008; rojabi, 2020). as a result, coursebooks play an important role in language teaching and learning. the utilization of coursebooks within educational institutions is contingent upon their adherence to established criteria. in accordance with article 11 of the regulation of the minister of education and culture (permendikbud) number 8 of 2016, which pertains to the selection of books for use in state educational institutions, institutions are mandated to employ coursebooks that meet specified standards; failure to do so may result in punitive measures. as a consequence, it becomes imperative for the indonesian government, in collaboration with authoritative bodies such as the center for curriculum and books and the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology, along with the expertise of scholars and english educators, to oversee the compliance of all english coursebooks utilized in indonesian secondary schools with the stipulated criteria (ansary & babaii, 2002; shi, 2014). this regulatory framework underscores the government's commitment to maintaining the quality and appropriateness of educational materials, ensuring that they align with prescribed educational objectives and standards. coursebooks used by institutions must be in accordance with positive social values or norms. pornography, extremism, radicalism, violence, sara (ethnicity, religion, race, and intergroup relations), gender bias, and other deviations from values are prohibited (buku yang digunakan oleh satuan pendidikan, 2016). the covers, front materials, contents, and back materials of a coursebook must all meet the requirements. the coursebook must have a front, back, and spine cover. the coursebook must have a title page, a publication page, an introductory page, a table of contents, a list of figures, a list of tables, and page numbering. the body of the coursebook must meet material, linguistic, material presentation, and graphical requirements. finally, the back material of the coursebook must include information about the book's creator (such as the author and illustrator), a glossary, bibliography, index, and attachments (standar isi pendidikan dasar dan menengah, 2016). in addition, coursebooks must meet the target's needs, lacks, and wants. azarnoosh and friends (2018) argue that coursebooks should be evaluated for reasons. for starters, it can assist program developers, syllabus designers, and language learners. it will secure the match between the students' needs and objectives of the learning (tsiplakides, 2011). an evaluation is an organized assessment of progress toward the expected learning outcome, achievement of the outcome, or overall program performance (united nations development programme, 2002). in line with that, vedung (2017) defines evaluation as a deliberate and retrospective process of evaluating the quality or value of any subject of evaluation in order to improve it in the future. a retrospective evaluation of a coursebook includes everything from assessing the coursebook content to making a summative recommendation (ellis, 1997). recursive assessment and evaluation are required to meet the coursebook criteria. teachers can provide constructive feedback for coursebook improvement by implementing the coursebooks in the field. however, most practitioners find it difficult to evaluate coursebooks due to the limited resources of coursebook evaluation models. it could be concluded that there is an urgent need for a coursebook evaluation model to serve as a guide for evaluating coursebooks (shave, 2010). a coursebook evaluator should evaluate the a coursebook based on the established criteria. these elements are typically included in the form of an assessment rubric. the evaluator should check the availability or scale of each aspect so that it can be revised more easily (zohrabi et al., 2012). the evaluator should also carefully read the coursebook to determine the quality level of each aspect. furthermore, in a traditional assessment, people are usually asked to solve test items and then turn them in for a score or little feedback, or sometimes nothing at all. this assessment procedure is classified as static by sternberg and grigorenko (2002). they go on to say that static evaluation only considers a product in its current state. examiners frequently grade using the existing evaluation system and rarely draw conclusions, so feedback is non-existent. furthermore, in order to maintain neutrality or good rapport, the examiner avoids involvement to the greatest extent possible. in contrast, haywood and lidz (2007) propose dynamic assessment as a subset of interactive assessment. however, dynamic assessment is not appropriate in all circumstances. it may be useful in situations such as: (1) low standardized/normative/static test scores, (2) learning difficulties due to intrinsic factors in the subject, (3) a language/communication barrier, and (4) cross-cultural misunderstanding. the terms 'selectivity' and 'dynamism' are central to dynamic evaluation issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 15 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 13-23 sukarno (sqrar: a model of coursebook …..) (dimitropoulos, 1999). the dynamic evaluation is recognized as the selection and combination of appropriate methods for specific evaluation research, such as internal-external evaluation, summativeformative assessment, and qualitative-quantitative paradigms. the concept of dynamism in dynamic evaluation refers to self-control and self-correction, which are enabled by supervision and feedback. in addition to haywood and lidz's (2007) concept, 'dynamism' is embodied here in the interaction or mediation with a genuine act of teaching in order to make the evaluation more meaningful and substantial. dynamic evaluation emphasizes ongoing assessment and feedback throughout the learning process. one of the key advantages of coursebook dynamic evaluation is that they can create a more engaging and motivating learning environment. by emphasizing interaction and negotiation, these coursebooks can help the learners feel more invested in the learning process and more connected to their peers and the teacher (milal et al., 2020; purwanti & hatmanto, 2019). additionally, some researchers have found the effectiveness of dynamic evaluation coursebooks in improving language outcomes (cheng & zhao, 2020; solhi et al., 2020; yilmaz & tugrul, 2017). concerning the essential of coursebook evaluation and the static evaluation that has been carried out for years to evaluate the english coursebooks, an innovation in dynamic evaluation is seen as essential (dahmardeh & kim, 2021). therefore, a method in the form of a set of steps is urgently needed to help the evaluators fill in the rubric easily, objectively, and directly. furthermore, considering the benefits of coursebook dynamic evaluation, a dynamic evaluation method would be an alternative solution to the problems. some previous studies have been carried out to develop methods in order to make the coursebook evaluation. one of the methods is sq3r as an abbreviation of survey-question-read-recite-review (rybicki, 2002). the sq3r was then developed into sq4r that stands for survey-question-readingrecording-reciting-reviewing. furthermore, it was then developed into pqrst (preview-questionread-self-review-test). another method is known as thieves. it pays attention to some aspects in a text (title, headings, introduction, e-first sentence of every paragraph, visuals and vocabulary, end of chapter questions, and summary). in addition, there is the qar method that emphasizes in question-answer relationship in a text. those models are strategies that help the students to focus on particular essential aspects to have effective reading and find certain information. however, those strategies are mainly concerned with steps in reading. limited specific dynamic model for coursebook evaluation has established. therefore, the dynamic model proposed in the current study is identified as the novelty to the area. in that so, this study aims to develop a model of coursebook dynamic evaluation which later will be called sqrar. the sqrar has theoretical and practical significance to the educational field, especially in elt area. it contributes to the theoretical development related to the coursebook evaluation in dynamic model. moreover, it also serves benefit for related parties since the sqrar model could be used by teachers and also coursebook developers to evaluate particular coursebook. 2. methodology this study follows a design and development procedure in dick & carey model that has been simplified by molenda (2003). the simplified model has also been proposed by mcgriff (2000), peterson (2003) and branch (2009). therefore, the procedure is adapted into five steps called addie (analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation). in analysis stage, the researchers conducted needs analysis by conducting interviews and survey in the form of forum group discussion (fgd) with the participants. the participants were 30 english teachers of mgmp (english teachers forum) from yogyakarta province. the researcher used interview guideline to collect qualitative data and google form questionnaire to collect the quantitative data. those research instruments have been validated before. thus, the qualitative data was validated by using triangulation while the quantitative data was validated using cornbach’s alpha, with the help of spss software. from this stage, the researcher found the need of dynamic model of coursebook analysis. then, the researcher designed the suitable model of coursebook evaluation aligns the gathered needs analysis. after that, the researcher developed the designed model into a clear and practical framework namely sqrar. the researcher then conducted the next stage which is implementation stage. in the implementation stage, the participants tried the model out for evaluating particular coursebook used in the classrooms. the last stage is evaluation stage in which the researcher and participants discussed the model being developed. 16 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 13-23 sukarno (sqrar: a model of coursebook …..) the addie model is considered simple and adaptable because it provides developers with a generic and systematic framework that can be applied to a variety of settings (peterson, 2003). branch (2009) also claims that other designs may be too didactic, limiting, passive, or singular. according to branch (2009), using addie in the development of learning media, online tools, or any educational product is more effective. in addition, molenda and boling (2008) argue that the five major stages are not only sequential but also iterative. this means that the process can be repeated until the product is completely satisfied. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. findings the goal of a dynamic evaluation is to identify barriers to more effective learning and performance and then suggest solutions (cheng & zhao, 2020; haywood & lidz, 2007; sternberg & grigorenko, 2002). the evaluators intervene during the dynamic evaluation by obtaining the learners' potential ability. ideally, evaluators are teachers who master theories of linguistics, learning, language learning, psychology, communication, and other related theories. the evaluators in this study are primarily english teachers who use english coursebooks and understand students' needs for learning materials. furthermore, material developers and elt practitioners with a sufficient understanding of the student's needs as well as the situation in the teaching and learning process can participate in the evaluation. dynamic evaluation is classified into two types: interventionist and interactionist. the second is concerned with the interaction between the examiner and the examinees. this is a dialectically integrated activity (poehner, 2008). 74.2% participants agreed that english coursebooks used in current formal education need to be evaluated based on criteria set by the government, experts, and current curriculum used by educational institutions. the participants of this study believe that the development of a model of english coursebook dynamic evaluation is urgently needed. the development of the model of english coursebook dynamic evaluation is based on the sqrar as the evaluation process. sqrar stands for survey, question, read, analyze, and recommend. the model, sqrar, is synthesized with the adaptation of dynamic assessment. in this context, it is called english coursebook dynamic evaluation using sqrar. sqrar is adapted in the english coursebook evaluation to search for weaknesses in english coursebooks and then provide recommendations to revise the evaluated english coursebooks in a cyclic process. the writers, publishers, or even english teachers developing their own learning materials learn from the recommendations and plan to revise their learning materials (english coursebooks). as a result, they are responsive to the evaluation results as meaningful inputs (haywood & lidz, 2007). there are connections between the coursebook evaluators and the learning materials writer. the sqrar steps, as a set of coursebook evaluation method, is based on the needs analysis attached in the following table 1. table 1. needs analysis on sqrar process dimensions question result* (%) 1 2 3 4 survey when we are going to evaluate an english coursebook, we should select and determine which english coursebook to evaluate. 0 0 25.8 74.2 question before evaluating an english coursebook, we should brainstorm/ask for elements and criteria of a good english coursebook. 0 0 29 71 read in evaluating an english coursebook, we should read the whole content in detail. 3.2 9.7 32.3 54.8 analyse having read the coursebook in detail, we need to reread the coursebook and analyse it based on the criteria. 3.2 3.2 32.3 61.3 recommend having analysed the english coursebook, we should give recommendations for the coursebook improvement. 0 0 25.8 74.2 * 1: strongly disagree 3: agree 2: disagree 4: strongly agree table 1 shows that everyone who fills out the questionnaire agrees with the importance of determining which english coursebook will be evaluated. in this case, however, english teachers issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 17 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 13-23 sukarno (sqrar: a model of coursebook …..) decide which english coursebook to evaluate. furthermore, the evaluation results can help english teachers and their students prepare good and appropriate english learning materials. moreover, align with the theory (surono & hanun, 2022), all participants believe that english coursebook evaluators (english teachers and elt experts) should brainstorm ideal english coursebooks based on their criteria. first, they should ask themselves what ideal english textbooks are. following that, they develop their own specific criteria before evaluating an english coursebook using the comprehensive criteria provided. the evaluation of an english coursebook can be in the form of a macro or a micro evaluation (mukundan & ahour, 2010). in the micro evaluation of english coursebooks, evaluators can pay attention and then evaluate three chapters as representatives of the coursebook's entire contents (muhammad, 2016). a little more than 6% of respondents are opposed to doing another reading to analyse the coursebook. despite the fact that only a small number of people disagree, it is worthwhile to consider using micro retrospective evaluation of english coursebooks. evaluators who use this method do not need to read and analyse the entire contents of the coursebooks they evaluate. instead, they concentrate on specific chapters that represent the entire contents of the coursebooks. they then examine the chapters they have chosen. furthermore, nearly three-quarters of participants agree that outlining recommendations after evaluating the coursebook to improve its quality is a good idea. this is the pinnacle of the evaluation; not only for assigning grades but also for making recommendations to improve the english coursebook under evaluation. the recommendations can be used by coursebook publishers to revise their coursebooks, or they can be used as the foundation for english teachers to develop their own english learning materials as english teachers' edition coursebooks. the dynamic evaluation of english coursebooks is a cyclic process. in addition, the illustration of the sqrar flow and a detailed elaboration of each step are provided in fig. 1. fig. 1. sqrar flow 1) survey as evaluators, english teachers and elt experts search for valuable english coursebooks to evaluate during the survey stage. it means that the evaluation has specific goals in mind. aside from professional development in the form of research studies, english teachers accompanied by elt experts have a number of goals, such as trying to cater to their students' needs with appropriate english coursebooks as a part of a materials selection, conducting research studies as part of teachers' jobs, and developing their own learning materials (solhi et al., 2020; tsiplakides, 2011). as a result, english teachers in their organisation or individually look for english coursebooks that are worth investigating. as a result, they select the english coursebooks to be evaluated. the targeted english coursebooks could be those recommended by the government, those used by mgmp members, or those owned privately by teachers. as a result, because the forum is involved in continuous professional development, this study should primarily evaluate the english coursebooks used by mgmp. the survey question read analyse recommend 18 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 13-23 sukarno (sqrar: a model of coursebook …..) evaluation results will be useful to both the evaluators and the members of mgmp. following the evaluation, the recommendations are useful for english teachers as well as writers and publishers. english teachers can use the evaluation results to create supplementary english learning materials to meet the needs of their students (alkhaldi, 2010). to have a newer edition of the english coursebooks, writers or publishers can revise their english coursebooks based on the recommendations of the research study. as a result, the survey stage is critical for obtaining useful evaluation results. 2) question before evaluating an english coursebook, evaluators, particularly teachers, must have used a variety of learning materials to teach students. as a result, they have a good understanding of the criteria for good english learning materials. the learning materials in this case are compiled in the form of english coursebooks. furthermore, before evaluating an english coursebook, english teachers who act as evaluators will evaluate the coursebooks and even involve students in the process. they discuss the learning materials criteria that should be included in ideal coursebooks (banegas & tavella, 2021). as a result, a teacher and an elt expert acting as a coursebook evaluator have a thorough understanding of an ideal english coursebook. obviously, those criteria generally include curriculum, detailed materials that students should learn, teaching methods, typography, appearance, students' needs, and the need for english as a future means of communication, since teachers and elt experts must prepare students for their future and current lives (setiawan, 2023). that is, coursebooks should include futuristic criteria such as the impact of the fourth industrial revolution, society 5.0, and 21stcentury skills. aside from those three aspects, they should receive character education based on local wisdom and culture. character education is rooted in culture and local wisdom, and it is incorporated into learning materials and activities. all of them, however, rely on the sensitivity of english teachers (drake, 2012) to cultivate the content and english learning activity to prepare students for their future lives. however, when evaluating english coursebooks, english teachers and elt experts apply comprehensive criteria. the criteria they set to serve as prior knowledge are based on their actual experiences with english coursebooks and their ideas about an ideal english coursebook (supriyanto, 2019). meanwhile, ideas about ideal english learning materials in the form of english coursebooks which are based on theories and extensive classroom experiences interacting with students using learning materials are used as inputs or suggestions for each of the aspects of the evaluated english coursebooks. those aspects are matched with the items of the instrument used by the researcher to gather the needs analysis data. 3) read after forming an overall picture of an ideal english coursebook based on specific criteria, the evaluators read and review the chosen english coursebook. the evaluators thoroughly read the coursebook before evaluating it. furthermore, while reading the english coursebook, evaluators should pay close attention to the elements embedded in the coursebook (banegas & tavella, 2021; mukundan & ahour, 2010). at this stage, the evaluators may read the entire english coursebook for a macro evaluation or a selection of chapters for a micro evaluation. the more evaluators read the english coursebook being evaluated, the better their understanding of the english coursebook being evaluated (renandya et al., 2015). evaluators can read the criteria they will use in the evaluation while reading the english coursebook, or they can read the instrument before reading the coursebook so that they can focus on all aspects to be evaluated (saputri et al., 2022). this is the first reading before diving into the coursebook in the online application. 4) analyse the next step after the evaluators reading the coursebook is a step in which the evaluators analyse it using comprehensive criteria from a model of english coursebook dynamic evaluation. at this point, the evaluators have read the coursebook at least twice (banegas & tavella, 2021; renandya et al., 2015). the evaluators match what is actually in the english coursebook with the criteria in this model (sqrar). based on the criteria provided, the evaluators determine the quality of the english coursebook: 1 for poor, 2 for fair, 3 for good, and 4 for excellent. if they choose 1 (poor), 2 (fair), or 3 (excellent), the evaluators must provide constructive comments and/or suggestions (good) (joshi et al., 2015). meanwhile, if they select 4 (excellent), the evaluators are not required to make any comments or suggestions. after selecting numbers 1, 2, or 3, the evaluators make coursebook revision issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 19 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 13-23 sukarno (sqrar: a model of coursebook …..) suggestions on a specific section of the english coursebook based on the criteria they refer to and are working on (sato, 2013). the comments or suggestions are based on criteria for good english learning materials that are based on certain theories and practical experiences in classrooms when students use english coursebooks. 5) recommend while and after analysing the english coursebook, the evaluators make recommendations for english coursebook revisions and/or the creation of new learning materials in the form of teachers' edition english coursebooks, learning materials designed by english teachers, and supplementary english learning materials (supriyanto, 2019). as a result, the revised english coursebook will be appropriate for the curriculum, students with various learning styles, and other criteria (alsagoff et al., 2012; skierso, 1991; yilmaz & tugrul, 2017). actually, the evaluators could also provide comments and suggestions while evaluating the english coursebook by selecting numbers 1, 2, and 3 (joshi et al., 2015). furthermore, at the end of the analysis, they provide both specific and general comments (sato, 2013). overall, sqrar is a structured and systematic approach to problem-solving that can be used in the coursebook evaluation. using sqrar as a method for coursebook evaluation can help ensure that the coursebook is effective in meeting needs of the target audience and achieving the desired learning objectives. it serves comprehensive evaluation since sqrar provides a structured approach to evaluating a coursebook that ensures all-important aspects of the book are considered. it also ensures the coursebooks’ consistency. by using a structured sqrar framework, the evaluators can ensure that the evaluation is consistent across different coursebooks or different evaluators. this can help make evaluations more reliable and accurate. it also highlights learning objectives since sqrar helps to focus the evaluation on the learning objectives of the coursebook. this ensures that the evaluation is aligned with the goals of the course and helps to identify whether the book is effective in achieving those goals. it could also propose clear recommendations. by using sqrar to evaluate the coursebook, the evaluators can generate clear recommendations for improvements that can be made to the coursebook. this can help the instructors and curriculum developers to make informed decisions about how to improve the coursebook. 3.2. discussion the study addresses the critical role of english coursebooks in language teaching and learning, highlighting their significance in providing language input, exercises, and activities (richards & renandya, 2002; soviyah & fatimah, 2021). despite their importance, there is a recognized need for coursebook evaluation models to ensure they meet educational standards and curriculum requirements as mandated by government regulations (ansary & babaii, 2002; mishan, 2022). previous research has primarily focused on static evaluation methods, necessitating the development of a dynamic evaluation approach to address the limitations of traditional assessment methods. the introduction of the sqrar model, integrating dynamic assessment principles, aims to fill this gap by offering a structured and systematic method for evaluating english coursebooks (azarnoosh et al., 2018; maley, 2016; savova & azarnoosh, 2022). the study's results underscore the urgency and importance of dynamic evaluation models, particularly in the context of english coursebooks used in formal education. survey findings reveal strong agreement among english teachers regarding the need for dynamic evaluation based on established criteria (surono et al., 2022). the development of the sqrar model emerges from this need, synthesizing dynamic assessment principles with a cyclic process of identifying weaknesses and providing recommendations for improvement. the sqrar model's implementation involves surveying, questioning, reading, analyzing, and recommending improvements, aligning with the purpose of the study to address the shortcomings of existing evaluation methods (agustina & mukhtaruddin, 2019; cheng & zhao, 2020). compared with previous research, which primarily focused on static evaluation approaches such as sq3r, sq4r, thieves, and qar, the introduction of the sqrar model represents an advancement in coursebook evaluation methodology (nurdiana & junita, 2020; rybicki, 2002; tsiplakides, 2011). while traditional methods mainly emphasize reading strategies, sqrar adopts a comprehensive approach, integrating dynamic assessment principles and emphasizing interaction and negotiation in the evaluation process. furthermore, the results highlight the benefits of dynamic 20 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 13-23 sukarno (sqrar: a model of coursebook …..) evaluation in providing clear recommendations for coursebook improvement, fostering engagement, and enhancing language outcomes (cheng & zhao, 2020; solhi et al., 2020; yilmaz & tugrul, 2017). 4. conclusion overall, sqrar has become a suitable solution to evaluate coursebooks dynamically. most participants saw that the sqrar process is needed, practical, and beneficial for their coursebook evaluation. it is suggested that the coursebook evaluator apply sqrar to dynamically evaluate the coursebook to meet the suitable component materials for the students. furthermore, the method is not only limited to english coursebook users. it is also applicable for the coursebook users and practitioners from other disciplines. moreover, for the further researcher, it is expected and suggested to conduct further research regarding sqrar or to develop the method. in conclusion, the study contributes to the field of language education by introducing a dynamic evaluation model explicitly tailored for english coursebooks. the sqrar model offers a practical and systematic approach to evaluating coursebooks, ensuring alignment with learning objectives, consistency, and clear recommendations for improvement. future research directions may include further refinement and validation of the sqrar model and its applicability to other disciplines beyond english language teaching. acknowledgment we extend our heartfelt appreciation to the journal committee for their invaluable support and guidance throughout the publication process. their expertise and dedication have been instrumental in shaping the quality of this article. we are grateful for their commitment to advancing scholarly research in our field. declarations author contribution : sukarno is the sole author and hence responsible for all writing process of the manuscript. funding statement : this study received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or non-profit sector. conflict of interest : the author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. ethics declaration additional information : : 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(s) when collecting data. i 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. references afifah, w. a. 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(2012). an assessment of strengths and weaknesses of iranian first year high school english coursebook using evaluation checklist. english language and literature studies, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.5539/ells.v2n2p89 https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.803714 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v4i3.5000 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v2i1.918 https://doi.org/10.33508/mgs.v2i46.2225 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i3.8168 http://www.journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/article/view/8168%0ahttp:/www.journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/article/download/8168/3711 http://www.journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/article/view/8168%0ahttp:/www.journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/article/download/8168/3711 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315127767 https://doi.org/10.5539/ells.v2n2p89 1. introduction 2. methodology 3. findings and discussion 3.1. findings 1) survey 2) question 3) read 4) analyse 5) recommend 3.2. discussion 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations references english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i2.6475 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id developing islamic-values-based powtoon learning media for muhammadiyah kindergarten teachers: covid-19 and teyl rifky dora wijayati a,1,*, khafidhoh b,2 a southwest university, bayi rd, beibei district, chongqing, china, 400715 b universitass ahmad dahlan, jl. kolektor, ringroad selatan, kragilan, tamanan, kec. banguntapan, kabupaten bantul, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55191 1 rifky.dora@pbi.uad.ac.id *; 2 khafidhoh@pbi.uad.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 16 june 2022 revised 12 august 2022 accepted 15 august 2022 in response to the covid-19 epidemic, this study intends to establish a digital learning media for children based on islamic values utilizing powtoon for muhammadiyah kindergarten teachers. online learning has replaced traditional classroom for teaching and learning. during the covid-19 pandemic, an online discussion with tk aba nitikan teachers established the significance of this research. they were concerned about propounding digital learning materials with islamic values to students. the islamic fundamentals, such as greetings and du'a (prayer), are crucial for the development of islamic character in young learners. in addition, the digital learning resources were transformed into videos that could be easily accessible, shared, and used publicly to promote the da'wah practice in accordance with muhammadiyah's guidance. this research employed a research and development (r&d) approach utilizing the addie model known as system approach developed by dick and carey (2015), which entails a development process comprising five primary stages, namely analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate. the research findings indicate that the digital learning materials created using powtoon met the needs of tk aba nitikan teachers were relevant. the manufactured product provides a solution to teachers' needs by merging both general english knowledge and islamic beliefs. based on the review, it has been determined that the created content is of excellent quality. this material allowed teachers to teach english in an engaging manner. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords digital learning media addie powtoon covid-19 how to cite: wijayati, r. d., & khafidhoh. (2022). developing islamic-values-based powtoon learning media for muhammadiyah kindergarten teachers: covid-19 and teyl. english language teaching educational journal, 5(2), 103-118. 1. introduction on january 2020, most of the world's nations began to experience an outbreak of a new and unexpected virus known as sars-cov-2, which causes covid-19 (daniel, 2020), and indonesia was also affected (djalante et al., 2020). during the early wave of the virus, all academic institutions were forced to shut down in all nations with only a few days' notice. (wuttisrisiriporn et al., 2020; yi & jang, 2020). throughout the school shutdown, teachers are required to conduct teachinglearning process online (borba, 2021; hu et al., 2021; marchlik et al., 2021), as they are obligated to continue sharing knowledge with their students and responsible to build up cognitive abilities along with other skills using digital learning media. the change was a cold snap, and it caused challenges in the area of teaching english to young learners in indonesia, both in public and private institutions. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v5i2.2806 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:rifky.dora@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:khafidhoh@pbi.uad.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 104 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) throughout the covid-19 epidemic, a wide variety of english language learning resources were made available for free online. on the other hand, there are not many english learning materials that incorporate islamic principles that are used in religion-based private schools such as muhammadiyah institutions. consequently, it is of the utmost importance to develop digital english learning media that is imbued with islamic spirit in order to promote education during the covid19 period. several different apps for the learning in the form of digital media are available for educational use. for instance, the kvisoft flipbook maker software enables the developer to convert files in pdf format to digital pages that can then be made into digital magazines (asrial et al., 2022). however, the researchers require more adaptable applications for developing games and exercises, creating characters, and inserting songs. in addition, kvisoft is frequently utilized as a teaching tool in the primary and secondary levels of education (asrial et al., 2022; waluya et al., 2022). in the meanwhile, researchers require software programs that are appropriate for the production of digital media for children. canva is a tool that is included in the digital media development program that is frequently used because of its many benefits, including the fact that it has a wide variety of interesting features and that it makes it simpler for teachers and students to create learning summaries (poeppelbuss & durst, 2019). however, researchers want an application that expressly permits media developers to put voice, tunes, and flowing text into their projects. as a result, researchers are seeking for other applications that can accommodate our need for developing media. a digital learning tool called powtoon offers moving pictures and audio that will improve student retention of the material(syafitri et al., 2018) the end of learning media product is video. the animation engages all five senses, keeping students near real-world events as they learn, grabs their interest, and keeps them there for a longer time(aryanti et al., 2022). this method creates a lively presentation because it incorporates multiple learning activities at once, including listening, watching, reflecting, acting, and participating(syafitri et al., 2018). because powtoon's interface is comparable to powerpoint's and the presentation interface, which allows the slides to be moved one at a time, the teacher may utilize it with ease(qurrotaini et al., 2020). powtoon offers a large collection of animated characters, cartoons, objects, backdrops, photos, music, and sounds in addition to all the tools and materials required for the intended video content(aryanti et al., 2022; pais et al., 2017). therefore, powtoon is our choice for creating digital learning media (video) materials based on islamic principles. the significant point of conducting this research was grounded by an online discussion with tk aba nitikan teachers during the covid-19 outbreak. they were concerned about providing digital learning materials for students containing islamic values. the islamic principles such as greetings and du’a (pray) are essential for young learners as fundamental values and developing islamic character for life. further, the digital learning media formed into videos in which easily accessed, shared and use publicly to spread the da’wah practice following muhammadiyah’s guidance. 1.1. digital media development and eyl islamic values in muhammadiyah schools though the twenty-first century begins with a shift in attitudes regarding online education (zaharah & kirilova, 2020) and the advancement of technology, mainly information and communication technologies (ict), it has never significantly impacted human life until the covid19 pandemic attack throughout the world. as education is one of the areas affected by the advancement of ict (pelgrum & law, 2003) and pandemics, the digital media have become general inklings towards using network technologies. this shift occurs to keep up with teaching-learning activities, schools, and other educational institutions, most of which were forced to use remote education methods (daniel, 2020; hu et al., 2021; iivari et al., 2020; marchlik et al., 2021). digital media often refers to the electronic materials that have undergone digital processing to be accessed by a user from a single source, typically a computer or any other device (derewianka, 2014). however, recently, digital media is software used as a learning media for delivering lessons to students. in teaching english to young learners, a software containing animation motion pictures has become popular because it stimulates students’ interest in learning (xiao, 2013). powtoon is one of them; it serves the learning improvement of children’s achievement (aryanti et al., 2022) under covid-19 attack becomes an encouraging indicator for eyl zones in both hand-in practices for teachers and practical use for students. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 105 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) muslims in indonesia acknowledged muhammadiyah for its educational and health-care initiatives. it was founded in yogyakarta, java, 8 dzulhijjah 1330 m or 18th november 1912, 33 years before indonesia gained independence on 17th august in 1945 (fuad, 2004). to date, muhammadiyah holds a tagline of the islamic movement, da'wah, practicing good deeds and vacating negative ones and reforms (nashir, 2015). muhammadiyah has more than 10,000 educational institutions, ranging from kindergartens to universities. muhammadiyah's educational institutions can be discovered over the length of indonesia, from aceh to papua., particularly at the level of early childhood education, and more specifically in kindergartens which currently number 4623 schools, muhammadiyah applies key islamic principles that are embraced in daily life and have to do with two-way communication that promotes feelings of sympathy and understanding. these values include things like exchanging greetings, performing daily prayers, and items for worship. the objective is that children who attend muhammadiyah schools will adhere to their faith and beliefs as a whole. the fundamental islamic values implementation in line with muhammadiyah's devotion to the movement's da'wah and tajdid mission in all parts of life and making a concrete effort to "uphold and revere islam to create authentic islamic society" (nashir, 2015). during the pandemic, where learning from home is mandatory, it is nearly impossible for teachers and students to learn at school. in regular days, teachers deliver lessons using printed materials, and students learn face-to-face and engage directly, but the pandemic hampers this. even though the material containing exceptional learning with islamic values has generally been printed, it must inevitably be translated into digital material, such as powtoon that is later easily accessed from home to optimize the learning process. nevertheless, during a severe crisis, textbooks are not the preferred learning material. however, coronavirus disease (covid-19) has infected the whole planet, and the attack has been labeled a worldwide pandemic as of march 2020 (djalante et al., 2020). therefore, powtoon was the best choice for maximizing education in adverse circumstances (hu et al., 2021) particularly in muhammadiyah schools. the ways in which islamic principles are incorporated using powtoon digital learning media (video) development, such as through the use of muslim-dressed characters to illustrate the virtues of islam through emulation. then, introduce the topic by having the kids listen to and repeat opening prayers. with the advent of modern forms of powtoon, islamic values can be integrated in a way that is both positive and engaging. further, the teaching of islamic values to children in muhammadiyah schools cannot be isolated from regular subject matter learning. the way students learn english through direct experience and relate it to the principles of islamic values that they understand reflects the integration of the two in the learning process. saying “assalamu’alaikum”, followed by “good morning”, is a customary greeting at the start of learning. then, by mentioning objects for worship, such as white prayer beads (the word “white” describing “identifying colors” and “prayer beads” illustrating “the worship object or tasbih). other example, such as “a black rimless cap” (the word “black” describing the color and “rimless cap” known as kopiah is the worship object for male. moreover, muhammadiyah schools has not only focuses on islamic values subject matter, but also put ordinary subject matter in the teaching learning process to support students’ learning. powtoon, an educational application provides the integration of them. several studies have described about the beginning and ending the learning process with consistent ancient values and islamic principles amalgamation (puad et al., 2022), including electronic media use with islamic values to boost students’ motivation and critical thinking(praptiwi et al., 2021), further the use of seamless mobile learning that allows teachers and students to leverage technology in their learning systems between islamic values and science then turn students into actual scientists who can search, collect, compare, and evaluate data to solve problems using values, knowledge, and attitudes (fahyuni et al., 2020) were published. therefore, according to the most recent research in the field, including digital media into teyl lessons centered on islamic values paves the way for its expansion and further study. 106 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) furthermore, to accommodate the need for muhammadiyah schools to integrate conventional subject matter with islamic values, the researchers have adopted powtoon, a digital media platform that can aid students' learning. with the use of powtoon to create digital learning media (video), students will have more opportunities to see and construct concepts that are mutually linked between islamic beliefs and common subject matter in learning activities. 2. method this study focused on developing digital learning media (video) for children based on islamic principles utilizing powtoon to increase student participation. eight teachers of tk aba nitikan were involved as participants. the data was acquired through group interviews and individuals' reflections. participants were interviewed using a semi-structured format to explore about their exposure to and use of english at school, as well as their hopes for the language's future media formats. further participants were specifically requested to describe the interaction during the teaching learning english under covid-19 condition, as well as their involvement as kindergarten teachers. interviews was conducted online through zoom cloud meetings. all of the interviews were conducted in the participants' native language (indonesian and javanese) and recorded. the interview design in this research was developed based on the general interview guide approach. the design enabled the researchers to conduct the interview in a flexible way but the topics to discuss was decided before. it’s quite challenging since the researchers needed to make sure that they can handle the consistency of the interview in such friendly atmosphere (gall et al., 2014). there were several questions to discuss during the interview. it covered the four core questions as follow; table 1. list of interview questions no. questions aims 1. to what extent has english been integrated into daily learning at school? to explore the position of english learning at school. 2. which types of media are the most useful for promoting english to students? to investigate which learning media are utilized to teach english 3. how do you integrate english materials with islamic values? to find out on how the schools integrate english materials with islamic values 4. could you please explain how the teaching learning process is structured during the covid-19? to obtain data on how the teaching and learning process happen during covid-19 attack. 5. what are the challenges did you have when you were online teaching english during the covid-19 outbreak? to find out the challenges that teachers’ face during covid-19 attack. 6. which types of media are the most useful for promoting english to students during the covid-19 outbreak? to find out which learning media are utilized to teach english during the covid-19 outbreak. the gathered data were transcribed, then analyzed thematically into a set of classification categories. a system approach model called addie (dick et al., 2014, 2015), which includes analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation, is utilized to design the material. this model is used to generate instructional materials (rogers, 2022) requires should be precise and practical as part of r&d (gall et al., 2014; gall et al., 2003). seven phases in the r&d process complemented the addie model. they are research and information gathering, planning, designing the preliminary form of products, preliminary field testing, revision of the primary outcome, preliminary field testing, and revision of the operational product. the following figure illustrates the operating procedures of the addie model and r&d phases used as the research methods. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 107 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) fig. 1. addie model and r&d in field manifestation in analysis phase (gathering field information) the focus was on the needs of the participants. in addition, the program fits the participant's ability and intellect level at this point. in order to avoid duplicating what they already know, the emphasis will be on topics and lessons that participants have yet to investigate and understand. based on the in-depth interview, the researchers differentiated between what the participants already know and what they should know after completing the course. furthermore, the design phase (planning), establishing all objectives, performance measurement instruments, testing, subject matter analysis, planning, and resources were performed. during the design phase, learning objectives, content, subject matter analysis, exercise, lesson preparation, assessment instruments, and media selection were prioritized. next on, the development phase (drafting, production, and evaluation) commences the production and testing of the project's methodology. in this stage, we used the information gathered in the two preceding stages to construct a program using powtoon that will convey to participants what needs to be taught. if the two preceding stages involved planning and brainstorming, the development stage is all about putting those plans into action including verification from the experts. further, the implementation phase involves tweaking the program to ensure optimal efficiency and success. instructional design reworks, updates, and edits courses to ensure successful delivery. moreover, there was no project should run without instructional design evaluation. since instructional design and participants provide feedback at this level, much can be learnt and addressed. last phase was evaluation phase, involves testing the what, how, why, and when of the project's accomplishments (or failures). the evaluation phase established whether the project's goals had been attained and what was required to increase its effectiveness and success rate using a video evaluation rubric (neumann & herodotou, 2020) that covers three core categories, such as video quality, audio quality and content quality. 3. findings and discussion instead of utilizing the range of media features that increase the teaching and learning experience, teachers will frequently fall back on a technology-enhanced teaching-learning technique when forced to employ new technologies in the classroom. however, during the pandemic emergency, the mixed-modes concept, which integrates technology and classroom instruction, becomes of great assistance. consequently, teachers are required to rethink and redesign their courses to accommodate technology-enhanced learning. they must also prepare the necessary materials, despite having no prior experience with instructional design theory or practices and having only recently mastered the skills required to use the delivery medium. this research focuses on utilizing the addie model by entangling powtoon software shaped in research and development field manifestation. 108 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) 3.1 step one: virtual field analysis to obtain detailed accounts, collecting information directly from eight teachers of tk aba nitikan who faced ups and downs during the covid-19 pandemic was essential. in a single week, three virtual meetings were conducted through zoom cloud meetings and conversations through whatsapp while recording and classifying all accounts. table 2. data gathering extraction meeting interview questions results meeting one theme: practical aspects of english recognition describe the various forms of educational media frequently utilized for english recognition. to what extent has english been integrated into daily learning at school? which types of media are the most useful for promoting english to students? we utilized free and paid online platforms such as zoom cloud meetings, video calls, whatsapp, and learning videos from youtube. printed materials are still employed in the online learning process via displaying pictures, but the effectiveness of these methods is not on par with that of in-person classes. english was integrated into the small number of activities such as greetings and saying goodbyes, singing a song (incomplete version) because of limited time and students’ brief attention span during the covid-19 pandemic. video and songs have worked decently as helpful to learning english but lack islamic messages and values. meeting two theme: english teaching and learning activities during the covid-19 pandemic during the covid-19, please describe how the learning process works? the one-to-one online learning and discussion with students and sometimes accompanied by parents. one-hour online meeting was held. we greet the students, position them to be pleasant, and prepare them to participate in the session throughout the first 20 minutes. the following 20 minutes are spent delivering information to students in accordance with the lesson plan, and the final 20 minutes are spent reviewing students' work and providing a quick evaluation. the activities employed the most minor english use because of the scarcity of learning video that supports the teaching learning process. meeting three theme: islamic values in english learning how did the islamic values and character building deliver to the students? daily life islamic values that will be inserted must be encouraged two-way communication and empathy. these include greetings, prayers, and worship objects and character development are incorporated when teaching and learning activities occur. cognitive activities are associated with habituation and also the delivery of moral messages on the sides of learning, but the evaluation of the implementation and the impact of teaching islamic values and habituation are not visible and cannot be easily examined. therefore, it is essential to have videos that combine english with islamic views. whatsapp chats theme: challenges of teaching english online to young learners during covid-19 pandemic. share to us about the challenges encountered while teaching english online during the covid-19 outbreak, as opposed to in the classroom. the barriers we encountered were: 1) lack of confidence in teaching english during face-to-face and online teaching and learning activities. even when learning online, the time shortage to deliver content because there were so few english-language videos expressing islamic values on the internet. 2) we have a dearth of vocabulary mastery. when we were in junior high school and high school, our entire tk aba nitikan teachers learned english, but not all of us studied english. 3) pronunciation of english words that are not yet proper and following applicable rules becomes an additional challenge we must overcome. 4) additionally, we do not have an english music library available in video forms, accordingly, we crave for digital learning media containing both english materials integrated with islamic values. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 109 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) on the basis of in-depth interview retraction that is structurally carried out in a particular time, the results that were gathered are presented in the form of obstacles that instructors confront when learning english online as well as the demands of teachers in the state of learning material that is based on digital learning media to support online learning. 3.2 step two: designing instructional blueprint of digital learning media design requires connecting theoretical frameworks and actual-world scenarios (dick et al., 2015). the design should enable the learners to acquire new knowledge and skills without the any assistance. thus, a sequence of planning processes with the goal of ensuring that particular instructional goals are met through the design of digital learning material. the following phases have to be accomplished in step two: a) arranging instructional media and objectives in order b) planning the time schedule c) learning on how to utilize powtoon autodidact d) creating videos practice regularly after determining the instructional media that will be utilized to provide students with the opportunity to acquire new knowledge and skills, the instructional media and objectives were arranged in the appropriate sequence. there are many different instructional media that may be found for free on the internet. these media have been researched, put into practice, and evaluated in a variety of scientific studies. there are three different applications to choose from, each of which is popular, appealing, user-friendly, and affordable. canva (melinia & nugroho, 2022; nurhidayat, 2021; switrayni et al., 2022), kinemaster, and powtoon (anggita, 2021; aryanti et al., 2022; syafitri et al., 2018) are the names of the three apps. it was narrowed down to field analysis, the findings of in-depth interviews with teachers, and taking into account the context, which was teaching english to young learners. this was done using the three applications that were submitted. as a result, it was consented that powtoon would be the application of choice that bridges of digital learning media as a means of addressing the needs of kindergarten instructors in the classroom when it comes to teaching english. powtoon was created by ilya spitalnik and daniel zaturansky in 2012 (chandler, 2015). powtoon, allows users to produce free animated films. create animated or videoembedded slideshows. fig. 2. the interface of powtoon website. fig. 3. the interface of powtoon initial page. 110 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) in order to utilize powtoon, we purchased the program, read a book titled power up your powtoon studio project together (graham, 2015), and viewed the example videos. we cover the activities in the following schedule: table 3. the powtoon learning schedule time activities results week one (1 day activity) getting started to recognize studio screen, timeline, navigation panel, working area and editing board. comprehend the interface appearance and how to utilize each button including all panels week one (2 days activity) getting to know on constructing story board and start prototyping developing a blueprint of story board and create a simple prototype. week one (2 days activity) creating and embedding learning supports (characters, videos, pictures, music, voice, learning materials) into powtoon combining all the learning supports to one video sample. within five days, a sample video was produced as a preliminary activity before to the development phase. by engaging in frequent practice, later, students will be able to acquire new knowledge and skills without assistance, particularly when learning english. 3.3 step three: development in the development phase or the method of developing and manufacturing instructional materials (campbell, 2014), we employ several steps as follow: a) syllabus modifications by assembling english based islamic values materials b) constructing story board for powtoon c) video creation and development process using powtoon d) obtaining feedback from experts. typically, the syllabus materials cover weekly learning topics and offer students with a plan or trail indicating when and how course content will be presented. the course outline also establishes workload expectations for students by listing assessment items and due dates. due to the interruption caused by the circumstances – covid-19 attack, the course outline needs to be modified to ensure that the course outcomes are completed in the remaining time. the following table showed the syllabus modification prior to teachers’ interview results in table 1. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 111 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) table 4. the syllabus modification result present themes in syllabus modified version colors competency indicators (ci) 1. students are able to recognize various colors and their pronunciation. 2. students are able to distinguish various colors. 3. students are able to identify colors on objects in the surrounding environment. learn colors with naoki competency indicators (ci) 1. students are able to recognize various colors (10 colors) and pronounce them correctly. 2. students are able to distinguish various colors based on the exercise given. 3. students are able to identify colors on objects in their closest environment. numbers competency indicators (ci) 1. students are able to pronounce numbers 1 to 10 correctly. 2. students are able to count from 1 to 10 in the correct order. 3. students are able to distinguish between numbers 1 to 10 properly and correctly. learn numbers with naoki competency indicators (ci) 1. students are able to acknowledge numbers and pronounce numbers 1 to 10 correctly. 2. students are able to distinguish between numbers 1 to 10 properly and correctly based on the exercise given. 3. students are able to count from 1 to 10 in the correct order. alphabets competency indicators (ci) 1. students are able to identify the shapes of the alphabet correctly 2. students are able to spell the alphabet with correct pronunciation 3. students are able to distinguish the various alphabets correctly learn alphabets with niki competency indicators (ci) 1. students are able to identify the sounds and shapes of the alphabets. 2. students are able to spell the alphabet with correct pronunciation using given objects. 3. students are able to distinguish the various alphabets correctly. greetings competency indicators (ci) 1. students are able to articulate greeting expressions correctly 2. students are able to utilize greeting expressions contextually 3. students are able to give response of greeting expressions correctly greetings with niki competency indicators (ci) 1. students are required to reiterate greeting expressions in islamic ways and formal ways based on the video given so that they will be able to articulate the expressions correctly. 2. students are able to recite prayers, before and after the teaching learning process. 3. students are able to perform greeting expressions given with teachers and peers in order to implement the expressions contextually. 4. students are able to give the accurate response of greeting expressions. after modifying the curriculum, the next step necessary was to create storyboards for the materials. a storyboard is an efficient and uncomplicated tool for constructing narratives that helps us imagine compelling content. we also incorporated teachers' perspectives on online learning and the adoption of printed texts of islamic principles in the presence of emerging conditions, followed by the projection of the first powtoon video creation. the following table displaying storyboards examples that have been developed meticulously. 112 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) table 5. the storyboards examples themes storyboards numbers colors we visualized the textual contents into four videos using powtoon based on the storyboards. after the completion of the videos, the following activity in this development step was to send the first video's development outcomes to experts for advice and verification. to prevent prejudice, the specialists were chosen based on their educational background and field experience. we produced a set of evaluation forms that included criteria for cognitive load, student engagement, and active learning (brame, 2016). the feedback result showed as follow; table 6. feedback from experts criteria recommendation rationale examples cognitive load use compelling alphabets can attract young learners to learn english choose the alphabets from clouds and put them in powtoon student engagement use a character draw the interest of young learners, they have a new friend in learning english create a character, as you are focusing on learning english involving islamic principles, you may draw the character using online applications active learning give a direct compliment may increase students’ motivation to watch the video for many times. record compliment voices, such as “good job”, applause and etc. incorporate them in the videos. the cognitive load says memory contains several parts. sensory memory accumulates environmental data. sensory memory data can be temporarily retained and processed in working memory. this processing is needed for encoding into long-term memory. because working memory issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 113 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) is limited, learners must be selective about what sensory memory information to pay attention to during the learning process. this has crucial implications for designing instructional materials. following the feedback from the experts, suggestion to change the fonts of alphabets was deemed vital in order to provide a positive first impression on learners. moreover, student engagement fetched the subtle concept, students cannot learn from videos if they do not watch them. therefore, the first and most essential rule for optimizing student attention to educational videos is to grow their interest by providing a character as a virtual friend. regarding to the active learning in the classroom offers demonstrable advantages over passive interactions with course material through lecture, and demonstrating features that stimulate cognitive engagement during video viewing can boost student learning from this medium. therefore, giving direct compliment has to be appeared in the video. prior to using the videos in the field or throughout the teaching and learning process, we modified them in light of the input from the experts. 3.4 step four: implementation step four, implementation focused on the procedure for implementing the digital learning media (videos) in a practical setting or classroom setting. in specific, the utilization of digital learning media in the classroom implemented. moreover, the implementation phase's goal is to prepare the learning environment and engage the students. at this point, the teachers as the participants of this study, were prepared to the actual learning environment where the students may begin to create the new information and abilities required to close the performance gap after the implementation phase is completed. the participants have to follow a series of quick training sessions using digital learning media in order to function the videos in the online classroom setting. as this phase represented the end of development activities, the voices of the participants had to be recorded in order to proceed to the final step, evaluation which also dealt with video quality, audio quality and content quality. in class, i show naoki’s video on learning numbers. when we first started learning to count, i played the video. the students, who were learning remotely via zoom, were quite excited, so i asked them to sing along with the song featured in the video. at least they're motivated to study english; to kept from being discouraged, they also praying in accordance with islamic beliefs, which were also shown in the film (the voice of participant a). when i am presenting the information to my students in the classrooms that i am in charge of, i play learning videos. i continued to begin the lesson by presenting large photographs from the book, and then i proceeded to incorporate the information that was shown in the video. as a direct consequence of this, the pupils' response times to questions in english pertaining to numbers were highly impressive (the voice of participant b). i use the four videos with naoki and niki as a way to learn english in class. it looks interesting, the song is easy to understand, and so are the questions. even though i don't study english, i can also understand and answer the questions in the video. the good news is that there is islamic content. you can pray before and after each lesson. so that both general and religious lessons can be studied at the same time in the same video (the voice of participant c). i used two videos about how to say hello and how to recognize the alphabet. when my students come into the virtual zoom room, they always greet me because of the video. they start practicing right away at the next meeting. while i played the video alphabet over and over again just to teach them the basics, they first learned the shape of the letters and then wrote them down in the way that worked best for them. not concentrating on reading, but the catchy and unique shapes of the letters make them easy to remember (the voice from participant d). i used two instructional movies to enable students to learn about colors and numbers. both are quite fascinating, the english is clear, and the speed is adequate. i play the video during the learning activities, pause it if necessary, and then resume. greetings and prayers have really fascinating stuff (the voice from participant e). it appears that the learning video has a direct influence based on the outcomes of the experience as stated by the teacher. it is simple for both teachers and students to teach and learn english while upholding islamic principles. therefore, it can be extrapolated from the outcomes of incorporating videos into teaching and learning activities that these videos make it easier to learn english while preserving islamic values. 114 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) 3.5 step five: evaluation the evaluation of the entire process is the last stage of this modified addie model. any new instructional technology that is implemented must first undergo a comprehensive examination in order to determine how it will affect student learning. the evaluation stage involves numerous equally important steps. at this point, the project is being meticulously tested to determine the what, how, why, and when of the tasks that were completed (or not) during the entire project. in this study, the integration of islamic values while teaching english became the core point whether the objectives have been reached or need to be improved. the responses regarding to the digital learning media (videos) from participants were shown as follow. fig. 4. video quality comments there are 4 indicators of digital learning media (videos) content quality that are shown. the first aspect of good picture compositions is how the picture's visual elements are arranged within the frame and obviously give video samples of islamic values that incorporated with english materials. over ninety-one percent of respondents rated the visual components or photographs of both islamic values and english materials used in the composition as great, whereas just nine percent rated the first criterion as good. secondly, a well-edited sequence is just a succession of pictures that flow into one another to indicate the progression of an action. ninety-four percent of respondents felt the videos ran smoothly, and six percent had positive reactions to the sequences. following that, participants rated whether or not the titles and subtitles were suitable. the study found that 94% of the provided titles and subtitles were completely accurate, with another 6% scoring adequately. animation videos meet the final criteria of high-quality video content relating to the steadiness of pans, tilts, dollies, and shoots. a whopping 97% of respondents rated the results of the muslim animated characters' motion as fantastic, while only 3% rated them as good. the cumulative rating of participants’ feedback on the video's quality was high, making it suitable for usage in a classroom setting of teaching english to young learners integrated with islamic values. fig. 5. audio quality comments issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 115 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) high-quality audio is essential in digital learning media (videos) because it engages audiences: it helps convey information, boosts production value, elicits emotional responses, emphasizes what's on screen, and is utilized to signal mood. when used effectively, language, sound effects, music, and even silence can significantly enhance a video. the audio produced with powtoon combines the audio from english songs with the audio from live voice recordings. the two audio formats are combined in order to incorporate english content with islamic principles. the participants’ response regarding audio quality were categorized into three groups. the initial concern was audio or sound steadiness. ninety-seven percent of participants felt that the audio was ambient, regulated, easy to listen to, and stable, while only three percent agreed with the first category. the participants also deemed the volume of the narrator's voice-over to be outstanding. lastly, 97 percent of participants indicated that each video's music, lyrics, and tempo were appropriate. the majority of the replies from the participants assessing the audio quality were above the mean. the audio was excellent in encouraging students to study english incorporated with islamic values. fig. 6. content of information although these digital learning media (videos) were carefully created and constructed based on extensive need analysis, they must still be evaluated by participants to ensure that they have addressed the demand. the final comments from participants concerned the content of islamic values merged with english materials in the videos. as a result, four indicators were offered to evaluate the video substances. the first indicator focused on whether or not the information was accurate and reliable. the second indicator is the presentation of the movies, which determines if they are engaging or not. third, because the movies are intended for young learners, the animations have been improved to reflect the real world. in terms of all three factors, all participants replied fully outstanding, indicating that the contents matched their needs. furthermore, one final clue about the time allocation of the videos. participants rated the time allocation as great in 97% of cases and good in 3% of cases. in conclusion, the videos' content and substance matched the participants' expectations and are useful for teaching english containing islamic values for online learning. 4. conclusion in light of the recent covid-19 outbreak, the present study focused on developing digital learning media (videos) for children based on islamic values utilizing powtoon for tk aba nitikan teachers. the study found that a systemic approach known as addie was used to carefully design digital learning media with islamic principles embodied in videos, meeting the needs of kindergarten instructors in online instruction. for more than 30 years, instructional designers have used the addie approach. the model's innate flexibility is one of the main reasons for its durability. addie can be adjusted to suit almost any instructional requirement or goal. the addie paradigm for instructional design is particularly well-suited to handle the design problems that lie ahead given the constantly shifting circumstances of a severe condition including the covid-19 attack, in particular for kindergarten teachers. five phases incorporated in addie namely, analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation. the need analysis conveyed the participants and context demands (dick et al., 2014, 116 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 5, no. 2, august 2022, pp. 103-118 rifky dora wijayati & khafidhoh (developing islamic-values-based powtoon…..) 2015), followed by design which uncover the connection between theoretical frameworks and actual-world scenarios using powtoon application. moreover, the development step, incorporating the result of syllabus modifications, the storyboards and experts’ feedback towards the digital learning media that have developed. the implementation revealed utilization of digital learning media in virtual classroom setting and the voices of the participants. last, the evaluation established whether the objectives have been reached and what needs to be done going forward to increase the project's effectiveness and success rate. using the addie approach to create digital learning media for kindergarten teachers allows and encourages the participation of all teachers in actual teaching and learning sessions, and yields direct student effect. by allowing teachers and students to voice their ideas and concerns, their chances of supporting and utilizing videos will increase. referring to the overall evaluation of the generated material, there was one significant deficiency in the process of creating the digital learning media (videos). due to time constraints, it does not cover all islamic curriculum topics for muhammadiyah kindergarten. in light of this, it might be worthwhile to recommend that additional research be conducted in this area. 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 : rifky dora wijayati was responsible for writing of the manuscript, the data collection, transcription and analysis. khafidhoh revised the manuscript. both authors approved the final manuscript funding statement : the research is funded under universitas ahmad dahlan. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references anggita, z. 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(2020). impact of corona virus outbreak towards teaching and learning activities in indonesia. salam: jurnal sosial dan budaya syar-i, 7(3), 269–282. https://doi.org/10.15408/sjsbs.v7i3.15104 https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v12i06.7025 https://doi.org/10.1080/14759390500200236 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2019.04.077 https://doi.org/10.15294/usej.v10i1.42340 https://jurnal.umj.ac.id/index.php/semnaslit/article/view/7869/4682 https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-930708-28-0.ch002 https://doi.org/10.29303/abdiinsani.v9i2.435 https://doi.org/10.18415/ijmmu.v5i2.359 https://doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v16i04.25329 https://doi.org/10.24256/itj.v2i2.1247 https://doi.org/10.7763/ijiet.2013.v3.282 https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.543 https://doi.org/10.15408/sjsbs.v7i3.15104 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 66-77 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14081 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id teaching english in rural settings: a systematic review of challenges and strategies in non-technological classrooms andi cahyuni candrawati a,1,*, widyastuti purbani b,2 a, b universitas negeri yogyakarta, jl. colombo no. 1, karangmalang, depok, sleman, yogyakarta, 55281, indonesia 1 andicahyuni.2024@student.uny.ac.id *; 2 purbani@uny.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 12 june 2025 revised 12 july 2025 accepted 4 august 2025 the aim of this study is to understand what challenges encountered by english teachers and how they cope with the barriers, particularly in low-resource, non-technological settings. using the prisma framework, this study conducted a systematic literature review to synthesize the twenty articles published between 2018 and 2024 from scopus, connected papers and eric. this study identified eight major challenges which are: inadequate resources for learning, poor school infrastructure, lack of teaching media, overly teacher-centered pedagogy, heavy workload, insufficiency of prepared teachers, adaptation issues, and low levels of student motivation. to cope with these challenges, teachers applied six primary strategies which included development of teaching materials by hand, content simplification through local dialects, application of teacher-centered pedagogy, peer collaboration, curriculum improvisation to fit local context, and informal professional development activities. these results have noted the creativity and adaptability of teachers within constrained environments and underscore the necessity for situated educational policies. moreover, the study contributes to a better understanding on the preservation of english instruction in rural settings and offers useful information to policy makers, educators, and other divisions which work towards resolving inequities in education. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords rural education english language teaching non-technological classrooms how to cite: candrawati, a, c. & purbani, w. (2025). teaching english in rural settings: a systematic review of challenges and strategies in non-technological classrooms. english language teaching educational journal, 8(2), 54-65. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14081 1. introduction the teaching of english as a foreign or second language serves as one of the ways through which an individual, especially from a non-english speaking country, can access global information, education, and economic opportunities (zeng & yang, 2024). however, the stubborn lack of educational equity around the world makes it more difficult to provide proper english language instruction in rural regions. unlike urban areas, rural schools are usually resource poor in terms of qualified teaching personnel, teaching aids, and infrastructural facilities (baharuddin & burhan, 2025). these systematic inadequacies not only impede students’ language acquisition but also restrict their overall academic development and employability in the future. although english is known as the language of international communication and is an essential requirement for joining a knowledgebased society (crystal, 2003), providing english language education in under-resourced rural classrooms requires overcoming profoundly entrenched structural obstacles. one of the most pressing challenges in these rural classrooms is the limited or nonexistent use of technology. technology integration has improved teaching english in many urban well-resourced https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14081 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:andicahyuni.2024@student.uny.ac.id mailto:purbani@uny.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.13992 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14081&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0009-0007-2331-9187 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7362-846x 67 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 66-77 candrawati, a, c. & purbani, w. (teaching english in rural settings: a systematic review of…..) settings using digital tools, multimedia resources, and technology enabling students to actively participate and learn languages (haleem et al., 2022; persichitte et al., 2018; poudel 2022). however, many rural schools have not adopted these practices. in this case, the region’s technological infrastructure, including internet availability, electricity, and even basic digital devices, is absent or extremely unreliable (donald & hashim, 2025). thus, there are no opportunities for participatory engagement teaching methodologies to be employed due to technology’s absence in learning (anggela et al., 2024). within these constraints, it is important to explore how english is taught in remote, nontechnological classrooms. gaining insight into this scenario reveals important aspects of how teachers modify their teaching within the bounds of resource limitations. it demonstrates the need for low-tech, scalable and sustainable approaches relevant to resource-poor educational contexts. as zein et al. (2020) emphasized, the four language skills—listening, speaking, reading and writing—must be taught using appropriate context-aligned sociocultural frameworks. knowing how better to teach english without technology is crucial towards achieving educational equity and improving outcomes in rural areas. a number of studies have looked into the challenges faced by english teachers in rural areas. as cited in harlina & yusuf (2020), several challenges such as insufficient facilities, absence of modern instructional tools, sparse professional training, and minimal active involvement of parents surfaced. additionally, kusuma (2022) pointed out that owing to the lack of basic amenities like electricity, teachers are somewhat compelled to employ outdated techniques which greatly hampers the use of physical audio materials. still, some researchers do highlight the self-sufficiency and tenacity displayed by educators within these constraints. halimi et al. (2020) documented that teachers use their own money to provide supplemental resources for classroom activities and to improve the physical environment of the classroom so students will engage better. these local experiences combined with the rich cultures of the students themselves are adapted into the lessons. while these studies provide meaningful insights, most are concerned with more of an isolated issue or context-specific case which makes it nearly impossible to reach a broad-based conclusion. there is a gap of systematic and integrative reviews that shows the scope of english teaching in rural, nontechnological classrooms around the globe. in the absence of such holistic amalgamation, efforts to create appropriately customized and impactful foundational frameworks, be it through educator workshops, curriculum creation or even resource distribution, continue to be contextually shallow and disorganized. what is lacking is an overview that synthesizes all documented challenges and devised teaching strategies from various rural settings to aim for evidence-based educational practices for all and not some. this study addresses that gap by conducting a systematic literature review on english language teaching in rural classrooms that have no access to technology. the purpose is to compile and critically evaluate available research to expose patterns of reoccurring challenges, devisable learning hurdles, instructional approaches, and pedagogical adaptations made within non-technological frameworks. through the provision of synthesized understanding, the review aims to assist educators, researchers, policy developers and instructional institutions towards fostering equitable, adaptable, sustainable solutions towards english language education problems in rural contexts. to guide this inquiry, the study poses the following research questions: 1. what are the challenges faced by english teachers in non-technological classrooms? 2. how do english teachers modify their teaching strategies to adapt to the absence of technology in rural classrooms? 2. method this study employed a systematic literature review (slr) to investigate the challenges and strategies experienced by english teachers in non-technological classroom settings, especially in rural areas. to guide the review process, the researchers adopted prisma framework (page et al., 2021) along with procedures from petticrew & roberts (2006). the review was carried out through several steps: formulating research questions, developing search strategies, carrying out the article searches, stating the inclusion criteria, screening the research articles, presenting the findings, summarizing and issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 68 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 66-77 candrawati, a, c. & purbani, w. (teaching english in rural settings: a systematic review of…..) analyzing, drawing the research results. detailed information regarding the article selection process can be seen in figure 1. fig. 1. article selection using the prisma framework. 2.1. identification phase this research was conducted by using three databases, namely scopus, connected papers and eric. when accessing those databases, the researchers searched the articles by giving the available filters. the searches were limited to several inclusion criteria such as (1) articles which are written in english; (2) articles which are published between 2018 and 2024; (3) empirical articles; (4) keywords “challenges or issues or problems encountered in teaching english in non-technological class or rural or remote settings” and “solutions or recommendations or suggestions to overcome the challenges in teaching english in non-technological class or rural or remote settings”. then, the duplicates are removed to identify whether the research has many duplicates on the same database or even on a different database. during the identification process, we found a total of 191 articles. out of these 32 articles were discovered in scopus while 103 articles were found in connected papers. additionally, 56 articles were located in eric. afterward, the articles underwent a screening and eligibility process to select the ones for our research scope. 2.2. screening and eligibility before starting with the screening phase, the researchers identified the title and abstract based on the inclusion criteria, and 149 articles were removed before the screening. once the article filters were applied, the researchers evaluated the 42 remaining articles to assess how well they complied with the inclusion criteria. in this iterative process of refinement which has been termed as “screening”, 19 69 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 66-77 candrawati, a, c. & purbani, w. (teaching english in rural settings: a systematic review of…..) articles were discarded because they redundantly failed these criteria. their exclusion was because of the duplication and types of the articles. from this screening, 23 articles were selected for the next stage. next, the researchers read the entire contents of these articles and conducted another screening. the result showed that 3 articles did not meet the inclusion criteria due to their relevance to teaching english without modern technology. therefore, the final result of the review included 20 articles that met the inclusion criteria. 2.3. inclusion the inclusion phase consisted of picking articles from the screening and eligibility step which had been filtered out earlier based on specific criteria. these articles aimed at assessing the issues and coping mechanisms dealt with by english teachers in rural, non technological classrooms. the chosen papers analyzed how these issues were resolved within the rural areas and how teachers attempted to resolve challenges. in this case, the focus was purely on studies that illuminated some aspects concerning the teaching of english in a non technological environment there were 20 papers selected: 5 were sourced from scopus, 12 from connected papers and 3 from eric. 2.4. data analysis the analysis of data was done by using the thematic analysis approach, following several phases proposed by braun & clarke (2006). this process included familiarizing with the data by reading and re-reading the 20 selected articles, generating initial codes to identify key features related to challenges and strategies, searching for themes by collating codes into potential themes, reviewing themes to ensure they accurately represented the data, defining and naming themes to capture the essence of each theme, and producing the report by organizing the findings into meaningful categories. 3. finding and discussion based on the purpose of the study stated in the background, the authors presented the data that have been analyzed here. besides describing teachers’ challenges and strategies in teaching english at non-technological classrooms, the authors also provided some information related to the data of author and the research title in this section. 3.1. data of authors and research title the table 1 below shows the author's data and the research title. table 1. data of author and research title no author(s) research title 1 akter et al. (2024) teaching english in rural settings: challenges and solutions 2 anggela et al. (2024) teaching english in rural area: difficulties and strategies 3 aziz et al. (2019) coping with stress: exploring the lived experiences of english teachers who persist in malaysian rural schools 4 belatrech (2018) novice efl teachers’ challenges in mostaganem rural areas 5 endriyati & abasa (2019) challenges in teaching english at rural and urban schools and their solutions 6 fadilah et al. (2023) teachers’ teaching reflection: english teachers’ challenges in rural areas of indonesia 7 febriana et al. (2018) understanding teaching in rural indonesian schools: teachers’ challenges 8 halik & nusrath (2020) challenges faced by esl teachers in teaching english to the students in rural schools 9 harlina & yusuf (2020) challenges of learning english in rural school 10 kadel (2024) challenges in teaching english speaking and listening skills in rural nepal 11 kumar (2024) challenges and solutions in english language teaching (elt) in rural settings: a case study in india 12 kusuma (2022) efl teachers’ online teaching in rural schools during the covid-19 pandemic: stories from indonesia 13 laila et al. (2023) challenges of teaching english for elementary school student in indonesian rural areas 14 mncube et al. (2021) teaching in english across the curriculum: a lived experiences of the novice teachers in a selected rural fet schools in south africa issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 70 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 66-77 candrawati, a, c. & purbani, w. (teaching english in rural settings: a systematic review of…..) 15 rosyida et al. (2024) navigating global standards: assessing english teacher quality in rural areaschallenges and opportunities 16 saha (2023) english teachers’ attitudes towards learners: effects on the rural pedagogies in bangladesh 17 saiful & triyono (2018) efl teachers’ reflection in teaching english to efl students of rural areas 18 saputri & sukarno (2024) teacher’s challenges and strategies in teaching english in rural areas 19 sekar pramesty et al. (2022) teachers’ challenges in teaching english to young learners in rural area 20 singh (2024) navigating english language education challenges in resource-limited contexts 3.2. teachers’ challenges in teaching english at rural classrooms without technological resources this study revealed many pertinent challenges faced by english teachers in rural classrooms without access to technological resources. these challenges range from inadequate instructional materials and low infrastructure qualities to insufficient teacher readiness and low student participation. the challenges derived were persisting obstacles experienced through various rural educational settings and literature review resulted in uncovering eight distinct yet interrelated enduring challenges. the synthesis of these categories, along with the corresponding studies, is detailed in table 2. table 2. category of the challenges in teaching english at non-technological classrooms no. category challenges author(s) 1 learning resources teachers often faced the frustration of having very few or outdated textbooks and no access to digital resources like videos, audio files, or educational apps. this severely limited their ability to create engaging and varied lessons, forcing them to rely on traditional, less interactive methods which can bore students and reduce learning effectiveness. akter et al. (2024); aziz et al. (2019); fadilah et al. (2023); febriana et al. (2018); halik & nusrath (2020); kadel (2024); kumar (2024); laila et al. (2023); rosyida et al. (2024); saiful & triyono (2018); pramesty et al. (2022); singh (2024) 2 school facilities many rural schools lacked reliable electricity, internet access, and multimedia equipment such as projectors or speakers. classrooms were often overcrowded, poorly lit, and insufficiently furnished. teachers reported that these conditions make it difficult to maintain student attention and deliver lessons effectively, often causing physical discomfort for both teachers and students. akter et al. (2024); anggela et al. (2024); aziz et al. (2019); endriyati & abasa (2019); febriana et al. (2018); mncube et al. (2021); rosyida et al. (2024); saputri & sukarno (2024) 3 teaching media teachers depended on blackboards, chalk, and handwritten worksheets for lesson delivery. they found that this increased preparation time and limited creativity, making it difficult to present language in dynamic and memorable ways. the absence of audiovisual tools also restricted students’ exposure to authentic language use, a crucial element in language acquisition. akter et al. (2024); endriyati & abasa (2019); mncube et al. (2021); saiful & triyono (2018); saputri & sukarno (2024); pramesty et al. (2022) 4 teaching methods without access to interactive media or technology, teachers felt compelled to use lecture-style teaching, repetition, and direct explanation. they found it challenging to apply student-centered or communicative approaches, which research supports as more effective, especially for language learning. this limitation reduced student participation and enthusiasm for learning english. febriana et al. (2018); pramesty et al. (2022) 71 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 66-77 candrawati, a, c. & purbani, w. (teaching english in rural settings: a systematic review of…..) 5 teacher workload many teachers reported that they were working long hours and creating all teaching materials by hand to tailor lessons to their students’ needs. they also managed classroom discipline, lesson planning, and administrative tasks without assistance, leading to physical and emotional exhaustion, which hinders their ability to innovate or provide individualized student support. anggela et al. (2024); aziz et al. (2019); saha (2023) 6 teacher quality teachers often felt underprepared for rural teaching due to gaps in pre-service education and a lack of ongoing professional development adapted to resource-poor settings. this results in low confidence when delivering lessons and adapting to diverse learner needs, particularly without technological aid, which further undermines teaching effectiveness. akter et al. (2024); anggela et al. (2024); endriyati & abasa (2019); fadilah et al. (2023); belatrech (2018); rosyida et al. (2024); saha (2023); saputri & sukarno (2024) 7 teacher adaptation many novice teachers, especially those trained in urban settings, struggled to modify their teaching strategies for large, mixed-ability classes without digital tools. they faced challenges managing classrooms and adapting curricula to local realities, which affected their job satisfaction and instructional success during their initial years. belatrech (2018); saha (2023) 8 student motivation teachers observed that students frequently lack interest in learning english due to limited exposure outside school and the absence of engaging or relevant learning materials. this low motivation made it difficult to sustain classroom attention and participation, requiring teachers to spended additional effort to encourage and support student engagement and persistence. akter et al. (2024); anggela et al. (2024); aziz et al. (2019); endriyati & abasa (2019); fadilah et al. (2023); halik & nusrath (2020); kadel (2024); kumar (2024); laila et al. (2023); mncube et al. (2021); saiful & triyono (2018) as shown in table 2, this research discovered eight particular categories of the challenges that english teachers faced in technologically barren rural classrooms. the most frequent was resource constraints, discussed in 12 articles which expressed reliance on outdated textbooks and the absence of digital audio or visual materials. this scarcity limited the variety of lessons and student engagement. organizational issues were also cited in 8 articles which discussed unreliable electricity, overcrowded classrooms, and insufficient furniture. the third major challenge, teaching media, was described in 6 studies, which reported the use of chalkboards and handouts for teaching due to lack of audiovisual equipment. moreover, teaching methods were discussed in 2 articles where the absence of technology confined educators to lectures, restricting the implementation of communicative or student-centered models. 4 studies focused on the impacts of teacher workload, citing long hours, extensive manual prep work, and excess admin work. along with this, 8 other studies associated poor teacher ability with lack of adequate preparation and few professional development options, resulting in a lack of confidence and constrained teaching autonomy. the problem of teacher adaptation was discussed within the confines of 2 articles, paying particular attention to new teachers and their inability to cope with the rural realities. finally, 12 articles focused on student motivation, revealing that limited contact with the english language as well as dull materials severely restricted the learners' interest and participation. all these factors create a picture of multilayered and interconnected problems in teaching that go beyond instruction and define the culture of teaching and learning in rural, low-resource settings. 3.3. teachers’ strategies to teach english in rural classrooms without technological resources in response to the lack of technological resources in rural classrooms, english teachers have adapted their teaching strategies in creative and resourceful ways. these modifications are essential for maintaining effective instruction and student engagement in under-resourced environments. table 3 presents a synthesis of the most common strategies employed by teachers. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 72 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 66-77 candrawati, a, c. & purbani, w. (teaching english in rural settings: a systematic review of…..) table 3. the synthesis result of teachers’ strategies no. category strategies author(s) 1 creating and adapting materials manually in the absence of technological tools such as projectors, ebooks, or interactive platforms, teachers created their own instructional materials. these included handwritten worksheets, paper-based flashcards, vocabulary lists, and board illustrations. some teachers repurposed materials from outdated textbooks or created analog games (like word-matching cards) to make learning more active and personalized. aziz et al. (2019); singh (2024); febriana et al. (2018); fadilah et al. (2023); kumar (2024) 2 simplifying content and using local languages teachers reduced the complexity of english content by focusing on key vocabulary, translating abstract words into the local language, and explaining grammatical rules in simplified terms. in multilingual communities, codeswitching is often used to bridge comprehension. for example, when teaching verbs, teachers may use local analogies or storytelling in the students’ mother tongue to ensure understanding. mncube et al. (2021); saiful & triyono (2018); fadilah et al. (2023); kumar (2024) 3 applying teachercentered instruction methods due to large class sizes and limited resources, teachers adopted more traditional methods like lectures, dictation, and translation. instruction was primarily one-way, from teacher to student, with less interaction. for instance, a teacher read a passage aloud, translated it sentence by sentence, and then asked students to memorize key words or recited definitions—prioritizing coverage over communication. akter et al. (2024); halik & nusrath (2020); saha (2023); saiful & triyono, (2018); saputri & sukarno (2024) 4 encouraging peer learning and collaboration teachers facilitated small-group discussions, peer teaching, or partner-based exercises where stronger students help explain material to weaker peers. common practices included reading dialogues in pairs, vocabulary games in teams, or writing assignments reviewed by peers. these activities were especially effective in classrooms lacking individual attention or multimedia support. anggela et al. (2024); fadilah et al. (2023); saputri & sukarno (2024) 5 adapting the curriculum with improvisation teachers creatively modified national curriculum topics to fit local realities and available resources. teachers also reordered units and removed non-essential content to suit the school calendar or community events. akter et al. (2024); kumar (2024); saputri & sukarno (2024) 6 engaging in selflearning and informal professional development teachers, aware of their training limitations, sought selfimprovement by reading guidebooks, consulting with senior colleagues, attending local workshops (if available), or reflecting through teaching journals. some teachers formed study groups to share lesson ideas or seek out free printed materials from education offices. in rare cases where the internet is accessible, they downloaded printable lesson plans during school visits to town centers. anggela et al. (2024); fadilah et al. (2023); rosyida et al. (2024); saha (2023); saputri & sukarno (2024) 3.4. discussion the findings of this study shed light on the complex and deeply interwoven challenges that english teachers face in rural, non-technological classrooms. at the heart of these challenges lies a structural disparity between urban and rural educational environments, where access to technology, adequate infrastructure, and updated learning resources remains uneven. the persistent lack of electricity, internet connectivity, multimedia tools, and modern teaching materials not only limits the delivery of 73 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 66-77 candrawati, a, c. & purbani, w. (teaching english in rural settings: a systematic review of…..) content but also reduces the potential for dynamic, engaging instruction that fosters student interest and retention. in many cases, teachers are forced to revert to outdated, teacher-centered methods simply because they lack the tools and support to implement more interactive approaches. this context exposes a fundamental injustice in educational equity, where students’ access to meaningful learning is determined not by their capacity to learn, but by their geographic location and the resources available to their schools. the challenges identified also affirm key propositions in educational and sociocultural theory, particularly bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (1979), which emphasizes the influence of immediate environments on a learner’s development. in rural classrooms, these environments are often constrained by poverty, limited community support, and a disconnect between school curricula and students’ everyday experiences. students’ low motivation to learn english, as frequently reported in the studies reviewed, underscores the failure of current instructional approaches to resonate with their realities (halimi et al., 2020). the assumption in traditional language acquisition models that learners are inherently motivated to learn a global language is challenged by this study’s findings. instead, the results align more closely with dörnyei (2005) sociocultural model of motivation, which argues that learners’ attitudes, engagement, and aspirations are deeply shaped by contextual and cultural relevance. the absence of multimedia and interactive tools not only strips english learning of its global appeal but also reinforces feelings of distance and disconnection between the learners and the language being taught. importantly, the review also reveals the emotional and physical toll that rural teaching takes on educators. many of them not only create all their own materials by hand, but also manage administrative duties, discipline, and lesson planning—often with little to no institutional support. this workload contributes significantly to burnout and hinders innovation, posing a real threat to the sustainability of quality education in rural areas. moreover, the mismatch between teacher training programs—typically designed for urban or better-resourced schools—and the reality of rural practice contributes to feelings of inadequacy among teachers. novice teachers in particular struggle to adapt, which not only affects their performance but also their long-term commitment to working in such areas. these findings suggest that current models of teacher education and support are insufficiently responsive to the diverse contexts in which educators operate. therefore, policies aimed at rural education improvement must go beyond simply recruiting more teachers; they must provide relevant, ongoing support that prepares teachers for the conditions they will face. despite the overwhelming constraints, the strategies employed by teachers in these settings speak volumes about their resilience, creativity, and commitment to their students. from manually crafting teaching aids to using local languages and cultural references and promoting peer collaboration to adjusting the curriculum to reflect local experiences, rural teachers are not passive victims of their environment. rather, they are active agents of adaptation and innovation. these adaptive strategies provide critical insights into what a culturally responsive and context-aware pedagogy might look like. importantly, they also prompt a re-evaluation of what constitutes “best practice” in language teaching. pedagogies that prioritize flexibility, localization, and low-tech innovation may be more sustainable and impactful in resource-poor environments than imported, high-tech solutions that are impractical or irrelevant (marouli, 2021). in light of these findings, several practical and theoretical implications emerge. practically, stakeholders must recognize that technological advancement alone will not close the educational gap between rural and urban learners. interventions must include the development of localized teaching frameworks, investment in school infrastructure, and the provision of alternative teaching aids that do not depend on digital tools. theoretically, this study contributes to the growing body of literature calling for a shift from universalized models of language instruction to pluralistic, context-sensitive frameworks. it challenges the assumption that digitalization is the only path to modernization in education and highlights the value of grassroots solutions rooted in teachers’ lived experiences (canagarajah, 2005). ultimately, addressing the educational needs of rural areas is not just a matter of logistical support—it is an ethical imperative that speaks to broader questions of inclusion, justice, and the right to quality education for all (schuelka & engsig, 2022). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 74 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 66-77 candrawati, a, c. & purbani, w. (teaching english in rural settings: a systematic review of…..) 4. conclusion this study concludes that english language teaching in rural, non-technological classrooms is shaped not only by persistent structural challenges such as limited resources, inadequate infrastructure, lack of teaching media, and teacher preparedness, but also marked by teachers’ resilience and adaptive strategies. through on a systematic review of twenty empirical studies, it identified eight primary challenges as well as six coping strategies that showcase how educators resourcefully overcome difficult circumstances through manual material creation, integration of the local language, and peer collaboration. the findings highlight the urgency for zone educational interventions, tailored training for teachers in rural areas, and acknowledgment of low-tech, culturally adaptive teaching strategies. the review provides a comprehensive synthesis, although drawing from secondary sources highlights the need for primary fieldwork in order to capture lived experiences and test the long-term effectiveness of grassroots solutions for improving rural english education. acknowledgment we would like to express our deepest gratitude to lembaga pengelola dana pendidikan (lpdp) under the ministry of finance of the republic of indonesia for supporting the publication of this article, and also to english language education department, universitas negeri yogyakarta, for providing the facilities and academic support needed for this study. declarations author contribution : both authors carried out all stages of the research process collaboratively, including data collection, analysis and interpretation of the data, and preparation of the manuscript. funding statement : this research is funded by lembaga pengelola dana pendidikan (lpdp) under the ministry of finance of the republic of indonesia conflict of interest : both 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. we support english language teaching education 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. references akter, s., malakar, l., & hans, a. 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(2024). english language hegemony: retrospect and prospect. humanities and social sciences communications, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02821-z https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444820000208 https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02821-z english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 177-191 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14853 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id evaluating the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning in elt through the cipp model: a qualitative descriptive study in indonesia raden muhammad ali a, 1, *, samsul hadi b, 2, widyastuti purbani b, 3, sinta nuriyah muso utomo a, 4, muhammad kunta biddinika a, 5, dwi hastuti a, 6 a universitas ahmad dahlan, kampus 4, jl. ring road selatan, tamanan, banguntapan, yogyakarta, 55191, indonesia b universitas negeri yogyakarta, jl. colombo no.1, karang malang, caturtunggal, yogyakarta, 55281, indonesia 1 raden.ali@pbi.uad.ac.id*; 2 samsul_hd@uny.ac.id; 3 purbani@uny.ac.id; 4 sinta1900004093@webmail.uad.ac.id; 5 mkuntab@gmail.com; 6 dwi.hastuti@pgpaud.uad.ac.id *corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 15 june 2025 revised 17 july 2025 accepted 4 august 2025 e-portfolios have increasingly been integrated into higher education to promote reflection, documentation, and learner autonomy; however, their effectiveness in english language teaching (elt) in indonesia remains insufficiently examined. this study evaluates the use of eportfolio-based learning in an evaluation in elt course by employing the context, input, process, and product (cipp) evaluation model. four research questions guided the investigation, focusing on the relevance of the programme context, the adequacy of inputs, the implementation processes, and the resulting learning outcomes. using a descriptive qualitative design, data were collected through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and documentation of students’ e-portfolios. the participants consisted of one lecturer and thirty-seven seventh-semester students (ten males and twenty-seven females) enrolled in the course during the 2022/2023 academic year; additionally, three students were purposively selected for in-depth interviews. the findings indicate that (1) the context supported the adoption of e-portfolios as it aligned with course needs and learning objectives; (2) the input—including digital facilities, infrastructure, and access to online tools—was adequate for implementation; (3) the process showed active student engagement, although challenges such as connectivity issues, device limitations, and time constraints were present; and (4) the product demonstrated positive learning outcomes, including improved documentation practices, better understanding of course material, and increased digital literacy. the study underscores the potential of e-portfolios to enhance elt learning and suggests the need for more structured feedback mechanisms and technical support to optimise future implementation. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords cipp e-portfolio evaluation english language teaching qualitative research how to cite: ali, r. m., hadi, s., purbani, w., utomo, s. n. m., biddinika, m. k., & hastuti, d. (2025). evaluating the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning in elt through the cipp model: a qualitative descriptive study in indonesia. english language teaching educational journal, 8(3), 177-191. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14853 1. introduction the integration of digital learning tools has become increasingly essential in higher education (alenezi et al., 2023), particularly within english language teaching (elt) (vaishnav, 2024), where https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14228 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:raden.ali@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:samsul_hd@uny.ac.id mailto:purbani@uny.ac.id mailto:sinta1900004093@webmail.uad.ac.id mailto:mkuntab@gmail.com mailto:dwi.hastuti@pgpaud.uad.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14853 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14853&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7058-5575 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7362-846x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7362-846x https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9103-0253 178 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 177-191 ali et al (evaluating the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning in elt through …..) technological advancements continue to influence instructional practices and assessment strategies. among the various digital platforms currently used, electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) have gained prominence for their capacity to enhance learner autonomy (kiffer et al., 2021), promote reflective engagement, and provide systematic documentation of learning progress (bassam & baniyounes, 2024). in digital learning environments, e-portfolios offer opportunities for students to curate multimodal evidence of their competencies (barrot, 2025; lam, 2022), allowing learning to be demonstrated not merely through test scores but through authentic, process-oriented artefacts (maya & wolf, 2024). previous research highlights that e-portfolios support self-regulated learning (beckers et al., 2016; gulden et al., 2020; romero et al., 2019), multimodal production, and authentic assessment (tur et al., 2019; white, 2019) by enabling students to review materials (rezadoust et al., 2025) , track their development, and engage in reflective thinking (ciesielkiewicz, 2019; roco & barberà, 2022) ; (sobko & brown, 2019). within elt specifically, e-portfolios have shown potential to improve engagement and strengthen productive language skills such as speaking and writing through iterative practice and reflection (kusuma et al., 2021; muin et al., 2021). despite these advantages, the adoption of e-portfolios in indonesian higher education remains relatively constrained (ali et al., 2025). existing studies indicate that lecturers and students face persistent challenges related to digital readiness, technical literacy, and familiarity with portfoliobased pedagogies (kusuma & waluyo, 2023; ni & lam, 2025). research on e-portfolios in indonesia generally focuses on limited aspects, such as learner perceptions (namaziandost et al., 2020; wardani et al., 2022), isolated skill development, or technological barriers, without examining how e-portfolios operate as part of a broader instructional system. moreover, studies rarely address how e-portfolio implementation relates to institutional conditions, course objectives, or teaching practices (harun et al., 2021). this gap is reflected in the classroom data used in this study, where the lecturer reported issues such as disorganised documentation, low engagement during online sessions, and the need to cultivate students’ responsibility for storing and revisiting learning materials. as universities across indonesia continue integrating digital tools to support blended and online instruction, there is a pressing need to understand not only whether e-portfolios are useful but how they function within the learning environment (ali et al., 2024). such understanding requires a systematic evaluation that takes into account the alignment between programme intentions, available resources, teaching processes, and learning outcomes. evaluation frameworks provide structured approaches for such analyses. among them, the context, input, process, and product (cipp) model offers a comprehensive and formative lens for evaluating educational programmes (linda, 2025). it enables a holistic assessment of programme needs (context), resource readiness (input), implementation quality (process), and learning results (product). while cipp has been widely used to evaluate curricula, teacher education programmes, and institutional innovations, its application to eportfolio-based learning in indonesian elt remains limited, leaving a significant theoretical and empirical gap. although e-portfolio research in elt has grown internationally, most studies focus on micro-level analyses, such as motivation, learner experience, or specific language-skill outcomes. very few studies in indonesia have examined e-portfolios at the programme level (afrilyasanti et al., 2024), let alone using a comprehensive evaluation framework that simultaneously analyses context, resources, instructional dynamics, and learning outcomes. this study therefore offers novelty by shifting the focus toward a system-level evaluation that captures the interconnected components shaping eportfolio implementation. such an approach is crucial in the indonesian elt context, where digital learning adoption varies widely across institutions and where empirical guidance for designing and sustaining digital learning practices is still developing. this study also introduces novelty through the deliberate application of the cipp evaluation model to assess e-portfolio-based learning. while cipp is well established in international programme evaluation scholarship, its utilisation for examining digital learning innovations—particularly eportfolios in elt—remains underrepresented in indonesian research. through the use of cipp, this study generates a holistic account of the strengths, challenges, and pedagogical value of e-portfolio implementation, offering evidence-based recommendations that can inform future curricular design and institutional decision-making. this makes the study timely and relevant, especially as indonesian universities seek sustainable digital learning strategies following the rapid transitions of the pandemic period. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 179 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 177-191 ali et al (evaluating the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning in elt through …..) given the growing adoption of digital learning tools and the limited evidence regarding their pedagogical effectiveness in indonesian elt programmes, conducting a systematic evaluation becomes essential. such evaluation is needed not only to assess current practices but also to inform improvements, support lecturer decision-making, and guide institutional policies for digital learning innovation. in this study, the lecturer’s reflections on documentation practices, engagement issues, and the need for structured learning review further underscore the relevance of evaluating the eportfolio programme comprehensively. therefore, this study aims to evaluate the use of e-portfolio-based learning in an elt course at an indonesian university using the cipp evaluation model. specifically, it addresses the following research questions: 1. how does the context of the e-portfolio-based learning programme support its implementation in the evaluation in elt course? 2. how do the inputs—including resources, facilities, and instructional supports—contribute to the use of e-portfolios in the course? 3. how does the learning process unfold during the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning? 4. what learning outcomes (products) result from the use of e-portfolios in the course? by addressing these questions, this study contributes to the expanding body of literature on digital learning in elt by providing programme-level evidence on the effectiveness of e-portfolios. the findings offer practical insights for lecturers, curriculum designers, and policymakers seeking to optimise digital learning integration in indonesian higher education. ultimately, this research seeks to inform sustainable approaches to technology-enhanced learning that support engagement, autonomy, and long-term learning development in elt courses. 2. method as part of the effort to comprehensively evaluate the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning within the elt context, this study required a methodological approach capable of capturing the full dynamics of the programme. the methodology needed to trace the relationships between instructional goals, resource readiness, classroom processes, and the learning outcomes achieved by students. in addition, the research method had to accommodate the exploration of the lecturer’s and students’ subjective experiences, enabling a richer and more accurate portrayal of how the programme operated in practice. with these considerations in mind, a qualitative approach was selected to provide both flexibility and analytical depth. 2.1. research design this study employed a descriptive qualitative design to evaluate the implementation of e-portfoliobased learning in an english language teaching (elt) course. the evaluation was guided by the context, input, process, and product (cipp) model, which provides a comprehensive framework for examining the alignment between programme objectives, available resources, instructional processes, and learning outcomes. using this approach allowed the researchers to explore how e-portfolio practices functioned within the natural classroom setting and to understand the experiences of both lecturer and students. 2.2. setting and participants the research was conducted in the evaluation in elt course during the 2022/2023 academic year at the english education study programme of universitas ahmad dahlan, indonesia. the participants consisted of one lecturer and thirty-seven seventh-semester students, comprising ten males and twenty-seven females. to obtain more detailed insights into student experiences, three students were purposively selected for follow-up interviews based on their consistency in completing e-portfolio tasks and their active classroom participation. the class used a blended-learning format, which provided opportunities to observe both face-to-face and online components of the course. 180 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 177-191 ali et al (evaluating the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning in elt through …..) 2.3. instruments data were collected using three primary instruments: an observation guide, a semi-structured interview protocol, and a documentation checklist. the observation guide helped record the flow of classroom activities, the lecturer’s instructions, and students’ engagement with e-portfolio tasks. the interview protocol was developed to explore participants’ experiences, challenges, and perceptions related to e-portfolio use. it was reviewed informally by elt and e-learning experts to ensure content clarity. the documentation checklist was used to examine students’ e-portfolio artefacts, including the organisation of google sites pages, completeness of uploaded materials, and the presence of reflective elements. 2.4. data collection procedures data collection took place over the duration of the course. classroom observations were conducted during scheduled meetings to examine how the lecturer introduced e-portfolios, demonstrated the use of google sites, and facilitated discussions around students’ work. semi-structured interviews were carried out with the lecturer and the three selected students. all interviews were audio-recorded with consent and subsequently transcribed for analysis. in addition, documentation of students’ e-portfolios was gathered through screenshots, artefact listings, and access to students’ google sites pages, allowing the researchers to analyse learning products and patterns of participation. 2.5. data analysis data analysis followed miles, huberman, and saldaña’s (2014) interactive model, comprising data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing. during data condensation, the researchers selected and organised relevant excerpts from interview transcripts, observation notes, and documentation records. these condensed data were then displayed in thematic matrices and narrative summaries aligned with the four cipp components. analysis continued with iterative coding, beginning with inductive identification of emerging themes and followed by deductive categorisation based on cipp dimensions. the final stage involved drawing conclusions by comparing patterns across data sources and verifying interpretations through collaborative discussion among the researchers. 2.6. trustworthiness several strategies were implemented to ensure the trustworthiness of the findings. method triangulation was achieved by combining observations, interviews, and documentation. data source triangulation was applied by obtaining perspectives from both lecturer and students. peer debriefing with colleagues in elt helped refine interpretations, while member checking was conducted by sharing interview summaries with participants to confirm the accuracy of their statements. these procedures strengthened the credibility and dependability of the study. 2.7. evaluation framework: cipp model the cipp model served as the analytical framework for evaluating the programme. the context component examined the background and objectives of e-portfolio adoption. the input component assessed the availability of resources, infrastructure, and instructional planning. the process component focused on how e-portfolio-based learning was implemented in practice, including lecturer strategies, student participation, and encountered challenges. the product component evaluated the outcomes of the learning programme, including students’ understandings, skills, and reflections. by structuring the analysis around these four dimensions, the study offered a holistic evaluation of eportfolio-based learning in the elt classroom. 3. finding and discussion this section presents the integrated findings and discussions derived from the evaluation of an eportfolio-based learning programme using the cipp model. in qualitative educational research, it is both logical and methodologically appropriate to combine findings and discussions into a single, interpretive narrative in order to preserve the coherence between empirical data, thematic interpretation, and theoretical linkage. accordingly, this section is organised into four subsections— context, input, process, and product—each representing one research question and containing eight analytical paragraphs. these paragraphs draw from interviews, classroom observations, and issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 181 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 177-191 ali et al (evaluating the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning in elt through …..) documentation of student e-portfolios, and are supported by relevant scholarship to produce a comprehensive and evidence-driven evaluation of the learning programme. 3.1. context evaluation the context evaluation revealed that the adoption of e-portfolio-based learning arose from a confluence of pedagogical, technological, and motivational challenges experienced during the covid-19 pandemic. the lecturer described the unprecedented shift to online education as a period marked by dramatic declines in student engagement: “students were not active in zoom class, mostly off cam, and learning became boring and monotonous.” this experience parallels findings in the global literature noting widespread passivity, emotional detachment, and cognitive overload among online learners (amin & paiman, 2022). the need to redesign instructional strategies was therefore urgent, prompting the lecturer to consider alternative approaches that could maintain interaction and accountability. students’ testimonies further reinforced the contextual need for transforming the learning framework. one student recounted a common but critical issue: “my notes were lost somewhere when i was going to final exam.” this statement reveals the vulnerability of paper-based documentation, especially during periods of remote or hybrid learning. the literature consistently reports that students often struggle to maintain organised, accessible, and long-term records of learning materials without digital support (scully et al., 2018). the adoption of e-portfolios thus addressed a concrete organisational problem that had implications for academic performance and learner confidence. another contextual dimension was the need to facilitate reflective learning and deep processing of instructional materials. a student explained: “this e-portfolio makes me review the material… and that is what makes us remember what the lecturer explained.” this form of cyclical review is foundational to self-regulated learning theory (zimmerman, 1990), which emphasises learner responsibility in reviewing, evaluating, and reconstructing knowledge. in elt contexts, reflective review supports metalinguistic awareness, vocabulary retention, and comprehension skills (kusuma et al., 2021), suggesting that the e-portfolio aligned strongly with both pedagogical and domainspecific needs. the lecturer also emphasised the programme’s alignment with broader digital transformation trends in higher education. he noted that e-portfolios allowed students to access materials “anywhere and anytime,” reflecting core principles of flexible and ubiquitous learning (haggerty & thompson, 2017). this demonstrates that the contextual rationale for adopting e-portfolios extended beyond pandemic responses, tapping into global educational demands for digital literacy, multimodal engagement, and self-directed learning competencies. a further contextual factor involved empowering students to develop sustained habits of academic responsibility. the lecturer expressed an intention to encourage students to document learning systematically, a skill relevant for teachers-in-training in elt programmes. research affirms that eportfolios can cultivate long-term learning strategies—and not merely serve short-term assessment purposes—when integrated consistently into coursework (rhodes, 2010). the programme thus sought to cultivate habits aligned with professional expectations in educational fields. moreover, the context suggested that the e-portfolio programme filled a pedagogical gap by enabling more transparent and continuous monitoring of student progress. the lecturer explained that digital archiving helped him trace students’ understanding throughout the semester, something difficult to achieve through traditional assignments. this benefits instructors by making student learning more visible and trackable, aligning with the principle of assessment for learning (black & wiliam, 1998). additionally, e-portfolios addressed the need for authentic assessment during hybrid learning. authentic assessment theory emphasises the importance of real-world tasks, process documentation, and reflective demonstration of learning. the programme met these needs by requiring students to reconstruct knowledge, organise content, and articulate understanding in their own words. overall, the context evaluation indicates that the adoption of e-portfolios was highly justified, grounded in real challenges, and responsive to learners’ needs. it aligns with stufflebeam’s (stufflebeam, 2003) requirement that context evaluation must identify needs, goals, and opportunities before programme implementation. collectively, student testimonies, lecturer reflections, and 182 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 177-191 ali et al (evaluating the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning in elt through …..) theoretical alignment show that the contextual foundation for the e-portfolio programme was strong, timely, and pedagogically sound. 3.2. input evaluation the input evaluation examined how resources, technological tools, institutional support, and instructional preparation contributed to the implementation of the e-portfolio programme. the lecturer deliberately selected google sites due to its cost-free nature, accessibility, and ease of use. he explained: “i choose to use google sites because it’s easy and free.” accessibility is a critical input element in digital environments where socioeconomic disparities affect learner participation. prior studies affirm that user-friendly and free platforms facilitate smoother adoption in resource-variable contexts (salas-pilco et al., 2022). students’ access to devices and internet connectivity varied, revealing an important input challenge. although most students had laptops and institutional google accounts, several reported connectivity problems. one student stated: “because the class is hybrid… sometimes the signal was bad and making it took a lot of energy and time.” research shows that inconsistent connectivity can significantly limit learners’ participation in digitally mediated tasks (michikyan et al., 2025) . despite these obstacles, students adapted by working offline and uploading assignments when network conditions improved, demonstrating resilience and digital problem-solving behaviours. instructional preparation was a significant input strength. the lecturer provided a thoroughly prepared syllabi (rps), learning modules, examples of portfolio structures, and clear instructions for each weekly task. this scaffolding allowed students to understand expectations, pacing, and task requirements. literature emphasises that clear instructional design is crucial for portfolio success (tosun, 2011), especially for learners unfamiliar with multimodal documentation (scully et al., 2018) another important input was students’ willingness to engage in independent learning strategies. one student described: “my first strategy is to find out what an e-portfolio is… i looked at references on the internet.” this aligns with research demonstrating that digital portfolio tasks naturally encourage self-directed learning and independent exploration (chittum, 2018). these strategies represent an essential input in the cipp framework, which emphasises learner readiness as a prerequisite for effective programme outcomes. institutional support further strengthened the programme’s inputs. the availability of classroom projectors, speakers, air conditioning, and electrical infrastructure created a conducive environment for hybrid learning. university-provided google accounts streamlined student access to digital tools, while integrated platforms such as google docs and youtube enriched the portfolio creation process. institutional technological readiness is a known predictor of successful digital learning implementations (okuonghae et al., 2021). the lecturer’s preparation also included designing activities that emphasised multimodal representation, reflection, and documentation—principles central to portfolio assessment. this aligns with constructivist approaches, which view learning as the active construction of knowledge rather than passive consumption. the e-portfolio created opportunities for student content creation, which is a key marker of constructivist and experiential learning approaches (sitthimongkolchai et al., 2022). despite robust inputs, challenges remained—most notably students’ inconsistent familiarity with digital tools. some students required additional support and modelling from the lecturer. digital readiness varies widely among indonesian undergraduates (kusuma & waluyo, 2023). however, the programme’s inputs—platform choice, institutional infrastructure, instructional scaffolds, and learner strategies—collectively provided a strong foundation that aligned with the input dimension of the cipp model. 3.3. process evaluation the process evaluation examined how the e-portfolio programme unfolded in practice, including instructional procedures, student engagement, learning behaviours, and challenges (keshmiri & mehrparvar, 2023). the lecturer explained that the course used a blended approach: “this e-portfolio is mostly done as homework… we discuss difficulties during several meetings.” this aligns with blended learning models, which combine synchronous instruction with asynchronous reflective tasks, improving motivation and self-regulation (ho & tai, 2020). the design of the programme encouraged issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 183 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 177-191 ali et al (evaluating the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning in elt through …..) learners to balance structured instruction with independent online activities, allowing them to gradually develop autonomy in managing digital tasks and course responsibilities. students’ weekly routines involved documenting learning materials, uploading summaries, embedding external resources, and writing reflective notes. one student described: “on the google site… i fill it with material at each meeting… whatever the lecturer explains in class.” this represents continuous, iterative documentation, which is essential to portfolio pedagogy (scully et al., 2018). students were thus engaged in ongoing meaning-making rather than episodic task completion, and this iterative engagement enabled them to revisit, consolidate, and refine their understanding of course concepts over time. creativity emerged as a strong dimension of the process. students enjoyed designing their portfolios aesthetically and functionally. as one expressed: “using e-portfolio is fun… i can hone my skills in editing or creating google sites.” creativity is a documented outcome of portfolio-based learning because students have autonomy over design and representation (douglas et al., 2019). the lecturer reinforced this observation by noting that students took pride in their work: “they are proud because they can make works like that,” signalling the motivational benefits of creative ownership in digital learning spaces. nevertheless, the process revealed challenges. students often described e-portfolio creation as time-consuming: “making it takes a lot of energy and time… not only filling materials but also designing it.” this aligns with literature acknowledging the heavy workload associated with portfolio construction (mihret et al., 2017). technical issues such as embedding multimedia, template limitations, and unstable connectivity occasionally disrupted workflow, indicating areas where additional institutional support or training could be beneficial. the peer-feedback mechanism also faced difficulties. students used google docs to comment on peers’ work, but participation varied. some comments were repetitive or superficial, and in one case, all entries were lost due to technical failure. research warns that unstructured feedback processes can limit portfolio effectiveness (scully et al., 2018). this suggests a need for more explicit instructions, rubrics, and clearer expectations to strengthen the quality of peer review and ensure more meaningful engagement. throughout the process, student agency and independence remained prominent. the lecturer observed growing student confidence in managing digital content, and students began exploring additional features of google sites independently. this reflects transformative learning processes where learners move from dependency to autonomy. the development of such autonomy is particularly valuable in elt, where self-directed learning plays an important role in language acquisition and professional preparation (amini & kruger, 2022). in addition to these findings, the process evaluation highlighted the role of digital collaboration in shaping students’ learning experiences. although google docs served as the primary platform for peer feedback, students’ participation demonstrated varying levels of engagement. some students interacted actively, offering specific suggestions on organisation, accuracy of content, or page design, while others contributed only brief or repetitive comments. this inconsistency mirrors existing literature indicating that peer feedback in e-portfolio environments requires structured guidance to be effective (zhang & tur, 2022). without explicit rubrics or targeted prompts, students may struggle to provide meaningful critique, resulting in superficial interaction. another important aspect observed in the process is the gradual development of students’ digital competencies. while many students initially expressed uncertainty regarding the technical features of google sites, their confidence increased over time as they explored templates, embedded multimedia, and experimented with layout design (halim & halim, 2024). one student noted that they “became more skilled in editing and arranging pages” after repeated practice, indicating that the e-portfolio process functioned not only as a documentation platform but also as a medium for digital skill building. this aligns with modise and mudau (modise & mudau, 2023), who argue that e-portfolios create opportunities for learners to grow technological fluency (aghazadeh, 2020) by engaging with authentic digital tasks (walland & shaw, 2022). finally, process evaluation revealed that the e-portfolio served as a mechanism for continual content review and reinforcement (yang & wong, 2024). because students updated their portfolios weekly, they were repeatedly exposed to course concepts, which strengthened retention and 184 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 177-191 ali et al (evaluating the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning in elt through …..) understanding. as one student explained, “indirectly, the e-portfolio makes me review the material and that is what makes us remember the material provided.” this practice reflects principles of iterative learning, where ongoing cycles of documentation, reflection, and revision deepen comprehension (roberts, 2018). revisiting previous entries also enabled students to identify progress, monitor understanding , and develop a stronger sense of academic responsibility—an outcome aligned with reflective learning theory (veine et al., 2020). from a cipp perspective, the process dimension demonstrated that the programme operated largely as intended, fostering active engagement, creativity, sustained documentation, collaboration, and reflective learning. although challenges existed, they were generally manageable and provided important insights for future refinement, particularly in the areas of peer-feedback structure, technical support, and instructional scaffolding. 3.4. product evaluation the product evaluation examined the outcomes generated through the e-portfolio programme. students repeatedly reported improved understanding of course materials. one stated: “…after using the e-portfolio i feel that i understand the material better.” this aligns with research showing that reflective documentation promotes deep learning, conceptual clarity, and integration of course concepts (aparicio-ting et al., 2023). reviewing and rewriting materials for their portfolio encouraged students to reconstruct information in their own words, strengthening conceptual internalisation and long-term retention (al-rashidi et al., 2023) the lecturer observed similar benefits, noting improvements in organisation, creativity, and confidence: “students find it helpful to put their archives and documents… they are proud and creative.” thematically, students’ portfolios demonstrated enhanced digital literacy (yin et al., 2025), including the ability to organise information hierarchically, embed links, and create multimedia content (chan, 2020). digital literacy is considered a crucial 21st-century competency, especially for students preparing for professional teaching roles (syzdykova et al., 2021). these digital competencies were not explicitly taught as course objectives but emerged organically through students’ engagement with the e-portfolio platform. a particularly significant finding was the transferability of e-portfolio skills beyond the course. the lecturer noted: “some use the e-portfolio for teaching, for campus teaching programmes… even for other subjects.” transfer of learning is a hallmark of effective educational programmes (roco & barberà, 2022). the fact that students continued using google sites to organise teaching materials or document activities in other classes indicates that the programme produced functional and sustainable skills. this suggests that the e-portfolio contributed not only to learning performance in a single course but also to broader academic and professional development (lópez-crespo et al., 2022). nevertheless, the outcome dimension also revealed weaknesses. students expressed concerns about the time demands of portfolio creation and design (dalton, 2022). the peer-feedback system, although conceptually beneficial, required improvement to ensure meaningful critique (bravo et al., 2022). another concern raised by the lecturer was academic integrity: “students can easily copy their friends or just copy material from the internet.” this highlights the need for explicit instruction on citing digital materials and maintaining originality. the lecturer’s observations suggest that aspects of digital ethics, referencing, and proper attribution must be integrated into future iterations of the programme. additional findings revealed that the e-portfolio also influenced students’ affective responses toward the course. several students expressed pride, satisfaction, and enjoyment when viewing the final appearance of their digital portfolios (chan, 2020), describing the experience as “fun” and “motivating” because they could personalise their work (wong & hughes, 2023). this aligns with research showing that portfolio-based learning enhances learner identity formation and fosters a sense of ownership (goldsmith, 2007) students perceive their work as personally meaningful and visually appealing (torres & mckinley, 2023), they are more likely to engage deeply and consistently with the learning process (song, 2021). furthermore, the product evaluation suggested that the e-portfolio strengthened students’ metacognitive awareness. as students compiled weekly reflections and summaries, they became more aware of what they understood and what still needed clarification. one student reported that the eportfolio “makes me review the material and remember what the lecturer explained,” demonstrating issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 185 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 177-191 ali et al (evaluating the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning in elt through …..) how reflective writing supports metacognitive monitoring. this outcome is consistent with roberts (roberts, 2018), who argues that reflective cycles help students evaluate their progress, identify weaknesses, and adjust learning strategies more effectively. another notable product outcome relates to the visibility of learning. because students’ progress was documented in a cumulative and organised manner, the lecturer could easily monitor individual development across the semester. he could also identify students who struggled, as incomplete or inconsistent portfolio entries provided visible indicators of learning gaps. this transparency enhanced the lecturer’s ability to provide targeted support or follow-up, making the e-portfolio not only an assessment tool but also a formative diagnostic instrument (pospíšilová & rohlíková, 2023). visibility of learning outcomes is one of the key strengths of digital portfolio systems (mgarbi et al., n.d.) and supports more responsive teaching practices . despite these limitations, the product evaluation demonstrates that the programme achieved its intended goals: improving comprehension, fostering digital literacy, promoting creativity, strengthening independent learning, and enhancing learning visibility. according to stufflebeam’s (stufflebeam, 2003) criteria, these outcomes indicate strong programme effectiveness with manageable areas for improvement. overall, the findings suggest that e-portfolio-based learning is viable, effective, and potentially scalable within broader elt contexts in indonesian higher education. future refinements focusing on academic integrity, structured peer review, and streamlined digital support could enhance these outcomes further. table 1. summary of cipp-based evaluation findings cipp component key findings evidence interpretation context pandemic challenges, documentation issues, engagement gaps. lecturer & student quotes. strong contextual need; aligns with reflective & self-regulated learning. input adequate digital tools; uneven connectivity; strong instructional scaffolding. interview & observation. inputs largely sufficient; consistent with digital readiness theory. process high engagement, creativity, sustained documentation; time & technical challenges. multiple student quotes. reflective & constructivist learning; manageable barriers. product improved understanding, digital literacy, creativity, transferable skills. lecturer & student insights. programme effective; aligns with deep learning & digital competence. 4. conclusion the findings of this study demonstrate that the e-portfolio-based learning programme implemented in the evaluation in elt course was effective, relevant, and responsive to both pedagogical and contextual needs. the use of the cipp evaluation model provided a comprehensive lens for analysing how the programme aligned with the realities of hybrid learning and the challenges faced by students during and after the covid-19 pandemic. the context evaluation confirmed that the programme addressed critical issues related to low engagement, insufficient documentation, and the need for flexible access to learning materials. these findings underscore the importance of integrating digital learning tools in higher education, particularly in elt contexts that require continuous reflection and scaffolded development of language and pedagogical skills. the input evaluation revealed that the combination of accessible digital platforms, adequate institutional infrastructure, and clear instructional preparation formed a strong foundation for the programme. despite variations in students’ digital readiness and occasional connectivity problems, the availability of google sites, learning modules, and lecturer support contributed significantly to the programme’s success. the consistency between programme inputs and intended learning outcomes highlights the crucial role of resource readiness and digital scaffolding in facilitating meaningful engagement and learning autonomy. 186 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 177-191 ali et al (evaluating the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning in elt through …..) the process evaluation showed that students engaged actively with e-portfolio tasks, constructed learning documentation consistently, and exercised creativity in designing and customising their portfolio pages. the iterative nature of the portfolio allowed students to revisit course concepts, connect ideas, and articulate reflective understanding. while challenges such as time constraints, technical difficulties, and inconsistent peer feedback emerged, these did not undermine the overall quality of the learning process. instead, they offer important insights for refining instructional strategies, particularly in providing more structured peer-review frameworks and stronger technical support systems. the product evaluation confirmed substantial learning gains. students reported improved understanding of course materials, enhanced digital literacy, greater reflective awareness, and transferable skills relevant to their academic and professional trajectories. the lecturer also observed increased confidence, creativity, and ownership among students, indicating the potential scalability of the programme across other elt courses. based on these findings, it is recommended that future implementations incorporate clearer guidelines for academic integrity, enhanced peer-feedback protocols, and additional institutional support for addressing digital inequities. expanding e-portfolio integration across other elt subjects and practicum activities may further strengthen students’ digital competence and professional readiness. 5. limitation and future research this study acknowledges several limitations that should be considered in interpreting its findings. the research was conducted within a single course at one university, which may limit the generalisability of the results to broader elt contexts. the qualitative design, while effective for capturing rich experiences and contextual dynamics, did not include quantitative measures that could provide additional insights into learning outcomes, digital performance, or the statistical impact of eportfolio use. furthermore, data were collected primarily from students and one lecturer, without incorporating perspectives from administrators or other instructors who may influence institutional policy or digital infrastructure. these factors suggest that the findings represent a contextualised, course-specific interpretation rather than a universal model. future research may broaden the scope by implementing e-portfolios across multiple courses, institutions, or academic levels to examine their scalability and long-term impact. mixed-methods designs combining qualitative insights with rubric-based assessments, learning analytics, or pre–post comparisons may offer more robust evidence of e-portfolio effectiveness. researchers could also explore how e-portfolios support professional identity development, practicum readiness, and digital literacy across the elt curriculum. additionally, further investigation into digital equity, accessibility challenges, academic integrity, and sustainable peer-feedback mechanisms would help institutions refine policies and enhance the effectiveness of e-portfolio-based learning in diverse educational settings. acknowledgment this program is financed by the directorate of research, culture, and community service, ministry of education, culture, research, and technology of the republic of indonesia for the 2024 fiscal year, with contract number 102/pfr/lppm uad/vi/2024. the authors also acknowledge limited use of ai-generated language assistance (chatgpt) for minor editorial refinement. all research ideas, methodological decisions, and analytical interpretations were developed independently by the authors in accordance with academic integrity standards. declarations author contribution : the research was collaboratively undertaken by all authors, encompassing topic selection, proposal development, methodological application, data analysis, and the preparation of the discussion section. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 187 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 177-191 ali et al (evaluating the implementation of e-portfolio-based learning in elt through …..) funding statement : this program is financed by the directorate of research, culture, and community service, ministry of education, culture, research, and technology of the republic of indonesia for the 2024 fiscal year, with contract number 102/pfr/lppm uad/vi/2024. conflict of interest : we declare that there are no competing interests. ethics declaration : as the authors, we confirm that this work has been written based on ethical research principles in compliance with our university’s regulations and that the necessary permission was obtained from the relevant institution during data collection. we fully support eltej’s commitment to upholding high standards of professional conduct and practicing honesty in all academic and professional activities. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references afrilyasanti, r., suhartoyo, e., & widiati, u. 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(1990). goal setting and self-efficacy during self-regulated learning. educational psychologist, 25(1), 3–17. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep2501 https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144x.2019.1659797 https://doi.org/10.1080/1475939x.2022.2074087 https://doi.org/10.28926/riset_konseptual.v6i1.446 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6982-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6982-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-022-09342-1 https://doi.org/10.2458/itlt.5809 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-025-10038-1 https://doi.org/10.22492/ije.10.3.03 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep2501 1. introduction 2. method 2.1. research design 2.2. setting and participants 2.3. instruments 2.4. data collection procedures 2.5. data analysis 2.6. trustworthiness 2.7. evaluation framework: cipp model 3. finding and discussion 3.1. context evaluation 3.2. input evaluation 3.3. process evaluation 3.4. product evaluation 4. conclusion 5. limitation and future research acknowledgment english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp.24-42 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10065 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking materials for islamic senior high school students endang susilawati universitas tanjungpura, jl. prof. dr. h. hadari nawawi, bansir laut, pontianak tenggara, kota pontianak, kalimantan barat 78124, indonesia endang.susilawati@fkip.untan.ac.id a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 16 january 2024 revised 12 february 2024 accepted 15 march 2024 this research was conducted for two purposes: (1) to describe the process of the design and development of english materials for conversation practices based on the sociolinguistic contexts for grade x students at islamic senior high school students (ishs), and (2) to analyze the usability level of the product of materials’ development for the students. it is a study using research and development method which applied the stages of add out of addie from aldoobie, (2015) and branch, r. m. (2009). the materials development focused on english-speaking materials in the form of conversation practices, which included the conversations of interpersonal and transactional communication whereby the sociolinguistic contexts are embedded. additionally, communicative tasks were also presented for engaging students with the practice of the real english use. they were packed in the form a textbook which consisted of six units. the presentation of the materials in the units was following the features of clt approach. the feasibility and the usability of the product was tested through internal validation using the three criteria (psychological, pedagogical, and content) of validity by rubdy (2014). the result shows that the english-speaking materials are valid meaning usable for grade x students of ishs. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords second language writing sociolinguistic contexts learning material development english-speaking learning materials how to cite: susilawati, e. (2024). developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking materials for islamic senior high school students. english language teaching educational journal, 7(1), 24-42. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10065 1. introduction the role of teaching-learning materials in a foreign language classroom is very important because teaching-learning materials embody the curriculum mandate. they should facilitate students with the learning contents as well as how to learn them. commonly, teaching learning materials are packed in chapters of a students’ textbook. to a certain extent, they might compensate teacher’s deficiency or even replace teacher’s absence during the class session (rubdy, 2014). in the case of teaching english language to senior high school students in indonesia, the ministry of education and culture has provided sets of english textbooks that are accessible for both teachers and students. however, the contents of the textbooks do not certainly fit all the students’ need. meanwhile, a textbook is basically developed to facilitate students to learn the language. it must not only include the english language or communication skill contents based on the curriculum but also fit the students’ need (byrd, 2001) based on the pre-observation and informal interview with some english teachers of several islamic senior high schools (ishss), it is found that the english teachers use the same textbooks with those https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10065 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:endang.susilawati@fkip.untan.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10065 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i1.10065&domain=pdf issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 25 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) normally used by other public senior high schools’ teachers instead of using the textbooks which are purposely designed for them. as it is known, ishss are ruled by the ministry of religion affair, which are supposed to have different characteristics compared to the other regular senior high schools (the decree of the ministry of religion affair no. 104, year 2019). all the teaching and learning process should be characterized by values of islamic teaching. however, the ministry agrees with the implementation of ‘kurikulum merdeka’ issued by the ministry of education and culture (nuwairah, 2023). yet, when the research was conducted, the ishs still applied curriculum 2013. basically, the goal of english language teaching is the achievement of the standard competence of the language, which include the knowledge and the skills of the language (tracy, 2020). however, it should simultaneously support the achievement of the core competences, the spiritual and the social competences, that must agree with the values of islamic teaching. such an achievement implies the requirement of the specific kind of english learning materials for the students of ishs. in other words, the students of ishs need to be exposed to models of the real english use in various contexts for supporting the achievement of the communicative competence of the language competence (savignon, 2001; richards, 2011). especially the contexts which fit to the students’ daily communication. unfortunately, such learning materials are not available yet. moreover, the achievement of communicative competence should not merely be covered by the aspects of fluency and accuracy but also the aspect of appropriateness. it implicitly requires the social rules of the language, a dimension of language use by which the grammar rules will be possible and acceptable as it was formerly recommended by hymes in 1960s (street and leung, 2010). it implies the necessity of the exposure of english language use based on the sociolinguistic contexts in english teaching learning materials development. they should address the extent to which utterances are produced and understood appropriately in different sociolinguistic contexts depending on contextual factors such as status of participants, purposes of the interaction, and norms or convention of interaction (mede & dililitaş, 2015). such an awareness is considered crucial for the students in learning a new language as the rules might be different from their first language. therefore, the incorporation of sociolinguistic competence into a foreign language teaching, in both written and spoken forms, is necessary. the learners will take benefit from gaining such competence (subandowo, 2022). to cover these purposes, communicative language teaching (clt) approach should be the most relevant classroom pedagogy to be applied (savignon, 2001). unfortunately, the result of some former evaluation researches on the textbooks indicates that the writers/designers of many available english textbooks for efl classrooms still ignore the inclusion of the sociolinguistic contexts in the material contents, especially for the speaking materials (mede & dililitaş, 2015; susilawati, 2020; hidayati, 2022). their research findings indicated that the sociolinguistic contexts were mostly disregarded in the materials design. especially the contexts referring to the setting of the dialogues and the role-relationship between or among the participants involved in the dialogues. as a result, they recommended the english textbook’s writer or developer to provide more dialogue models of interactional and transactional communication with diverse sociolinguistic contexts. the current study was conducted to respond those recommendations and to fulfill the common need of the students of ishs. the study had two purposes (1) to describe the process of the design and development of the english materials for conversation practices based on the sociolinguistic contexts for students of ishs, and (2) to analyze the usability level of the product of materials’ development for the students of ishs. due to the time constraint, however, this research was only focused on the need of the students of ishs managed by an islamic boarding school named “darussalam islamic boarding school”. it is located at mempawah regency, kalimantan barat. this school prioritizes english language as an important foreign language to be acquired by the students beside arabic. the school provides opportunity for their students to learn english more intensively through an extra-curricular program in addition to the intra-curriculum program, especially for developing the students’ english-speaking skills (susilawati, 2022). unfortunately, the learning materials for such purposes were not available yet. therefore, developing english speaking materials for the students of ishs should be very relevant. the most importantly, the materials should be designed based on the concepts of sociolinguistic competence (canale, 2013; harmer, 2001; holmes, 2013). 26 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) it is already well-known that english is spoken worldwide and used for more various purposes, such as for the medium of instruction in classroom, for social communication and business purposes. nevertheless, some countries keep maintaining english as a foreign language which means the usage is only restricted for certain purposes (renandya & widodo, 2016). in the case of indonesian country, the role of english language is recognized as a foreign language so it is only used for certain purposes (agustin, 2011). different roles of english in communities will generate different attitude and perspective towards the language, and different motivation to learn the language among people as well. subsequently, the teaching and learning english should be designed differently from one school to another. therefore, pedagogical principles, i.e., research-based generalizations, are applicable as a basis for planning, delivering, and evaluating classroom instructions (renandya & widodo, 2016). based on modified curriculum 2013, english language subject is compulsory for the students of secondary school levels (smp/mts and sma/ma) with the minimal time allotment of two-meeting hours (80-90 minutes) per week. the standard competency that must be covered by the students from the subject at the very end of the class session covers the achievement of aspects of the language knowledge (the linguistic features, and the knowledge of text types). the other achievement is covering aspects of the language skills in both oral and written as well as both for the receptive and productive language skills (see bsnp syllabus of english subject for smp and sma or the equal level schools). this standard competency is recognized as communicative competence. in short, it must include grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence (canale, 2013). implicitly, the achievement of effective oral communication requires the ability to use the language appropriately in social interaction beside its fluency and accuracy. it must involve not only a verbal communication but also paralinguistic elements such as pitch, stress, and intonation. hence, the teaching of pronunciation and other non-linguistic elements, such as gestures, body language/posture, and facial expressions should accompany the practice of speaking. the students should be exposed to the rules and norms governing the appropriate timing and realization (shumin, 2002). such awareness infers the requirement of sociolinguistic competence in a particular context of communication. in the meantime, teaching speaking means teaching oral skills of the language. it normally goes simultaneously with teaching listening as they are closely intertwined. there are several types of speaking, including monologue versus dialogue, planned versus spontaneous, and interpersonal versus transactional. there are at least five types of speaking performance that must be covered by the students. they include imitative, intensive, responsive, transactional, interpersonal, and extensive performance. each level of performance should be identifiable by its accuracy and appropriateness beside its fluency. therefore, the teaching of pronunciation, vocabulary and the grammar must be incorporated with the teaching oral skills of the language (brown & lee, 2015). accordingly, some classroom techniques and activities for teaching speaking, such as conversations, information gaps, role-plays, discussions, speeches, audiotapes oral dialogue journals, and other accuracy-based activities or oral form-based activities, are applicable (brown & lee, 2015; lazaraton, 2001). in other words, teaching english speaking in efl context is complex. it needs some considerations. it does not merely the practice of linguistic aspects but also the non-linguistic ones. to actualize the students’ speaking skills, the teacher needs to accommodate the aspects of appropriateness in addition to the aspects of fluency and accuracy in his/her teaching. in short, the students’ speaking skills should represent their sociolinguistic competence beside their linguistic competence. in a higher level, it should even cover the acquisition of the strategic and discourse competence. such requirement is in line with the principles of communicative language teaching (clt) methodology, as the current trend methodology in efl (bao, 2007). it implicitly requires the inclusion of sociolinguistic competence in the teaching learning design. clt is influenced by the work of sociolinguists who are interested to discuss why people speak differently in different social contexts. they work by identifying the social functions of language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning (holmes, 2013; aronin & spolsky, 2010). they have significant contribution to language teaching pedagogy. the influential notion of communicative competence by hymes in 1960s has changed the language teaching-learning paradigm (street & leung, 2010). he had reacted to chomsky’s characterization of the linguistic competence of the ideal native speaker and proposed the term communicative competence to represent the use of language in issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 27 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) social context, or the observance of sociolinguistic norms of appropriacy which is potentially equivalent to what functionalists mean by meaning. communicative competence is defined as the ability of classroom language learners to interact with other speakers, to make meaning, as distinct from their ability to recite dialogs or perform on discrete-point test of grammatical knowledge (savignon, 2001). it comprises four areas of knowledge and skills namely grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence (canale and swain in street & leung, 2010). for the sociolinguistic competence, particularly, it deals with rules of use. it requires an understanding of social context in which language is used: the roles of the participants, the information they share, and the function of the interaction. it addresses the extent to which utterances are produced and understood appropriately in different sociolinguistic contexts. meanwhile, appropriateness of utterances refers to the appropriateness of meaning. it also concerns the extent to which communicative functions (e.g., commanding, complaining, and in inviting), attitudes (including politeness and formality) and ideas are judged to be proper in the given situation. it should include the aspects of language knowledge as well as the language use (richards, 2011; tracy, 2020). to summarize, the principle of communicative competence has brought such significant impact on language teaching-learning pedagogy. as a result, it has changed the view of language teaching methodology from traditionally engaging learners to practice communication in lies of laboratory pattern drills performed accurately, moving to developing learner’s ability to use the language for communication by which meaning is the focus rather than form (savignon, 2001). the spirit of clt approach is based on the belief that activities involving real communication; carrying out meaningful tasks and using language that is meaningful to the learner to promote learning (nunan & lamb, 1996). however, it should not exclusively concern with face-to-face oral communication. instead, it might equally integrate reading and writing activities with oral practices. in addition, it recommends task based and authentic materials. talking about teaching learning materials in a teaching and learning process, it is not only about their availability or accessibility but also a matter of their validity. there are three broad categories of validity in developing materials for language teaching (rubdy, 2014). they include (1) psychological validity (it refers to the learners’ needs, goals); (2) pedagogical validity (the teacher’s skills, abilities, theories, and beliefs); and (3) content validity requirements (the thinking underlying the materials, writer’s presentation of the content and approach to teaching and learning respectively). moreover, the process should consider a list of principles, procedures of the design, implementation, and evaluation. it should consider at least five principles: the materials should (1) help the learners to develop cultural awareness and sensitivity, (2) reflect the reality of language use, (3) help learners to learn in ways to the circumstances in which they will have to use the language, (4) help to create the readiness to learn, and (5) achieve affective engagement. (lyons, 2014). in developing materials for teaching speaking, particularly, it is necessary to know the characteristics of speaking practices. the developers should firstly understand the notion of speaking as an oral productive communication skill that needs supporting from microand macro skills (forms and functions) of the language (brown, 2003). especially, when they should embed the sociolinguistic context in their materials design. they should consider various oral skills for different levels, starting from the novice to the advanced level and from a nonacademic context to the academic one. in addition, the skills usually begin with functional uses of language in either informal or formal conversational context. they might be arranged within speech acts belong to interpersonal communication or interactional communication, such as greeting, introducing, and addressing people, giving invitation, thanking, apologizing, complimenting, agreeing, and disagreeing, getting attention, and interrupting, and so forth (corbett, 2003; lazaraton, 2001). to the higher level, the oral skills might include conversations in more formal communication context in the form of transactional communication with an extended form of responsive language. it involves communicating to get something done, including the exchange of goods and/or services (bailey, 2003; brown & lee, 2015). these two levels of communication commonly happen in daily conversations or dialogues. therefore, they should be practiced for oral skills’ development in a foreign language classroom context (nunan in bailey, 2003). in other words, sociolinguistics concepts and clt principles are corporative and relevant to be adopted as the theoretical underpinning for such material development. 28 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) in addition, the learning materials should provide the learners with the knowledge of the target language culture and an awareness of cross-cultural differences (harmer, 2001; shumin, 2002). therefore, the appropriate use of the target language use should be exemplified through the content materials as well as the language communication tasks. the sociocultural context of the conversation should consider five variables of communication (1) setting (when and where); (2) participants (the spaker’s role-relationship); (3) gender; (4) channels (spoken vs written language or direct vs by media); (5) topic, as it might affect the speaker’s lexical and grammatical choices (harmer, 2001). to summarize, the materials development designed in this study concurrently embody the concept of ctl which is alongside with the concept of sociolinguistics, the principles of the innovated curriculum 2013 and the concepts of speaking by itself. as a result, the product of the materials development should consider the followings: the first, deciding the list of communicative functions to be conversed in some relevant contexts. in this case, the materials to be developed are only limited to those for students of grade x of ma, which should include the interpersonal and transactional communicative functions (bailey, 2003; corbett, 2003; lazaraton, 2001). in this stage the research team reconfirmed the syllabus of the curriculum. the second, deciding the sociolinguistic contexts that must be embedded to the conversational materials. for this purpose, the variables of communication contexts by harmer (2001) and shumin (2002) were taken into consideration. the most importantly, the topics of the conversations should be made relevant to the schools’ environment as the social context. the third is finding relevant resources to make the speaking materials come into existence. they should include audio-visual materials beside the text materials. the fourth, selecting the communicative tasks for students to engage with their real daily communication following the principles of clt (savignon, 2001; tomlinson, 2014b). they should include the tasks for mastering the relevant linguistic features as the micro-skills and the practice of the real english conversation in various sociolinguistic contexts as the macro-skills (brown, 2003). the last, the materials designing consulted the principles and the framework by tomlinson, (2014a) and the category of materials’ validity suggested by rubdy (2014). nonetheless, the materials should be designed and developed based on the students’ need and the teachers’ recommendations. 2. method 1.2. 2.1. research design the main purpose of this study is to develop materials for english conversation practices for ishs based on sociolinguistic contexts with the focus on the teaching and learning of speaking skills. therefore, the research and development method was the most appropriate to be applied. it is a systematic study of design, development, and evaluation processes to establish an empirical basis for creating instructional and non-instructional products and tools (richey & klein, 2014). it is also a practical form that attempts to test theory and validate practice (tracey, 2009). the research and development method consists of stages namely analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation (addie). basically, the stages include three primary stage process: input, process, and output, through which each phase produces an output that becomes the next phase's input (branch, 2009). to elaborate, the stages comprise the followings: 1) analyzing stage there are four factors that should be analyzed in this phase i.e.: the learners' need analysis in terms of the their preferences to the textbook packaging instead of the content materials; developing an instructional analysis, creating instructional goals; and the analysis of learning objectives (aldoobie, 2015). the analysis stage of this research started from analyzing the need to develop materials based on the curriculum mandates for the school level as well as the school characteristics; and continued by doing need analysis on the representatives of grade x students of ishs in terms of their preferences to such packaging performance of the materials design. 2) designing stage it is the stage when verifying the things that cause inequality in the learning process and brief designs is being implemented (branch, 2009; aldoobie, 2015). therefore, this stage was begun by making the layout of a textbook of english-speaking learning materials, decided the numbers of units or chapters to include in the textbook and put the name or topic for each unit. each topic represented the communicative function of the language for either the interpersonal and transactional issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 29 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) communication by considering the sociolinguistic contexts of the conversations. each unit comprised the following components: (1) learning inputs in the forms of conversation models and the focus of variety of language expressions based on various contexts whereby the pronunciation models are also necessary; (2) communicative tasks for engaging students with their english conversation practices. partly, they were integrated with other language skills’ activities, such as listening, reading, and writing activities depending on the topics. the tasks included the classroom and homework-tasks. in addition, the presentation of the materials in each unit is completed by relevant images and audiovisual materials. they were selected to accompany the texts as the input models. at the same time, the font size of the texts was not regardless. moreover, the presentation of each unit was arranged based on the features of clt, which was characterized by process oriented, task based, inductive or discovery oriented (savignon, 2001). basically, these features are not contradictory to the language teaching methodologies recommended by the innovated curriculum 2013. 3) developing stage it is the process of generating and validating the learning resources (branch, 2009). this stage involved the making of a product (a textbook). this process included developing the learning inputs (models) and the tasks for every unit with the insertion of images or illustrations that fulfilled the students’ need. the development process also considered the effectiveness and suitability of the product in terms of its readability and feasibility for both the contents and the illustrations. therefore, internal evaluation was necessarily conducted in this stage. due to the time constraint, this study ended up with this stage. in other words, this study only implemented add whereas the ie stages were ignored. 1.3. 2.2. participants the participants of this study were the cluster random samples taken from the population, the students of grade x at darussalam islamic boarding schools at mempawah regency, kalimantan barat. the population consisted of 124 students. since the male-student classes were separated from the female-student classes, one class was randomly taken from of them, 24 students from the malestudent class and 26 students from female-student class. they were invited to participate answering the questionnaires as they would become the users of the textbook. these small samples were supposed to represent the students at this boarding school for their need on the english-speaking materials. it was also in consideration that they might also represent the students from the schools with the same characteristics. in addition, two english teachers were also involved as the participants in this research. they participated to discuss and to reconfirm the need of the textbook for their schools through unstructured interview for validating the usability of the product. 1.4. 2.3. instruments the instruments of data collection used in this study comprised the documents’ review, questionnaires, and unstructured interview (codó, 2008; creswell, 2012). the documents included the available textbooks used in the schools and the syllabus of the curriculum. they were consulted and reviewed as the references to decide the contents and the tasks of the materials design and development. meanwhile, the questionnaires were formerly administered to the students for the need analysis. the questionnaires were constructed based on the students’ preferences to the textbook packaging instead of any permissible needs on the content materials because the content materials should be selected consistently based on the topics mandated by curriculum 2013 and should embed the relevant sociolinguistic contexts as they were the main purpose of this material design. for the choice of the learning activities, particularly, the questions should consider the principles of clt. the validity of the questionnaires was shown by making the specification of the necessary information to be investigated about the students’ preference to the packaging of the textbook performance, as it is shown in table 1. the students’ preferences were indicated by the choices of the statements which were constructed for the details of the aspects. they must choose one best alternative from the three available choices – strongly agree (sa), agree (a), and disagree (da) – from each statement found in the questionnaires. 30 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) table 1. the students’ preference to the packaging of the textbook performance no aspects details 1 textbook appearance size of the textbook hard vs soft copy color (colorful) 2 model of conversation following the topics in the syllabus in the form of texts and pictures in the form of texts and videos the setting only at school the setting only at home other settings 3 coverage of language skills/ features activities in every unit of the textbook vocabulary pronunciat ion grammar listening & watching writing/ reading before/ after speaking performance coverage of learning experience in every unit of the textbook fun learning activities only classroom learning activities outside classroom learning activities only for assignment group work/ pairwork 4 the roleplay preferences in the conversation of informal settings between students new acquaintances teacherstudent between siblings parents children the roleplay preferences in the conversation of formal settings doctorpatient employeremployee sellerbuyer bank officer customer other relation ships simultaneously an unstructured interview was conducted with the english teachers for reconfirming the students’ need on the learning materials as well as for the internal evaluation of the product afterward. the topics of the interview were consistent with the points of the questionnaires since it purported to reconfirm the students’ common need or preferences to the textbook design and the agreement to the detail specification of the three categories of validity (psychological, pedagogical, and content validity) suggested by rubdy (2014). 1.5. 2.4. data analysis procedures since three different instruments were applied for the data collection, the data from each of them were analyzed separately. the results of the document review were analyzed using thematic analysis. whereas, the result of the questionnaires was described and classified based on the students’ preference on the physical appearance of the textbook. additionally, the interview result was analyzed based on the criteria of the suitability of the materials’ contents and tasks based on the teachers’ viewpoints following the principles of clt which also embody the sociolinguistic contexts (lyons, 2014). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 31 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) 3. findings and discussion 1.6. 3.1. findings 1) analyzing stage based on the document of english language teaching syllabus, it is found that innovated curriculum 2013 recommended the teaching topics based on the following language functions and features (see table 2). table 2. the list of the teaching topics based on the innovated curriculum 2013 no language functions linguistic features 1 asking and giving information: personal identity and family relationship personal pronouns (subjective, objective, and possessive) verbs (be, have, go, work, live in simple present tense) 2 congratulating and complimenting (various settings and role-relationship) singular/plural nouns articles demonstrative adjectives 3 asking and giving information about an intention/planning of doing something be going to/ would like to 4 asking and giving information about tourist objects and historical building nouns: parts of building adjectives: size, color, numbers, shape function/purposes of the place 5 asking and giving information about school activities: announcement nouns: based on the activities time and place 6 asking and giving information about something happened in the past simple past tense present perfect tense adverbs of time: since, ago, now meanwhile, based on the need analysis from the students’ preferences to the textbook-packaging appearance and the contents of the textbook materials design, the data are presented based on the following points: (1) the textbook appearance; (2) the model of conversation; (3) the coverage of activities in every unit/chapter; and (4) the role-play preferences (see table 3 – 4). table 3. the textbook appearance respondents (total number: 50) size of the book hard vs soft copy color (colorful) a4/folio ½ of a4 or folio sa a da sa a da sa a da sa a da total answer 9 10 32 25 17 9 14 20 15 40 6 4 (%) 18 20 64 50 34 18 28 40 30 80 12 8 table 4. the model of conversation respon -dents (total number: 50) based on the topic text and pictures text and video setting only at school setting only at home other settings s a a d a s a a d a s a a d a s a a d a s a a d a s a a d a total answer 24 21 4 39 9 2 33 11 6 13 20 16 7 17 25 23 13 14 (%) 48 42 8 78 18 4 66 22 12 26 40 32 14 34 50 46 26 28 from the data in table 3, it is found that the textbook appearance that the students prefer to have, is with the size of ½ of a4 or folio to the larger size. besides, they prefer to have the hard copy of the textbook. however, they also need the soft copy. meanwhile, the data from table 4 shows that more students (48%) strongly agree that the model of conversations should be based on the topics 32 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) recommended by the curriculum. most of them (78%) strongly agree to have the text of conversation models accompanied with pictures as well as the video (66%). more of them also agree that the setting of the conversations should not only be limited to occur at school, but also at home and others. table 5. coverage of activities in every unit/chapter table 6. coverage of activities in every unit/chapter respon d-ents (total numbe r: 50) fun activities only classroom activities outside classroom activities only for assignment group/ pair-work s a a da sa a da s a a da sa a da s a a da total answer 37 12 1 17 14 19 17 16 17 15 12 23 33 17 0 (%) 74 24 2 34 28 38 34 32 34 30 24 46 66 34 0 furthermore, the data in table 5 and table 6 show that more students agree to strongly agree with availability of various integrated activities of the linguistic features, such as vocabulary and grammar learning, and pronunciation with the speaking activities. more of them also agree with the other language skills’ activities in addition to the speaking activities in the textbook. besides, they prefer to have fun activities in the textbook. the activities are not supposed to only for classroom work, but also for homework and most of them prefer having group/work to only having individual work for the learning tasks. table 7. the role-play preferences respondents (total number: 50) between students new acquaintance s teacher – students between siblings parents – children sa a d a s a a da sa a da sa a da sa a da total answer 32 15 3 24 16 10 17 15 18 30 18 2 33 15 2 percentage (%) 64 30 6 48 32 20 34 30 36 60 36 4 66 30 4 the last, from table 7 and table 8 it is found that the students prefer to have more variety of roleplays in the conversation models, such as between doctor-patient, employer-employee, seller-buyer, bank officer-customer, and others to only have the role-play of student-student (between friends), student-teacher, between siblings and parents-children. all the findings from the need analysis stage were taken into consideration for the next stages, the designing stage, and the developing stage. responde nts (total number: 50) vocabulary pronun ciation grammar listening & watching writing before performing s a a da s a a da s a a da s a a d a sa a da total answer 26 15 9 24 18 8 20 16 14 33 14 2 17 19 14 (%) 52 30 18 48 36 16 40 32 28 66 28 4 34 38 28 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 33 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) table 8. the role-play preferences respondents (total number: 50) doctor – patient employer – employee seller – buyer bank officer – customer other rolerelationship s a a da s a a da s a a d a s a a da s a a da total answer 31 17 9 24 13 13 30 15 5 19 16 14 14 36 10 percentage (%) 62 34 18 48 26 26 60 30 10 38 32 28 28 72 20 2) designing stage this stage began with verifying the factors that caused inequality in the learning process and continued with brief designs by following the steps suggested by branch (2009) and aldoobie (2015). in this case, the curriculum (innovated curriculum 2013) mandate, the teacher’s recommendations, and the result of the students’ preferences to the textbook packaging become the references to the english-speaking learning materials design. the product was the learning materials for englishspeaking which were designed into a textbook packaging. it consists of six units. the topic of each unit represents the communicative function of the english language for either the interpersonal or transactional communication by considering the sociolinguistic contexts of the conversations. each unit comprises the following components: (1) learning inputs in the forms of conversation models and the focus of variety of language expressions based on various contexts by considering the aspects of setting, participants, and gender all of which are consistent with the topics of the conversations. in addition, the relevant grammar and pronunciation models are also inserted within the conversation models; (2) communicative tasks for engaging students with their english conversation practices. partly, they are integrated with other language skills’ activities, such as listening, reading, and writing activities, depending on the topics. the tasks include the classroom and homework-tasks as well as individual and groupwork. the most particular, the presentation of each unit is arranged based on the features of clt. therefore, each unit covers the elements of constructivism, modelling, inquiry, questioning, learning community and authentic tasks. for the element of constructivism, it is characterized by various activities such as watching, listening, and reading the given conversations, and continued by identifying the language features found in the conversations and finally trying to act out the conversations. meanwhile, the element of modelling is presented by various models of interpersonal and transactional conversations. they are not only presented in conversation texts but also in videos and accompanied with relevant print-out pictures. the conversation models consider the appropriate sociolinguistic contexts. therefore, they are presented in variety of the conversation settings and the role-relationship of the participants. nevertheless, to be consistent with the topics, and the authenticity of the language use for the students’ daily life, the conversations should dominantly involve the role-relationship between/among students or between/among friends, teacher-students, and parents-children instead of the other rolerelationships. in addition, for the element of inquiry and questioning, the activities are characterized by the work of identifying the meaning and usage of words or expressions, completing sentences or conversations and pronunciation practices. basically, the activities are for the purpose of making the students understand the linguistic features used in the given contexts. the element of learning community is actualized by various tasks assigned for pair-work or group work. finally, the authentic tasks are presented by assigning students to do various activities, such as writing and acting out conversations based on their own situations or experience or writing a relevant text to the topic being discussed based on the student’s own interest, situation, or experience. most of the tasks are assigned by giving them the clues, such as by giving detail instructions, providing pictures, guided questions. the material design can be represented by the layout of each unit (see figure 1). it characterizes and exemplifies the rest of the units in the textbook. 34 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) unit 1 tell me about your family a. constructivism and modelling: observing, reading, and acting out conversations picture of a family conversation models: conversation 1 conversation 2 conversation 3 b. inquiry and questioning: identifying words and expressions 1. learning forms of the verbs from the context below and pronunciation practice 2. completing sentences with the correct form of verb 3. finding meaning of verbs from the context 4. learning the words and expressions provided and reading aloud. c. learning community: working in pair or small group completing and acting out conversations filling the blank spaces of the conversations with correct words or expressions and acting out the conversations in front of the class. conversation 1 conversation 2 d. authentic tasks 2. drawing a family tree 3. writing some paragraphs talking about students’ own extended family. 4. exchanging the information about family with the partner. fig. 1. the layout out of unit 1 in the textbook draft 3) developing stage this stage is the process of generating and validating the learning resources. it involved the process of making of the product come into existence. as it is already mentioned, the product is a textbook draft of english-speaking learning materials. each unit of the learning materials were developed following the stages of ctl approach. it starts with the activities supporting the element of ‘constructivism’ and ‘modelling. in this part, the materials provided pictures or images to observe, texts to read and analyze, and a video to watch and to analyze (see figure 2). the materials were taken from various sources, such as links to images, videos that are relevant to the topics, and the researchers’ own composition for the conversational texts and the video making. for the ‘modelling’ part, some conversation models were provided (see figure 3). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 35 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) fig. 2. the examples of the activities for ‘constructivism and modelling’ part quoted from unit 3 of the textbook. 36 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) fig. 3. the example of ‘conversation model’ part quoted from unit 3 of the textbook draft. almost all the conversational texts in every unit were composed by the researcher cooperating with the english teacher. besides, a video of conversational text model is available in each unit. the conversations were acted out or performed by the students at the islamic boarding school directed by the english teacher and under coordination with the researcher. the learning activities in modelling part were created by providing the activities such as watching the conversation model in the video, reading aloud the conversational-texts, and acting out the conversations. meanwhile, the elements of ‘inquiry’ and ‘questioning’ were also presented in one part. they are developed by providing various activities which mainly for the purpose of identifying words and expressions. they are dealing with vocabulary building, grammar learning, and word choice based on the context. fun activities were alternatively provided in this part (see figure 4). in addition, the element of ‘learning community’ in ctl was inserted by proving some activities which required students to work in pair or in group. they include the practice of completing conversations with correct or appropriate words or expressions. in most parts, the choice of words or expressions was provided. then, it was continued by acting out the conversations in front of the class. for the closing part, the authentic tasks were presented. the tasks were mostly done for homework. they include writing tasks or creating something, like making a conversation video. they should adjust the reality of students’ own communication situation or the context of their life experience. the complete textbook draft is attached as the appendix. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 37 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) fig. 4. ta example of the activities for ‘inquiry and questioning’ part quoted from unit 3 of the textbook draft. finally, to assess the validity of the materials, the internal testing validity was conducted. they were examined by checking or consulting the detail specification of the three categories of validity by rubdy (2014). as a result, both validators agree to almost all the details of the categories. in other words, the learning materials confirmed the category of psychological validity as they have referred to students’ need and goals. they also confirmed the category of pedagogical and content validity as they consistently match the mandate of the innovated curriculum 2013 and the principles of ctl approach which requires communicative competence as the learning goal. they are presented consistently following the elements of ctl approach. these specific learning materials have embedded the sociolinguistic contexts to actualize the achievement of the sociolinguistic competence they include the learning inputs in terms of conversation models in diverse contexts based on the students’ daily life, the communicative tasks are accompanied to expose students with the real use of english in their surroundings. to conclude, the learning materials are valid and should be usable for grade x students of the selected ishs to develop their english-speaking skills, especially for the interpersonal and transactional communication. 3.2. discussion through the add stages, this research and development has produced a textbook draft of englishspeaking learning materials for students of grade x of ishs (ma). the contents are distributed into six units. the topics of all units are selected based on the curriculum mandate, the students’ preferences, and the english teachers’ recommendation. they represent the communicative functions used in both interpersonal and transactional communication. 38 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) the conversation models and practices are created based on the context of the islamic senior high school. they have embedded the sociolinguistic context which specifically characterize the islamic cultural context of communication among the islamic school students with their surrounding peoples. they have responded the recommendations by the previous researchers that it is important to embed the sociolinguistic contexts in conversational learning materials (hidayati, 2022; mede & dililitaş, 2015; susilawati, 2020). the inclusion of the sociolinguistic context in the conversational materials in the textbook can be identified from the variables of topics, settings, and the participants (harmer, 2001; shumin, 2002). to be consistent with the topics mandated by the curriculum, however, the settings of the conversations being presented can only provide the settings of school, house, canteen, mosque, and office. consistently, the participants in the conversations only strictly involve the people in the roleplays for the role-relationship as schoolmates, parents-children, siblings, and colleagues. yet, they have not fulfilled the students’ preferences to having more setting exposures, and more participants with more diverse role-relationship. consequently, the insertion of the sociolinguistic contexts is still limited to the context of the more informal setting which only involve the participants with limited social role-relationship. therefore, the language variety being exposed is only dominated by the usage of english in informal register. in addition, the conversation models and practices include both the text materials and audio-visual materials. however, the text materials are still dominant. the communicative tasks are assigned to engage the students with their real daily communication following the principles of clt. moreover, they also include the tasks for mastering the relevant linguistic features, such as vocabulary and grammar learning as well as pronunciation practices (savignon, 2001; tracy, 2020). overall, the product has confirmed the principles and the framework of material design and development by tomlinson (2012). finally, the result of the internal evaluation has proven that the textbook has fulfilled the three categories of validity, psychological, pedagogical, and content validity. it means that the textbook is usable for the students of the selected ishs and the other school students who have the same characteristics. nevertheless, this study was conducted only limited to the stages of add throughout addie, whereas the stages of ie (implementation and evaluation) are still ignored due to the time constrain. therefore, the last two stages of the research and development should be recommended to support the confirmation of the external validation of the textbook. the last two stages will generate the result of the external validity which will reconfirm the usability of the textbook more convincingly. temporarily, the textbook being produced is only limited to fulfill the need of students of grade x of ishs while the other level of students must also need the same kind of textbook for developing their speaking skills. moreover, the higher the level, the more various sociolinguistic-context exposures can be exposed to. in other words, more relevant textbooks should be developed. 4. conclusion from the findings and discussion, there are two points of conclusion that can be drawn. the first, this research and development has implemented the three stages of the study, called add. the analyzing stage was conducted by reviewing the curriculum mandate, the need analysis on students’ preferences to the textbook packaging, and by considering the teachers’ recommendation on the english-speaking material design. then, the design and the development stages were executed accordingly. as a result, the design of the english-speaking learning materials in all unit of the textbook were presented based on the general principles of learning material design that must include the learning inputs. they provide sociolinguistic context-based conversational models with the insertion of settings and participants’ role-relationship that are relevant to the topics. they consequently generate the dominant use of informal register, though. besides, the communicative tasks were designed accordingly. specifically, they were designed in accordance with the principles of ctl approach, which include the elements of constructivism, modelling, inquiry, questioning, learning community and authentic tasks. these elements were developed into six units. each unit consists of four parts. part a presented constructivism and modelling, part b presented inquiry and questioning, part c presented learning community, and the last, part d presented authentic tasks. the development process has produced a product in the form of english-speaking learning materials for grade x students at ishs which were temporarily packaged in a textbook draft. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 39 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 24-42 susilawati, e. (developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) the second, based on the internal validity testing, the english-speaking learning materials have already fulfilled the criteria of psychological validity, pedagogical validity, and content validity requirements. it means that the textbook should be usable for grade x students at ishs, especially for ishs students at darussalam islamic boarding school. nevertheless, the external validity testing of the usability of the textbook should be conducted through the next stages of a research and development study called ie (implementation and evaluation). therefore, further research should necessarily be recommended to complete the missing part of the current research. moreover, the other development research for developing the same kind of learning materials for grade xi and xii as well as for developing the other english learning materials of integrated language skills should be highly recommended to fulfill the need of the entire english learning materials for ishs students of all grades. acknowlegment i would like to express my great gratitude and appreciation to the chairperson of the institution of research and community services (lppkm) of universitas tanjungpura (untan) pontianak and the dean of fkip untan, who had given their approval to make this research feasible. another high appreciation is also articulated to the chairperson and the headmaster of darussalam islamic boarding school sengkubang mempawah, who had allowed me to do this research in their school as well as the english teachers who had kindly served me during my stay in the boarding school and facilitated me for the data collection. finally, i would like to appreciate the students of grade x, and all the staff and personnel of this boarding school who had participated to provide the data and valuable information that i needed. declaration author contribution: endang susilawati was responsible for the entire research project. she led the writing of the manuscript alone. funding statement: this research is funded by pnbp fkip untan 2023 with the contract no. 9085/un22.6/pm.01.01/2023 conflict of interest: the author declares that she has no competing interests with other parties. ethics declaration: additional information: 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(s) when collecting data. i 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. references agustin, y. 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(developing sociolinguistic context-based english-speaking …..) tracy, s. j. (2020). title: qualitative research methods collecting evidence, crafting analysis, communicating impact. in john wiley and sons, inc. yin, r. k. (2016). qualitative research from start to finish, second edition. in the guilford press. supplementary material a textbook draft as the product of this development research is attached as the supplementary material to the main article manuscript. 1. introduction 2. method 1.2. 2.1. research design 1) analyzing stage 2) designing stage 3) developing stage 1.3. 2.2. participants 1.4. 2.3. instruments 1.5. 2.4. data analysis procedures 3. findings and discussion 1.6. 3.1. findings 1) analyzing stage 2) designing stage 3) developing stage 3.2. discussion 4. conclusion acknowlegment i would like to express my great gratitude and appreciation to the chairperson of the institution of research and community services (lppkm) of universitas tanjungpura (untan) pontianak and the dean of fkip untan, who had given their approval to make ... declaration references english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.13434 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among efl students at burapha university, thailand piyapohn pohnsuriya language institute, burapha university, 169 long had bangsaen rd, saen suk, chonburi 20131, thailand piyaporn.po@go.buu.ac.th a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 15 june 2025 revised 17 july 2025 accepted 4 august 2025 the study aimed to determine the correspondence association between english proficiency and demographic factors of efl students. the sample consisted of 385 non-english major students at burapha university, thailand. the english test scores and demographic factors were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods, the chi-square test, and correspondence analysis. the results showed that english proficiency was not associated with gender. however, the english proficiency level corresponded with the age groups and faculties. moreover, students from high-income families tended to have higher proficiency, while those from moderate-income families tended to have moderate proficiency. parents’ education and occupations also correspond with the english proficiency level. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords english proficiency buu-cet u level demographic association efl learners how to cite: pohnsuriya, p. (2025). a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among efl students at burapha university, thailand. english language teaching educational journal, 8(2), 133-151. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.13434 1. introduction english proficiency is a crucial skill for students in higher education, yet many non-english majors still struggle to develop these skills. a nationwide study on english receptive skills revealed that thai undergraduates scored an average of 342.55 out of 990 on the toeic test, with significant differences observed across gender and major (jehma et al., 2021). despite thailand’s ongoing english education, many non-english major students face challenges such as limited real-world practice, rote-based instruction, and inadequate exposure—especially in rural or under-resourced settings (huttayavilaiphan, 2025). similar to many other universities, burapha university’s students face challenges in achieving english skills. however, there is limited evidence in this specific context, as most studies were focused on foreign students, high school students, or other institutions. as burapha university students come from various backgrounds, demographic are factors are considered to affect their english proficiency. so, this study aims to investigate the factors that may influence the english language proficiency of students who are not majoring in english at burapha university (buu). as english has become an international language, encouraging language skills has become the primary goal in schools’ and universities’ efforts to teach and create a proper learning environment for their students. over the years, english has become one of the critical languages that one should acquire as a survival skill. government and private organizations commonly use the english score as a criterion for recruiting employees (arisa jk, 2018). higher english proficiency could promise career opportunities, high—level job security, and income (prasobnet, 2018). therefore, proficiency among university students, particularly those not majoring in english, should be a concern as they enter the workforce. english could guarantee their success in getting hired and receiving a reasonable salary. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.13434 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:piyaporn.po@go.buu.ac.th http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.13434 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i2.13434&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4611-9934 134 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) the question is what factors could influence their english proficiency and shed light on how to effectively handle efl students. demographic factors, including gender, age, year of study, and faculty, were examined. they can play a crucial role in students’ educational outcomes by trying to understand how they influence academic performance for valuable insights. gender is considered a significant factor that researchers focus on in many aspects of the academic field. in language acquisition, it has been found that men and women use language differently, with women generally being more proficient in language than men (alotaibi, 2024), yet there were no appreciable differences in the autonomous english learning factors between students in the art-english program and those in the science-mathematics program; students in the art-english program were found to have higher autonomous english learning than students in the science-mathematics program (preepool, 2017). however, the choice of faculty in a university can create distinct learning environments and expectations that influence the students’ english performance and scores (azkiyah, 2018). moreover, demographic factors about family status, including parents’ education, occupation, and family income, are also significant circumstances in language acquisition. yahaya et al. (2011) suggested that parents provide two-language learning resources to make a bilingual child, which could be attributed to parental socioeconomic status. the languages in a family are associated with a child’s language proficiency and comprehension (volodina et al., 2021). it was also suggested that the language outcome was influenced by the level of a parent's engagement with the children (varghese & wachen, 2015). however, the social cognitive theory argues that the importance of other parties in society also influences second language acquisition and language proficiency. therefore, family status is highlighted as a significant factor influencing english proficiency in efl students. understanding the key factors that affect language acquisition can lead to the adaptation of practical educational approaches and classroom interactions. there have been many studies that have realized the importance of teacher cognition, which refers to the direct effect of the teacher’s attitude on teaching in the classroom (zheng et al., 2022; chen & abdullah, 2022) as there were problems with the idea of a "one-size-fits-all" classroom, or the teaching that fits everyone without considering the diverse needs of learners (chen & abdullah, 2022). this concept is closely related to the sociocultural theory of vygotsky (1978), which stated that learning is a social process, and a child's home environment provides the main "cultural toolkit" for their language development. moreover, learning was not only an intrapersonal intellectual process but a process that occurs through social interaction via mediation (hughes, 2021). therefore, environmental factors also play a significant role in the acquisition of knowledge. in terms of the english proficiency test, buu-cet u is an exit exam administered by burapha university, as it is considered a standard test of the university that measures students’ english language skills upon entry and before graduation. buu-cet u consists of two parts: the listening and the reading parts, allowing students to demonstrate their language comprehension at the collegiate level. the test score of buu-cet u can also be equivalent to other standard tests, including the cefr (common european framework of reference for languages) and the toeic (test of english for international communication). the score comparison table is shown in table 1 (buuli, 2025). table 1. score comparison of buu-cet u, cefr level, and toeic buu-cet u score buu-cet u level cefr level toeic score 1-20 level 1 a1 120 21-40 level 2 a2~a2+ 170 41-50 level 3 a2+~b1 225 51-60 level 4 b1~b1+ 550 unlike other studies in the area, this research employs correspondence analysis to visually represent the multivariate relationships between language proficiency and demographic factors in a graphical format. this method provides a geometric representation of the rows and columns of a twoway frequency table, aiding in the interpretation of similarities among category levels and the associations between variables (greenacre, 2017). moreover, it focuses specifically on non-english major students at burapha university, reflecting the big picture of the efl students in thailand issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 135 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) (huttayavilaiphan, 2025). the findings of this study are expected to provide practical implications for the development and improvement of english teaching practices in similar educational contexts, thereby filling a research gap in the thai university setting. these can fill in the research gap and develop the education. 2. method the respondents of this research were 385 non-english major undergraduate students at burapha university. taro yamane’s formula was used to calculate the sample size with a margin of error of 0.05, based on an estimated population of 10,000 students who had taken the buu-cet u test in the past three years. the respondents were selected using a simple random sampling method. the instrument used in this study was a questionnaire to collect data, including english proficiency scores, students' buu-cet u results, which they received upon completing the exam, and demographic background information: gender, age, year of study, faculty, family income, father’s education, mother’s education, father’s occupation, and mother’s occupation. the students majoring in english were excluded from the sample to ensure the focus on non-english majors. the validity of the instrument was validated by three experts, with a coefficient of more than 0.5. the reliability was confirmed through a pilot test with 30 non-english major students, with a coefficient of 0.88, which is considered acceptable. the study received ethical approval (hu085/2565(e2)) from the human research ethics committee of burapha university. data collection was conducted after students completed the cuucet u exam, and they were invited to complete the questionnaire. the students were informed about the purpose of the research and asked to provide consent voluntarily. the data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, including frequency and percentage, to summarize the demographic data and english proficiency scores. correspondence analysis, including the chi-square test, was used to assess the associations between variables and to visually represent the relationships between variables, as it displays multidimensional associations in a biplot, facilitating the interpretation of the correspondence between factors and proficiency. 3. finding 3.1. demographic information of the respondents the data collected in this research were from a questionnaire completed by 385 students. the respondents were divided by gender, age group, year of study, and faculty (table 2). based on table 2, the respondents comprised 122 male students (31.7%) and 263 female students (68.3%). there were 72 students (18.7%) lower than 20 years of age, 272 students (70.6%) 20-22 years of age, and 41 students (10.6%) older than 22 years of age. the respondents in the 1st year were 74 students (19.2%), in the 2nd year were 58 students (15.1%), in the 3rd year were 82 students (21.3%), in the 4th year were 157 students (40.8 %), and in the 5th and 6th year were 14 students (3.6%). those respondents are from various faculties, including 18 students from fine and applied arts (4.7%), 39 students from business administration (10.1%), 4 students from tourism management (1%), 59 students from political science (15.3%), 49 students from education (12.7%), 38 students from humanity and social science (9.9%), 5 students from music and performing arts (1.3%), 4 students from geography and geoinformatics (1%), 17 students from science (4.4%) 31 students from logistics (8.1%), 18 students from engineering (4.7%), 16 students from informatics (4.2%), 36 students from sports science (9.4%), 38 students from allied health science (9.9%), 8 students from pharmaceutical sciences (2.1%), and 5 students from nursing (1.3%). 136 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) table 2. personal information of the respondents (n = 385) characteristics category frequency percentage gender male 122 31.7 female 263 68.3 age groups lower than 20 years 72 18.7 20 22 years 272 70.6 higher than 22 years 41 10.6 year of study 1st year 74 19.2 2nd year 58 15.1 3rd year 82 21.3 4th year 157 40.8 5th and 6th year 14 3.6 faculty fine and applied arts 18 4.7 business administration 39 10.1 tourism management 4 1 art group political science 59 15.3 education 49 12.7 humanity and social science 38 9.9 music and performing arts 5 1.3 geography and geoinformatics 4 1 science 17 4.4 science group logistics 31 8.1 engineering 18 4.7 informatics 16 4.2 sports science 36 9.4 health science group allied health sciences 38 9.9 pharmaceutical sciences 8 2.1 nursing 5 1.3 based on table 3, most respondents (222 students) received the buu-cet u level 2, accounting for 57.7%. the other buu-cet u levels received were level 3 (96 students), accounting for 24.9%; level 1 (38 students), accounting for 9.9 %; and level 4 (29 students), accounting for 7.5%, respectively. table 3. buu-cet u level of the respondents (n = 385) buu-cet u level frequency percentage level 1 38 9.9 level 2 222 57.7 level 3 96 24.9 level 4 29 7.5 based on table 4, the family income among the students was mainly 30,000 baht or lower, accounting for 44.9% (173 students). there were 133 families of students who received 30,001-60,000 baht (34.5%), 56 families of students received 60,001-100,000 baht (14.5%), and 23 families of students received more than 100,000 baht (6%). according to the father's education, 242 students (62.9%) whose fathers’ educational degrees were lower than a bachelor’s, 123 students (31.9%) whose fathers received bachelor’s degrees, 17 students (4.4%) whose fathers had a master’s degree, and 3 students (0.8%) whose fathers had a ph.d. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 137 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) according to the mother’s education, there were 254 students (66%) whose mothers’ educational degrees were lower than a bachelor’s degree, 115 students (29.9%) whose mothers received bachelor’s degrees, 15 students (3.9%) whose mothers had a master’s degree, and one student (0.3%) whose mother had ph.d. based on the father’s occupation, 59 students (15.3%) had fathers who were business owners, 69 students (17.9%) had fathers who were government officers, 80 students (20.8%) had fathers who were company employees, 124 students (32.2%) had fathers who were freelancers, 11 students (2.9%) had fathers who were househusbands, and 42 students (10.9%) were fatherless. based on the mother’s occupation, 53 students (13.8%) had mothers who were business owners, 44 students (11.4%) had mothers who were government officers, 77 students (20%) had mothers who were company employees, 132 students (34.3%) had mothers who were freelancers, 68 students (17.7%) had mothers who were housewives, and 11 students (2.9%) were motherless. table 4. family status of the respondents (n = 385) characteristics category frequency percentage family income 30,000 baht and lower (low) 173 44.9 30,001-60,000 baht (moderate) 133 34.5 60,001-100,000 baht (high) 56 14.5 more than 100,000 baht (very high) 23 6.0 father’s education lower than bachelor 242 62.9 bachelor’s degree 123 31.9 master’s degree 17 4.4 ph.d. 3 0.8 mother’s education lower than bachelor 254 66.0 bachelor’s degree 115 29.9 master’s degree 15 3.9 ph.d. 1 0.3 father’s occupation business owner 59 15.3 government/state officer 69 17.9 company employees 80 20.8 freelance 124 32.2 househusband 11 2.9 fatherless 42 10.9 mother’s occupation business owner 53 13.8 government/state officer 44 11.4 company employees 77 20.0 freelance 132 34.3 housewife 68 17.7 motherless 11 2.9 3.2. correspondence association between demographic factors and the buu-cet u level the study inspected the relationship between buu-cet u level and demographic factors, including gender, age, year of study, faculty, family income, father’s education, mother’s education, father’s occupation, and mother’s occupation. the data were statistically analyzed by correspondence analysis, and the results were as follows. 1) correspondence association between the gender group and the buu-cet u level the correspondence analysis results between the gender group, and the buu-cet u level of the respondents showed no association, as indicated by the chi-square test of correspondence analysis (chi-square = 2.41, prob = 0.492). this showed that the buu-cet u score was not associated with the students’ genders. the contingency table and chi-square test for the correspondence analysis of 138 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) the gender group and the buu-cet u level are presented in tables 5 and 6, respectively. it is noted here that the perceptual biplot map cannot be plotted if any dimension (in this case, gender) has only two groups. table 5. contingency table of the gender group and the buu-cet u level gender group frequency of buu-cet u level total level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 male 16 68 28 10 122 female 22 154 68 19 263 total 38 222 96 29 385 table 6. correspondence analysis of the gender group and the buu-cet u level dimension singular value inertia chi-square prob. (df=3) percent of inertia account for cumulative 1 0.079 0.006 2.41 100 100 total 0.006 2.41 0.492 100 2) correspondence association between the age group and the buu-cet u level according to the correspondence analysis between age group and buu-cet u level, illustrated in tables 7 and 8, the chi-square value equaled 10.75 (p = 0.096). it is implied that the null hypothesis was accepted with a statistical significance of 0.05. there was no correspondence between the age group and the buu-cet u level. it was also found that dimensions 1 and 2 could explain the trend, accounting for 100% of the inertia (table 8). once the data were plotted into a biplot graph, the trend position of the association between the two variables, as shown in fig. 1, indicated that the buu-cet u level 4 tended to associate with the age group of more than 22 years. while the age group of 20-22 years tended to closely associate with the buu-cet u level 3, and the age group lower than 20 years tended to closely associate with the buu-cet u level 1 (fig. 1). table 7. contingency table of the age group and the buu-cet u level age group frequency of buu-cet u level total level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 lower than 20 10 43 16 3 72 20 22 years 27 154 72 19 272 higher than 22 1 25 8 7 41 total 38 222 96 29 385 table 8. correspondence analysis of the age group and the buu-cet u level dimension singular value inertia chi-square prob. (df=6) percent of inertia account for cumulative 1 0.159 0.025 9.74 90.6 90.6 2 0.051 0.003 1.01 9.4 100 total 0.028 10.75 0.096 100 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 139 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) fig. 1. correspondence analysis biplot showing the association position of the age group and the buu-cet u level 3) correspondence association between the year of study and the buu-cet u level an analysis of the correspondence between the year of study and the buu-cet u level of burapha university students, as displayed in tables 9 and 10, found that the chi-square value equaled 37.19 (prob. = 0.0002). the results implied that the null hypothesis was rejected at a significance level of 0.01, indicating a significant association between buu-cet u level and the year of study. it was found that dimensions 1 and 2 could explain 90.02% of the inertia (table 10). the biplot graph was plotted with dimensions 1 and 2 of the association position of the two variables. fig. 2 stated that level 4 corresponded most with 5th-year and 6th-year students, with a strong association. level 3 had the most correspondence with 2nd-year students. level 2 had the most correspondence with students in years 1, 3, and 4, exhibiting a weak association, as their positions were close to the origin (fig. 2). table 9. contingency table of the year of study and the buu-cet u level year of study frequency of buu-cet u level total level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 1st year 12 46 11 5 74 2nd year 7 23 25 3 58 3rd year 10 54 15 3 82 4th year 9 94 40 14 157 5&6th year 0 5 5 4 14 total 38 222 96 29 385 table 10. correspondence analysis of the year of study and the buu-cet u level dimension singular value inertia chi-square prob. (df=12) percent of inertia account for cumulative 1 0.240 0.057 22.11 59.44 59.44 2 0.172 0.030 11.37 30.58 90.02 3 0.098 0.010 3.71 9.98 100 total 0.097 37.19 0.0002 100 140 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) fig. 2. correspondence analysis biplot showing the association position of the year of study and the buucet u level 4) correspondence association between the faculty group and the buu-cet u level the study divided faculties into three groups: art, science, and health science. art faculties included fine and applied arts, business administration, tourism management, political science, education, humanities and social science, and music and performing arts. science faculties included geography and geoinformatics, science, logistics, engineering, informatics, and sports science. health science faculties included allied health sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, and nursing. therefore, in the correspondence analysis between the faculty group and the buu-cet u level, as shown in tables 11 and 12, it was found that the chi-square value equaled 27.11 (prob. = 0.0001), which rejected the null hypothesis at a significant level of 0.01. there was an association between the buu-cet u level and the faculty groups. according to the correspondence analysis, dimensions 1 and 2 could explain the relationship with 100% of the inertia (table 12). when the biplot graph was plotted to show the association position of the two variables, as shown in fig. 3, it was found that the health science faculty group had the most correspondence with the buu-cet u level 4, with a significant association, since their positions were far from the origin. the science faculty group had the most correspondence association with the buu-cet u level 2. the art faculty group tended to associate more with buu-cet u level 1 since they both had an acute angle from the origin (fig. 3). table 11. contingency table of the faculty group and the buu-cet u level faculty group frequency of buu-cet u level total level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 art 24 119 56 13 212 science 14 81 21 6 122 health science 0 22 19 10 51 total 38 222 96 29 385 table 12. correspondence analysis of the faculty group and the buu-cet u level dimension singular value inertia chi-square prob. (df=6) percent of inertia account for cumulative 1 0.254 0.064 24.80 91.47 91.47 2 0.078 0.006 2.31 8.53 100 total 0.070 27.11 0.0001 100 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 141 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) fig. 3. correspondence analysis biplot showing the association position of the faculty group and the buucet u level 5) correspondence association between the family income level and the buu-cet u level according to tables 13 and 14, the results of the correspondence analysis between the family income level and the buu-cet u level of burapha university students showed that the chi-square value equaled 12.30 (prob. = 0.197), indicating that the null hypothesis was accepted. it was implied that there was no significant association between the student’s family income and buu-cet u level, with dimensions 1 and 2 accounting for 98.51% of the inertia (table 14). however, according to the biplot perceptual graph (fig. 4), students from high-income families tended to have high buu-cet u scores at level 4, and students from moderate-income families tended to have moderate buu-cet u scores at level 2. table 13. contingency table of the family income level and the buu-cet u level family income level frequency of buu-cet u level total level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 low 21 104 39 9 173 moderate 13 80 30 10 133 high 2 28 19 7 56 very high 2 10 8 3 23 total 38 222 96 29 385 table 14. correspondence analysis of the family income level and the buu-cet u level dimension singular value inertia chi-square prob. (df=9) percent of inertia account for cumulative 1 0.172 0.029 11.32 92.06 92.06 2 0.045 0.002 0.79 6.45 98.51 3 0.022 0.001 0.18 1.49 100 total 0.032 12.30 0.197 100 142 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) fig. 4. correspondence analysis biplot showing the association position of the family income level and the buu-cet u level 3.2.6 correspondence association between the father’s education level and the buu-cet u level according to the results of the correspondence analysis between the father’s education level and the buu-cet u level of students at burapha university in tables 15 and 16, it was found that the chisquare value equaled 29.04 (prob. = 0.001), which meant that it accepted the alternative hypothesis with a significance level of 0.01. it was implied that there was an association between the father’s education and the buu-cet u level, with dimensions 1 and 2 accounting for 99.95% of the inertia (table 16). when the biplot graph was plotted to show the association position of the two variables, as shown in fig. 5, it was found that students whose fathers had a master’s degree had the most correspondence with the buu-cet u level 4. those with a bachelor’s degree had the most correspondence with the buu-cet u level 3. those with education below a bachelor’s degree were most closely aligned with the buu-cet u level 2 and level 1 (fig. 5). table 15. contingency table of the father’s education level and the buu-cet u level father’s education level frequency of buu-cet u level total level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 lower than bachelor 27 146 57 12 242 bachelor’s degree 11 65 37 10 123 master’s degree 0 9 2 6 17 ph.d. 0 2 0 1 3 total 38 222 96 29 385 table 16. correspondence analysis of the father’s education level and the buu-cet u level dimension singular value inertia chi-square prob. (df=9) percent of inertia account for cumulative 1 0.260 0.067 25.93 89.29 89.29 2 0.090 0.008 3.06 10.66 99.95 3 0.006 0.000 0.01 0.05 100 total 0.075 29.04 0.001 100 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 143 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) fig. 5. correspondence analysis biplot showing the association position of the father’s education level and the buu-cet u level 6) correspondence association between the mother’s education and the buu-cet u level according to the results of the correspondence analysis between the mother's education and the buu-cet u level of students of burapha university, as displayed in tables 17 and 18, it was found that the chi-square value equaled 18.12 (prob. = 0.034), which meant that it accepted the alternative hypothesis with the significance level of 0.05. it was implied that there was an association between the mother’s education level and buu-cet u level, with dimensions 1 and 2 accounting for 91.7% of the inertia (table 18). when the biplot graph was plotted to show the association between the two variables, as shown in fig. 6, it was found that students whose mothers held doctoral degrees did not correspond with any buu-cet u level. however, those with a bachelor's degree had the most correspondence with the buu-cet u level 1 and level 3, and those with a lower degree than a bachelor's degree had the most correspondence with the buu-cet u level 2. it was also found that students whose mothers got master's degrees tended to associate with buu-cet u level 2 (fig. 6). table 17. contingency table of the mother’s education level and the buu-cet u level mother’s education level frequency of buu-cet u level total level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 lower than bachelor 28 149 60 17 254 bachelor’s degree 10 62 34 9 115 master’s degree 0 11 2 2 15 ph.d. 0 0 0 1 1 total 38 222 96 29 385 table 18. correspondence analysis of the mother’s education level and the buu-cet u level dimension singular value inertia chi-square prob. (df=9) percent of inertia account for cumulative 1 0.187 0.035 13.48 74.43 74.43 2 0.090 0.008 3.14 17.30 91.73 3 0.062 0.004 1.50 8.27 100 total 0.047 18.118 0.034 100 144 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) fig. 6. correspondence analysis biplot showing the association position of the mother’s education level and the buu-cet u level 7) correspondence association between the father’s occupation and the buu-cet u level according to the correspondence analysis between the father’s occupation and the buu-cet u level of students at burapha university, as shown in tables 19 and 20, the chi-square value was 21.33 (prob. = 0.127), indicating that the null hypothesis was accepted. it was implied that there was no association between the father’s occupation and buu-cet u level, with dimensions 1 and 2 accounting for 97.26% of the inertia (table 20). however, according to the perceptual biplot in fig. 7, it was revealed that students whose fathers were freelancers tended to associate closely with buu-cet u level 2, while those whose fathers were company employees tended to associate with level 3. table 19. contingency table of the father’s occupation and the buu-cet u level father’s occupation frequency of buu-cet u level total level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 business owner 7 27 20 5 59 gov./state officer 6 42 10 11 69 company employee 8 42 26 4 80 freelancer 13 77 26 8 124 steward 1 8 2 0 11 fatherless 3 26 12 1 42 total 38 222 96 29 385 table 20. correspondence analysis of the father’s occupation and the buu-cet u level dimension singular value inertia chi-square prob. (df=15) percent of inertia account for cumulative 1 0.193 0.037 14.40 67.52 67.52 2 0.128 0.016 6.34 29.75 97.26 3 0.039 0.002 0.58 2.74 100 total 0.055 21.33 0.127 100 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 145 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) fig. 7. correspondence analysis biplot showing the association position of the father’s occupation and the buu-cet u level 8) correspondence association between the mother’s occupation and the buu-cet u level according to the correspondence analysis between the mother’s occupation and the buu-cet u level of students at burapha university, as shown in tables 21 and 22, it was suggested that the chisquare value equaled 29.42 (prob. = 0.014), which means that it accepted the alternative hypothesis at the significance level 0.05. it was implied that there was an association between the mother’s occupation and buu-cet u level, with dimensions 1 and 2 accounting for 93.65% of the inertia (table 22). when the biplot graph was plotted to show the association position of the two variables, as shown in fig. 8, it was found that students whose mothers were housewives had the most correspondence with the buu-cet u level 2 and level 4, and those whose mothers worked for private companies or were business owners had the most correspondence with the buu-cet u level 3. the buu-cet u level 1 did not tend to correspond with any mother’s occupation (fig. 8). table 21. contingency table of the mother’s occupation and the buu-cet u level mother’s occupation frequency of buu-cet u level total level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 business owner 3 30 18 2 53 gov./state officer 3 32 6 3 44 company employee 5 39 27 6 77 freelancer 18 79 24 11 132 housewife 6 40 15 7 68 motherless 3 2 6 0 11 total 38 222 96 29 385 table 22. correspondence analysis of the mother’s occupation and the buu-cet u level dimension singular value inertia chi-square prob. (df=15) percent of inertia account for cumulative 1 0.223 0.050 19.18 65.18 65.18 2 0.147 0.022 8.38 28.47 93.65 3 0.070 0.005 1.87 6.35 100 total 0.076 29.42 0.014 100 146 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) fig. 8. correspondence analysis biplot showing the association position of the mother’s occupation and the buu-cet u level 4. discussion 4.1. gender according to the correspondence analysis, no association was found between the buu-cet u level and the gender groups. the results agreed with the study by rianto (2021) and liu (2015), which found no gender difference in online english proficiency. in contrast, rianto (2021) reported that female students used reading strategies more frequently and creatively than male students and adopted support strategies more often than males. similarly, pei & pamintuan (2024) and al-saadi (2020) argued that females generally demonstrated better english proficiency than male students in speaking and writing. as this study found that this was not the case, it implies that teachers may not need to focus on gender as much. however, the probable reason for the results could be the balance of students in different faculties and the ratio of males to females in each. therefore, the issue should not be dropped entirely when conducting research or designing a classroom. 4.2. age the correspondence biplot for age and year of study clearly showed that the older students and those with a longer year of study had higher english proficiency. it is consistent with the study of serquina & batang (2018), who concluded that as age increases, proficiency progresses. the reason might be that the students had taken english courses throughout the program, enhancing their skills. a study confirmed that students’ english skills improved significantly during their freshman and sophomore years due to the intensive courses (tsui, 2024). however, with a narrow gap in age and year of study, relevant research focusing on these issues was scarce, yet it was logical that this was the case. 4.3. faculty groups according to the faculty group, it was highly associated with english proficiency. the health science faculty group was closely associated with high english proficiency. these results are in line with the study of azkiyah (2018), who showed that the students in the faculty of medicine achieved the highest english proficiency among the 12 faculties, and another study supporting these results indicated that students from the faculty of medicine received the highest score (azkiyah et al., 2023). however, din & saeed (2018) argued that the faculty did not have an effect on english proficiency, but instead only had an impact on academic achievement. as the health science faculty group is issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 147 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) highly competitive for entering the university in thailand, students must achieve relatively high scores to be accepted into the major. moreover, the textbooks used were generally in english. as a result, the students in the field might have been more familiar with the language than the art faculty group students, and tend to acquire better english performance. 4.4. family income according to the family income aspect, students from high-income families were closely associated with high english proficiency. as a result, the higher the family’s income, the higher the students’ english performance tended to be (fortes et al., 2022; nguyen et al., 2021), as the family’s income level could indicate how much parents can provide a suitable environment and support for their children (baker, 2014). language opportunities and the time involvement of both fathers and mothers are factors that shaped children’s language outcomes, and the family that supported, including providing an english environment, had influenced children’s foreign language learning (triwittayayon & sarobol, 2018). however, some believed that learning should not only start in a family but also at school and in the community (nafrizam & jamaluddin, 2023). this is where the teacher's role comes in. despite their background, opportunities, and learning environment, the students must also be aware that they are the main factor in their learning progress. they must also find their own motivation to improve and succeed (yen et al., 2019). this is where the teacher’s role steps in, helping and supporting students with positive attitudes, recognizing that there is no "onesize-fits-all" classroom without considering the diverse needs of learners (chen & abdullah, 2022). the teacher can become the missing piece to help students fulfill their motivation and enhance their language skills. 4.5. parental education level in this study, parental education level, particularly for the father, has an impact on students' english performance. fortes et al. (2022) agreed with the results that the higher the parents’ degree, the better the academic performance and english proficiency of the students. likewise, baker (2013) and duursma et al. (2008) confirmed that the father’s educational level influences the children’s literacy, and pei and pamintuan (2024) also found that the father’s education level has a more significant influence than the mother’s. this is the case because educated parents can create a language-rich environment by engaging in english conversations, reading english books, exploring vocabulary, assisting with homework, and supporting educational resources (ntabwoba & sikubwabo, 2024). parents tended to encourage their children to pursue english when they recognized the importance of the language (rahman, 2016). thus, higher education could help them realize the importance of learning in general and the value of learning languages. 4.6. parental occupation the results showed that the parental occupation was associated with english proficiency. although the parental occupations did not show a significant difference in students at a lower level of education (trebits et al., 2021), fortes et al. (2022) supported that parents’ jobs in high social status positively affect their children’s language performance, as they recognize the importance of the english language as a tool to widen their world. pratomo et al. (2016) suggested that children’s development is highly influenced by their mothers’ occupation, especially those who work as housewives, due to the amount of time spent with them, indicating that nurture plays a role in language development. this is consistent with the current study, which found that students whose mothers were housewives were associated with a high level of proficiency. moreover, farah (2018) suggested that occupations with high social status led to less financial stress for families and had a positive impact on children in the long run, which agrees with the result that students whose parents worked as company employees, which is considered to have good earnings, received relatively high proficiency levels in this study. overall, as vygotsky (1978) suggested, learning is a social process, and the home environment serves as a primary "cultural toolkit" for a child's linguistic development. parents with higher levels of education or in certain professions may not only possess a more sophisticated vocabulary but also actively engage in their children's learning. so, the child would majorly benefit from their background. however, the improvement in a student's language proficiency at any level relies on the role of teacher cognition; a teacher's beliefs, knowledge, and practices are critical factors that can reinforce the effects of a student’s home background (borg, 2006). for instance, a teacher who believes that a student's background is connected to their ability may unknowingly lower their expectations and create a compromising teaching method that fits, considering the diverse needs of learners (chen & abdullah, 148 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 133-151 pohnsuriya, p. (a correspondence analysis of english proficiency and demographic factors among…..) 2022). by integrating these theoretical aspects, we can propose actionable strategies to improve english outcomes for efl learners. 4. conclusion this study revealed that demographic factors affected the english proficiency of efl students at burapha university, thailand. a perceptual map of the correspondence analysis displayed the closeness of each factor's level to students' english proficiency level, in addition to the general associations. older age groups and higher years of study were associated with students achieving higher english proficiency levels. students from high-income families tended to have the highest english proficiency level. parental education and occupation were also found to be associated with english proficiency. this study is therefore helpful for teachers to anticipate students’ proficiency levels in relation to different demographic factors, enabling them to effectively plan teaching methods that suit the diverse needs of learners, and guide further development of efl learners to achieve higher english language proficiency. this, in turn, will help fill a research gap in the thai university setting and the broader educational field. acknowledgment the researcher would like to thank the participating students for providing information for this research. i would also like to thank the staff and executives of the language institute at burapha university for facilitating the completion of this research. declarations author contribution : piyapohn pohnsuriya is the sole author and is fully responsible for this article. funding statement : this research was not funded by any agency. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflict of interest. ethics declaration : the author confirms that this work is written based on the research ethics principles and under the regulations of burapha university and received permission from the university during the data collection. i support 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. references al-saadi, z. 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(2022). mapping research on second language writing teachers: a review on teacher cognition, practices, and expertise. system, 109(102870), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2022.102870 https://doi.org/10.1080/01494929.2015.1099587 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2021.101973 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11793788.pdf https://doi.org/0.22144/ctu.jen.2019.007 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2022.102870 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 79-89 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11662 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id students’ perceptions and challenges in using writing outlines to write an exposition r. yohanes radjabana, 1,*, eko setyo humanikab, 2 a, b yogyakarta university of technology, jl. siliwangi no 1, jombor, mlati, sleman, yogyakarta, indonesia 1 ry.radjaban@uty.ac.id*; 2 eko.humanika@uty.ac.id a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 20 june 2024 revised 25 july 2024 accepted 2 august 2024 problems in developing writing often comes from creative processes in developing ideas to write. outlines are often recommended as a tool to help students organize their thoughts and structure their writing. this study aims to find out students’ perceptions and the challenges the students encountered when writing an exposition text using provided outlines among the students of english department of uty. this study used mixed method approaches. questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were applied to collect data. respondents of this study were 20 students (10 males and 10 females) from second year students of english literature department of yogyakarta university of technology academic year 2023-2024, and through a purposive random sampling technique. a questionnaire was used to figure out students' perceptions, and semi-structured interviews were conducted to find out the challenges encountered by students when writing an exposition text using provided outlines. nine respondents (6 females and 3 male) were selected in the interview session based on their scores, they were four students with the highest scores, three students with middle scores, and two students with low scores to be interviewed. the semi-structured interview data were analyzed qualitatively using the interactive model. the results of this study show that most students agreed that outlines help them write exposition texts, with 80% agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement “the outline helps me write an exposition text.” however, students also reported three challenges, difficulty in developing connections between theory and research topics, with 60% indicating they found this aspect challenging, 55% found it challenging to translate their outlines into coherent exposition texts, and 30% students indicated a lack of confidence in their ability to use outlines effectively. this learning model may help students participate, engage, and enhance their confidence in writing exposition texts, and lecturers are aware of the importance of targeted instructional strategies, such as providing more examples and practice opportunities for developing connections between theory and research topics. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords writing outlines perceptions challenges expositions texts how to cite: radjaban, r.y., & humanika, e. s. (2024). students’ perceptions and challenges in using writing outlines to write an exposition. english language teaching educational journal, 7 (2), 79-89. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11662 1. introduction writing is a fundamental skill in academic settings, and exposition writing, in particular, requires students to present ideas clearly and logically. the ability to write effectively is a crucial skill for students, particularly in the context of academic writing. one of the key strategies to enhance writing skills is the use of outlines, which serve as a blueprint for organizing ideas and structuring texts. to https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11662 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:ry.radjaban@uty.ac.id* mailto:eko.humanika@uty.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11662 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11662&domain=pdf 80 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 79-89 radjaban, r.y., & humanika, e. s. (students’ perceptions and challenges in using writing.....) the writers’ experience, students fail to include coherent ideas in writing exposition texts of which one of the causes is assumed to be the absence of outlines. this encourages the writers to conduct research related to this problem. this paper explores students’ perceptions and challenges in using outlines to develop exposition texts, a genre that requires clear and logical presentation of information. expository writing, as defined by butterfuss et al. (2024), involves the clear and focused communication of ideas, moving from general to specific and abstract to concrete. the use of outlines in this context can significantly aid in organizing thoughts and ensuring coherence in writing. according to butterfuss et al. (2024), recognizing and utilizing text structures, such as outlines, enhances students’ ability to comprehend and recall information. however, despite these benefits, students often face challenges in effectively using outlines, which can impact their writing performance. the theoretical framework for this study is grounded in the works of sun et al (2022) who emphasize the importance of text structure knowledge in improving reading and writing skills. sun et al (2022) further argue that familiarity with text structures allows students to approach writing with a clear plan, thereby improving their overall writing quality. this study aims to investigate the perceptions of students regarding the use of outlines in writing exposition texts and to identify the challenges they encounter. the scope of the study includes an analysis of students’ attitudes towards outlining, the difficulties they face in the outlining process, and the impact of these challenges on their writing outcomes. by understanding these aspects, educators can develop more effective instructional strategies to support students in their writing endeavors. the use of outlines in writing instruction has been extensively studied, with numerous researchers highlighting its benefits and challenges. outlining is a prewriting strategy that helps writers organize their thoughts and structure their texts logically. according to ponce et al (2023) outlining can reduce cognitive load by allowing writers to focus on generating content rather than organizing it simultaneously. this cognitive offloading is particularly beneficial for novice writers who may struggle with the complexities of writing. several studies have demonstrated the positive impact of outlining on writing quality. butterfuss et al (2024) found that students who used outlines produced more coherent and well-structured texts compared to those who did not. similarly, sun et al (2022) argue that familiarity with text structures, facilitated by outlining, enhances both reading comprehension and writing performance. outlining helps students to see the overall structure of their texts, making it easier to identify gaps in their arguments and ensure logical flow. regarding the importance of text structure, tolchinsky (2019) highlights the crucial role of a clear outline in producing coherent and well-structured writing. discussions on structured strategies to develop writing skills have received massive attention from experts. kuiper et al (2022) emphasize that using scaffolding and structured methods can improve students’ writing skills. cooney et al (2021) suggest that structured strategies can improve their writing skills. ballin (2022) adds that applying structured approaches, such as using outlines, helps students organize their thoughts in developing their skills since writing is an activity that needs intentional designs. when it is planned and prepared well it will give a better outcome. in more extended coverage, sosa (2020) proposes that integrated experiential education, including structured approaches, like outlines, helps in organizing and enhancing student learning experiences. more specifically, alice et al (2020) argue that experiential learning theories can guide educators in using structured methods, such as outlines, to improve the learning process. they mention that practices using outlines not only improve students’ writing skills but also improve the whole learning process. it is supported by kim (2019) since exposure to structured information can improve understanding and engagement, which parallels the benefits of using outlines to organize thoughts and arguments. despite its benefits, students often face challenges in effectively using outlines. wolters and brady (2021) note that some students find outlining to be a time-consuming and tedious process. additionally, students may struggle with translating their outlines into full texts, particularly if they lack confidence in their writing abilities. according to nelson and king (2023), the process of transforming an outline into a coherent text requires significant cognitive effort, which can be daunting for less experienced writers. zhai et al (2024) found that students may become overly reliant on their outlines, which can lead to a lack of flexibility in their writing. this can make it difficult to adapt to new ideas or directions that emerge during the writing process. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 81 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 79-89 radjaban, r.y., & humanika, e. s. (students’ perceptions and challenges in using writing.....) research on students’ perceptions of outlining reveals mixed attitudes. some students recognize the value of outlining in improving their writing, while others view it as an unnecessary step. a study by yüksel et al (2024) found that students who received explicit instruction in outlining were more likely to appreciate its benefits and use it effectively. conversely, students who were not taught how to outline properly often viewed it as an additional burden rather than a helpful tool. anissa et al (2023) mentioned that some students found it difficult to master writing skills, especially in exposition text, and examines the effectiveness of problem-based learning methods in improving these skills, like the use of outline. guerrero and wiley (2021) stated that providing insights into the cognitive challenges students face in developing expository text is paramount, despite its benefits. the structure of expository texts can significantly influence students’ comprehension and writing performance. hebert et al. (2021) conducted a meta-analysis on expository text structure interventions and found that teaching students to recognize and use text structures, such as outlines, improved their comprehension and writing outcomes. this suggests that outlining can be a powerful tool in helping students organize their thoughts and present their ideas clearly. alnefaie (2023) presents that outlines help efl students organize their thoughts and improve their writing proficiency in expository texts, especially for levels five and nine, after being exposed to several outline development examples. further, alnefaie explained the importance of intensive exposure to the use of outline for explanatory text before they are accustomed to using outline for their expository text development. in addition to outlining, other prewriting strategies such as brainstorming, clustering, and freewriting have been explored in the literature. each of these strategies offers unique benefits and challenges. for instance, brainstorming allows for the rapid generation of ideas without concern for organization, which can be useful for overcoming writer’s block. clustering helps students visually map out their ideas and see connections between them. freewriting encourages continuous writing without self-editing, which can help students develop their thoughts more freely. sun et al (2024) proposed that comparing these strategies with outlining can provide a more comprehensive understanding of how different prewriting techniques can be utilized in writing instruction. the literature suggests that effective instruction in outlining can significantly enhance students’ writing skills. educators should provide clear guidance on how to create and use outlines, emphasizing their role in organizing ideas and improving text coherence. additionally, incorporating an outline into regular writing practice can help students develop this skill and integrate it into their writing process. garcia and thompson (2023) emphasizes the need for a comprehensive writing process, including the application of an outlining procedure, to develop an expository text; otherwise, the result will be unsatisfying. like gracia, williams and davis (2020) proposes the benefits of using outlines as a pre-writing strategy to enhance the overall structure and clarity of expository texts. exploring gender differences in the use of outlining and other prewriting strategies can provide valuable insights into how male and female students approach writing tasks. research indicates that there may be differences in how students of different genders perceive and utilize these strategies, which can impact their writing outcomes. understanding these differences can help educators tailor their instruction to better meet the needs of all students. 2. methods participants in this study were 20 students of english literature department of uty who enrolled in an english writing class. this study employs a mixed-methods approach to investigate students’ perceptions and challenges in using outlines to develop exposition texts. the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods allows for a comprehensive analysis of the research questions, providing both breadth and depth to the findings. a structured questionnaire was designed to gather quantitative data on students’ perceptions of using outlines. the questionnaire includes likert-scale items to measure students’ attitudes towards outlining, their perceived benefits, and the challenges they face. this instrument provides a broad overview of the general trends and patterns in students’ perceptions. semi-structured interviews were conducted with a subset of 9 students to gain deeper insights into their experiences with outlining. the interviews provided qualitative data that complemented the quantitative findings from the questionnaires. the interview questions focused on students’ personal 82 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 79-89 radjaban, r.y., & humanika, e. s. (students’ perceptions and challenges in using writing.....) experiences, specific challenges, and suggestions for improving the use of outlines in writing instruction. students were asked to produce exposition texts with and without the use of outlines. these writing samples were analyzed to assess the impact of outlining on writing quality, coherence, and organization. this component of the study provided concrete examples of how outlining influences students’ writing. the questionnaire data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to summarize students’ perceptions. inferential statistics, such as t-tests and anova, were used to examine differences in perceptions based on proficiency levels, gender, and other demographic variables. this analysis helped identify significant trends and differences within the student population. the interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis. this involved coding the data to identify recurring themes and patterns related to students’ experiences with outlining. thematic analysis, as described by byrne (2022), involves six steps: familiarization with the data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the report. this method provided a nuanced understanding of the challenges and benefits perceived by students. the writing samples were evaluated using a rubric that assessed various aspects of writing quality, including coherence, organization, and clarity. comparisons were made between texts produced with and without outlines to determine the effectiveness of outlining as a prewriting strategy. this analysis provided empirical evidence of the impact of outlining on writing performance. ethical approval was obtained from the relevant institutional review board. informed consent was obtained from all participants, and they were assured of the confidentiality and anonymity of their responses. participants were also informed of their right to withdraw from the study at any time without any consequences. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. findings most students agreed that outlines help them write exposition texts, with 80% agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement “the outline helps me write an exposition text.” however, students also reported challenges, such as difficulty in developing connections between theory and research topics, with 60% indicating they found this aspect challenging. the quantitative data from the questionnaires were analyzed to understand students’ perceptions and challenges in using outlines. the key findings are summarized in figure 1 and figure 2: data also mention that 80% of students agreed or strongly agreed that outlining helps them organize their thoughts and improve the coherence of their exposition texts, whereas 20% of students found outlining to be time-consuming and tedious. on challenges using outlines, 60% of students reported difficulty in developing connections between theory and research topics, 55% found it challenging to translate their outlines into coherent exposition texts, and 30% students indicated a lack of confidence in their ability to use outlines effectively. perceptions of outlining challenges in using outlines positive perceptions: 80% difficulties in developing connections: 60% negative perceptions: 20% translating outlines into full text: 55% lack of confidence: 30% issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 83 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 79-89 radjaban, r.y., & humanika, e. s. (students’ perceptions and challenges in using writing.....) fig. 1.students’ perceptions of outlining fig. 2.students’ challenges in using outlines to provide a clearer picture, let’s look at some statistical calculations: mean and standard deviation of students’ perceptions on a likert scale (1 to 5): positive perceptions: mean = 4.2, sd = 0.8 negative perceptions: mean = 2.1, sd = 1.0 t-test comparing perceptions between male and female students: male students: mean = 3.8, sd = 0.9 female students: mean = 4.1, sd = 0.7 t-test result: t (98) = 1.96, p < 0.05 (indicating a significant difference in perceptions between genders) the qualitative data from the interviews provided deeper insights into the challenges students face: 1. many students expressed that they had difficulty in developing connections between theory and research topics. one student mentioned, “i often don’t know how to connect between theory and the research topics, and it ends up being a mess.” many students reported difficulties in logically connecting their ideas when using an outline. one student mentioned, “i find it hard to connect my ideas logically when using an outline.” another student highlighted the challenge of linking theory to their research topic, stating, “i have difficulty linking theory to my research topic using an outline.” these responses suggest that while outlines are intended to help organize thoughts, some students struggle with the logical flow and integration of their ideas. 2. students reported difficulty in expanding their outlines into full texts. a common sentiment was, “i can make an outline, but turning it into a complete essay is really hard for me.” some students felt that outlines, although beneficial for staying on topic, could be restrictive. one student noted, “using an outline makes it easier to stay on topic, but sometimes i feel restricted.” this suggests a tension between the structure provided by outlines and the flexibility students desire in their writing process. some students felt that outlines limited their creativity. one student commented, “i feel that outlines limit my creativity because i have to stick to a predefined structure.” this indicates a tension between the structured approach of outlines and the flexibility students desire in their writing process. 3. several students highlighted the need for more guidance and practice in using outlines. one student suggested, “it would be helpful if we had more examples and step-by-step instructions on how to use outlines effectively.” students also reported confusion about the level of detail required in their outlines. one student mentioned, “i often get confused about how detailed 60 55 30 students challenges in using outlines difficulty in developing connections between theory and research topics difficulty in expanding their outlines into full texts 80 200 20 40 60 80 100 positive negative students perceptions of outlining percentage 84 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 79-89 radjaban, r.y., & humanika, e. s. (students’ perceptions and challenges in using writing.....) my outline should be, which affects my writing process.” this claim reflects the need for clearer guidelines on how to create effective outlines. 3.2.discussion the findings indicate that while a majority of students recognize the benefits of outlining, significant challenges remain. the positive perceptions align with previous research by butterfuss et al. (2024), which found that outlining improves text coherence and organization. like butterfuss et al. (2024), other experts, johnson and lee (2022) found that the use of outlines helps students maintain coherence and cohesion in their writing, leading to higher-quality expository essays. however, the challenges identified, such as difficulty in creating and translating outlines, suggest that additional instructional support is needed. kramer (2021) proposes that an outline acts as the foundation for completed writing, serving as a guide to incorporate personal insights and ideas. another expert, caulfield (2020), argues that outline helps students maintain a clear focus on their main argument, leading to higher quality expository texts. like the previous experts, parker (2020) conducted a study showing that using outlines aided students in enhancing their critical and analytical thinking abilities. in the case of academic writing, li et al. (2024) found that using structured approaches, such as outlining, improves the clarity and coherence of academic writing. wiseman (2023) adds that outline also gives practical benefits to learning. the use of outline makes structured educational methods more effective and efficient in the class of writing. using an outline, students finish their writing assignments in time and satisfactorily. from the experiments on transformative learning theory in practice, dirkx (2021) summarized that using an outline to develop expository text helps students develop innovative and creative applications of transformative learning theory in practice. formenti (2022) adds that the use of outlines expands students’ creativity by involving their cross-cultural issues in the theory and practice of transformative learning. this means that students gain enrichment from developing an outline into an expository text, with topics related to their own experiences, thereby providing transformative impacts on them. it is also worth noting that expository type texts involve critical thinking that helps students improve their logical reasoning and argumentation skills (eigenauer 2024). further, hausman and kubik (2023), propose that outlining procedure to develop expository text is a significant technique of metacognitive strategy, which helps students develop an awareness of their thinking processes as they learn. this technique helps students focus with greater intention, reflect on their existing knowledge versus information they still need to learn, recognize errors in their thinking, and develop practices for effective learning. all these comprehensive studies related to structured learning, in the forms of outlining for expository text, provide spectrums of benefits not only to the writing skills, but also to students’ critical thinking skills, to reinforce students’ reflexive and transformative learning, and to enhance students’ engagement and learning outcomes (baskaran et al., 2024). moreover, outlining procedure for expository text improves students’ writing skills and in turn enhance their reading comprehension (aktaş, et al., 2023). the significant gender difference in perceptions suggests that female students may find outlining more beneficial than male students. this could be due to differences in learning styles or prior experiences with writing instruction. studies by gil (2024) have shown that gender socialization affects how students approach their studies. women are often socialized to be more organized and diligent in their academic efforts. outlining can be a tool that aligns well with these behaviors, potentially making it more beneficial for female students. blackwood (2020) adds that her study in cornell university found that women reported lower perceptions of their scientific abilities and were more aware of gender identity, which influenced their participation in active learning environments. nevertheless, further research is needed to explore these differences in more detail. the findings of this study provide valuable insights into students’ perceptions and challenges in using outlines to develop exposition texts. the data reveal a complex picture, highlighting both the benefits and difficulties associated with outlining procedures. the quantitative data indicate that a significant majority of students (80%) perceive outlining as a beneficial tool for organizing their thoughts and improving the coherence of their exposition texts. this aligns with previous research by butterfuss, et al. (2024), which found that outlining enhances text coherence and organization. the high mean score (mean = 4.2, sd = 0.8) for positive perceptions further underscores the general acceptance and perceived utility of outlining among students. however, a notable minority (20%) of students view outlining as time-consuming and tedious. this sentiment is reflected in the lower mean score for negative perceptions (mean = 2.1, sd = 1.0). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 85 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 79-89 radjaban, r.y., & humanika, e. s. (students’ perceptions and challenges in using writing.....) these findings suggest that while outlining is widely recognized as beneficial, it is not universally embraced, and some students may require additional support to appreciate its value. the study identifies several key challenges that students face when using outlines: 1. developing connections between theory and research topics: a significant proportion of students (60%) reported difficulty in linking theoretical concepts with their research topics. this challenge was also highlighted in the qualitative data, where students expressed confusion about how to integrate theory into their outlines. this finding suggests a need for more explicit instruction on how to connect theoretical frameworks with practical research topics. 2. translating outlines into full texts: more than half of the students (55%) found it challenging to expand their outlines into coherent exposition texts. this difficulty was echoed in the interviews, where students described the process of turning an outline into a complete essay as particularly hard. some students felt that while outlines helped them stay on topic, they could also be restrictive, limiting their ability to develop their ideas fully. this indicates a need for instructional strategies that help students bridge the gap between outlining and writing full texts. 3. lack of confidence: about 30% of students indicated a lack of confidence in their ability to use outlines effectively. this lack of confidence can hinder students’ willingness to engage with outlining as a prewriting strategy. providing more examples, step-by-step instructions, and opportunities for practice could help build students’ confidence and competence in using outlines. the study also found significant gender differences in perceptions of outlining. female students reported higher mean scores (mean = 4.1, sd = 0.7) compared to male students (mean = 3.8, sd = 0.9), with a t-test result indicating a significant difference (t (98) = 1.96, p < 0.05). this suggests that female students may find outlining more beneficial than their male counterparts. these differences could be due to variations in learning styles or prior experiences with writing instruction. further research is needed to explore these gender differences in more detail and to develop gender-sensitive instructional strategies. the findings of this study have several important implications for teaching: 1. enhanced instruction on outlining: educators should provide more explicit instruction on how to create and use outlines, with a focus on developing connections between theory and research topics. this could include providing examples and step-by-step guides to help students understand the process. 2. bridging the gap between outlining and writing: teachers should develop strategies to help students translate their outlines into full texts. this could involve guided writing exercises that take students from outline to draft, emphasizing the expansion and development of ideas. 3. building confidence: to address the lack of confidence reported by some students, educators should offer more opportunities for practice and provide constructive feedback. this could help students build their skills and confidence in using outlines effectively. 4. gender-sensitive approaches: given the significant gender differences in perceptions, educators should consider gender-sensitive approaches to teaching outlining. this could involve tailoring instruction to meet the specific needs and preferences of male and female students. overall, this study highlights the importance of outlining as a prewriting strategy and identifies key areas where students need additional support. by addressing these challenges, educators can help students improve their writing skills and achieve greater success in their academic writing tasks. 4. conclusion this study explored the perceptions and challenges faced by english literature department students of uty in using outlines to develop exposition texts, employing a mixed-methods approach to gather comprehensive data. the findings revealed that while a majority of students recognize the 86 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 79-89 radjaban, r.y., & humanika, e. s. (students’ perceptions and challenges in using writing.....) benefits of outlining, significant challenges remain that hinder its effective use. quantitative data indicated that 80% of students perceive outlining as a beneficial tool for organizing thoughts and improving text coherence. however, challenges such as difficulty in connecting between theory and research topics (60%), translating them into full texts (55%), and a lack of confidence in their ability to use outline effectively (30%). qualitative insights further highlighted the need for more instructional support and practice in using outlines effectively. the study also uncovered significant gender differences in perceptions, with female students generally finding outlining more beneficial than their male counterparts. this suggests that tailored instructional strategies may be necessary to address the diverse needs of students. overall, the study underscores the importance of incorporating explicit instruction on outlining and other prewriting strategies into writing curricula. by addressing the identified challenges and providing targeted support, educators can enhance students’ writing skills and help them achieve greater success in their academic writing tasks. future research should continue to explore the long-term effects of outlining on writing development, investigate cultural influences, and examine the effectiveness of various instructional approaches. by doing so, we can develop more effective and inclusive writing instruction that supports all students in their writing endeavors. acknowledgment we would like to thank the rector of universitas teknologi yogyakarta, lppm, and the department head of english literature department for their support and research facilities. we extend our gratitude to the respondents for their willingness to participate during the data-gathering process. declarations author contribution : authors 1 and 2 did the research collaboratively from proposing research topics, composing proposal, processing with research methodology, doing analyses, and presenting data and discussions. author 2 proceeded with the publication of this article and shared the publication fee. funding statement : no funding is available for this research. conflict of interest : i declare that there is no competing interests. ethics declaration : i as the author 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 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. references aktaş, n., özdemir, e. ç., & özgül, b. k. 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(2020). outlining as a pre-writing strategy: effects on expository text composition.applied measurement in education, 33(4), 345-367. wiseman, a.w. (2023), international education from theory to practice: a literature review, annual review of comparative and international education 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edy032 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-12560-y https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10243-5 https://essaypro.com/blog/expository-essay https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2023.100538 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-022-10297-z https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296x19858354 https://doi.org/10.1007/s43076-024-00370-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10758-024-09744-3 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 89 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 79-89 radjaban, r.y., & humanika, e. s. (students’ perceptions and challenges in using writing.....) wolters, c. a., & brady, a. c. 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(2024). the effects of over-reliance on ai dialogue systems on students' cognitive abilities: a systematic review. smart learning environments, 11(1), 28. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-024-00316-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-020-09519-z https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-023-09372-9 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-024-00316-7 1. introduction 2. methods 3. findings and discussion 3.1. findings 3.2.discussion 4. conclusion declarations english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 105-117 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.13052 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id enhancing english teaching in elementary schools: a sociocultural perspectives of non-english major teachers’ experiences eko purwanti a,1,*, sellin yonica prasanti b,2 a, b universitas muhammadiyah yogyakarta, jl. brawijaya, geblagan, tamantirto, kec. kasihan, kabupaten bantul, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55183 1 ekopurwanti@umy.ac.id *; 2 sellin.yonica.fpb21@mail.com * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 18 april 2025 revised 23 august 2025 accepted 25 august 2025 english language has been introduced and taught to indonesian students from elementary to higher education. in the context of indonesian elementary education, the teaching of english often falls to homeroom teachers who lack formal qualifications in the language. this gap in teacher qualifications poses challenges for effective english instruction at the classroom level, particularly for homeroom teachers assigned to teach the subject. this study explores the challenges and strategies of non-english major teachers in teaching english in indonesian elementary schools using sociocultural theory framework. this study employed a descriptive qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews with six homeroom teachers from a public elementary school in yogyakarta who teach english without formal language training. the findings reveal key challenges related to linguistic limitations, pedagogical constraints, and classroom management. in response, teachers employed self-directed and collaborative strategies to improve their teaching competence. these findings highlight the need for targeted support, including professional development programs and curriculum adjustments, to equip nonenglish major teachers with the competencies required to deliver effective english instruction. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords non-english major teachers socio cultural theory teacher professional development how to cite: purwanti, e. & prasanti, s. y. (2025). students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation: a qualitative study of an academic–practitioner collaborative course. english language teaching educational journal, 8(2), 105-117. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.13052 1. introduction english has become a globally dominant language, spoken by hundreds of million worldwide and serving as an official language in numerous countries (ilyosovna, 2020). since english is a worldwide language, it is crucial that everyone learn it. proficiency in english is essential for personal and professional success in today’s interconnected world (abduganieva et al., 2023). this is because almost all aspects of life today use english, especially in the world of education. according to rao (2019), english which is widespread used in education, from textbooks to academic research, underscores its critical role in learning and knowledge acquisition. with the growing importance of english, english proficiency in indonesia remains an unresolved challenge. recognizing this, the indonesian government recently issued a new policy regarding english lesson for elementary school students. according to permendikbudristek no. 12 of (2024) which regulates the curriculum for elementary such as madrasah ibtidaiyah, or other forms of https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.13052 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:ekopurwanti@umy.ac.id mailto:sellin.yonica.fpb21@mail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.13052 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i2.13052&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4064-0339 106 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 105-117 purwanti, e. & prasanti, s. y. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation…..) equivalent, it is stated that english is an elective subject that can be taken until the 2026/2027 school year, contingent on school readiness. however, starting in the 2027/2028 school year, english will become a compulsory subject. this policy shift underscores the critical need for well-trained english teachers in elementary schools to effectively equip students with the language skills necessary for success in a globalized world. english language education in elementary school serves for several reasons. it equips students with valuable skills for future academic success and enhances their competitiveness in the global job market (putranti & ambawani, 2019). moreover, young learners are highly receptive to language acquisition, making early language learning more effective (setiyadi, 2020). therefore, learning other languages at a young age will be more advantageous. however, effective english teaching at this level necessitates qualified and professional educators. improving teachers’ qualities, including english teachers in elementary schools, is paramount for student success. according to alzeebaree and zebari (2021), effective teachers possess key qualities, including student-centered approaches, passion for teaching, subject expertise, fairness, good communication skills, and strong classroom management skills. this way, the ability of english teachers to manage the class is needed to cooperatively manage time, space, resources, and student roles and behaviors. moreover, professional english teachers must have special qualifications, including degrees, certification, and relevant pedagogical expertise (sya & helmanto, 2020). thus, having a professional english teacher who can manage the class well will create successful english teaching and learning. unfortunately, many elementary schools in indonesia still face a shortage of qualified english teachers. in fact, english subject is often taught by non-english major teachers, typically homeroom teachers. according to zein (2019), most english instruction at the primary school level is delivered by teachers who lack sufficient ability to teach english because they are not english graduates. nonenglish major teachers clearly do not meet the standards of professional english teachers. many of these teachers often lack the necessary skills and knowledge to teach english effectively which results in challenges for non-english major teachers to provide qualified english language education as they do not have a comprehensive background in english language teaching (falah et al., 2024). this situation raises concerns about the quality of english education as effective teaching requires in-depth knowledge of the english language and strong pedagogical skills. the phenomenon in which nonenglish major teachers find challenges in teaching english is caused by the english curriculum changes. according to oktavia et al., (2023), the curriculum that regulates the existence of english subjects often changes. as a result, many schools assume that english is often perceived as less essential, leading schools to assign it to homeroom teachers without specialized training. teaching english to young learners presents significant challenges, particularly for teachers who are not english majors. according to romadhon et al. (2024), limited english proficiency among these teachers leads to several difficulties, including pronunciation issues, vocabulary limitations, and mother tongue fossilization. this aligns with the findings of nagauleng et al. (2021), who noted that teachers often struggle with pronouncing and expressing english words due to a lack of formal university training in the language. non-english major teachers also face vocabulary limitations, a challenge highlighted in numerous studies (millán librado & basurto santos, 2020; nafissi & shafiee, 2020). yussof and sun (2020) further emphasize that teachers must match their instruction to the students' level of understanding and learning needs. febrianto (2021) adds that teachers whose mother tongues are javanese or indonesian often experience interlingual transfer, which affects their ability to produce accurate english vowel sounds. moreover, teachers without a relevant educational background often lack confidence, which is evident in their lesson planning, activity design, responses to student questions, and ability to engage students (aina & olanipekun, 2015). consequently, nonenglish major teachers are likely to encounter these difficulties due to their limited english language skills, leading to confusion when teaching english to their students. other difficulties when teaching english as a foreign language to young learners as mentioned by pertiwi et al., (2020) include class size and different characteristics of the students. this is in line with study by cahyati et al., (2019) who asserted that there are some teachers in elementary schools who have difficulties in managing their classes. in one class there are 35-40 students who are noisy, busy with their own activities, and pay less attention. thus, teaching english to elementary students need issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 107 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 105-117 purwanti, e. & prasanti, s. y. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation…..) to be planned carefully. sinaga and oktaviani (2020) stated that teaching english to students in elementary schools must be carefully planned to take into account their individual characteristics. given the numerous challenges that non-english major teachers face when teaching english, it is crucial for them to find effective teaching strategies in the classroom. these strategies include participating in professional development programs to enhance their pedagogical skills and knowledge. according to putri and rani (2022), teachers need to possess adequate and professional knowledge relevant to the subjects they teach. non-english major teachers can also seek guidance and support from colleagues through peer consultation (cuevas, 2024). utilizing technology, such as watching online teaching tutorials and using learning applications, can be beneficial, too. panagiotidis et al. (2023) highlight that technology enables teachers to access various english learning applications and online resources. additionally, employing interactive language learning media can aid english teachers in delivering material effectively. santika et al. (2023) found that using interactive media, such as flashcards and posters, significantly impacts students' language development. finally, grouping students such as pair work or a small group work can be an effective strategy for managing large classes when teaching foreign language such as english (marzulina, 2022). guided by vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, this study aims to investigate the challenges and coping strategies of non-english major teachers in teaching english in public elementary schools in yogyakarta. 1.1. sociocultural theory framework this research utilizes vygotsky's sociocultural theory (2012) as its theoretical framework. vygotsky's theory emphasizes the importance of social interaction, cultural tools, and mediated learning in the development of language skills. according to vygotsky, learning occurs through interactions with more knowledgeable others, and the zone of proximal development (zpd) represents the difference between what learners can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance (2012). vygotsky believed that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition. he argued that learning is inherently a social process, where interactions with teachers, peers, and other knowledgeable individuals facilitate cognitive development. this principle is particularly relevant for non-english major teachers, as collaborative learning and peer support can help them overcome language teaching challenges. additionally, vygotsky emphasized the use of cultural tools, such as language, symbols, and artifacts, in the learning process. these tools mediate cognitive activities and are essential for the development of higher mental functions. for non-english major teachers, utilizing cultural tools like educational technology and interactive media can enhance their teaching effectiveness. the zpd is a core concept in vygotsky's theory, referring to the gap between what learners can do on their own and what they can achieve with assistance. effective teaching occurs within this zone, where guidance and support from more knowledgeable others enable learners to reach higher levels of understanding. nonenglish major teachers can benefit from professional development and mentorship to operate within their zpd and improve their teaching skills. scaffolding involves providing temporary support to learners as they develop new skills or knowledge. this support is gradually removed as learners become more proficient. for non-english major teachers, scaffolding can include structured lesson plans, teaching aids, and continuous feedback from experienced educators. this framework is particularly suitable for this study because it highlights the role of social interactions and cultural tools in overcoming the challenges faced by non-english major teachers. by applying social interactions and cultural tools, teachers can enhance their english teaching skills and provide more effective instruction. for instance, peer consultation, professional development programs, and the use of technology can serve as cultural tools that facilitate learning and teaching improvement. 1.2. review of previous research several previous studies were conducted to find out the challenges and strategies that non-english teachers face when teaching english. according to cuevas (2024), non-major english teachers faced moderate challenges in lesson planning but effectively utilized resources such as online tutorials, peer observations, and student assessments to overcome them, demonstrating a strong commitment to professional growth. meanwhile, romadhon et al., (2024) found that teachers faced challenges in 108 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 105-117 purwanti, e. & prasanti, s. y. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation…..) pronunciation, vocabulary, and mother tongue fossilization. however, although there have been many previous studies on non-english teachers' experiences in teaching english in several educational institutions and at various levels, there is still a lack of research focusing on public primary schools in yogyakarta, and more specifically, the use of vygotsky's sociocultural theory as the analyses tool offers a robust framework for understanding and addressing non-english major teachers challenges and strategies in teaching english in elementary school contexts. thus, this study aims to fill this gap by formulating two research questions (1) what are the challenges faced by non-english major teachers in teaching english to primary school students? (2) what strategies do non-english major teachers apply in teaching english in the classroom? 2. method the study aims to explore the experiences of non-english major teachers regarding the challenges and strategies they employ when teaching english to elementary school students. a qualitative approach was adopted for this research, specifically using a descriptive qualitative design to capture the detailed experiences of these teachers. according to merriam (1998), descriptive qualitative research provides a comprehensive and nuanced description of specific experiences encountered by individuals or groups. by utilizing this design, the researchers hope to gain broader and deeper insights. this study involved six homeroom teachers from public elementary schools in yogyakarta, who were selected through convenience sampling. convenience sampling refers to selecting a research population that is easily accessible to the researchers for data collection (rahi, 2017, as cited in golzar et al., 2022). participants were identified through professional engagement during an internship program, and were selected based on their experience teaching english without formal english training. these six teachers, who taught english without having a formal background in the language, were included in the study. although limited in number, the six participants were sufficient to provide data saturation for a small-scale descriptive qualitative study, allowing for thematic depth and insight into shared experiences. to ensure participant confidentiality, pseudonyms were used in the findings, such as luna, scarlett, willow, nova, jasper, and rain. the table below provides details of the participant data: table 1. participants’ data name (code) gender age roles educational background t1 female 54 homeroom teacher of grade 1 bachelor of elementary education t2 female 40 homeroom teacher of grade 2 bachelor of elementary education t3 female 41 homeroom teacher of grade 3 bachelor of elementary education t4 female 26 homeroom teacher of grade 4 bachelor of elementary education t5 male 29 homeroom teacher of grade 5 bachelor of elementary education t6 female 26 homeroom teacher of grade 6 bachelor of elementary education the researchers conducted semi-structured interviews as a method of data collection in which an interview guide with a list of questions was prepared to ensure the interviews stayed on track. this approach also allowed the researchers to ask follow-up questions to gather additional in-depth information. after collecting the interview data, the researchers transcribed the interviews, performed member checking, coded the data, and analysed the information. thematic analysis was employed to identify key patterns in the data. initial codes were generated inductively from the transcripts, and then grouped into broader themes aligned with the research questions.” to maintain the trustworthiness of the study, member checking was established. 3. finding and discussion 3.1. findings based on the results of the study, there are twelve findings that the researchers found in responding to the first and second research questions, and these findings are explained and discussed in detail below. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 109 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 105-117 purwanti, e. & prasanti, s. y. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation…..) 1) challenges faced by non-english major teachers in teaching english the findings revealed six challenges faced by non-english major teachers in teaching english to elementary school students. the challenges included problems with 1) pronunciation, 2) lack of vocabulary, 3) mother tongue interferences, 4) limited teaching skills, 5) large class size, and 6) diverse students' characteristics. each challenge is presented in the following paragraphs. problems with pronunciation. the study found that pronunciation was a significant challenge for all participating teachers. this is due to their limited exposure to english outside of their teaching duties, leading to insecurity and uncertainty about their own pronunciation accuracy. some teachers expressed concerns about their pronunciation affecting student learning and their own professional image. one of the participants, scarlett mentioned “…….especially i have the most difficulty with pronunciation even though i teach grade 2, but the pronunciation should be correct because it is basic for students.”. similarly, jasper stated “when it comes to pronunciation, i sometimes feel insecure, afraid that my pronunciations will sound bad to other teachers when i feel that there are some vocabulary words that i could potentially make mistakes with.”. both teachers feel indifferent to the limitations or mistakes that may occur. as stated by willow “i really have difficulty pronouncing english words, so sometimes i teach them as best i can. i don't care whether other people will hear it funny or bad, the important thing is that i still teach it”. the difficulty experienced by these teachers in terms of pronunciation is caused by their lack of using english in their everyday life. luna echoed this concern, attributing her difficulty to minimal english usage in daily life: “….i'm not an expert in english. i rarely speak english words in my daily life. so, i need to learn to give it to the children.” lack of vocabulary. the lack of vocabulary is also experienced by many participants, making them face difficulties when teaching. willow mentioned “i have difficulties such as my vocabulary mastery is limited”. nova added, “……. due to my limited mastery of english vocabulary, the children only learn the vocabulary in the textbook, i cannot explore english vocabulary more widely”. nova said that her lack of vocabulary affected how she taught. indeed, limited vocabulary posed a significant challenge for non-english major teachers. these participants reported difficulties in translating english words, often feeling insecure about their own vocabulary mastery. this lack of vocabulary hindered their ability to effectively explain concepts, choose appropriate vocabulary for student levels, and respond to student questions beyond the textbook material. nova said, “due to my limited vocabulary, sometimes there are words that i don't know the meaning of when my students ask questions outside the textbook”. jasper added “for vocabulary selection, i have difficulty because i don't have much english vocabulary, so i am confused about which vocabulary is suitable for my students' level”. mother tongue interferences. the study revealed that mother tongue interference, particularly from javanese, presented a significant challenge for the teachers. participants reported difficulties in suppressing their native language accents, leading to incorrect pronunciation and intonation in english. one of the participants, nova stated, “when i speak indonesian, my javanese accent comes through, and even more so in english”. similarly, willow stated that she often gets carried away with her javanese affixes when she spoke english. she said, “because i'm from java, it usually comes with the words "to". well, it must have been automatically carried out because of the habit”. often, this mother tongue interference affected these teachers’ pronunciation. jasper said “obviously, when my javanese accent is carried over, my english pronunciation will also be disrupted”. this phenomenon, commonly observed among indonesian speakers, is attributed to the strong influence of their native language on their english pronunciation, as evidenced by the interference of javanese vowel sounds and affixes in their english speech. inadequate teaching skills. inadequate teaching skills was the biggest obstacle experienced by all participants. this happened because they did not get knowledge about the basic principles of teaching english to young learners. according to willow, her major greatly influences the way she teaches. she said, “in my opinion, it [my major background] has a big influence, so i only teach based on the [english] textbooks provided by the school; there are no other books, and i give as much as i can”. feeling the same way, scarlett said “i teach only according to what is in the book, because i was not taught in college about the principles of teaching english”. rain added “the major [subject] certainly has an influence, so we don't have knowledge about the basics of teaching english… . he added, “when there are questions from students, i have difficulty in really explaining, for example, why a sentence has this formula. we just answer yes because that's how we've learned it since the 110 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 105-117 purwanti, e. & prasanti, s. y. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation…..) beginning”. until now, most english teachers in indonesia only rely on the materials and activities in textbooks, due to their limited knowledge”. nova mentioned “i’m confused about how to teach the children properly, like where to start, whether the students are capable of this material or not, which one should be taught first”. similarly, luna said, “i am confused about how to design good and correct english learning for young learners because first grade reading and writing indonesian is still difficult, let alone learning english is even more difficult”. inadequate teaching skills also led to another problem in which some participants had difficulties in answering students' questions. as jasper said, “sometimes, i also find it difficult to explain when there are critical students such as asking what the difference is between see, watch, and look”. in addition, the participants also experience difficulty to build english language habits between teachers and students. this affect the students motivation to learn english. jasper said: “my biggest obstacle is getting students used to speaking english in daily conversations or especially in the classroom such as simple things like greetings, instructions in class, conversations with students or just permission to go to the bathroom. […] it’s because my english skills are limited, so it's hard for me to do those things”. the problem experienced by jasper affects the students' motivation to learn english. he stated, “of course, it [the problem] has an impact, especially in increasing students' motivation to learn english, because i believe that students will be enthusiastic and motivated if the teacher also equips them with vocabulary that they can apply every day”. this situation resulted in the participants’ feeling of being dissatisfied with english teaching, and this is stated by jasper, “[…], i am not satisfied [with my english teaching] at all”. big class size. large class sizes pose a challenge for non-english major teachers, causing difficulties to manage student behavior, maintaining classroom order, and providing individualized attention. this challenge is compounded by the teachers' limited english language skills, making it difficult to effectively engage and differentiate instruction for all students in a large group environment. one of the teachers, nova said, “the class with so many students make it more difficult for me to teach, especially english”. similarly, scarlett said, “in my opinion, teaching in a class with many students is difficult for me, especially when managing the 2nd graders who have the nature of not being able to keep quiet”. one of the factors why large classes are a problem for the participants is because teaching english is quite challenging as they do not come from an english background. therefore, nova added, “it's already difficult for me to teach english, and it's even more difficult to teach big number of students who perhaps don't like and can’t accept english easily”. diverse students characteristics. it is inevitable that in one class there will be many students with various characters, abilities, and interests. in the same way as students' intelligence, students' habits and characters can also affect the teaching methods used by teachers. one participant, luna stated “i have difficulty [in the class] because of the different characteristics of the students; some [students] are fast, and some others are slow, so i need to repeat the material many times”. nova added “some students can receive lessons very quickly, and some others don't understand english at all. so, there must be some [students] who are left behind. if for example i have to follow the rhythm of the slow students, the fast students are already bored. and vice versa”. in another case, students' different habits can also affect teaching method that teacher use as rain said, ” …… it does affect my teaching method. i have a bit of difficulty, especially when teaching students who are not familiar with english words, students who often hear things related to english and children who rarely do. it's a different learning level”. similar situation is experienced by willow who added “children have characters that are rather difficult to manage in class, such as being easily distracted, having a short focus time, and being very active, and having different interests which results in different abilities in learning english as well”. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 111 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 105-117 purwanti, e. & prasanti, s. y. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation…..) these excerpts show that different students characteristics are potential to cause problems to nonenglish major teachers. this can also be exacerbated by the inclusion policy in education in which schools have to admit all of students with all of condition. it means that it is necessary to find an effective solution on how to teach effectively without any students being left behind. the following findings explain the strategies used by non-english major teachers in teaching english. 2) english teaching strategies by non-english major teachers non-english major teachers have applied several strategies to teach english effectively despite all the limitations they had. there are six findings related to the strategies used by these participants consisting of 1) participating in teacher professional development program, 2) engaging in peer discussions, 3) carrying out independent learning, 4) utilizing learning applications, 5) using learning media, and 6) forming study groups. each strategy is described in the following paragraphs. these variety of activities reflect vygotsky’s principle of learning through interaction with more knowledgeable others, facilitating development within the zone of proximal development. participating in teacher professional development (tpd) programs. three participants admitted that they participated in teacher professional development programs as an attempt to hone their skills in teaching english. scarlett said, “i have attended english training and was taught the basics of english, but it was quite a long time ago”. willow added “i once attended an english seminar at the school where i taught before; the event was conducted by university students and there were also participants from overseas. finally, jasper who attended some seminars said, “i once attended a webinar about the basic principles of teaching english, and then there was training on how to make english teaching media”. despite these three participants have attended teachers' professional development programs, they are not carried out regularly, and they have been done a long time ago. in these programs, the participants learned about the basics of english, principles of teaching english, and how to make english teaching media. this activity indeed brought benefits to them as non-english major teachers; however, not all participants got chances to participate in this tpd activity. other participant, willow stated, “the training was actually quite useful, especially for people like me who are not really proficient in english. the knowledge that i got at that time contribute to my skills when teaching english”. further interview with the participants revealed the cause of the participants’ absence in attending tpd such as lack of school opportunity to have tpd events, especially those related to english teaching, and no special program for non-english major teachers tpd. nova said, there has never been an english language training program from the school, but the school facilitates books, in the library there are dictionaries, some english teaching media. that's all”. engaging in peer discussion. the result of the interviews revealed that peer consultation became an important strategy used by non-english major teachers to support their teaching english. these participants often sought guidance and support from peers, especially those with better english skills. willow mentioned “[…] we have had discussions, especially with mrs. rain because her english skills are the best here”. having similar statement, nova added, “[...] i have done that [peer discussion]. i often discuss with mrs. rain, the 6th grade teacher, because she is more expert in english than me” (nova). another participant, jasper also said, “i often do peer consultation after receiving report cards, especially with the 4th grade homeroom teacher as a diagnostic assessment for students who will move up to 5th grade. this way, i will get useful input such as, if these children are taught this chapter in two semesters, they will have difficulty because they haven't even memorized the alphabet”. jasper used peer discussion as a tool for diagnostic assessment and this is quite helpful as a preparation for learning english in his class. interestingly, rain who is regarded the best and always gives insights to her peers also stated, “i sometimes have discussions with other homeroom teachers, such as maybe there is material that is still similar, then i ask what kind of task book is used in grade 4, then i give examples to make it easier for the children to learn”. this excerpt indicates that the learning environment among teachers in the school is extraordinary in that not only teachers with low level of english learn from the more knowledgeable other, but also the teacher regarded having good english skill discuss with others too. 112 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 105-117 purwanti, e. & prasanti, s. y. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation…..) carrying out independent learning. teachers should be creative in finding solutions to overcome the problems in teaching english; one of which is carrying out independent learning. similarly, conducting independent learning was a common strategy applied by all participants in which they utilized various social media platforms, such as youtube, tiktok, instagram, and whatsapp, to access learning resources on english language teaching methods, classroom management techniques, and fun learning activities for children. one participant, rain mentioned “i usually learn english from youtube, tiktok, instagram. nowadays, there is a lot of content about learning english, such as learning grammar, how to condition the classroom, teaching tips and tricks, and so on”. nova added “i like to find out how to teach english to make it fun for children through video tutorials on youtube, on social media like on instagram, tiktok. there are a lot of learning media and others” . similar opinion was mentioned by scarlett “i like watching english teaching content on tiktok or youtube; it is quite inspiring for me who does not come from an english background and does not really understand the principles of teaching english”. utilizing learning application. non-english major teachers effectively used technology in their teaching practices, especially learning applications. the most application used by participants is google translate. nova stated “if i feel difficult, the first thing i will [do] definitely asking google”. scarlett added “when i have difficulties in pronouncing a word, i search for it on google translate and then practice with my students on how to pronounce it”. having similar experience with these two participants, jasper stated “if there are some meanings of words or pronunciations that i don't know, i use google translate application and its speaker feature as a technology that can help me teach in class.” (jasper). in addition, the participants also used several other applications such as duolingo, quizziz, pinterest, and chatgpt, for both personal and professional development, as mentioned by jasper, “i like to use pinterest or chatgpt app and save all kinds of things related to english. in addition, i use the latest application, namely duolingo and games on the word wall. i have asked all my students to download and try duolingo. my students are at what level. duolingo is a very good application, in my opinion, because there are pictures, students can construct sentences, learn prepositions such as on in under by”. rain, similarly, mentioned “i use applications such as quizziz and duolingo. for me, duolingo is an application which can improve my personal english skills and can be apply to my class”. rain also used the same application as jasper, duolingo. but unlike jasper, rain uses the app not only for her students but to improve her own english skills. using learning media. the study found that the participants effectively used various learning media to enhance student engagement and support teaching english. luna said, “i use youtube to show videos like how to write numbers in english and i like to print pictures like colours and objects in the classroom”. just like luna, scarlett added, “i play a video to the students on how to pronounce the word correctly, and for interactive media, i usually use flashcards, print pictures, and use moving animations, as well as youtube for videos”. in contrast, rani tends not to print pictures, but she uses power point media to show a picture. rani said, “i mostly use videos or music on youtube as teaching media. first, i download it, and second, i use ppt to show pictures, and share it with the students.”. on the other hand, jasper uses more varied interactive media, and he said, “usually i use a computer in which i show a picture and put english captions below it. i also convert text into images using canva, or i print it so that it is easier for me to deliver the material in class. i once also asked the students to bring small notebooks and asked them to have vocabulary competition to write as many english vocabulary as possible. finally, i usually like to use commonly used instructions such as using indomie [instant noodle] packaging for teaching.”. forming study groups. one way to deal with problems related to big class size and diverse learning needs in the classroom is by grouping students. this strategy is stated by jasper, “i have grouped students several times in teaching english and other subjects because it is quite a solution in a class with many students”. in this case, student grouping can be done in a several ways. scarlett said, “.......... i usually deal with it [problems in teaching english] by creating study groups, like peer tutors, where in one group there are those who stand out compared to their friends and help each other”. finally, nova added “......... i made study groups where students were divided into groups. in issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 113 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 105-117 purwanti, e. & prasanti, s. y. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation…..) one group, there are very smart, average, and weak abilities. so, the weak ones can be taught by the smart ones.”. 3.2. discussion the findings revealed six main challenges faced by non-english major teachers in teaching english to elementary school students: pronunciation difficulties, limited vocabulary, mother tongue interference, inadequate teaching skills, large class sizes, and diverse student characteristics. across multiple cases, pronunciation emerged as the most pressing concern, echoing (nagauleng et al., 2021), who noted that limited training and rare opportunities for practice contribute to teachers’ lack of confidence in oral english. similarly, most participants reported struggling with vocabulary, consistent with millán librado and basurto santos (2020) and nafissi and shafiee (2020), who highlighted teachers’ difficulties in selecting appropriate words for young learners. mother tongue influence also appeared across cases, particularly in the form of interlingual transfer from javanese or indonesian to english vowel sounds (febrianto, 2021). in terms of pedagogy, several teachers admitted relying heavily on textbooks due to inadequate training in lesson design, which often left them dissatisfied with their own teaching. this pattern suggests a reliance on informal learning as a substitute for institutional training, reinforcing the need for structured professional support systems. large class sizes and the inclusion of students with varied abilities further complicated classroom management. these findings align with cahyati et al. (2019) and (sinaga & oktaviani, 2020), who noted that without tailored strategies, teachers may struggle to engage all learners effectively. to address these challenges, teachers adopted several strategies, including participation in professional development, peer discussions, independent learning, the use of digital applications, and the formation of study groups. most participants emphasized peer collaboration as a valuable resource, as it allowed them to share knowledge, exchange classroom strategies, and boost confidence. at the same time, digital tools such as duolingo, quizziz, and chatgpt were widely adopted as cultural resources for vocabulary building, pronunciation practice, and lesson preparation. together, these strategies reflect an adaptive and resourceful approach, though one that remains heavily dependent on individual initiative rather than systemic support. interpretation through sociocultural theory vygotsky’s sociocultural theory provides a useful lens for interpreting these findings. first, the emphasis on peer discussions and study groups illustrates the role of social interaction in teacher development. across cases, teachers benefited from colleagues’ guidance, an example of scaffolding that enabled them to operate within their zone of proximal development (zpd). for instance, rain’s consultations with colleagues helped her gradually improve classroom practice, showing how temporary support can lead to independent competence. this finding is consistent with uthaikun (2021), who demonstrated the value of mentoring in building teacher confidence. second, the integration of learning applications and media highlights the role of cultural tools in mediated learning. teachers’ use of apps like duolingo and interactive platforms aligns with namaziandost and nasri (2019), who emphasized the transformative potential of digital resources in language education. these tools functioned as mediators that supported teachers’ professional growth despite their lack of formal training. third, participation in professional development programs represents another form of scaffolding, where structured lesson plans and continuous feedback allowed teachers to function within their zpd until they developed greater independence. as teachers became more confident, the external support was gradually reduced, illustrating vygotsky’s principle of fading assistance. finally, the practice of grouping students according to ability demonstrates how teachers addressed learner diversity by creating opportunities for peer learning. this reflects marzulina (2022) observation that collaborative approaches can balance social interaction with effective learning among students of varying abilities. overall, the findings underscore that non-english major teachers rely heavily on social interaction, cultural tools, and scaffolding mechanisms to overcome their challenges. while these strategies demonstrate resilience, they also reveal systemic gaps that leave teachers dependent on informal networks and self-initiated efforts. by applying vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, this study 114 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 105-117 purwanti, e. & prasanti, s. y. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation…..) highlights the crucial role of collaborative learning and digital mediation in compensating for the absence of formal training. these insights not only confirm existing research but also extend it by showing how peer modelling and technology adoption shape teacher development in the indonesian elementary school context. 4. conclusion this qualitative study investigated the challenges and strategies employed by non-english major teachers in teaching english to elementary school students in indonesia. the findings revealed six key challenges: pronunciation difficulties, limited vocabulary, mother tongue interference, limited teaching skills, large class sizes, and diverse student characteristics. to address these challenges, teachers employed various strategies, including participating in professional development programs, conducting peer consultations, pursuing independent learning, utilizing learning technology and interactive media, and forming study groups. the analysis using vygotsky's sociocultural theory highlighted the importance of social interactions, cultural tools, and scaffolding in overcoming these challenges. teachers can strengthen their instructional effectiveness in pronunciation, vocabulary usage, and learner engagement through scaffolded support and targeted technological tools. the study underscores the critical need for ongoing professional development and support for non-english major teachers to improve their teaching practices and student learning outcomes. this study contributes to the under-researched area of non-english major teachers in indonesian public elementary schools, providing empirical insights that can inform both policy and teacher training models rooted in sociocultural learning principles. given the limited participant pool and regional focus, future studies should explore larger, more diverse populations across indonesia. quantitative studies on student learning outcomes could further validate the strategies identified here. acknowledgment the authors thank all the participants who have shared their voices so that this study could be accomplished. the authors’ gratitude also goes to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and substantial feedback so that this manuscript could be published and reach wider readers. declarations author contribution : the research was collaboratively undertaken by both authors, encompassing topic selection, proposal development, methodological application, data analysis, and the preparation of the discussion section. author 1 assumed primary responsibility for managing the publication process, while both authors jointly contributed to covering the publication fee. funding statement : no funding is available for this research. conflict of interest : we declare that there are no competing interests. ethics declaration : as the authors, we confirm that this work has been written based on ethical research principles in compliance with our university’s regulations and that the necessary permission was obtained from the relevant institution during data collection. we fully support eltej’s commitment to upholding high standards of professional conduct and practicing honesty in all academic and professional activities. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 115 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 105-117 purwanti, e. & prasanti, s. y. 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(2019). english, multilingualism and globalisation in indonesia: a love triangle: why indonesia should move towards multilingual education. english today, 35(1), 48-53. https://doi.org/10.1017/s026607841800010x https://e-proceedings.iain-palangkaraya.ac.id/index.php/inacelt/article/view/89 https://e-proceedings.iain-palangkaraya.ac.id/index.php/inacelt/article/view/89 https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2020.1720230 https://doi.org/10.1017/s026607841800010x english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.10978 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based education elements in high school efl textbooks anni holila pulungan a, 1, adib jasni kharisma b, 2,*, joko kusmanto c, 3, pirman ginting d, 4 a universitas negeri medan, jl. williem iskandar pasar v, medan estate, medan and 20221, indonesia b, d universitas muhammadiyah sumatera utara, jl. kapt. mukhtar basri no. 3, medan timur, medan and 20238, indonesia c politeknik negeri medan, jl. almamater no. 1 kampus usu, medan baru, medan and 20155, indonesia 1anniholila@unimed.ac.id;2adibjasnikharisma@umsu.ac.id*; 3jokokusmanto@polmed.ac.id; 4pirmanginting@umsu.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 12 october 2024 revised 12 november 2024 accepted 20 november 2024 integrating outcome-based elements like advanced communication, productivity and accountability, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, flexibility, and adaptability is considered vital in a textbook. however, evidence has shown gaps in specific areas of textbooks, as illustrated by the "bahasa inggris grade xii" textbook, which lacked advanced teamwork and communication skills. this research aims to evaluate the incorporation of outcome-based education in the textbook through the application of spady’s theory. utilizing data on the text unit order, the current study employed a descriptive qualitative research framework and acquired data through a likert scale. the findings disclose that various aspects of outcomebased education are thoroughly addressed in this textbook. nonetheless, the collaborative component and the intricate communication aspect are conspicuously absent as denoted in chapter 3 and chapter 4. a mere forty-seven percent of the content in the textbook "bahasa inggris grade xii" has been assessed and meets the criteria of outcome-based education. the textbook serves as an excellent case study to evaluate and enhance the integration of obe principles in high school efl materials in indonesia, offering a basis for improving educational outcomes during a crucial period in students' academic and personal growth. this level of attainment, which falls below expectations, indicates a lack of complete adherence to the principles of outcomes-based education within the english textbook. as this ongoing research carries significant implications for those involved in developing and writing curricula. it is recommended that the textbook aligns with spady's concept of outcome-based education (obe), addressing gaps such as the lack of emphasis on teamwork and complex communication aspects. to enhance the achievement of educational objectives, authors are advised to pinpoint areas for enhancement through collaboration with educators, students, and curriculum experts. © the author(s) 2024. published by universitas ahmad dahlan this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords outcome-based education english textbook learning materials curriculum how to cite: pulungan, a. h., kharisma, a. j., kusmanto, j., & ginting, p. (2024). elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based education elements in high school efl textbooks. english language teaching educational journal, 7(3), 191-208. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.10978 1. introduction textbooks play a crucial role in language learning, being primarily viewed as key sources of information (damayanti et al., 2021). as commonly employed in educational settings such as schools, textbooks offer assignments and resources designed to facilitate both teaching and learning processes. they stand as a vital tool, providing valuable information and media to aid in achieving educational https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.10978 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:anniholila@unimed.ac.id mailto:2adibjasnikharisma@umsu.ac.id* mailto:jokokusmanto@polmed.ac.id mailto:pirmanginting@umsu.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.10978 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9460-2103 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i3.10978&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4334-6216 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4891-7956 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1697-8906 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 192 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) goals and mastering essential competencies (novitasari et al., 2019). an indispensable component of academic curricula (melesse & obsiye, 2022), a textbook is a required resource for formal education, facilitating students' comprehension of the material following the established curriculum textbooks include an overview of particular topics, the outline of the curriculum, and offer essential learning strategies along with current materials. in addition, for they operate as an applicator of the curriculum and represent its implementation in classroom practices, textbooks should be more operational than conceptual and more practical than theoretical (novitasari et al., 2019). in english as a foreign language (efl) education, textbooks are essential in influencing teaching methods and supporting both educators and students (tomlinson, 2011). hence, it is crucial to select relevant textbooks with contents pertinent to the existing curriculum, given textbooks have a vital impact on teaching and learning practices. on top of that, considering that learning activities within them reflect the beliefs and values of the curriculum, it is vital to set benchmarks for choosing high-quality textbooks and engage in discussions with teachers regarding these criteria to gain insight into their challenges and perspectives (munir et al., 2021). recent research highlights the significance of incorporating obe principles into efl resources, especially in high school contexts where preparing students for academic and career success is essential (graves, 2000). integrating explicit learning objectives, evaluation standards, and practical, task-based activities into textbooks can improve language skills while promoting critical thinking, innovation, and teamwork (nunan, 2004). it is widely acknowledged that outcome-based education (obe) has risen as a prevailing approach for transforming curricula in higher education worldwide in recent decades (mufanti et al., 2024; shaheen, 2019). obe is a method of curriculum approach that place emphasis on student-centered learning and accomplishing specific learning objectives. outcome-based education (obe) is a teaching methodology that emphasizes achieving specific learning outcomes or competencies, focusing on what students can demonstrate or apply at the end of the educational experience, rather than solely emphasizing the teaching process (sheikh, 2023). obe can be described as a holistic method of structuring and managing an educational system, with a primary focus on the successful showcasing of learning by students (spady, 1994). this method emphasizes not only gaining knowledge but also showcasing skills and abilities that are applicable in real-life situations. in contrast to conventional educational approaches, obe acknowledges that students may not attain the same level of learning through similar methods or within identical timeframes (khanna & mehrotra, 2019). outcome-based education (obe) is designed to ensure that students not only gain essential knowledge but also develop the skills and attitudes needed for success after completing their education. by aligning curriculum objectives with real-world demands, obe equips institutions to better prepare students for their careers or further academic pursuits. the focus on clearly defined, measurable outcomes pushes for improvements across higher education by making sure that educational programs, assessments, and teaching methods are directly tied to the competencies students are expected to master. the emphasis on concrete outcomes drives continuous improvement in educational practices, ensuring they remain relevant to the changing needs of society and the job market (husein et al, 2022). furthermore, obe fosters an environment where educators can concentrate on achieving tangible, meaningful results instead of merely covering content. this approach reduces the disconnect between what is taught and what students will actually need in their professional and personal lives. similarly, aligning english instruction with obe principles fosters independent learning and practical communication skills, equipping students for societal and professional demands (zhao, 2020). obe’s focus on clear, defined goals leads to better-organized curricula, more accurate assessments of student performance, and an overall enhancement in the quality of teaching (allo et al., 2024). by aligning assessments with specific outcomes, teachers can monitor student progress more effectively, providing targeted feedback that promotes further development. this results in a more enriching learning experience and increases the overall efficiency and accountability of educational systems, ensuring that students are not only academically prepared but also equipped with practical skills for their future careers. by integrating obe principles, institutions are also encouraged to become more adaptable, regularly reviewing and updating their programs to ensure their relevance in a rapidly changing world. this dynamic, responsive approach strengthens the educational system, making it more capable of meeting the evolving needs of both students and society. according to spady's (1994) research, utilizing a textbook as an educational resource is closely consistent with obe principles that include aspects, such as complex communication, productivity and accountability, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, flexibility, and adaptability highlighting the skills that students should proficiently 193 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) demonstrate by the end of their learning experiences, and the curriculum is tailored to assist them in attaining these proficiencies (wahyudi & wibowo, 2018). considering this occurrence, assessing textbooks is essential to grasping their quality due to their substantial role for educators and learners (akhmad et al., 2022). in consideration of this matter, the current research attempts to uncover the elements of outcome-based education (obe) as portrayed in the currently endorsed english as a foreign language (efl) textbooks for twelfth-grade high school students, "buku bahasa inggris grade xii." this research can shed light on how effectively these instructional resources correspond with obe objectives, potentially leading to more effective language instruction and improved student outcomes. additionally, it may offer valuable recommendations for curriculum developers, educators, and policymakers on enhancing efl teaching methods to better support student-centered learning and the accomplishment of specific educational goals. 2. literature review a textbook is a crucial educational resource designed for a specific educational level and compiled by experts in the field. it significantly shapes the perspectives of teachers, students, and families regarding school subjects, making it an essential component of the educational curriculum. textbooks are a type of educational text intended for use within a curriculum (brown, 2001). according to ravitch (2003) and valverde et al. (2002), textbooks are vitally important as they play a significant role in shaping the views of teachers, students, and families about school subjects. they serve as key sources of ideas and activities (cunningsworth, 1995, as cited in sarem et al., 2013). they are crucial in bridging the gap between intentions and plans to actual classroom activities (schmidt et al., 1997, as cited in sarem et al., 2013). classroom activities, as defined by brown (2001), are a coherent set of student behaviors within a defined timeframe, guided by the teacher towards specific objectives. outcome-based education is an educational approach centered around achieving learning outcomes through innovative, effective, and interactive learning processes. it emphasizes attaining desired outcomes within processes or programs, rather than solely improving activities or tasks. in today's context, achieving desired results and enhancing performance based on those outcomes is crucial. the results-based education approach promotes the use of data to guide decision-making and foster ongoing improvement in educational systems. by gathering and evaluating data concerning student performance, educators can pinpoint areas requiring enhancement and apply suitable strategies to elevate learning outcomes (sharmin et al., 2021). the application of a results-based education (obe) approach to literary composition within an independent curriculum can greatly enhance students' creativity and their ability to convey ideas through writing. this method, particularly in genres like poetry, short stories, and other creative writing forms, encourages students to follow a structured process where learning objectives-such as the development of creative skills and the ability to express emotions-are clearly outlined and evaluated. as noted by rosidah et al. (2021), a resultsdriven approach can stimulate creativity by focusing on measurable outcomes that improve students’ ability to articulate their thoughts and emotions through literary creation. from the perspective of textbooks, this approach enables a more organized and focused curriculum, where creative writing exercises and assignments are tailored to develop specific competencies, such as narrative structure, language use, and emotional depth in writing. the assessments tied to these defined outcomes allow instructors to monitor students' progress effectively, offering feedback that supports the development of their creative potential. the emphasis on measurable outcomes in an independent curriculum, which is central to obe, also aligns with the goal of nurturing students’ abilities to express themselves in distinctive and original ways. much like how obe in other disciplines ensures that students acquire necessary knowledge and skills, in the field of literature, it allows students to refine their creative writing abilities while maintaining a focus on both form and originality. this synergy between results-based education and creative writing strikes a balance between critical thinking (used to refine ideas) and creative exploration (focused on generating innovative literary works), as discussed by both rosidah et al. (2021) and other educational experts like husein et al. (2022). by integrating obe principles into literary composition, textbooks become a powerful tool to guide students through a structured, outcome-oriented process, boosting their ability to create meaningful literary works. with consistent feedback and targeted assessments, students are encouraged to express their thoughts, emotions, and creative ideas in ways that are both original and relevant to real-world contexts. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 194 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) for an effective communication of meaning, it usually entails complex linguistic structures, subtle phrases, and detailed concepts; productivity and accountability refer to the metrics of efficacy and efficiency in completing tasks or reaching objectives. it entails maximizing productivity, finishing tasks on schedule, and making effective use of available resources. conversely, "accountability" denotes the sense of ownership and accountability that people have for their choices, actions, and results. it entails taking responsibility for one's actions and the results of one's decisions. accountability might be highlighted in a textbook as an essential component of both professional and personal development. complex communication often entails employing sophisticated language structures, nuanced expressions, and intricate concepts to convey ideas effectively. productivity and accountability, on the other hand, encompass measures of efficiency and effectiveness in task completion or goal achievement. this includes optimizing output, meeting deadlines, and using resources efficiently. furthermore, "accountability" denotes the responsibility and ownership individuals assume for their actions, decisions, and results. it involves being accountable for one's performance and the consequences of one's decisions. in a textbook, emphasizing accountability can be pivotal for fostering personal and professional development. therefore, the capacity to impartially assess and examine data, claims, and concepts is known as critical thinking. it entails applying reasoned and methodical thinking, challenging presumptions, taking into account other viewpoints, and coming to wellinformed conclusions. creativity, on the other hand, is the capacity to produce meaningful and unique concepts, answers, or statements. collaboration is the process of collaborating with people to accomplish a similar objective or finish a shared task. it entails thinking beyond conventional boundaries, connecting seemingly unconnected concepts, and developing unique and imaginative outputs. in order to complete a task more effectively or efficiently than they could alone, people must pool their knowledge, skills, and resources and actively engage in coordination, cooperation, and communication. the terms flexibility and adaptability refer to the capacity to modify, adapt, or alter one's way of thinking, acting, or responding to new or changing situations. these attributes facilitate individuals in efficiently managing ambiguity, confronting obstacles, and seizing opportunities. 3. method research design plans for data collection, measurement, and analysis are dependent on the study's research questions, according to sekaran (2017). qualitative descriptive methodologies are used in this study. this approach is used to analyze, comprehend, and characterize a research problem from the viewpoint of the research subject, which is scientific publications and articles. according to nieswiadomy and bailey (2018), qualitative research focuses on understanding the subjective meaning and experiences of individuals. logan (2007) defines data as various pieces of information typically organized and stored to serve specific purposes. in this study, the data consist of texts containing elements of outcome-based education found in the bahasa inggris grade xii textbook. then, the data source refers to the entity from which research data is gathered (sujarweni, 2018). therefore, the data source for this study is the english textbook assessment instrument "bahasa inggris kelas xii," specifically focusing on the critical and creative thinking section for senior high school class xii. this textbook was chosen as the data source to ensure the research stays relevant, context-specific, and meaningful in exploring how elt materials can facilitate the shift toward an outcome-based education approach in indonesia. data collection techniques are a critical step in research because the primary goal is to obtain accurate data (sugiyono, 2018). without understanding the appropriate data collection techniques, researchers may not gather data that meets rigorous standards. in this study, the researcher employed an assessment using a likert scale to evaluate the suitability of the book's content, which was adapted based on the instrument and description of the english textbook assessment instrument "bahasa inggris kelas xii”. the instrument aligned with specific obe-related components, including critical thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving, and practical real-world application. each item evaluates the extent to which the textbook content incorporates and promotes these skills through its exercises and activities. data analysis involves categorizing collected data according to established criteria to derive findings that align with the acquired data (sugiyono, 2016). this process requires meticulous and systematic analysis of collected data to generate meaningful and pertinent insights. it encompasses stages such as gathering, organizing, processing, interpreting, and presenting data to facilitate informed decision-making. the likert scale used in the instrument ranges from 1 to 5, strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, and 195 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) strongly agree. demonstrates that the element is thoroughly present and excellently incorporated into the textbook content.the scores are classified into criteria as follows: very good: scores averaging 4.5-5.0, good: scores averaging 3.5-4.4, and less: scores below 2.5. this classification aids in assessing the textbook's alignment with obe elements and offers a structured framework for pinpointing areas that need improvement. findings are frequently displayed in tables to enhance accessibility and ease of interpretation. 4. findings and discussion outcome-based education (obe) is an educational framework that focuses on the competencies students should achieve by the conclusion of their learning journey. spady's theory argues that outcome-based education encompasses various elements such as advanced communication, productivity and accountability, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, as well as flexibility and adaptability. in obe, students are equipped to navigate complex interactions, express their ideas with clarity and accuracy, and tailor their communication styles to suit various audiences and contexts. productivity focuses on delivering measurable outcomes in tasks, projects, or group efforts, whereas accountability highlights the importance of taking responsibility for one's actions and contributions. critical thinking is fundamental to obe, as it motivates learners to assess, analyze, and integrate information in order to make well-informed decisions. creativity in obe focuses on promoting innovation and inspiring learners to think creatively. this aspect encourages students to come up with new ideas, explore different solutions, and tackle problems from fresh angles-skills that are essential in today’s fast-paced, evolving world. then, students are trained to foster positive relationships, manage group dynamics, and make valuable contributions to shared objectives, reflecting the collaborative nature of contemporary workplaces and communities. flexibility entails being open to change and exploring new ideas, while adaptability refers to the ability to adjust to new roles, challenges, or situations without losing focus or efficiency. by highlighting these elements, they emphasize the comprehensive development of learners, ensuring they are equipped not just for academic achievement but also for making significant contributions to society and the global economy. the data analysis results are presented in table 1, showcasing the findings derived from the conducted analysis. table 1. the percentages of obe elements in the english textbook no. aspects scores percentages (%) criterias c h 1 c h 2 c h 3 c h 4 c h 5 c h 6 c h 7 c h 8 c h 9 c h 10 c h 11 1. complex communication 3 3 0 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 50 less 2. productivity and accountability 2 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 2 2 75 good 3. critical thinking 3 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 3 4 93 very good 4. creativity 3 4 2 3 4 3 4 4 4 3 4 86 very good 5. collaboration 4 4 4 0 3 3 3 2 2 4 4 75 good 6. flexibility and adaptability 4 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 90 very good total 78 good based on table 1, the aspect of complex communication received 50%, which is the lowest among the other elements, as this aspect did not meet the criteria across all chapters, and it is categorized as 'less'. in chapters 1 and 2, it only received a score of 3, while in chapter 3, it did not receive a score, and in chapters 4 to 11, it only received a score of 2. based on the analysis, the complex communication elements only get 50% because each chapter did not fully discuss the exchange of information or ideas. furthermore, each chapter did not have a value that met the criteria for the complex communication aspect, which focuses on dialogue or conversation between two or more people regarding a particular topic or information, with the exchange of ideas. on the other hand, the issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 196 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) productivity and accountability element get 75% result, which is considered 'good'. this is marked by the fact that 3 chapters (7, 8, and 9) were fully met with a score of 4, while a score of 2 was present in chapters 1, 10, and 11, and a score of 3 was present in chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. based on our analysis, this element received 75%, which means it occupies a relatively high percentage, as each chapter discusses the measures of efficiency and effectiveness in relation to tasks or achieving a goal. moreover, this aspect includes maximizing results, with students being given time to complete their tasks on time so that they can utilize resources efficiently. it also considers the expressions, reactions, and responses of students to the materials and tasks provided. the complex communication element was assigned a relatively low score of 50%, the lowest among the elements assessed. this indicates that although there were attempts to integrate communication activities, their depth and consistency were lacking. a detailed look at individual chapter scores shows that chapters 1 and 2 received a score of 3, chapter 3 scored nothing, and chapters 4 to 11 scored consistently low at 2. this pattern reveals a common issue: there is a deficiency in meaningful dialogue or exchange of ideas between participants. research in educational communication emphasizes the importance of dialogic teaching, where students engage in extended, purposeful conversations, as a critical tool for enhancing learning outcomes (mercer, 2000; nystrand, 2006). in this case, the lack of structured dialogue-based tasks represents a missed opportunity to deepen students' understanding and promote critical thinking. typically, the complex communication element involves discussions or conversations on specific topics, with an emphasis on the exchange of ideas among participants (walsh, 2011). the findings suggest that the chapters failed to fully incorporate such exchanges, as indicated by their low and inconsistent scores. for students, participating in real-world communicative tasks like group discussions or debates is essential for developing advanced cognitive skills and language proficiency (swain & lapkin, 2002). the absence of complex communication in these chapters likely limited students' ability to engage meaningfully with the content and collaborate effectively. in contrast, the productivity and accountability element earned a higher score of 75%, classified as "good." this suggests that the chapters generally succeeded in fostering efficiency and effectiveness, particularly in relation to tasks designed to meet specific learning objectives. chapters 7, 8, and 9 were fully aligned with the expected outcomes, receiving a score of 4, while the remaining chapters scored slightly lower (2 or 3). this indicates that the textbooks were generally effective in engaging students and ensuring efficient task completion, though there was variability in how these goals were emphasized across different chapters. in educational contexts, productivity and accountability often involve evaluating task completion, managing resources, and providing timely feedback (boud, 2010). the higher scores in chapters 7, 8, and 9 suggest that these chapters included well-structured tasks that supported students in achieving optimal learning outcomes. additionally, the analysis indicates that the chapters addressed key elements of resource utilization, such as time management and responsiveness to student reactions to the materials. these aspects are crucial for fostering student autonomy and self-regulation in the learning process (zimmerman, 2002). however, the discrepancies in scores between chapters 1, 10, and 11 compared to chapters 7-9 indicate possible inconsistencies in task design or resource allocation. while the productivity and accountability element were generally strong, further attention should be given to ensuring consistency across chapters. it is important for each chapter to provide structured, time-sensitive tasks with clear objectives to sustain student engagement and ensure task completion. future revisions could place more emphasis on promoting self-regulation and efficiency in task management, both of which are essential for cultivating independent learners (boud, 2010). then, the critical thinking element get a 93%, which is the highest among the elements and is considered 'very good'. after analysis, it was found that this aspect has been discussed in all chapters. the 93% was obtained because this element refers to the students' ability to think critically, namely whether they can analyze and evaluate the information provided, arguments, and ideas to form logical and systematic reasoning that is easy to understand. they can also question their assumptions, have different perspectives and ways of thinking, and draw accurate conclusions based on the appropriate context. the score for this aspect is 4 (fully met) in chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 11, while a score of 3 is present in chapters 1, 6, and 10. they suggest that the application of critical thinking is not as strongly emphasized. based on bloom's taxonomy (anderson & krathwohl, 2001), critical thinking serves as a cornerstone for advanced cognitive processes such as evaluation and synthesis, underscoring 197 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) the importance of its comprehensive integration throughout the curriculum to develop well-rounded learners. next, the creativity element received 86%, which is the third highest, as this aspect is fully covered in several chapters and is considered 'very good'. based on the analysis, this aspect received the third highest result because it has been explained in every chapter as an outcome produced based on the students' ideas and the solutions they provide in solving problems. in this aspect, students are required to create and produce new or innovative and useful products that can be used by everyone. the results from the textbook show that a score of 4 is present in chapters 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 11, while a score of 3 is in chapters 1, 4, 6, and 10, and a score of 2 is in chapter 3. runco and jaeger (2012) highlight the importance of creativity in fostering problem-solving and innovation, which are essential skills in today's fast-changing world. although the textbook effectively incorporates creativity, its inconsistent representation points to areas for enhancement, especially in chapter 3, where its coverage is the weakest. on the one hand, the collaboration element received a 75% result, which is considered 'good', similar to the productivity and accountability aspects. this is because these two aspects have similarities in their discussions within the textbook. the collaboration element received a 75% result as it is partially fulfilled in some chapters, as it discusses tasks that are carried out collectively to see if they are completed together. from these group work results, the abilities of each individual can be assessed in terms of their knowledge, problem-solving skills, and participation in learning activities. this aspect is present in chapters 1, 2, 3, 10, and 11, with a score of 3 in chapters 5, 6, and 7, and a score of 2 in chapters 8 and 9. there is one chapter, chapter 4, that does not fulfill this aspect. dillenbourg (1999) emphasizes that collaborative learning enhances understanding by facilitating the shared construction of knowledge. however, the inconsistent inclusion of this aspect across chapters could limit students' ability to develop strong collaborative skills, highlighting the need for a more cohesive approach. finally, the flexibility and adaptability element received a 90% result, which means it is almost fully covered in all chapters and is considered 'very good'. this 90% result is due to the fact that this aspect is discussed in every chapter, involving the modification of ideas or habits with the students' capabilities. this element also addresses the high value of individuals, academically and in a professional context. it examines how students solve and resolve problems. the result for this aspect is a score of 4 in chapters 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, and a score of 3 in chapters 2, 3, 4, and 11. the elements with the highest percentages are critical thinking and flexibility and adaptability, as they are present in almost all chapters. in contrast, the productivity, accountability, and collaboration aspects are only partially fulfilled in some chapters, and they have similar results. the creativity aspect has a relatively higher value compared to the previous aspects, as it is more widely applied across the chapters. the element with the lowest result is complex communication, which is not adequately addressed, with one chapter even lacking this aspect entirely. the overall frequency value is 78%, suggesting that the textbook meets the requirements as a suitable resource for students using an outcome-based approach. in conclusion, the outcome-based approach is effectively implemented in this 12th-grade english textbook, making it a suitable and high-quality teaching material and resource for students. 4.1. complex communication complex communication involves using spoken and written english, as well as listening, to engage with individuals, ideas, media, and electronic platforms as we may see in figure 1. complex communication involves sharing information or ideas that include intricate or sophisticated elements. it often requires using advanced language structures, nuanced expressions, and complex concepts to convey meaning effectively. complex communication goes beyond basic information exchange, involving the communication of abstract ideas, expressing opinions persuasively, or engaging in critical thinking. this type of communication demands advanced linguistic skills and cognitive abilities. the complex communication aspect was categorized as "less" due to its lowest percentage, specifically 50%. this score was influenced by chapter 3, where criteria for complex communication were not met, resulting in a score of zero. the classification of "less" is attributed to the lack of multidimensional communication observed in chapter 3. research in educational communication highlights that complex communication involves collaborative interactions, critical thinking, and problem-solving (smith & mancy, 2018). however, these components were absent in the analyzed instances, emphasizing the necessity for structured strategies to address the gap. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 198 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) fig. 1. data of complex communication. on page 40, it is suggested to display information or exchange ideas, such as presenting group discussion outcomes, to fulfill the criteria. this interpretation involves communicating through visual representation of group discussion results. page 40 highlights the importance of visual tools in enhancing communication effectiveness. utilizing visual aids like charts, diagrams, or group presentations improves understanding and fosters greater engagement (zhang et al., 2020). this supports the suggestion to present information and group discussion results visually to bridge the gap in complex communication. based on the conducted analysis, it was observed the following exchange of information or ideas in chapter 1. dr. nahda : you look terrible. what can i do for you? fafa : i can't go to school today. dr. nahda : oh, i'm sorry to hear that. what's the problem? fafa : my stomach hurts terribly. i think i have a fever as well. during the conversation between dr. nahda and fafa, there is a sharing of information and ideas, along with an offer of assistance. dr. nahda offers help to fafa upon noticing his discomfort. fafa mentions that she cannot attend school. dr. nahda expresses sympathy and inquiries about the issue. fafa explains that she is experiencing severe stomach pain and fever, to which dr. nahda responds with empathy, expressing regret for her condition. although this interaction showcases strong interpersonal communication, it falls short in terms of complexity. research by brown and levinson (2021) indicates that while empathy and the exchange of information are essential for effective communication, they do not fully satisfy the requirements of complex communication, which demands deeper reasoning, collaborative discussions, and the integration of ideas. it is also found an element of complex communication in chapter 2. mom: if you don't put some cherries on it, your cake will look pale and dull. etty: yes, you're right. a cherry or two will help with the appearance. in this dialogue between the mother and etty, ideas are exchanged as the mother suggests that adding cherries to the cake will prevent it from looking bland. etty agrees, suggesting that one or two cherries will enhance the cake's appearance. then, after conducting a more in-depth analysis, we also found the following aspects of complex communication in chapter 8: a: which one do you like, the semisweet or the bittersweet one? b: i like the bittersweet one. according to the conversation between a and b, there is an exchange of information or ideas where a asks b about their preference between semisweet and bittersweet. b responded by stating a preference for bittersweet. 4.2. productivity and accountability productivity and accountability are closely linked. accountability involves participating in the creation of a product and taking responsibility for its performance. it's crucial for young people to be 199 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) exposed to real-life examples of how productivity and accountability function, as there's no better way to learn than through practical demonstration. it is hoped that the current generation will witness firsthand how productivity and accountability operate through these examples in figure 2. fig. 2. data of productivity and accountability. in the context of a textbook, "productivity" pertains to the degree of efficiency and effectiveness in accomplishing tasks or achieving objectives. it involves enhancing output, meeting deadlines, and maximizing the utilization of available resources. productivity encompasses several elements such as time management, organization, prioritization, and the capability to produce high-quality work within defined constraints. this chapter gets a percentage of 75% which means "good" in implementing this aspect. in chapter 6, there is a score of 3 in the element of productivity and accountability, because there are several words to find synonyms to practice student agility found in the vocabulary builder section on page 82. this task says, "write down the synonym of the following words". this section expects students to diligently complete the provided assignments. the task involves utilizing student productivity by finding synonyms and antonyms. additionally, in chapter 7, there are tasks that emphasize aspects of productivity and accountability. for instance, on page 101, students are instructed to "briefly answer the following questions based on the news item in task 1. "it implies that the assignment expects students to be productive in responding to questions. the term 'briefly' indicates efficiency in task completion, emphasizing the need to finish on schedule. chapter 9 includes a rating of 4 for productivity and accountability elements, as it features a warm-up activity involving group discussions and questions about a specific topic found on page 120." 1. do you have something that is very special to you? 2. what is it? 3. why is it so special to you? 4. does the thing need special care? 5. how do you take care of it? these questions challenge students to think critically and push themselves to be productive in addressing it. 4.3. critical thinking critical thinking is the ability to think critically which means being able to examine and analyze, and take appropriate action after identifying assumptions accurately and validly and being able to see ideas and decisions taken from different perspectives as the following in figure 3. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 200 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) fig. 3. data of critical thinking. a textbook defines "critical thinking" as the capacity to impartially assess and judge information, arguments, and ideas. critical thinking is a vital cognitive skill enabling individuals to make informed decisions, solve problems effectively, and participate in intellectual discussions. thinking critically involves taking appropriate action after accurately and validly identifying assumptions, as well as being able to consider ideas and decisions from various perspectives. the critical thinking aspect was highly rated, achieving a score of 93% in the analysis. it means that almost all chapters implement critical thinking in their duties for good outcomes. data that can be used as representative evidence of the implementation of critical thinking, for example in chapter 10. on page 144 there is a question that refers to identification. "task: identify the text structure. read the explanation about text structure of procedure text below. then, identify the structure of the previous text in sub e". it means that students are asked to study the structure of the text provided. this task promotes critical thinking by having students assess how various parts of the text interact with each other. facione (2011) suggests that tasks encouraging students to analyze and recognize patterns within texts can greatly improve their critical thinking abilities. by identifying text structures such as procedures, cause-and-effect relationships, or chronological sequences, students strengthen cognitive skills like categorization, comparison, and inference. indirectly, students are asked to think critically about the meaning of the existing text. critical thinking helps students tackle problems in an organized manner, evaluate different viewpoints, and develop logical solutions. the 93% score in the analysis indicates that the curriculum provides ample opportunities for students to engage in these advanced cognitive processes, thereby fostering their intellectual development (paul and elder, 2006). in another section of this chapter, on page 148, there is a reflection exercise aimed at enhancing students' comprehension of the material covered. this reflection includes thought-provoking questions designed to stimulate students' thinking. the questions are presented as follows: 1. do you find it difficult to give instructions on how to use technological products? 2. do you find it difficult to follow instructions on how to use technological products? 3. write your answer in the following columns! through this reflection, students will recall challenges encountered in giving or following instructions for a technological product. this process aids students in analyzing their learning experiences. in chapter 4, on page 51, there is a task that requires identifying key words from the text. the task instructs students as follows: "write down your questions and take turns asking and answering them with your partner. compare your answers with your partner's. identify relevant words (data) from the text to support your answers." students are prompted to formulate and articulate questions about the application letter, followed by identifying pertinent words (data) from the text. here, identifying involves organizing and examining relevant words extracted from the text. 4.4. creativity creativity involves harnessing the brain's capacity to generate novel concepts or inventions. creativity is the brain's capacity to produce original ideas and solutions by integrating both divergent thinking (which generates numerous possibilities) and convergent thinking (which refines these possibilities into practical outcomes). this cognitive process is not confined to artistic pursuits but 201 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) plays a crucial role in problem-solving and innovation across various domains, from science and technology to business and everyday decision-making. thus, creativity is the process of generating ideas that are not only new but also have practical applications in society. here is the data in figure 4. fig. 4. data of creativity according to the textbook, creativity involves the process of creating, crafting, or designing to produce a result or product from dedicated effort. the analysis conducted identified elements of creativity in chapter 5: "generate your own questions about the two texts. do you have any inquiries regarding the two texts? record your questions and seek answers from your peers or instructor. "this instruction prompts students to generate their own questions about the two provided texts. if students encounter challenges understanding the structures within these texts, they are encouraged to seek clarification from their peers or teacher. the textbook encourages students to seek answers from their peers or instructors, promoting collaboration in the learning process. this collaborative element further fosters creativity by enabling students to explore different perspectives and engage in meaningful discussions. research shows that collaborative learning boosts creativity by allowing students to exchange ideas, challenge each other’s thoughts, and deepen their understanding of complex concepts (paulus & nijstad, 2003). creativity flourishes in environments that promote teamwork (sawyer, 2006) when students collaborate to solve problems or discuss ideas, they are exposed to a range of viewpoints, which can spark new ideas and innovative solutions. this collaborative approach not only helps students cultivate their own creative ideas but also enhances their communication skills and ability to work effectively in teams-abilities that are highly valued in both academic and professional settings. additionally, elements of creativity were identified in chapter 7: "compose a script for a new broadcast”. this directive requires students to develop a script for a fresh broadcast, leveraging the structure of the provided text and incorporating additional information to transform the script into a new broadcast. furthermore, the data also found in chapter 9: "write a procedural text of your own. choose a goal that you are good at. you can go to the library or search on the internet to find help. use these points when writing the text.” this task instructs students to compose their own procedural text that includes clear, step-by-step instructions, focusing on a skill they excel in. students are encouraged to seek guidance or inspiration from the library or the internet to find examples of procedural texts. they can then use the key components to craft their procedural text. 4.5. collaboration collaboration involves teams working together cooperatively, prioritizing the group's interests, and demonstrating effective teamwork, mutual respect, and appreciation among team members as depicted in figure 5. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 202 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) fig. 5. data of collaboration based on the textbook, collaboration is the process of working in a group to collectively accomplish a task with a specific objective, relying on the cohesion of each member to achieve the goal. the textbook analysis identified collaboration elements in chapter 1: "work in groups of 4. write a dialogue for each of the following situations." this instruction highlights the involvement of group work or collaborative efforts among peers to complete a dialog task as outlined. the group activity in chapter 1 prompts students to collaboratively create a dialogue for specific scenarios, encouraging them to exchange ideas, work toward a shared objective, and collectively contribute to the final outcome. this approach aligns with vygotsky's (1978) theory of social constructivism, which emphasizes that learning is most effective when it involves social interaction and cooperative problem-solving. by working together on the dialogue, students can capitalize on each other’s strengths, address any misunderstandings, and enhance their language and communication skills. gillies (2004) also reinforces this perspective, showing that collaborative dialogue activities improve students' language proficiency and deepen their understanding of linguistic structures. additionally, the process of crafting a dialogue in a group setting mirrors real-world communication practices, equipping students with valuable skills for collaborative environments beyond the classroom. the analysis also identified elements of collaboration in chapter 2: "work in groups of 3-5 students. find another text that contains 'if clauses.' then, collectively identify the 'if clauses' in your text with your group. analyze the patterns of these 'if clauses' and record the findings in the designated area." this instruction encourages students to collaborate in groups to identify and analyze "if clauses" within texts, fostering teamwork and shared exploration of linguistic patterns. the instruction in chapter 2 to “work in groups of 3-5 students” to identify and analyze “if clauses” in a text demonstrates a more advanced form of collaborative learning. this activity not only fosters teamwork but also involves students in critical analysis and pattern recognition. through joint examination of linguistic structures, students have the opportunity to learn from one another, exchange diverse perspectives, and collaboratively build their understanding. webb (2009) underscores the benefits of collaborative group work, noting that it promotes higherorder thinking skills by requiring students to articulate their reasoning, consider alternative viewpoints, and refine their knowledge through discussion. analyzing “if clauses” encourages active cognitive engagement, as students collaborate to identify patterns and discuss their findings, strengthening their understanding of grammar and syntax in the process. furthermore, the elements of collaboration found in chapter 8: "discussion with your friend in your groups about four difficulties that you have in giving instructions and in following instructions, and how to overcome them. "this interpretation indicates the presence of collaboration through group discussion about four difficulties encountered in giving and following instructions, as well as ways to overcome these challenges. 4.6. flexibility and adaptability flexibility and adaptability are essential qualities in effective teaching, enabling educators to cater to the varied needs of students. in educational contexts, "flexibility" and "adaptability" refer to the capacity to adjust, modify, or change one's thinking, approach, or behavior in response to evolving circumstances. these abilities empower individuals to navigate uncertainty, address challenges, and 203 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) capitalize on opportunities effectively. flexibility and adaptability are highly prized in personal, academic, and professional environments for their role in fostering resilience, problem-solving capabilities, and overall achievement. the data found in figure 6. fig. 6. data of flexibility and adaptability. this element receives a score of 90% because nearly all chapters demonstrate flexibility and adaptability. the data indicates that chapters throughout the book incorporate flexibility and adaptability, including chapter 6. on page 83, there is an instruction for students to listen to and mimic their teachers to practice pronunciation. students are encouraged to adjust their pronunciation according to their teacher's guidance, fostering the ability to adapt to the classroom leader's direction. on page 91, there are both elements on one page. in the task column there is a command, "cut any news from newspaper and bring it to class". this has the value of flexibility because students are free to choose any news to bring and the time given to bring the news is quite long and flexible. on the existing page there is also a task labeled "ask and answer with your friends". the section requires students to collaborate and work together, which means students implement adaptability. the students adapt to each other in then, in chapter 8 on page 113 there is a follow direction to make chocolate dipped strawberry and experiment to make it with friends. "again, listen to your teachers’ instructions to make chocolate dipped strawberries. follow the instruction by doing some actions as if you really make the chocolate dipped strawberries". this task implements flexibility because this task is free and you have free time to do it. after obtaining the overall results, a comparison can be made with previous research by wahyudi and wibowo (2018). they found an 80% graduation rate in the mechanical engineering study program using outcome-based education. in contrast, this study achieved 78% across all aspects, with the highest scores in critical thinking and flexibility/adaptability, and the lowest in complex communication. thus, the textbook in this research meets the criteria for good quality and contains materials aligned with outcomebased education standards, making it suitable for teaching and learning purposes. then, if it is compared to damayanti et al. (2021) accordingly the overall module contents dimension results were 33.33%, which means that it does not meet the obe qualification. the score is categorized as very poor. this is a fact that the module content needs many improvements soon. the module's language items should be improved, for the results of the overall module language items dimension is 50%, which indicates only half parts of the module that meet the qualification. it was still in the poor qualification category so that it needs a revisit immediately. the overall module presentation expediency results are 36.11%, which is categorized as very poor, as mostly it does not apply any obe principles. in contrast to the research we conducted, the previous research is included in the very poor criteria while our research is included in the good criteria. this happens because no percentage meets the research. based on the analysis of this research, it can be concluded that this research is not recommended for its outcome-based learning. so, this textbook is not recommended for students to use this textbook to apply the outcome-based system in teaching and learning activities. meanwhile, fiandi (2023) argued that there are 3 things that need to be considered, namely input, process, and output. this research also applies obe can be done by understanding the structure of learning objectives, learning outcomes, and course learning outcomes. the results of our research are the implementation of obe in the grade 12 english textbook regarding the suitability of obe issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 204 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. (elt materials transformed: exploring outcome-based …..) implementation the textbook has met the standards to become learning materials in the classroom. moreover, muzakir and susanto (2023) said that there is an implementation of the outcome-based curriculum in the higher education system in the era of the revolution that has been considered by thinking about the obstacles and challenges that will occur in the future. this research involved applying outcome-based principles to the grade 12 english textbook by using data input techniques and evaluating the overall results to determine the book's suitability. the findings indicate that the textbook is suitable and meets the standards of outcome-based aspects. 5. conclusion the study aims to analyze and evaluate the english textbook "english book for grade xii" within the framework of the outcome-based education curriculum. textbooks play a crucial role in implementing new curricula and must align with outcome-based education, as they account for 50% of the outcomes achieved based on its principles. this study identifies several essential characteristics that textbooks used by teachers and students must possess. these include complex communication: textbooks should enhance students' abilities to use more sophisticated language structures and convey complex ideas effectively; productivity and accountability: textbooks need to motivate students to be productive in completing tasks and reaching goals, as well as to take responsibility for their performance and learning outcomes; critical thinking: textbooks should support the development of students' critical thinking skills, enabling them to objectively analyze and evaluate information, arguments, and ideas; creativity: they should inspire students to generate original and valuable ideas, solutions, or expressions; collaboration: they should promote teamwork and cooperation among students to achieve common goals or complete interconnected tasks; flexibility and adaptability: they should help students become flexible and adaptable when encountering changing situations or new challenges. based on the achievement results and standards compliance, the performance is quite good, with a final score of 78%. it can be concluded that the english textbooks have largely met the standards, demonstrating alignment with the principles of outcome-based education. however, further analysis and evaluation are necessary to ensure full compliance with these principles, including aspects such as communication complexity, productivity and accountability, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, flexibility, and adaptability. this highlights the need to revise and enhance the english textbook to better align with the principles of the outcome-based curriculum. appropriate improvements can make the textbook a more effective learning tool and support the achievement of desired learning objectives. with an achievement score of 78%, the implementation of obe principles is quite good, but there is room for improvement, particularly in the aspect of complex communication. overall, the book meets quality standards, indicating a relatively high achievement. however, there is still a significant portion of potential that remains untapped. therefore, additional efforts and improvements are necessary to elevate performance to a higher level. acknowledgment the researchers convey profound appreciation to all individuals who contributed to the research endeavor, encompassing those engaged in data gathering and analysis, along with those who offered feedback. the researcher extends sincere thanks and appreciation to all who supported and encouraged the completion of this manuscript. declarations author contribution : anni holilla pulungan was responsible for literature review, empirical data, drafting the manuscript, and overseeing the final manuscript revision. joko kusmanto contributed to final manuscript revision. adib jasni kharisma and pirman ginting was responsible for conducting research, data collection, and data analysis. funding statement : this study did not acquire any financial support. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. 205 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 191-208 pulungan et al. 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(2002). becoming a self-regulated learner: an overview. theory into practice, 41(2), 64-70. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4102_2 https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201128.034 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4102_2 1. introduction 2. literature review 3. method 4. findings and discussion 4.1. complex communication 4.2. productivity and accountability 4.3. critical thinking 4.4. creativity 4.5. collaboration 4.6. flexibility and adaptability 5. conclusion acknowledgment declarations english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 151-161 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.10068 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id binge-watching tv series: english subtitles as an alternative to graded readers for extensive reading wenhua hsu i-shou university, no. 1, sec. 1, syuecheng rd, dashu district, kaohsiung city 84001, taiwan whh@isu.edu.tw a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 16 august 2023 revised 12 october 2023 accepted 15 december 2023 ‘drama fever’ has been riding high with increasing consumer usage of ott streaming services and prevalence of internet-connected mobile devices, leading to the phenomenon of binge-watching on college campuses in taiwan. in lieu of graded readers, which top out at the first 3000—4000 word-family levels, this study targeted english subtitles as an alternative source of input, since they also offer efl leaners a channel for exposure to english. to examine this alternative, this study first measured the vocabulary levels of english subtitles for the potential thereof as extensive reading material. the researcher compiled four corpora with each having approximately 2.5 million english-subtitled words from korean, japanese, american and chinese tv series across a couple of genres with high viewership ratings on ott services for comparison. the operational measures involved the ranked twenty-five 1000-word-family lists along the word-frequency scale of the british national corpus and the corpus of contemporary american english. results showed that englishsubtitled korean, japanese and chinese dramas reached the 2nd—3rd 1000 word-family levels at 95% text coverage and the 4th—5th 1000 levels at 98% coverage, while american series extended to the 7th— 8th 1000 levels at 98% coverage from the 3rd—4th 1000 levels at 95% coverage. moreover, ten participants expressed their views on watching english-subtitled dramas to a certain level of agreement. the data may serve as a reference concerning the vocabulary goal within the first 5000 word families for efl learners if they continually bingewatch drama series in their leisure time. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords english subtitles extensive reading vocabulary level how to cite: hsu, w. (2023). binge-watching tv series: english subtitles as an alternative to graded readers for extensive reading. english language teaching educational journal, 6 (3), 151-161. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.10068 1. introduction in recent years, how people watch television (tv) series has changed a lot. with the rapid rise of over-the-top (ott) streaming services (such as netflix, disney+, hulu, amazon prime video), the shift has been significant from traditional appointment viewing to viewing on streaming services, especially for young people. appointment viewing means sitting on the couch in front of a television set to watch satellite or cable tv programs in a once-daily or once-weekly broadcasting format, while streaming platforms via internet-connected mobile devices can be accessed anywhere anytime, which allows for binge-watching with much ease. according to cambridge dictionary, the meaning of binge-watch is to watch several episodes of a tv series or program one after another. in a survey carried out by netflix (2014) on viewing habits, approximately 1500 tv streamers described their binge-watching behavior as viewing from two to six episodes in one sitting. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.10068 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:whh@isu.edu.tw http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i3.10068 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i3.10068&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5168-3233 152 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 151-161 wenhua hsu (binge-watching tv series: english subtitles as an alternative…..) this research motive stems from the binge-watching phenomenon on college campuses in taiwan, where english is a foreign language (efl) and a required subject. during the class break, the researcher at times overhears her students chatting about which drama is streaming and popular. binge-watching dramas seems to have become one of their leisure activities in free time. on ott platforms such as netflix, where drama series are broadcast to global audiences, english is often the first language into which foreign dramas are translated, and then as a pivot translation, english subtitles serve as the source texts for translation into many other languages (locher & messerli, 2020; pedersen, 2019). however, a regularly repeated, informal classroom survey over the past year told the researcher that an overwhelming majority of our students primarily chose mandarin (the first language) subtitles to watch. the few chose english subtitles are english majors. right after the question concerning which language subtitles are used is the quick inquiry about which language drama they prefer to watch. nearly three-fifths of the students being asked to answer admitted that they are korean drama buffs, while one-fifth of them expressed their preference for japanese dramas and less than one-fifth for chinese dramas. only a handful of students stated that they like to watch american movies rather than american tv series on ott platforms, but they use mandarin subtitles. as such, the researcher has been concerned with english lexical growth if the viewing habit shifts from mandarin to english subtitles. subtitles are on-screen texts in the viewer’s first language (l1) as opposed to l2 captions in l2 videos (markham & peter, 2003). different from the two standard situations (l1 subtitles and l2 captions in l2 videos), the current context refers to subtitles in the viewer’s l2 (english) in l3 (korean, japanese) videos, which may compel taiwanese students with little knowledge of l3 to rely upon on-screen texts in english if they do not use mandarin subtitles. in this situation, english subtitles in l3 dramas may be compared to graded readers that english teachers like ours often encourage their efl students to read in an extensive reading scheme. vocabulary learning is a gradual process. extensive reading, informed by krashen’s (1985) input hypothesis, has long been promoted for vocabulary learning (day & bamford, 1998, 2004; horst, 2005). learners are encouraged to choose reading materials of their interest that are lower than or equivalent to their proficiency level without feeling daunted (waring & mclean, 2015). as the word ‘extensive’ has suggested, learners need to engage in voluminous reading in order to have sufficient encounter with unfamiliar words for acquisition to occur. they need to read in quantities large enough to eventually internalize how those unfamiliar words are used and how they collocate with the words surrounding them (nation, 2015). to carry out an extensive reading scheme, english teachers often adopt reputable publishers’ vocabulary-controlled graded reader series (e.g. cambridge readers, oxford bookworms, macmillan guided readers, penguin readers) for their students to choose from. having six to seven levels and ranging from 250 to 3800 headwords, graded readers top out at the first 3000–4000 word-family levels (claridge, 2012; mcquillan, 2016). as the vocabulary levels have shown, graded readers can be an important source of input for intermediate-level efl learners. however, due to a limited budget for purchase, the number of such readers that efl learners are asked to read may be actually still small. there is also the question of interest—not every efl learner thinks of graded readers to be engaging enough to do voluminous reading, which entails reading several million words. to enhance english vocabulary growth, webb and rodgers (2009) advocated that watching english tv programs may be intriguing to l2 learners. they collected eighty-eight english scripts of various american and british tv series and gauged the vocabulary levels thereof along the wordfrequency scale of the british national corpus, which ranks words from the 1st to 14th 1000-wordfamily levels. using 95% and 98% lexical coverage of text (knowledge of 95 and 98 words per 100 words) as the lower and upper thresholds, they measured the vocabulary demands of tv programs. results showed that knowledge of the first 2000 to 4000 word families plus proper nouns and marginal words would account for 95% coverage of tv program transcripts, whereas knowledge of the first 5000 to 9000 word families plus proper nouns and marginal words would provide 98% coverage subject to drama genres. in subsequent research on how to effectively use tv programs for english learning, rodgers and webb (2011) recommended narrow viewing by watching programs with related themes rather than random episodes from programs with different themes or by watching a series of seasons of programs with similar storylines. they offered some evidence that the number of words occurring once was issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 153 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 151-161 wenhua hsu (binge-watching tv series: english subtitles as an alternative…..) larger and the number of low-frequency words occurring ten times or more was smaller in unrelated tv programs than in related programs. this implies that tv series with a story arc linking episodes thereof are likely to use fewer variety of words and thus have a lower vocabulary load than unrelated programs, yet for learners, the chance of having a greater number of encounters with those words is higher, increasing the likelihood of vocabulary learning. using american tv shows streaming on netflix, dizon (2016) compared intermediate-level japanese efl learners’ perceptions towards the use of l1 subtitles, l2 subtitles, and no subtitles. among the three subtitling modes, l2 subtitles were favored over l1 subtitles or no subtitles, suggesting that the learners neither would like to depend on their mother tongue nor had the english proficiency enough to watch the video without subtitles. in a subsequent study, dizon (2018) provided nine japanese efl students with free access to netflix for three months in a bid to find out how these students use the on-demand video resources in their spare time. most comments collected from these students mentioned the benefits of l2 subtitles for comprehension and vocabulary learning. through a scoping review and meta-analysis, reynolds, cui, kao and thomas (2022) scrutinized 139 past studies in an attempt to understand how the viewing of captioned and subtitled videos can lead to effective vocabulary learning. they concluded that viewing captioned or subtitled videos in any type had a positive effect on vocabulary learning. reynolds et al’s (2022) scoping review has some implications for this research in terms of vocabulary learning in l3 video or l1 video with l2 (target language) subtitles. as mentioned above, avid drama fans like our students can marathon a tv series in one sitting during holidays or engage in “serial viewing” (rubenking & bracken, 2021, p. 100356) over the course of several days or weeks in their spare time. if taiwanese college students use english (l2) subtitles in lieu of mandarin (l1) subtitles, the researcher is inclined to believe that the impetus may make possible sustained reading of english subtitles while binge-watching tv series on ott. as with graded readers, english subtitles in this scenario turn to be lexical learning resources of value. if we draw parallels between extensive reading of graded readers and voluminous reading of english subtitles, they both share some common purposes such as reading for pleasure, building reading fluency as well as sustaining vocabulary growth (day & bamford, 2004). this research addressed two questions concerning english subtitles as an alternative to graded readers for extensive reading. 1. what are the vocabulary levels of english-subtitled korean, japanese and chinese dramas as opposed to american dramas? 2. what are the learners’ perceptions regarding viewing english-subtitled dramas? 2. methodology 2.1. the corpora the present corpora consisted of four sub-corpora (korean, japanese, american and chinese dramas), each containing approximately 2.5 million words from different tv series across a couple of genres (e.g., romance, coming of age, action, crimes, fantasy, thriller, legal and medical dramas) with high viewership ratings on ott services, totaling 10,009,068 running words (see table 1). inclusion of popular dramas in each sub-corpus was based upon the assumption that the tv series of high viewership on ott platforms are likely to have been watched by a large number of drama fans around the world. it is worth highlighting that most tv series are a fusion of several genres rather than limited to a single genre. for example, a medical series may be intertwined with genres such as crimes, romance or even comedy, leading to many twists and turns, say, homicidal scenarios and legal interrogations. in terms of corpus size (over 10 million words), genre balance and high viewership, the present corpus should suffice to provide a reliable measurement of vocabulary levels thereof. tv series english subtitles in subrip text (srt) files were downloaded from the internet for research purposes. they are the plain text files, including the subtitles in sequence along with the start and end timecodes. there are one or two lines of subtitles per scene with 7 to 8 words at most per line. below is the excerpt in srt format from episode 1 of crash landing on you, a blockbuster series on netflix asian in 2019—2020, for a snapshot of srt files. 154 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 151-161 wenhua hsu (binge-watching tv series: english subtitles as an alternative…..) 70 00:05:50,200 --> 00:05:52,240 -damn it. -did she hang up on you again? 71 00:05:52,330 --> 00:05:54,660 -this little brat. -just leave her be. 72 00:05:54,750 --> 00:05:57,580 it's been years since se-ri estranged the whole family. don't bother. 73 00:05:57,670 --> 00:05:59,960 i only called her because dad wanted me to. 74 00:06:00,880 --> 00:06:03,630 by the way, why did father summon all of us today? 75 00:06:04,380 --> 00:06:05,720 that must be it, right? 76 00:06:06,800 --> 00:06:09,800 -announcing the heir. -announcing the heir. table 1. the english subtitle corpus tv series with high viewership ratings number of series total words korean (l3) dramas squid game, the glory (2 seasons), the world of the married, reborn rich, sky castle, crash landing on you, reply 1988, goblin, doctor cha, extraordinary attorney woo, mr. queen, crash course in romance, hospital playlist (2 seasons), moving, my dearest (2 seasons), alchemy of souls (2 seasons), dr. romantic (3 seasons), taxi driver (2 seasons) 25 (each series ranges from 16 to 24 episodes.) 2,502,254 japanese (l3) dramas one litre no namida, one piece, imawa no kuni no alice (2 seasons), first love: hatsukoi, mystery to iunakare, unnatural, 3 nen a gumi: ima kara mina-san wa, hitojichi desu, hanzawa naoki, mother, kazoku game, tenno no ryoriban, miu 404, silent, brush up life, boku no ita jikan, tonbi, soredemo, ikite yuku, hanzawa naoki, ouroboros, code blue (3 seasons), juhan shuttai, kyo kara ore wa, liar game, koi wa tsuzuku yo doko made mo, the confidence man jp, boku dake ga inai machi, kono sekai no katasumi ni, dele, konto ga hajimaru, nanba mg5, 99.9: keiji senmon bengoshi, jin, n no tame ni, good doctor, doctor x, nijiiro karute, bitter blood, bokura wa kiseki de dekite iru, cold case: shinjitsu no tobira, koi desu: yankee-kun to hakujou garu, kounodori, tengoku to jigoku: psychona futari, kieta hatsukoi, influence, ore no sukato, doko itta. 50 (each series ranges from 8 to 12 episodes.) 2,490,044 american (l2) dramas young sheldon (6 seasons), my life with the walter boys, sweet home (2 seasons), the crown (6 seasons), bodies, neon, love is blind (5 seasons), the fall of the house of usher, lupin (3 seasons), outlanders (7 seasons), sex education (4 seasons), shameless (11 seasons), painkiller, alice in borderland (2 seasons), kleo, the witcher (3 seasons), insecure (5 seasons), wednesday, black mirror (6 seasons), suits ( 9 seasons), never have i ever (4 seasons). 80 (each series ranges from 4 to 22 episodes.) 2,507,792 chinese (l1) dramas the untamed, nirvana in fire, hidden love, love like the galaxy (2 seasons), mysterious lotus casebook, joy of life, when i fly towards you, go ahead, the blood of youth, meet yourself, love between fairy and devil, eternal love, the story of ming lang, story of yanxi palace. 15 (each series ranges from 24 to 78 episodes.) 2,508,978 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 155 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 151-161 wenhua hsu (binge-watching tv series: english subtitles as an alternative…..) 2.2 instrument and data processing lexical text coverage refers to ‘‘the percentage of running words in the text known by the reader’’ (nation, 2006, p. 61). some researchers regard five unknown words in every 100 words (95% text coverage) as the boundary beneath which readers may not be able to get adequate comprehension of an authentic text (laufer, 1989; read, 2000). nation (2006) noted that 98% text coverage, i.e. two unknown words per 100 words, is ideal for guessing words from context and may offer good conditions for lexical learning. these two putative coverage points have been proposed for setting vocabulary thresholds for different purposes: 95% text coverage for reasonable comprehension (laufer & ravenhorst-kalovski, 2010) and 98% coverage for pleasure reading (hirsh & nation, 1992) as well as for unassisted reading (hu & nation, 2000). as far as video viewing is concerned, a lower vocabulary threshold such as 95% lexical coverage may be a likely condition for guessing words from context successfully, since video affords viewers extra-linguistic support (e.g., body language) to gain understanding (van zeeland & schmitt, 2013). visual clues may make it less difficult for efl learners to guess meanings from context, even if their lexical knowledge falls short of 95% text coverage. in her recent research, laufer (2020) detected that 95% text coverage could be reached with an initial knowledge of 90% words in the text plus inferring an additional 5% words. webb and rodgers (2009) even surmised that the necessary text coverage for adequate comprehension of television programs is likely to be as low as 90%. a vocabulary threshold or level hinges on the predetermined text coverage point. for instance, 98% lexical coverage of voice of america (voa) news entails mastery of the first 6000 word families while 95% text coverage requires knowledge of the first 3000—4000 word families (hsu, 2019). in line with past studies, this research adopted both 95% and 98% coverage as a cutoff for measuring the vocabulary levels of english subtitles. through the word-frequency scale of the british national corpus and the corpus of contemporary american english (bnc/coca) ranking twenty-five 1000 words families by frequency and dispersion (nation, 2016, 2017), the researcher counted how many of the ranked 1000-word-family lists from the first 1000 were needed until the total text coverage accumulated to 95% or 98%. meanwhile, the vocabulary level was extrapolated according to which 1000-word-family list was the last one being added when the cumulative coverage reached 95% or 98%. the antwordprofiler version 2.1.0 (anthony, 2023) was implemented to analyze the lexical profiling of english subtitles. in addition to the ranked 25 bnc/coca 1000-word-family lists, another four ever-growing lists of marginal words, proper nouns, abbreviations and transparent compounds complied by nation (2017) were also installed to the program. the words that were placed at the ‘words not found in base lists’ (hereafter called off-list) by the antwordprofiler were further examined. if off-list words were marginal words (ouch, huh, geez) and personal or geographical names, they were supplemented to the existing interjection list and proper noun list in turn. for hyphenated transparent compounds in the off-list, textmate 2.0 was applied to replace these words with a space. the hyphens were summarily removed so that these compounds would not be mistaken by the antwordprofiler for off-list words. similarly, closed compounds in the off-list were added to the existing compound list to avoid double counting if their component words are already in the bnc/coca word lists. proper nouns, spoken interjections, transparent compounds and abbreviations do not make reading arduous. excluding their text coverage would inflate the vocabulary level and overestimate the vocabulary threshold required for adequate comprehension (nation, 2006; nurmukhamedov & webb, 2019), since the reading load they put on is manageable. it may not be difficult to recognize a proper noun due to transliteration or the capitalization of its first letter. spoken interjections can be ignored because of little influence on reading comprehension. one can infer the meaning of a transparent compound from its constituent words effortlessly if the learner is already familiar with its individual words. being infrequent, abbreviations do not pose a hurdle in subtitle reading. the meaning of an abbreviation may be talked about in subsequent dialogues, or it may be a familiar one in daily life. following previous research taking the text coverage of these four types of words into account (nation, 2006; rodgers & webb, 2011; webb & 156 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 151-161 wenhua hsu (binge-watching tv series: english subtitles as an alternative…..) rodgers, 2009), the researcher also counted them in to avoid overestimation until 95% and 98% coverage points were achieved. 2.3 word family as a counting unit for lexical coverage this research involves reading english subtitles while viewing streaming tv series in different languages. for reading purposes, english word recognition is essential for comprehension. word lemmas as a counting unit may be less preferable to word families in terms of an overestimate of the recognition vocabulary amount needed for good comprehension according to webb (2021). a word lemma contains a base form and inflectional forms that belong to the same part of speech, while a word family additionally includes derivational affixes (nation & meara, 2010). for instance, fuel and fuels as nouns as well as fuel, fuels, fueled and fueling in verb forms would be different lemmas. they would be categorized into two lemmas or counted as one word family, leading to different vocabulary sizes. to avoid overestimation, ‘word family’ was used as a counting unit for lexical coverage. 2.4 the new vocabulary levels test and interview ten college freshmen in the researcher’s class volunteered to watch english subtitled dramas of their choice in their spare time for one semester. they were given free access to netflix for one year as a reward but they were asked to watch korean, japanese, chinese, american dramas at least one series for each language within 4 months. before viewing, the vocabulary levels test (webb, sasao & balance, 2017) was used to measure their vocabulary size. after four month’s viewing, they were interviewed regarding their perception of viewing english-subtitled tv series, especially their views on non-english-speaking dramas. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 vocabulary levels of english-subtitled korean, japanese, chinese dramas as opposed to american dramas table 2 provides a snapshot of the vocabulary levels of english subtitles across tv series in four different languages at 95% and 98% text coverage and the coverage distribution among the bnc/coca 1st to 25th 1000-word-family levels. table 2. vocabulary levels of english subtitles along the bnc/coca word-frequency scale english subtitles of korean (l3) dramas english subtitles of japanese (l3) dramas english captions of american (l2) dramas english subtitles of chinese (l1) dramas word list text coverage cumulative coverage text coverage cumulative coverage text coverage cumulative coverage text coverage cumulative coverage proper nouns etc. 3.27% 3.27% 3.20% 3.20% 3.08% 3.08% 3.33% 3.33% 1st 1000 87.37% 90.64% 87.74% 90.94% 84.03% 87.11% 87.43% 90.76% 2nd 1000 4.32% 94.96% 4.06% *95.00% 5.01% 92.12% 4.12% 94.88% 3rd 1000 1.98% *96.94% 1.79% 96.79% 1.98% 94.10% 1.84% *96.72% 4th 1000 0.96% 97.90% 1.22% **98.01% 1.65% *95.75% 0.92% 97.64% 5th 1000 0.83% **98.73% 0.77% 98.78% 0.95% 96.70% 0.78% **98.42% 6th 1000 0.31% 99.04% 0.38% 99.16% 0.76% 97.46% 0.53% 98.95% 7th 1000 0.21% 99.25% 0.08% 99.24% 0.52% 97.98% 0.44% 99.39% 8th 1000 0.09% 99.34% 0.07% 99.31% 0.44% **98.42% 0.27% 99.66% 9th 1000 0.07% 99.41% 0.07% 99.38% 0.42% 98.84% 0.12% 99.78% 10th—25th 1000 0.59% 100% 0.62% 100% 1.16% 100% 0.22% 100% total words 2,502,254 2,490,044 2,507,792 2,508,978 as shown in table 2, the first 1000 word families accounted for 84.03%—87.74% of the total words in the sub-corpora and the second 1000 made up 4.06%—5.01%%. the combined text coverage of the first 2000 word families (89.04%—91.8%) was higher than the average 86%–90% covered by issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 157 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 151-161 wenhua hsu (binge-watching tv series: english subtitles as an alternative…..) the first bnc 2000 word families in texts of different genres (nation, 2006). this result offers a beacon of hope for efl students with a base vocabulary only (at the 2000—3000 word-family levels). a further look at table 2 shows that after the first 2000 words, the subtitle coverage of the third 1000 reduced to below 2% and further dropped to less than 1% at the fifth 1000. english subtitles in non-english-speaking tv series used a small vocabulary, converging at the first 2000—3000 wordfamily levels. knowledge of the first 2000—3000 word families plus interjections, proper nouns, transparent compounds and abbreviations would be enough to provide 95% coverage of english subtitles for reasonable or minimally acceptable comprehension (see table 2 for cumulative coverage 96.94%, 95%, 96.72% at the 2nd and 3rd 1000 levels for korean, japanese and chinese dramas respectively). learners with knowledge of the first 4000—5000 word families (providing 98.73%, 98.01%, 98.42% coverage for korean, japanese and chinese dramas) should be able to read english subtitles with less difficulty. in other words, watching english-subtitled non-english-speaking tv series like korean, japanese and chinese dramas did not demand a higher vocabulary capacity than the others. in contrast with non-english-speaking dramas, watching american tv series was the most vocabulary-demanding (3000—4000 word families at 95% coverage and stretching to 7000—8000 word families at 98% coverage). english subtitles at a higher vocabulary level can be interpreted as having more english words appearing in the latter 1000-word-family bands along the bnc/coca word-frequency scale. reaching the 8000 word-family level means that american series entail a much larger vocabulary than the other three non-english-speaking dramas and watching american series would result in efl learners working on a wider variety of vocabulary subject to genres. however, the slightly below 95% coverage in american series that knowledge of the first 2000—3000 word families plus marginal words and proper nouns would provide may still fall within the parameters where good comprehension takes place (nation, 2006). regardless of non-english-speaking or english-speaking dramas, if efl learners have a vocabulary capacity of the first 8000 word families, they would be able to view english-subtitled tv series rather smoothly without constantly guessing unknown words or frequent dictionary lookups. compared with a vocabulary size of the first 3000—4000 to 7000—8000 word families needed to watch american series, watching non-english-speaking dramas with english subtitles is a lot easier, since knowledge of the first 2000—3000 to 4000—5000 word families would suffice to provide 95% to 98% text coverage. however, this signals that watching non-english-speaking dramas may not bring about greater vocabulary development as watching american series. in answer to rq1 ‘what are the vocabulary levels of english-subtitled korean, japanese and chinese dramas as opposed to american dramas?’, table 2 shows that they generally reached the 2nd– 3rd 1000-word-family levels at 95% text coverage and spread to the 4th–5th 1000 at 98% coverage as opposed to american dramas spanning from the 3rd–4th 1000 word-family level at 95% coverage to the 7th–8th 1000 level at 98% coverage. by and large, efl drama buffs with knowledge of the first 2000 to 3000 word families can be encouraged to give viewing english-subtitled dramas a try, since they are supported with rich visual imagery, which further lowers the vocabulary demand. therefore, watching english-subtitled dramas may not be a formidable task as we have expected. efl learners planning to watch captioned american dramas may need to know a minimum of the first 3000—4000 word families in order to enjoy binge-watching american series. as aforementioned, the lowest levels of graded readers contain only a few hundred headwords, most go up to around 3000 headwords, and the very highest levels go up to 4000—5000 headwords, equivalent to the first 3000—4000 word-family levels at 98% text coverage. compared with graded readers, the vocabulary levels of english subtitles in tv series are above the most advanced graded reader level. moreover, tv dramas often involve some societal issues to which global audience can relate to, such as bullying, corruption, gender inequality, sexual harassment as well as daily life topics like family, friendship and marriage. the diversity of subject matter in tv dramas implies that english subtitles thereof may be a rich language learning resource. 3.2 learners’ perception towards viewing english-subtitled dramas based on the vocabulary levels test (webb, sasao & balance, 2017) scores, the recognition vocabulary of the ten participants ranged from the first 2000 to 6000 word-family level. seven of them converged at the 3000—4000 word-family levels with one student reaching the 6000 word-family 158 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 151-161 wenhua hsu (binge-watching tv series: english subtitles as an alternative…..) level and two with a base vocabulary at the 2000—3000 word-family level. at the end of the semester, all of the ten participants had completed the english-subtitled drama viewing assignment—at least one korean, japanese, chinese and american series of their choice respectively. subsequently, they were interviewed to express their views on watching english-subtitled korean and japanese (l3), american english (l2) and chinese (l1) tv series. the ten participants showed a level of agreement in their responses regarding the difficulty of english subtitles. they all commented that viewing english-subtitled korean, japanese and chinese dramas was not so formidable as they had expected, but they felt a little more difficult while watching american series. this may be because the vocabulary sizes of the participants have all attained a minimum threshold at the first 2000 to 3000 word-family levels for korean, japanese, chinese dramas but the vocabulary capacities of two participants fell below the minimal demand of the first 3000 to 4000 word-family levels for american series. their responses concurred with some lexical researchers’ proposition that 95% text coverage (percentage of known words in a text) is ideal for reasonable comprehension. or it was likely that through visual representations and cumulative background knowledge over episodes and series, learners with knowledge of words covering slightly lower than 95% of subtitled text may still provide general comprehension of the scenarios and plots. not very surprisingly, most of them admitted that they did not pay much attention to english subtitles when they watched chinese dramas, since they could hear mandarin (l1) dialogues effortlessly. for this issue, one of them jokingly suggested turning off the audio or turning down the volume. as to korean and japanese dramas, they remarked that they had no choice but to rely on english subtitles since they knew little about korean or japanese. one participant even used the idiom ‘kill two birds with one stone’ to tell the researcher that he can learn english together with spoken korean. then he blurted out 매우 감사합니다, meaning ‘thank you very much’. when asked about their preference for english-speaking dramas or non-english-speaking dramas, most of them answered that a gripping plot instead of the language spoken is the key to keeping them hooked and binge-watching a tv series. although only one student showed her preference for american dramas and her english was the best among the ten participants, she still felt that watching american series was more arduous than korean, japanese or chinese dramas to understand the characters’ dialogues per scene. to overcome the hindrance from unknown words, this student said that she used a guessing strategy by picking up key words from a sequence of utterances and subtitles for general comprehension. in this regard, the two low-proficiency students (having a base vocabulary only) mentioned that they could guess meanings without difficulty when they watched korean or japanese dramas. they gave their reason that the mode of thought and culture in korean dramas or japanese dramas are close to those in chinese dramas. some other participants also seconded the two students’ viewpoints about easier guess due to similar culture. very surprisingly, one of them pointed out the word ‘waste’ as an example. this participant described a scene she saw in a korean drama, where a man gives a piggyback to his drunk female friend, who just broke up with her boyfriend, and climbs stairs to the rooftop hut of an old midrise apartment without elevators, saying “shush! you are wasted. do you want to wake everyone to know you were dumped?” this participant said that she already knew the usual meaning of ‘waste’, signifying use or expend carelessly, but ‘you are wasted’ impressed her and thus learned a new meaning of ‘waste’ from this english subtitle. she further explained that neither ‘you are useless’ nor ‘you are a jerk’ was what she inferred from the scene. instead, she guessed the meaning ‘you are drunk’ correctly, because such a dramatic scene occurs occasionally in chinese dramas. overall, the interview reveals that regardless of english-speaking dramas or non-english-speaking dramas, learners would still likely gain from english subtitles. they would likely uptake the words that are related to their life experiences and relatable scenes may motivate them to use some strategies to learn new words or develop further knowledge of familiar words. 4. conclusion and implications this research was inspired by the binge-watching phenomenon among taiwanese college students. because our students enjoy watching dramas on ott in their leisure time and spend so much time binge-watching, this hints that drama fever may make it possible for efl learners like ours to continually engage in watching dramas with english subtitles in lieu of their l1 subtitles. the goal of issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 159 vol. 6, no. 3, december 2023, pp. 151-161 wenhua hsu (binge-watching tv series: english subtitles as an alternative…..) this preliminary study has been to show the potential of english subtitles as an alternative to graded readers for extensive reading. english-subtitled korean, japanese and chinese dramas reached the 2nd—3rd 1000 word-family levels at 95% text coverage and the 4th—5th 1000 levels at 98% coverage subject to genres, while american series extended to the 7th—8th 1000 level at 98% coverage from the 3rd—4th 1000 wordfamily levels at 95% coverage. learners with a base vocabulary may find english subtitles a challenge at the beginning. however, the interview results tell another story. for the ten participants, incomplete comprehension was expected when watching the first few episodes, but they did not feel overwhelmed by the amount of unknown words. visual imagery assisted them in creating the form-meaning link of unknown words and therefore made up for insufficient lexical knowledge. to overcome fear of watching english-subtitled series at the onset, learners can be advised to proceed to watch further on. comprehension will improve with more and more episodes being watched, because the context of an unfamiliar word and its later recurrence may give viewers some clues about its meaning. there are still some other ways of helping efl learners to reduce vocabulary load. gaining background knowledge through trailers and preview facilitates comprehension. with the subtitle option on ott, efl learners can select the l1 subtitles in the first time viewing and watch the same drama later but in english subtitles. therefore, learners may find it less difficult in the second time viewing. another way to increase the potential for vocabulary learning is to watch the same english-subtitled drama multiple times (at spaced intervals) if they enjoy this drama. this would increase the number of encounters with unfamiliar words to the point where they may be learned. as far as the vocabulary levels involved in english-subtitled korean, japanese and chinese dramas are concerned, this research has manifested that efl learners can get sufficient input from english subtitles through binge-watching, just as they do extensive reading of graded readers. the results may serve as a reference for english teachers and learners who are concerned with vocabulary learning out of class. acknowledgment the author wishes to express her profound gratitude to emeritus professor paul nation for the bnc/coca word lists, which were indispensable to this research. declarations author contribution : wenhua hsu is the sole author and responsible for all of this manuscript. funding statement : this research was self-supported and did not rely on any institutional funding. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflict of interest. ethics declaration : the author acknowledges that this work has been written based on ethical research that conforms with the regulations of the author’s university and that she has obtained the participants’ permission when collecting data. the author supports english language teaching educational journal (eltej) in maintaining high standards of personal conduct, practicing honesty 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(2017). the updated vocabulary levels test: developing and validating two new forms of the vlt. itl-international journal of applied linguistics, 168(1), 34–70. https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.168.1.02web https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/netflix-declares-binge-watching-is-the-new-normal-235713431.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/netflix-declares-binge-watching-is-the-new-normal-235713431.html https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444819000028 https://doi.org/10.3390/systems10050133 https://doi.org/10.5054/tq.2011.268062 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.abrep.2021.100356 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/ams074 http://hdl.handle.net/10125/66708 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0272263121000760 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00509.x https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.168.1.02web 1. introduction 2. methodology 2.1. the corpora 2.2 instrument and data processing 2.3 word family as a counting unit for lexical coverage 2.4 the new vocabulary levels test and interview 3. findings and discussion 3.1 vocabulary levels of english-subtitled korean, japanese, chinese dramas as opposed to american dramas 3.2 learners’ perception towards viewing english-subtitled dramas 4. conclusion and implications acknowledgment declarations references english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 78-91 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14046 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation: a qualitative study of an academic–practitioner collaborative course thadius marhendra adi kristanto a,1,*, anselmus sudirman b,2 a, b universitas sarjanawiyata tamansiswa, jl. batikan uh. iii/1043, umbulharjo, yogyakarta 1 kristanto@ustjogja.ac.id *; 2 anselmus.sudirman@ustjogja.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 12 june 2025 revised 12 july 2025 accepted 4 august 2025 this research examines students' reflections on the integration of theoretical knowledge and practical application within a translation curriculum that combines academic instruction with sessions led by industry practitioners. sixteen students in their fifth semester from the english education department of universitas sarjanawiyata tamansiswa participated in this investigation, having engaged in both theoretical lectures and practical workshops as components of the principles in translating and interpreting course. data were obtained through reflective journals and semi-structured interviews, subsequently undergoing thematic analysis. the results indicate that academic sessions provided crucial theoretical foundations, whereas practitioner-led activities facilitated students in applying, testing, and attaining a deeper comprehension of these theories within authentic translation environments. systematic reflection enabled students to identify challenges, develop effective translation strategies, and enhance their confidence and professional mindset. many participants reported shifting from seeing themselves solely as students to perceiving themselves as emerging professionals. supported by recent research highlighting reflective practice as a catalyst for developing professional competence and learner autonomy (dangerfield & napier, 2016; korol, 2024; pietrzak, 2019b), these findings underscore the value of designing translation curricula that integrate theory, realworld practice, and structured reflection. the study further suggests that such integration can strengthen students’ readiness for the demands of professional translation work and guide curriculum developers in creating more practice-oriented, reflective learning environments. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords reflective practice translator education theory and practice integration student reflection how to cite: kristanto, t, m, a. & sudirman, a. (2025). students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation: a qualitative study of an academic–practitioner collaborative course. english language teaching educational journal, 8(2), 78-91. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14046 1. introduction translation is a discipline that requires both theoretical knowledge and practical skills, as discussed in munday et al. (2022) and nord (2018). while translation theory provides essential foundations, such as linguistic structures, translation strategies, and cultural adaptation, translation practice requires real-world problem-solving skills, professional adaptability, and industry experience. one of the ongoing challenges in translation education is to ensure that students can bridge the gap between theoretical instruction and the practical demands of the profession (kiraly, 2015). many translation courses aim to address this issue by combining academic and practitioner-led approaches, enabling https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14046 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:kristanto@ustjogja.ac.id mailto:anselmus.sudirman@ustjogja.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14046 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14046&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5520-9838 79 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 78-91 kristanto, t, m, a. & sudirman, a. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in…..) students to learn from both perspectives and develop a comprehensive understanding of translation (chairina et al., 2025; gonzález-davies & enríquez-raído, 2016; yin, 2019). recent research also shows that translation programs benefit when theory and practice are situated within authentic contexts (dewi, 2019; munday et al., 2022; nord, 2018). the academic aspect of translator education generally emphasizes theoretical concepts, text interpretation, and methodological strategies (pietrzak, 2019a; siregar & stroupe, 2025). in contrast, the practice-focused component exposes learners to the realities of translation work, such as professional processes, client demands, and industry norms. numerous studies have underscored the necessity of finding a balance between these two elements, noting that students who engage with both academic and practical viewpoints are more effectively equipped for careers in translation (orlando, 2016; sofyan & tarigan, 2023). upon finishing their studies, the students can handle translation assignments and navigate potential challenges (liu, 2017). related to the integration of theory and practice in translation courses, dewi (2019) highlights the importance of theoretical competence in guiding decision-making in translation practice and discusses transfer competence, particularly concerning the skopos theory and strategic decision-making, which encourages students to reflect on their application of theoretical knowledge in real-world contexts. she also underscores professional competence, including ethical considerations and industry expectations, reinforcing the role of practitioner collaboration in shaping the students’ mindset. additionally, she adds that technological competence, such as the use of cat tools and machine translation, is relevant to understanding how students integrate technology with theoretical principles. however, despite efforts to integrate theory and practice, students often struggle to apply theoretical principles in real-life translation tasks, underscoring the need for structured reflection to facilitate this integration (kiraly, 2015). reflection involves thoughtfully reviewing and analyzing past experiences to guide future actions (farrell, 2015; tiessen, 2018). it plays an important role in developing students’ self-awareness, selfregulation, and professional growth. unlike self-assessment, which applies clear standards to evaluate performance through convergent thinking, reflection is more descriptive and open-ended, relying on divergent thinking. as such, reflection tends to be more passive and retrospective, while selfassessment is active and focused on improvement (fraser et al., 2024; pietrzak, 2019b). together, these practices highlight the value of structured reflection as a foundation for meaningful selfassessment in translator education. contemporary translation education has established and evaluated various reflective instruments, such as paired or group discussions, reflective interviews, checklists, and mechanisms for peer feedback (crezee & marianacci, 2022; holewik, 2021; zohrabi & xodabande, 2024). these tools not only enhance critical reflection but also promote collaborative learning among students and help them improve their practices. situated learning frameworks also highlight the importance of applying these tools within real-world translation contexts (gonzález-davies & enríquez-raído, 2016). among these reflective instruments, journals appear to be the most utilized in the training of both translators and interpreters. recent research highlights their significance in connecting theory with practice and cultivating more profound professional insights (korol, 2024; pietrzak, 2019a). through the journals, students can critically reflect on their competencies in theory and practice, assess how coursework shapes their understanding of the profession, and identify which skills or knowledge will be most useful for their future as translators. the role of reflective practice in translator training has been widely examined in recent studies, which emphasize that professionals need to critically analyze their experiences to develop expertise (dangerfield & napier, 2016; korol, 2024). in translation studies, reflection helps students evaluate their decision-making processes, recognize challenges, and refine their strategies. recent scholarship also promotes collaborative and peer reflection as part of situated learning, highlighting translation as a cognitive, social, and cultural activity embedded in real-world contexts (fraser et al., 2024; zohrabi & xodabande, 2024). through these reflective and collaborative activities, students learn by applying theory to practice and working in teams, supporting the goal of developing reflective and adaptive practitioners. moreover, research shows that multilingual competence and translanguaging strategies help students navigate complex audiences and genres in professional contexts (laviosa, 2019; rajendram et al., 2023). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 80 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 78-91 kristanto, t, m, a. & sudirman, a. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in…..) a growing body of research highlights that structured reflection strengthens translation competence. orlando (2016) shows that practices like self-assessment and peer discussion raise students’ awareness of their translation strategies and support more deliberate linguistic and ethical choices. likewise, kim (2016) finds that critically linking prior knowledge with new theoretical concepts transforms passive understanding into practical, applicable knowledge, key to building professional competence. translation theories also serve as valuable guides, especially when students encounter complex tasks, by providing systematic, expert-informed strategies. overall, reflective engagement functions as a cognitive bridge between theory and practice, encouraging deeper learning, adaptive reasoning, and professional growth. expanding upon schön's (1983) concept of the reflective practitioner, recent research further highlights how collaborative learning frameworks and structured reflection enhance translation competence (dangerfield & napier, 2016; korol, 2024; zohrabi & xodabande, 2024). these studies suggest that combining individual reflection with peer discussions and project-based collaboration enables students to move beyond passive understanding toward active engagement with translation challenges. according to this research, learners develop greater autonomy and a deeper, more integrated understanding of their professional roles when structured reflection is intentionally embedded alongside collaborative activities (fraser et al., 2024; siregar & stroupe, 2025). as a result, students are better equipped to critically analyze their translation strategies, adapt to varied professional contexts, and internalize theoretical concepts in ways that directly inform practice. in research on translator training, the integration of multiple data sources—particularly reflective journals and semi-structured interviews—is widely recognized as an effective strategy for gaining a deeper and more nuanced understanding of students’ learning processes (crezee & marianacci, 2022; pietrzak, 2019b). while reflective journals provide valuable self-reported accounts of students’ experiences and perceptions, interviews serve a complementary role by allowing researchers to probe further into themes that may only be hinted at in written reflections. this process helps reveal students’ evolving cognitive and professional development in greater detail. triangulating these qualitative data sources not only enriches the findings but also strengthens the credibility and trustworthiness of the analysis (nowell et al., 2017). by inviting participants to elaborate on their reflections during interviews, researchers can better capture the complex interplay between theoretical instruction and practical application that characterizes translator education. moreover, designing the curriculum plays a crucial role in linking professional practice with translation theory. recent studies indicate that integrating ai tools can improve feedback and engagement during revision tasks, thus fostering reflective practice and enhancing learning experiences (xu et al., 2024). additionally, recent research investigates how to systematically assess translation revision and post-editing skills to enhance translator training (robert et al., 2024). effective curriculum models should include opportunities for mentorship, collaboration, and contextual learning, specifically supporting the integration of academic teaching with real-world experiences. for instance, universities might develop courses that consistently invite industry professionals to lead workshops on particular topics such as technical, legal, or medical translation (orlando, 2016). such integration should be established in the course design from the outset rather than being considered a secondary addition. furthermore, research indicates that project-based learning enhances students' practical skills and understanding of real-world challenges by having them carry out actual translation projects under the mentorship of experienced professionals (sofyan & tarigan, 2023; tandiana et al., 2025). a comparative analysis of european ma translation programs reveals differences in the ways internships and theoretical components are combined (torres-simón & pym, 2019). to ensure that these experiences support deeper learning, reflective components must also be built into the curriculum. these can take the form of learning journals, reflective portfolios, or guided peer discussions, which allow students to critically assess their decision-making processes and professional growth. by thoughtfully designing curricula that align theory with practice and integrate reflection as a core pedagogical feature, institutions can better prepare students to navigate the demands of professional translation work (siregar & stroupe, 2025). despite these efforts, gaps remain in understanding how students experience and make sense of academic-practitioner collaboration. while some studies have examined translation curriculum effectiveness, few have focused on students’ reflective engagement with both theoretical and practiceled components. this study aims to address that gap by exploring students’ perspectives on how theory 81 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 78-91 kristanto, t, m, a. & sudirman, a. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in…..) and practice are integrated, and how their reflections contribute to their development as future translators. the findings are expected to inform the development of more responsive and practiceoriented curricula in translator education. thus, this study investigates students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation, focusing on their perspectives on both academic and practitioner-led sessions. by examining their experiences, this research contributes to ongoing discussions about pedagogical best practices in translator training and offers recommendations for enhancing translation education curricula. 2. method this study applied a reflective journal procedure as a central qualitative tool to explore how students connected theoretical knowledge with practical experience. by guiding students to systematically document their thoughts, challenges, and insights after each stage of the integrated translation course, the reflective journals served as a primary means of capturing individual learning processes and professional development. together with semi-structured interviews, this approach provided a richer understanding of students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice. to enhance the trustworthiness of the findings, data triangulation was employed by comparing themes emerging from both journals and interviews, ensuring that interpretations were well-grounded and representative of students’ shared experiences. 2.1. participants the participants of this study were 16 fifth-semester students from the english education program at universitas sarjanawiyata tamansiswa (ust). these students were enrolled in the principles in translating and interpreting course, which is designed to introduce both theoretical and practical aspects of translation. the group was purposefully selected as they had completed both academic sessions with their lecturer and practice-oriented sessions with a professional translator, making them suitable subjects for exploring reflections on the integration of theory and practice in translation. notably, the practitioner-led sessions conducted as part of the praktisi mengajar program in 2024 is part of the merdeka belajar kampus merdeka (mbkm) policy, which brings industry professionals to co-teach university courses and help bridge the gap between academic learning and professional practice. funded by the ministry of research and technology, this initiative supports recommendations to include authentic, industry-based experiences in translation education (torressimón & pym, 2019; dewi, 2019; gonzález-davies & enríquez-raído, 2016). 2.2. data collection technique data were collected using two main instruments: post-course reflective journals and semistructured interviews. the reflective journals were written by each student at the end of the course, guided by prompts that asked them to evaluate their experiences of learning translation theory and engaging with real-world practice (korol, 2024; pietrzak, 2019a). the interviews were conducted individually and focused on the students’ perceptions of how theory and practice were integrated, the challenges they encountered, and the value they derived from each learning component. these methods reflect recommendations in recent scholarship for using multi-method reflective tools to capture students' perspectives more holistically (alolaywi, 2022; crezee & marianacci, 2022). 2.3. data analysis technique this study employed a qualitative case study design to analyze students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in translation training. two data sources were used: post-course reflective journals and semi-structured interviews. each data set was analyzed using thematic analysis, following the sixphase process originally proposed by braun and clarke (2006), as described and applied by nowell et al. (2017) to meet trustworthiness criteria in qualitative research. the analytical framework also drew on recent studies that emphasize the value of reflection-on-action and structured reflective practices for developing translation competence (dalol & ali, 2023; korol, 2024; pietrzak, 2019a). 1) reflective journals students’ reflective journals were collected after the completion of both academic and practitionerled sessions. these journals contained students’ self-assessments of their learning experiences, with prompts focusing on theoretical understanding, practical challenges, and professional development (pietrzak, 2019a). the analysis began with a thorough review of all entries. initial codes were issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 82 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 78-91 kristanto, t, m, a. & sudirman, a. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in…..) generated manually and categorized under emergent themes such as “application of theory”, “professional insights from practitioners”, and “personal growth”. the themes were then reviewed to ensure coherence and accuracy in representing students’ retrospective evaluations. the analysis emphasized how students internalized translation theory, processed their experiences, and formulated learning outcomes through reflection-on-action. to guide students in writing meaningful and structured reflections, a post-course reflective journal prompt was developed as part of the data collection instrument. post-course reflective journal instructions: write a reflective journal summarizing your learning experience throughout the translation course. focus on the integration of theoretical knowledge and practical skills. use the following guiding questions: a. overall learning journey what were your main takeaways from the academic sessions? what were your main takeaways from the practitioner sessions? how do you think the two approaches (academic and practitioner) complement each other? b. challenges and solutions what challenges did you face in combining theory and practice during the course? how did you address or overcome those challenges? c. personal growth and insights how has this course influenced your understanding of translation as a profession? what skills or knowledge from this course will be most beneficial for your future as a translator? d. suggestions for improvement what aspects of the course could be improved to integrate theory and practice better? 2) interviews given the small number of participants (n = 16), all students enrolled in the principles in translating and interpreting course took part in semi-structured interviews. these interviews explored students’ reflections on combining academic theory with practitioner-led practice and complemented the reflective journals for triangulation. thematic analysis focused on students’ learning experiences, the interplay between theory and practice, and the challenges they encountered. analyzing journals and interviews separately preserved the integrity of each data source, while triangulation enhanced validity by revealing recurring patterns and insights. guided by the concept of reflection-on-action, this approach captured how students developed translation competence and professional identity through integrated learning. in addition to describing the analysis, the study also developed an interview guide to help structure the semi-structured interviews. this guide aims to encourage students to reflect critically on their learning experiences, the integration of theory and practice, challenges faced, and professional development. interview guidelines instructions: answer each question as honestly and thoroughly as possible, drawing on specific examples from your coursework, both in the academic sessions and the practitioner-led workshops. there are no right or wrong answers—your insights will contribute to a deeper understanding of how students experience and respond to translation training that combines theoretical learning with professional practice. 83 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 78-91 kristanto, t, m, a. & sudirman, a. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in…..) a. learning experience how would you describe your experience learning theory in class? how was your experience working with the translation practitioner? what are the main differences between learning with your lecturer and with the practitioner? b. integration of theory and practice do you feel that the theory taught in class supports the practices introduced? why or why not? can you give an example of a situation where theory helped you understand the practice, or vice versa? c. challenges and strategies what was the biggest challenge you faced in integrating theory and practice? how did you overcome that challenge? d. personal reflection what do you think was the most valuable aspect of the practitioner sessions? how has this experience influenced your view of translation as a profession? to illustrate this process, figure 1 shows how academic instruction and practitioner workshops were combined, followed by student reflections documented in journals and interviews. this analysis led to a deeper understanding of how reflective practice bridges theory and real-world translation practice. fig. 1. flowchart illustrating the reflective learning process in an integrated translation course as shown in figure 1, this sequence—from integrated teaching to reflective journaling and interviews, followed by thematic analysis—helped capture students’ evolving perceptions and strategies. by systematically linking learning activities, data collection, and analysis, the study ensured that students’ voices remained central to understanding how theoretical knowledge and practical experience interact in translator training. 3. finding and discussion 3.1. findings the thematic analysis revealed six main themes describing how students bridged theory and practice. these themes illustrate the dynamic learning process facilitated by the integration of academic sessions, practitioner-led workshops, and reflective practice (dangerfield & napier, 2016; korol, 2024). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 84 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 78-91 kristanto, t, m, a. & sudirman, a. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in…..) to provide a clear overview of the qualitative data analysis, table 1 below summarizes the six key themes identified from students’ reflective journals and interviews. these themes reflect students’ evolving understanding of translation, their experiences in bridging theory and practice, the strategies they employed to overcome challenges, and the formation of their professional identity. presenting this summary helps contextualize the detailed discussion that follows and illustrates the breadth of perspectives captured through the integrated reflective process. 1) appreciation of academic and practitioner input most students (14 out of 16 in reflective journals and 13 out of 16 in interviews) expressed appreciation for the academic sessions, highlighting their value in building a strong theoretical foundation. these sessions were particularly noted for enhancing students’ understanding of key translation principles such as equivalence, translation strategies, and the analysis of source and target texts. in addition, nearly all students (15 out of 16 in journals and 10 out of 16 in interviews) reported that the practitioner-led sessions were instrumental in exposing them to the realities of professional translation practice. these sessions provided practical experience, including the use of computerassisted translation (cat) tools like memoq, receiving professional feedback, and learning about client expectations and industry standards. the integration of ai tools can also support reflective revision by giving immediate feedback on draft translations, encouraging students to critically assess their own work (xu et al., 2024). one student emphasized this distinction, stating in an interview, “from the lecturer, i understood the principles behind translation, but it was the practitioner who made me realize how flexible and responsive i needed to be in real-world settings.” 2) integration of theory and practice most students (13 out of 16) expressed that the academic and practitioner sessions complemented each other in both journals and interviews. they found that theory offered a basis for understanding translation decisions, while practice helped them apply and refine those decisions in context. figure 2 below illustrates how students viewed the dynamic interplay between theoretical instruction and practical experience. fig. 2. complementarity of academic theory and practitioner-led practice in students’ reflections interview: “sometimes i didn’t fully understand the theory until i saw how it worked during a real translation task.” journal: “this course helped me understand that theory is not just abstract—it becomes real when applied to actual texts.” 3) challenges in bridging theory and practice students used strategies like improving english skills, collaborating with peers, reviewing theoretical frameworks, and creating checklists to support their translation practice. reflective journals helped them systematically track these strategies over time. one student noted, “i created a list of strategies based on class discussions and used it to check my translation,” showing how journaling promoted metacognitive awareness and critical self-evaluation. semi-structured interviews provided a chance to discuss these strategies in more depth and highlight the value of peer support and reflective thinking. as one student explained, “discussing problems with classmates helped me connect theory with what i did in practice.” this dual approach— 85 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 78-91 kristanto, t, m, a. & sudirman, a. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in…..) combining journals and interviews—captured both evolving reflections and students’ reasoning about why certain strategies were effective in bridging theory and practice. common challenges reported included difficulty translating into english due to limited vocabulary or grammar (10 students), applying theory in practice (8 students), and adapting to different teaching approaches (5 students). reflective journals documented students’ real-time struggles, such as “sometimes i knew the theory, but when i had to apply it, i wasn’t sure how to start the translation.” interviews offered space to explain these reflections further, with one student sharing, “i got stuck when the practitioner told us to simplify a sentence, but in class we learned to maintain the original structure.” overall, combining reflective journals and interviews provided a richer, triangulated view of students’ learning processes. this approach revealed not only the specific challenges students faced but also how they analysed, adapted, and grew in their understanding of translation as both an academic discipline and a professional practice. 4) challenges in bridging theory and practice students adopted a range of strategies to overcome challenges they faced during the translation process, including improving their english proficiency, collaborating with peers, systematically reviewing theoretical concepts, and developing personal tools such as checklists. reflective journaling played an important role in this process by enabling students to document their evolving strategies, notice recurring difficulties, and consciously track improvements over time. one student wrote in their journal, “i created a list of strategies based on class discussions and used it to check my translation.” this demonstrates how reflective writing encouraged self-monitoring and critical thinking about individual translation decisions. in parallel, the semi-structured interviews provided a space for students to elaborate on these strategies verbally, offering richer insight into how collaborative reflection and peer feedback supported their learning. as expressed by one student during an interview, “discussing problems with classmates helped me connect theory with what i did in practice.” by using both reflective journals and interviews, the study was able to capture not only what strategies students employed but also how they understood and articulated the value of these strategies in bridging theoretical learning with real-world translation practice. 5) challenges in bridging theory and practice thirteen students described a significant transformation in their understanding of what it means to be a translator. initially, many viewed translation primarily as a linguistic exercise focused on accuracy and word choice. through the combined experience of academic instruction, practitionerled workshops, and structured reflection, they began to see translation instead as a professional responsibility that demands critical judgment, ethical awareness, and sensitivity to audience and context. one student articulated this shift in a reflective journal: “now i see that translation is not just changing words, but making sure the message is appropriate for the audience.” this highlights how journaling encouraged deeper critical engagement with the role of translators as communicators rather than mere language converters. the interviews complemented these written reflections by providing space for students to express how their sense of identity evolved throughout the course. as one student shared during an interview, “this course made me feel like a translator, not just a student.” by combining these two data sources, the study was able to capture both the internal realization documented in journals and the more explicit articulation of professional growth shared in interviews, together demonstrating how integrated learning experiences can foster the development of a reflective and confident translator identity. 6) challenges in bridging theory and practice several students offered constructive suggestions for improving the integration of theory and practice within the course. to illustrate these suggestions visually, see figure 3 below, which summarizes the main areas for improvement identified by students in both reflective journals and interviews. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 86 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 78-91 kristanto, t, m, a. & sudirman, a. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in…..) fig. 3. suggestions for improving the integration of theory and practice in the translation course a total of 12 out of 16 students in their reflective journals and 11 out of 16 during interviews recommended enhancements such as incorporating more authentic translation projects, strengthening the coordination between academic instruction and practitioner-led sessions, and expanding the use of translation technologies. additionally, 6 students in journals and 5 in interviews proposed the inclusion of internships or mentorship programs to expose them to real-world translation workflows further. these suggestions reflect students’ growing metacognitive awareness and their desire for a more seamless and professionally oriented learning experience. as one student expressed in an interview, “it would help if the practitioner and lecturer followed up on each other’s sessions.” similarly, a journal entry stated, “maybe we can simulate a real translation project from start to finish.” such insights indicate a reflective maturity and a proactive attitude toward optimizing translator education. 3.2. discussion the findings of this research emphasize the importance of merging theoretical understanding with hands-on experience in training programs for translators. this combination proves to be most effective when paired with organized reflection, allowing students to relate their classroom education to practical applications (pietrzak, 2019b; zohrabi & xodabande, 2024). to illustrate this, figure 4 below shows students’ reflections on how combining theory and practice contributed to their learning and professional growth. fig. 4. students’ reflections on the importance of merging theoretical knowledge with practical experience. by participating in reflective tasks such as journaling and conducting interviews (dangerfield & napier, 2016; farrell, 2015), students progressed from merely absorbing content to critically assessing their translation methods. they became more proactive in evaluating their decisions and connecting those choices to both theoretical concepts and practical requirements. importantly, these reflections 87 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 78-91 kristanto, t, m, a. & sudirman, a. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in…..) ultimately translated into measurable improvements in translation proficiency, as students learned to justify their choices, revise based on professional feedback, and approach texts with heightened audience awareness—key indicators of professional readiness. building directly on schön’s (1983) original concept of reflection-on-action—defined as “the process by which practitioners reflect on their actions after the event to discover how their knowingin-action may have contributed to an unexpected outcome” (schön, 1983) —the findings show that students gained deeper insights when they reviewed their translation experiences after completing tasks. this reflective process enabled them to compare academic knowledge with practical realities, recognize inconsistencies, and refine their strategies. reflection thus served not only to consolidate learning but also to help students anticipate professional challenges—such as balancing accuracy with readability—and respond with theory-informed decisions. in this way, reflection supported the development of adaptive, context-sensitive translation competence directly applicable to professional practice (dangerfield & napier, 2016; fraser et al., 2024; pietrzak, 2019b). students consistently recognized the academic component of the course as fundamental in shaping their theoretical understanding of translation. concepts such as equivalence, skopos theory, and communicative translation were regarded as critical tools that informed their analytical approach and helped them view translation as a purposeful, audience-focused, and culturally sensitive activity. however, it was through practitioner-led sessions that these theories were fully realized, allowing students to navigate authentic translation scenarios. the theme of appreciation of academic and practitioner input also revealed underlying tensions: some students initially struggled to reconcile the theoretical emphasis on fidelity and linguistic precision with practitioners’ demands for flexibility and functional adaptation. rather than undermining learning, these tensions encouraged students to reflect critically on the nature of translation and recognize it as an inherently context-driven process. the practical sessions challenged students to translate theoretical knowledge into action while navigating authentic professional demands. as one student observed, “at first, theory seemed abstract, but when the practitioner asked us to justify our translation choices, i realized i needed to connect my decisions with what we had learned in class.” another student shared a similar realization, stating, “we learned about skopos theory in lectures, but i didn’t understand its relevance until i had to choose a tone for a tourism brochure and explain why it suited the target readers.” by learning to articulate their reasoning, students developed habits directly transferable to professional contexts, such as explaining choices to clients or creating project briefs. this progression from theoretical abstraction to situated competence aligns with recent perspectives emphasizing that learners develop translation skills most effectively through active participation, reflection, and socially situated practice (fraser et al., 2024; korol, 2024; siregar & stroupe, 2025). rather than viewing knowledge as something transmitted from teacher to student, these approaches frame learning as a dynamic process shaped by collaboration, reflective engagement, and authentic professional experiences. in this study, students’ reflections indicated that their understanding of translation theory became significantly more meaningful and applicable once they engaged in hands-on translation tasks under the guidance of professional practitioners. the transition from abstract classroom discussions to contextualized practice revealed gaps in their comprehension but also created opportunities for deeper learning and strategic growth. a total of 16 students, as reflected in both journals and interviews, reported that after getting helpful criticism from professionals who pushed them to look beyond theoretical definitions, their capacity to defend and explain translation choices had significantly improved. one student said, "after receiving feedback from the practitioner, i had to revise my translation, and i began to understand why certain theories were important—it wasn't just about knowing them but using them to make better choices." as one student put it, "i was forced to think more critically and make sure my translation fit the real context when i had to explain why i chose a certain expression for a client brief—it helped me understand the theory better." these observations highlight the fact that developing translation competency requires thoughtful practice and genuine engagement with professional standards and expectations rather than just theoretical exposure. furthermore, the study highlights the constructive tension that emerged between academic instruction and the practical demands of professional translation. while classroom-based learning frequently emphasized theoretical accuracy, linguistic equivalence, and fidelity to the source text, the practitioner-led sessions introduced students to a different set of expectations grounded in industry issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 88 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 78-91 kristanto, t, m, a. & sudirman, a. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in…..) realities, namely, audience orientation, functional effectiveness, and adaptability to client briefs. this contrast prompted students to reflect critically on the nature of translation and recognize that it is not governed by fixed rules but shaped by contextual demands and communicative goals. evidence from the data shows that 10 out of 16 students explicitly mentioned this tension in their reflective journals, describing moments when they had to choose between sticking closely to theoretical models or adapting to practical needs. similarly, in interviews, 9 students shared concrete examples where practitioner feedback challenged their theoretical assumptions and encouraged more flexible strategies. one student noted, “in class, we were taught to keep close to the source text, but during practice, i was asked to adjust the tone and expressions to suit the target reader. that’s when i understood how context can change what’s considered a good translation.” another student expressed a similar realization: “at first, i thought i had to choose between what the lecturer taught and what the practitioner expected, but later i saw that both had value depending on the purpose of the translation.” these reflections demonstrate how navigating differing expectations deepened students’ understanding of translation as a flexible, decision-driven process—an insight that aligns with risku’s (2016) model of situated learning, where translation competence is context-sensitive and constructed through real-life practice rather than abstract rules. notably, students increasingly recognized translation as a socially and professionally situated activity (korol, 2024; siregar & stroupe, 2025), moving beyond seeing it merely as a technical exercise focused on accuracy and equivalence. exposure to real-world translation tasks and practitioner feedback helped them view translation as a set of audience-focused, context-sensitive decisions shaped by genre and purpose. this shift was supported by data: 12 out of 16 students reported in journals a change from a purely linguistic view to a broader, communicative perspective, while 11 noted in interviews that practitioner feedback encouraged them to consider user expectations. this aligns with recent research highlighting that critically evaluating one’s actions fosters professional competence (fraser et al., 2024; zohrabi & xodabande, 2024). as one student reflected, “translation choices depend on what the message needs to achieve in the target language,” and another noted, “now i think about who will read the translation and what they need from it.” this growing metacognitive awareness is key for developing reflective, professionally competent translators and suggests that translator education should intentionally cultivate this mindset to help students adapt theory to diverse real-world contexts. in developing strategies to manage translation challenges, students drew on several approaches. many used theoretical checklists from class to guide their decisions, while others highlighted the benefits of peer discussions and feedback from lecturers and practitioners. reflective journaling also proved especially valuable, helping students identify patterns in their reasoning, recognize weaknesses, and track progress over time. as one student explained, “keeping a journal helped me notice patterns and fix things over time,” and another noted, “writing after each session showed me what worked and what didn’t.” these findings support earlier research suggesting that reflective practice not only improves strategic competence but also fosters autonomy and critical self-awareness (dangerfield & napier, 2016; korol, 2024; pietrzak, 2019b). another key finding of this study was the gradual development of students’ professional identity as translators. by engaging with theoretical frameworks and practice-based tasks led by practitioners, students shifted from simply completing assignments to adopting the mindset of professional translators. this shift was reflected in greater confidence, ethical awareness, and a clearer sense of responsibility toward real audiences. one student noted, “this course made me feel like i was doing real translation work, not just class exercises,” while another shared, “for the first time, i felt accountable to a real audience, not just my lecturer.” these reflections indicate that the course structure helped students move beyond technical skills to internalize professional values, audience awareness, and self-directed learning—key aspects of translator education. finally, students’ suggestions for improving the course provide valuable insights into pedagogical refinement. their recommendations, such as aligning theoretical and practitioner content more clearly, increasing opportunities for simulated projects, and extending post-task reflections, demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of how learning design influences professional readiness. these suggestions reflect a form of reflective maturity in which learners become active stakeholders in the educational process, not just passive recipients of instruction. 89 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 78-91 kristanto, t, m, a. & sudirman, a. (students’ reflections on integrating theory and practice in…..) 4. conclusion this study shows that integrating theoretical instruction, practitioner-led sessions, and structured reflection can significantly enhance student learning and professional development. students built a solid theoretical foundation while learning to critically assess and adapt translation strategies through reflection. challenges in bridging theory and practice became valuable learning moments, helping students internalize key concepts and gain confidence as emerging professionals. however, the study also faced limitations, including differences in student engagement, time constraints, and limited access to advanced translation tools. these challenges highlight the need for stronger institutional support and curriculum planning to ensure students can fully apply theoretical knowledge in practice. overall, the findings underline the importance of designing translation programs that balance academic rigor with authentic, practice-based learning. collaborative models involving lecturers and practitioners, supported by reflective practice, help students develop both technical competence and professional identity. future research could explore how such models impact graduates’ professional performance or examine the role of technologies like ai in enhancing reflective learning. acknowledgment the authors thank all the participants who have shared their voices so that this study could be accomplished. the authors’ gratitude also goes to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and substantial feedback so that this manuscript could be published and reach wider readers. declarations author contribution : the research was collaboratively undertaken by both authors, encompassing topic selection, proposal development, methodological application, data analysis, and the preparation of the discussion section. author 1 assumed primary responsibility for managing the publication process, while both authors jointly contributed to covering the publication fee. funding statement : no funding is available for this research. conflict of interest : i declare that there are no competing interests. ethics declaration : as the author, i confirm that this work has been written based on ethical research principles in compliance with our university’s regulations and that the necessary permission was obtained from the relevant institution during data collection. i fully support eltej’s commitment to upholding high standards of professional conduct and practicing honesty in all academic and professional activities. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references alolaywi, y. 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(2024). reflective practice as a tool for teacher education: a comparison between individual and peer reflection of iranian efl teachers. discover education, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-024-00338-w https://doi.org/10.1080/15427587.2023.2242991 https://doi.org/dx.doi.org/10.1080/1750399x.2016.1154340 https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676x.2022.2030377 https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v15i1.76549 https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v12i3.38780 https://doi.org/10.24815/siele.v12i1.35265 https://doi.org/10.5539/jel.v7n3p1 https://doi.org/10.1075/ata.xix.04tor https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2410.08581 https://doi.org/10.1186/s42862-019-0003-z https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-024-00338-w english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.15311 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student leadership nguyen quoc huy a, 1, dat bao b, 2, * a lac hong university, 10, huynh van nghe street, tran bien ward, dong nai province, vietnam b monash university clayton campus, wellington rd, clayton vic 3800, australia 1 nguyenquochuy@lhu.edu.vn; 2 dat.bao@monash.edu* *corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 15 october 2025 revised 17 november 2025 accepted 4 december 2025 available online 15 december 2025 as social media becomes deeply embedded in the lives of young learners, english language educators are increasingly exploring its pedagogical potential. this article examines how facebook can function as a multifunctional learning ecosystem that supports three key dimensions of efl development: learner engagement, leadership growth, and humour competence. drawing on reflective teaching practice and autoethnographic insights, the study synthesizes experiences from multiple classroom contexts in which facebook was integrated into homework tasks, collaborative projects, and creative, meme-based activities. the findings reveal that facebook fosters authentic communication, encourages active participation, and enables students to assume leadership roles through managing group discussions, organising challenges, and moderating peer interactions. additionally, the strategic use of memes helps develop humour competence, a linguacultural and communicative skill often overlooked in language teaching. despite challenges such as distractions, privacy concerns, and misinformation, the study demonstrates that when guided by clear pedagogical intentions, facebook can serve as a holistic learning environment that enhances language proficiency, soft skills, and digital literacy. implications are offered for educators seeking to integrate social media meaningfully into efl instruction. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords teacher-student interaction facebook efl learning student engagement leadership skills humour social media pedagogy memetic learning how to cite: huy, n. q., & bao, d. (2025). exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student leadership. english language teaching educational journal, 8(3), 205-221. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.15311 1. introduction the rapid expansion of social media has reshaped how young learners communicate, access information, and participate in digital communities. platforms such as facebook are no longer limited to social interaction; they have evolved into multifunctional spaces where users share knowledge, collaborate, and construct meaning in diverse ways (livermore & verbovaya, 2016; lofters et al., 2016; van dijck, 2013). for english language teachers, this shift presents both an opportunity and a challenge. while social media offers flexible communication channels, it also requires educators to rethink traditional pedagogical designs and consider how online environments can meaningfully support language learning. recent research has highlighted the value of social media for fostering learner autonomy, increasing participation, and creating authentic communicative contexts (wiwin & widiati, 2022). however, much remains underexplored regarding how specific features of facebook can enhance different dimensions of efl learning, particularly in relation to engagement (moghadam & shamsi, https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.15311 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:nguyenquochuy@lhu.edu.vn mailto:dat.bao@monash.edu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.15311 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i3.15311&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4143-4951 206 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) 2021; hoi & hang, 2022), leadership, and humour —three elements that strongly influence classroom dynamics but are often overlooked in digital learning studies. this article draws on reflective teaching practice to examine how a class facebook group operated as a learning ecosystem. by analysing student interactions, the study offers insights into how social media can complement face-to-face instruction and contribute to more socially grounded, learner-centered efl pedagogy. 2. literature review 2.1. social media in language education recent analytical research demonstrates that social media platforms, particularly facebook, can enrich english language learning by providing accessible, socially meaningful environments for practice. qadi (2021) found that undergraduate efl learners perceived facebook as supportive in developing their receptive skills, noting that the platform’s multimodal input and informal interactions encouraged more frequent engagement with english outside the classroom. similarly, zhao and yang (2023) examined the effects of a social-media–supported flipped classroom and found that students who received facebook-mediated pre-class instruction significantly improved their writing performance and experienced reduced writing anxiety compared with those who received traditional instruction. these results highlight how structured integration of social media can provide extended exposure, opportunities for collaboration, and greater flexibility in learning (friedman & friedman, 2013; gan et al., 2015; mostafa, 2021). further evidence comes from ponsamak and sukying (2023), who explored facebook-based instruction with young thai efl learners and observed measurable gains in vocabulary knowledge. their findings emphasize that repeated, contextually rich encounters with lexical items on social media can facilitate vocabulary development more effectively than isolated textbook practice. together, these studies suggest that when used intentionally, social media can enhance various aspects of english learning by increasing input, lowering affective barriers, and fostering continuous learner participation. 2.2. facebook and efl learning research over the recent years continues to demonstrate that facebook can serve as an interactive environment that meaningfully supports english language development when intentionally designed for pedagogical purposes (kabilan, 2010; klimova & pikhart, 2019; sirivedin et al., 2018) research shows that young efl learners who regularly encountered vocabulary through facebook posts showed measurable improvement in written word-knowledge (boonkit, 2011; ponsamak & sukying, 2024; shiau et al., 2018), indicating that facebook’s informal and repeated exposure can reinforce form–meaning connections. this aligns with wahyuni’s (2024) classroom-based investigation, which used facebook groups to facilitate recount-text speaking tasks and found that students not only produced longer, more accurate oral responses but also displayed greater confidence when contributing to online discussions. complementing these findings, uyen (2025) examined english majors at a university and reported that facebook’s multimodal features and peer interaction enhanced learners’ motivation and language engagement. however, students also mentioned issues such as distraction and reliance on simultaneous social and academic uses. together, these studies reveal that facebook supports multiple language skills–vocabulary, speaking, and learner engagement–but they also illustrate that pedagogical structure determines whether the platform becomes genuinely beneficial or merely an unregulated social space. across these empirical accounts, facebook’s affordances, such as asynchronous commenting, multimodal input, and familiar interaction patterns, appear to promote learner participation and authentic language use (blattner & fiori, 2009; dovchin, 2019). yet, effective learning outcomes depend heavily on how tasks are designed, monitored, and integrated with classroom objectives. 2.3. engagement, leadership, and humour in language education student engagement, learner leadership, and humour have become increasingly recognised as affective and interactional dimensions that directly shape the quality of language learning experiences. recent empirical studies show that engagement in efl settings is strengthened when learners participate actively, initiate interaction, or take ownership of tasks. such engagement tends to increase when digital or social-media–supported activities offer autonomy, peer visibility, and meaningful communication. for example, a mixed-method study by souzandehfar and ahmed abdel-al ibrahim issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 207 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) (2023) found that structured learner-led activities in university efl classes significantly improved behavioural and cognitive engagement, as students were more willing to initiate discussion and maintain interaction when they had partial control over task direction. similarly, greenier (2023) demonstrated that leadership-oriented roles—such as peer facilitators and discussion leaders— enhanced students’ confidence and collaborative problem-solving, suggesting that ‘micro-leadership’ can be a productive pedagogical strategy in communicative language teaching. these findings support the pedagogical argument that leadership is not limited to formal roles; instead, it emerges naturally when learners are given the space to contribute ideas, manage group tasks, or guide meaning-making processes. humour also contributes meaningfully to engagement in language classrooms by influencing affective climate, learner motivation, and communicative willingness. a qualitative study by purwanti et al. (2024) showed that teacher and peer humour increased classroom participation and reduced anxiety in indonesian efl classes, with students reporting greater ease in speaking activities when humour was woven into instruction. likewise, a study by qamar et al. (2024) found that humourintegrated tasks improved learners’ retention of vocabulary and reading comprehension, attributed to reduced cognitive load and increased attention. beyond affective benefits, humour also enhances pragmatic development: nasrullah et al. (2025) reported significant gains in learners’ ability to interpret and produce l2 humour after a short instructional intervention, indicating that humorous discourse supports sociolinguistic competence. taken together, these studies show that engagement, leadership, and humour are interconnected dimensions that can reinforce one another—engaged learners are more willing to take leadership roles, leadership often stimulates peer engagement, and humour provides a supportive emotional environment that enables both. in language education, especially in digitally mediated environments, these elements collectively strengthen interactional quality, learner agency, and communicative confidence, making them key considerations for contemporary pedagogical design. 2.4. gaps and research questions although existing studies provide evidence that social media can enhance learners’ engagement, motivation, and skill acquisition in efl contexts (chen & shu, 2025; dirjal et al., 2020; iswahyuni, 2021; maulida et al., 2024; mitrulescu, 2024), several critical gaps remain. most research has primarily focused on individual language skills, such as writing, vocabulary, or speaking, without considering learners’ leadership development in collaborative online environments. leadership, in this context, refers to learners’ ability to initiate, coordinate, and manage peer interactions, thereby fostering deeper engagement and autonomy. despite its potential importance, empirical evidence linking social media use with the cultivation of leadership skills in language learning remains limited. similarly, humour has been acknowledged as a useful pedagogical tool for reducing anxiety, increasing motivation, and facilitating language practice (chinery, 2007; crawford & caltabiano, 2011; kruczek & basińska, 2018; zhao, 2019). however, there is a scarcity of studies exploring how learners themselves develop and exercise humour competence in social-media-mediated learning. specifically, little is known about the ways learners use humour to communicate, negotiate meaning, and engage in peer interactions in online language learning spaces. furthermore, most existing research examines engagement, leadership, or humour in isolation, rather than investigating their interaction as a multidimensional framework that could enhance holistic language development. understanding the interrelationships among these three dimensions is critical for designing socialmedia-supported pedagogical interventions that foster not only language proficiency but also socioemotional and cognitive growth. to address these gaps, this study focuses on the following research questions: 1. how does social media use influence efl learners’ engagement in language learning activities? 2. in what ways does participation in social-media-mediated tasks promote leadership skills among learners? 3. how does humour manifest in learners’ social-media interactions, and how does it contribute to language learning? 208 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) 3. methodology this study employed a qualitative, autoethnographic, multiple-case design, a combined approach that can tap into unique lived experiences (hills, 2023; le blanc, 2016; voorhees, 2016), to integrate insights from three english language teachers who use facebook as part of their instructional practice. the research draws on autoethnography, reflective practice, and narrative case study to examine how facebook supports efl learning, leadership development, and humour competence across different teaching contexts. these complementary methodologies allow the researchers to explore their lived experiences while generating situated understandings of social media use in language education. 3.1. research approach the study brings together three forms of teacher reflection: autoethnography, reflective practice, and small case studies. each teacher described their own teaching experiences, reflected on the outcomes, and examined how facebook shaped student learning. each classroom served as a case study, but the reflections were combined to provide a broader understanding of how facebook can be used in efl education. 3.2. participant recruitment participants were drawn from the teachers’ existing classes. each teacher selected one group of learners they were already responsible for during the semester, so no additional recruitment procedures were required. students participated as part of their everyday learning activities, and no one outside the existing classes was invited to join. for younger learners, parental cooperation was obtained when necessary, particularly when students’ online access was supervised at home. all student identities were anonymized to protect confidentiality. 3.3. participant profiles hoa works at a public secondary school in vietnam and also teaches small private classes at home. these smaller groups allow her to test new activities—such as facebook-mediated homework before integrating them into her formal classroom. she currently teaches an intermediate class of twelve learners and uses social media to strengthen engagement beyond school hours. hien is an early-career english teacher who manages evening ielts classes at a local english center. teaching in a resource-constrained environment with late-night schedules, she explores how facebook can support peer leadership and collaborative learning. her experiences as a lifelong efl learner shape her reflective approach to teaching. thang is a gen z educator whose daily social media use has influenced her professional identity. working with young learners in private and center-based classes, she incorporates memes to build rapport, enhance humour competence, and create emotionally supportive learning spaces. 3.4. data collection data were collected qualitatively through materials generated during everyday teaching and online interaction. the primary sources included teachers’ reflective journals, lesson notes, and written observations about student engagement and classroom decision-making. additional data were drawn from screenshots of facebook group posts, comments, discussions, and student reactions produced during homework tasks, leadership activities, and meme-based learning. informal student feedback, such as short messages, responses, and participation patterns, also contributed to the dataset. these combined sources provided insight into both the teachers’ reflections and the observable learning behaviours occurring during the facebook-based activities. 3.5. data analysis data were analysed through a practical, straightforward process designed to promote clarity and accessibility. first, each teacher reviewed their own reflections, classroom observations, and facebook interactions. they examined these materials to identify recurring patterns, including moments of high engagement, common challenges, or noticeable shifts in student participation. after each teacher identified key patterns, the three cases were compared to determine shared themes. this cross-case analysis highlighted how facebook contributed to interaction, creativity, confidencebuilding, and collaborative learning across all teaching contexts. using reflective journals, classroom observation notes, and archived facebook interactions allowed the researchers to triangulate insights across personal reflection, behavioural evidence, and issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 209 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) peer-to-peer communication. this combination strengthened the interpretive validity of the findings by showing how online and offline learning behaviours reinforced one another. 3.6. researcher positionality as this study is grounded in an auto-ethnographic multiple–case design, the researchers themselves are positioned as both teachers and reflective practitioners. each researcher drew on personal teaching experiences, emotions, and classroom observations as they integrated facebook into their lessons. their dual role as educators responsible for students’ learning and as researchers interpreting their own practice shaped the way data were collected and understood. the researchers acknowledge that their interpretations are influenced by their professional identities, teaching philosophies, and familiarity with social media platforms. their prior experiences with facebook also informed the types of activities designed for students and the way student engagement was perceived. rather than attempting to remove this subjectivity, the study embraces it as a central feature of auto-ethnographic inquiry. by making their perspectives explicit, the researchers aim to provide transparent, honest accounts of how facebook functioned in their classrooms and how their own beliefs, expectations, and emotions contributed to the insights generated. to ensure ethical integrity, all student-generated screenshots were anonymised, with names, photos, and identifying details removed before analysis. students were informed that the activities formed part of regular classwork rather than graded assessment, thereby ensuring that participation did not disadvantage or pressure any learner. 3.7. research procedure the study was carried out over several weeks and followed a structured yet flexible process that aligned with each teacher’s existing classroom schedule. first, each teacher selected one class they were already teaching and introduced facebook as part of their regular learning activities. although the specific purposes differed across the three cases homework engagement, leadership development, and humour-based learning, the teachers integrated facebook gradually to ensure students were comfortable with the platform. throughout the teaching period, each teacher documented their experiences through reflective journals and lesson notes, recording important classroom events, student reactions, and their own emotional or pedagogical decisions. at the same time, naturally occurring data were collected from facebook, including posts, comments, discussions, and examples of student participation. these online interactions were captured via screenshots and saved as evidence of students' responses to the tasks. the teachers reviewed their reflections and online interactions weekly, noting any emerging patterns in engagement, motivation, collaboration, or challenges. at the end of the teaching cycle, each teacher compiled their reflections, screenshots, and observations into a descriptive account of their case. these three accounts were then compared to identify shared themes and meaningful differences across the cases. this step-by-step process allowed the study to remain grounded in real classroom experiences while generating a coherent understanding of how facebook supported learning in different contexts. 4. data presentation 4.1. case 1: re-engaging students through facebook homework after exploring facebook's potential, ms. hoa decided to test it as a homework platform for her efl students. instead of assigning traditional paper-based tasks, she created a closed facebook group for the class and posted discussion-based assignments. she believed that this private space would encourage students to express their thoughts more comfortably. to begin, the teacher posed a simple question: ‘describe your day using only three emojis!’ she chose this prompt to help students feel at ease interacting without the pressure of writing a long paragraph right away. although the class had about 12–15 students, only three commented, while the rest remained silent. it appeared that students enjoyed using facebook for personal purposes, but turning it into a learning space was still unfamiliar to them. hence, the challenge she encountered was ensuring full student participation. the teacher found that some students were excited about this new 210 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) approach to learning, while others remained passive and reluctant to engage. this was not too different from a traditional classroom, where some students actively participate while others prefer to stay on the sidelines and observe. after noticing students' initial reluctance, hoa realized that she needed to motivate students. to foster engagement in the discussion, she implemented the following strategies: • ask more open-ended questions: for example, ‘does this emoji mean you are happy or tired?’ (providing multiple-choice options makes it easier to answer.) • provide sample answers: weaker students can use these as a starting point, providing a formula to imitate rather than having to generate responses from scratch. • use tagging and reactions: encouraging students to @mention friends and exchange reactions helps ‘pull’ more participants into the discussion. • gradually, participation increased. after two weeks, comments became longer, and students started responding to each other in english. one day, ms. hoa posted a debate question: ‘what is more important, following the trend or being unique? (figure 1). ’surprisingly, students engaged enthusiastically and clearly expressed their personal opinions in english (figure 2). this was a complete contrast to traditional writing assignments, where most students followed the model without truly conveying their own thoughts. fig. 1. debate question posted on facebook group fig. 2. comments from students issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 211 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) typically, the teacher assigns homework on facebook in the following formats: • discussion: the teacher posts a picture, a question, a trending phrase, or a situation; students comment, while their peers reply and react to the comments. • mini-game: the teacher creates a small game, such as dividing students into groups to build a story from a given opening sentence or playing a word-chain match on a given topic. • assignments from other platforms: the teacher shares links to quizzes, kahoot, or booklet, allowing students to complete the tasks on those platforms. • class announcements: the teacher posts updates and important notices about the class. among the above activities, hoa primarily uses discussions because they are highly interactive. besides, she implemented time limits to activities, sent gentle reminders, and offered small rewards for the best responses. to further enhance the effectiveness of social media assignments, she also sets an agreement with students. if they failed to participate more than three times, they would have to revert to paper-based homework. quality control is another key concern. from the beginning, the teacher established clear rules, emphasizing that all feedback must be respectful, non-spammy, and relevant to the lesson. additionally, all comments must be in english; they do not have to be perfect the priority is communication. for students without facebook accounts or those with parental restrictions on phone use, she ensures parental cooperation before implementing this strategy. what she noticed most was the significant increase in student engagement and interaction. they were no longer afraid to speak up, make mistakes, or be judged. instead, they felt more comfortable sharing their ideas, responding to their peers’ writing, and expressing their views more naturally. most importantly, students transitioned from passive to active learning. from her observation, they actively completed assignments without teacher intervention. as a result, this positive shift truly led to improved learning outcomes. this reflection led hoa to realize that students are not unwilling to learn; they are simply waiting for a more suitable method to engage. facebook, with its advantages—such as allowing time to think before responding, enabling instant interaction, and creating a less pressured environment compared to traditional classrooms—fosters a more positive learning atmosphere. 4.2. case 2: building leadership through facebook collaboration every first time in ms. hien’s teaching career is rewarding and unforgettable, from her first class, first lesson plan, first feedback on the report card, to the first time she uses facebook as an educational platform. previously, she often embraced familiarity and simplicity in her teaching. initially, hien was very frustrated to integrate social media into lessons. she faced an uphill struggle to tailor the activities to achieve the learning objectives. she just shared some learning resources on facebook and asked her students to read them and share their opinions below. what made hien feel literally disheartened was that students played a very passive role in these activities. some of them did not even care much and put very general comments such as ‘thank you, i love it,’ or ‘it is so wonderful.’ to make matters worse, students secretly used facebook for non-educational purposes in the classroom. they felt too lazy to do extra work and often made common excuses for incomplete assignments. however, her anger suddenly subsided when she realized that some students were genuinely eager to learn through facebook. this gave hien a sense of accomplishment and motivation. at present, she is working hard to use facebook in more engaging ways so that my students can grow their social networks, strengthen relationships, share knowledge and worldview with others, foster collaboration, and promote involvement. ms. hien is currently teaching an intermediate class with twelve learners. she divides them into three teams, so each student has a chance to lead at least six times during a three-month course. there are myriad ways to foster language and leadership ability in students via facebook. for instance, leaders must post a picture or video related to a specific topic after every lesson. their teammates have to share, give reactions, and add comments below based on my eliciting questions like ‘what can you see in the picture?’, ‘if you are in this situation, what are you going to do?’, or ‘why do you like/dislike this photo?’ a nice interaction, an informative response, and grading from leaders are necessary for this task. other groups can comment on their perceptions and ask leaders questions. 212 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) in some cases, learners take the responsibility of a little contest organiser. leaders make a mini plan for a learning challenge that follows their passion or a hot trend, such as an apt challenge, a daily vocabulary challenge, an english poem challenge, or a reading challenge. besides, there are photography challenges that offer many thought-provoking topics, such as environmental protection, life in space, or a day without the internet. students share their favourite photos and write a paragraph describing each picture. leaders have to set the rules, explain the descriptions, and share sample materials on facebook so that their classmates understand how to take on the challenges. she will reinforce their ideas, identify procedural problems, and offer suggestions. later on, students, parents, and teachers will share and post the clips on social media with a specific hashtag to gain reactions and comments in exchange for lovely rewards. additionally, hien utilises facebook to create social groups for teaching. her students are required to communicate in english by both texting and voice recording. leaders, on the other hand, are expected to follow some academic pages on facebook, such as bbc learning english, and national geographic. they have to tag at least three of their friends in a fantastic post to share the information they come across, or send the post directly to their groups. moreover, she can hold many competitions among leaders. for instance, leaders are encouraged to form a unique facebook group or page focusing on their interests and experiences, such as bookworm, shopaholic, backpacker, or chill guy. sharing hobbies with others can lead to a more delightful and natural learning experience. leaders can also organise small events or workshops and invite others to share and take part. those who achieve the highest interaction levels and follower count will be awarded prizes such as ‘leader of the month’ or ‘5-star leader.’ nevertheless, social media in elt is often recognised as a double-edged sword (d’souza et al. 2021; smith, 2016; stieglitz & ross, 2022). there is plenty of underlying concern towards the application of facebook in education. the most obvious downside is distraction (dietz & henrich, 2014). many students fall into the habit of constantly browsing other irrelevant sites while doing their tasks. they keep procrastinating and shrinking their attention span due to several eye-catching advertisements, memes, viral content, news feed, trendy hashtags, and notifications. moreover, facebook introduces content that is endlessly appealing based on individual preferences. as a result, students are more likely to get addicted and reduce productivity (adzovie, 2017). another point worth noting is privacy. not only students but also teachers prefer to set a clear boundary between study and personal life. some teenagers regard facebook as their own world, where they can hide their secrets and express outlandish ideas. it takes over their lives (hempel & kowitt, 2009). hence, they tend to feel uncomfortable and fear that teachers can visit their ‘virtual house’ at any time and form a negative impression or make a hasty judgment of them. although they can restrict access to a particular group of viewers, they want their academic postings kept separate from their private ones. last but not least, facebook may turn a person into a clown by its misinformation, disinformation, and fake news (yang & hindman, 2023). misleading text impacts students’ understanding of a particular issue. scammers can also create a perfect background by ‘self-branding’ and commit malicious behaviour in social networks. 4.3. case 3: finding connection through humour and memes thang’s view should be understood in the context of a lifelong english as a foreign language (efl) learner and a novice ielts teacher who leads night classes at a small english center in a developing country. her workplace faces challenges, such as resource constraints and late-night schedules, with the latest class ending at 10 p.m; however, the expectations for excellence in teaching, research, and service are just as high as those in more well-funded academic institutions. as an inexperienced teacher, thang relied heavily on the teaching method she had observed from her high school teachers and university professors over the years, which was predominantly teacher-led: the teachers talk, and the students listen and take notes. however, she struggled to engage students and felt inadequate, leading to depression and increased social media use. luckily, the solution was right in front of her all along. she discovered that sharing memes, something she did in university to connect with peers, helped her break the ice with my students and build a friendly rapport, improving engagement and my overall teaching experience, as seen in figure 3. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 213 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) fig. 3. students’ reactions to meme sharing on zalo (translation: ‘for a brief moment, i had assumed everything was alright’) after receiving positive reactions to the memes thang shared in my zalo group chat, she began to use them in her lessons, starting with vocabulary. for example, she joined several english learning groups where members often shared vocabulary memes. these memes usually depict short, funny exchanges or relatable situations, paired with a word that captures the essence of the scenario, helping learners associate the target vocabulary with the amusing context and making it easier to recall whenever they remember the meme (figure 4). although she understood the mechanism, thang struggled to find humour in everyday situations, let alone create her own memes. nevertheless, the more excited her students became when she used memes in class, the more motivated thang was to make her own. fig. 4. a cultural stereotype meme figure 3 demonstrates the stereotypical view of western countries towards asian parents, perceiving them as strict and expecting their children to excel at everything, especially in academics. the meme plays on the literal meaning of ‘facebook,’ suggesting that instead of using social media, students should ‘face a book’ and study. the humour comes from generational authority, moral admonishment, and a playful critique of digital distraction. by noticing this type of mainstream cultural portrayal, the teacher began paying closer attention to both her own culture and those of others, which ultimately inspired her to create a cultural meme using a meme generator website. 214 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) fig. 5. vietnamese ‘rubber band’ time meme fig. 6. language variation meme while figure 5 portrays her ability to deliver implicit hints of the vietnamese ‘rubber band’ time culture, where time tends to be more flexible in other places. figure 6 illustrates her understanding of the differences between american and british english. for example, americans use pounds (lbs) to refer to weight, whereas the british associate the same term with currency, highlighting a key difference in both language and culture. ultimately, she has successfully combined her cultural and language competence to provide students with a fun way to see how the language works in real life. fig. 7. student feedback before incorporating memes in lessons fig. 8. student feedback following the incorporation of memes in lessons the student in figure 7 said that ‘the teacher was passionate, but her teaching method was not truly effective.’ this suggests that, despite my enthusiasm, certain aspects of my teaching may not have fully met students' learning needs or expectations. in contrast, the student in figure 8 expressed ‘extreme satisfaction with the teacher’s performance and wanted to attend her class every day.’ clearly, this difference underscores the positive effect of using memes and humour on both student engagement and their perception of her teaching effectiveness. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 215 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) 5. cross-case analysis across the three cases, the findings reveal several common patterns that illustrate how facebook shaped student engagement, interaction, and classroom relationships, despite the different instructional purposes in each setting. although each teacher used facebook for a specific goal — completing homework, developing leadership skills, or building humour competence — the platform consistently supported higher student participation and more authentic communication. in all three classrooms, students who were normally quiet or hesitant in face-to-face lessons became more active online, demonstrating greater willingness to comment, respond, and take part in tasks when the interaction occurred in a familiar digital environment. this shift suggests that facebook can serve as a low-pressure space where learners feel more comfortable expressing themselves in english. another shared pattern concerns motivation and responsibility. in the homework case, students completed tasks more regularly because they received quick responses and could view their classmates’ efforts. in the leadership case, students used facebook to coordinate roles, update progress, and hold one another accountable. in the humour case, students often went beyond the minimum requirements, creating additional memes or reactions simply because they enjoyed the activity. across all three contexts, students appeared to take more ownership of their learning when tasks were made public within the group, and when the platform allowed them to interact socially while completing academic work. the visibility of their contributions seemed to create both positive pressure and a sense of community. creativity emerged as another unifying theme. although it was most prominent in the humour case, where students designed memes and playful captions, creativity also appeared in the other cases—students phrased homework answers more naturally, responded to teammates with supportive or clever comments, and experimented with how they expressed themselves online. facebook’s multimodal features supported this flexibility, giving students room to use images, reactions, and informal language in ways that made communication feel more personal and less restricted by traditional classroom norms. teacher–student rapport strengthened across all cases as well. the online interactions allowed teachers to see sides of their students they had not noticed before: leadership tendencies, humour, personal interests, and even shy students’ hidden confidence when typing instead of speaking. students also initiated more contact with their teachers, asking questions or sharing comments they might not feel comfortable voicing in class. these interactions created a warmer, more connected learning atmosphere that carried over into the physical classroom. despite these benefits, similar challenges appeared across cases. distraction was a recurring obstacle, as facebook’s social nature sometimes pulled students away from academic tasks. uneven participation also appeared in each case, with a small number of students remaining passive even when others were active. these challenges indicate that while social media can enhance engagement, it requires careful task design and clear expectations to balance participation and focus. taken together, the three cases demonstrate that facebook is not only a tool for communication but also a flexible learning environment that can support interaction, motivation, creativity, and relational warmth. the cross-case patterns show that regardless of whether students were completing homework, collaborating as leaders, or creating humorous content, facebook consistently encouraged more active and meaningful engagement than traditional classroom approaches alone. the platform’s informal and familiar atmosphere helped remove barriers that often limit students’ participation, making it a valuable supplementary space for language learning across varied teaching goals. 6. interpretation the findings from the three cases illustrate that facebook meaningfully supported learner engagement, leadership behaviours, and humour development in efl learning, offering a complementary perspective to existing research on social-media–mediated instruction that facebook increases learners’ exposure to english through informal interactions (see, for example, monicaariana & anamaria-mirabela, 2014; qadi, 2021; rabongue et al., 2024). the students in case one demonstrated higher participation and reduced anxiety when completing homework tasks in the online group. their willingness to comment, respond to peers, and seek clarification mirrors the multimodal 216 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) engagement benefits identified by zhao and yang (2023), who reported that facebook-supported tasks reduced writing anxiety and promoted more active learning. the leadership-focused case reinforces previous claims that learner-led roles can enhance engagement and autonomy. in line with greenier's (2023) findings that ‘micro-leadership’ strengthens collaboration and confidence, students in case two used facebook to coordinate tasks, assign responsibilities, and monitor group progress. what this study adds is evidence that leadership can emerge organically without the teacher formally assigning leadership titles; instead, the visibility and public nature of facebook posts encouraged students to take initiative and guide their peers. this extends earlier studies that suggest how social-media environments can support not only vocabulary development but also broader socio-interactional skills (antoci, 2012; maiz et al., 2016; ponsamak & sukying, 2024). the third case on humour complements the affective research presented in the literature review. purwanti et al. (2024) and qamar et al. (2025) both emphasise humour’s role in reducing anxiety and increasing retention, and similar patterns appeared here when students created and shared memes. the humour-based tasks lowered emotional barriers, encouraged creative risk-taking, and fostered rapport between teacher and learners. aligning with nasrullah et al. (2025), students also demonstrated signs of emerging humour competence, using english to play with cultural references, visual formats, and pragmatic meanings. taken together, the findings contribute three key insights. first, engagement, leadership, and humour are not isolated constructs but mutually reinforcing dimensions, as theorised in = = facebook’s familiar, asynchronous structure appears to support these dimensions simultaneously by offering autonomy, peer visibility, and low-pressure communication spaces. third, the multidimensionality observed across the three cases addresses the gap identified in the literature, which noted the lack of research examining engagement, leadership, and humour together within the same social-media environment. overall, this study suggests that facebook can function as a pedagogical ecosystem where linguistic, social, and affective development intersect. while existing empirical work has examined each of these dimensions separately, the present cases demonstrate how they operate together in authentic classroom contexts. 7. implications for teaching despite its limitations, the study offers several important implications for english language teaching. first, teachers can use social media platforms like facebook to extend classroom learning into familiar digital spaces where students feel comfortable participating. the cases show that even reluctant or quiet learners may become more active when tasks are presented in a less formal, more accessible environment. second, the integration of leadership-oriented responsibilities—such as organising group posts or coordinating peer contributions—demonstrates that social media can naturally support the development of learner agency and collaboration. third, humour-based tasks, such as meme creation, offer a low-stress and motivating way for learners to practise language while building pragmatic awareness and creativity. teachers should not overlook humour as a meaningful instructional tool, particularly in digital spaces where playful communication is already everyday. fourth, the study highlights the importance of task design: facebook becomes pedagogically beneficial only when activities are structured with clear goals, monitoring, and scaffolding to prevent distraction. finally, teacher education programs may consider preparing educators to navigate social-media–mediated learning more confidently, especially given its growing role in creating inclusive, engaging, and socio-emotionally supportive efl environments. 8. limitations although this study provides valuable insight into engagement, leadership, and humour in facebook-mediated efl learning, several limitations must be acknowledged. its auto-ethnographic multiple-case design is inherently subjective, shaped by teachers’ personal histories and classroom relationships, which limits generalisability. the participant groups were small and varied across instructional settings, restricting broader claims. data were drawn mainly from naturally occurring interactions rather than structured instruments, meaning some learner perspectives may not be fully captured. facebook itself introduced constraints such as distraction and inconsistent access. despite issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 217 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) these limitations, the study offers meaningful guidance for future research and more sustained digital interventions. 9. conclusion this auto-ethnographic multiple–case study explored how facebook supported engagement, leadership, and humour across three efl classroom contexts. the findings indicate that facebook meaningfully shaped learners’ participation and classroom dynamics, offering insights that address the three research questions. first, facebook positively influenced learner engagement by providing a familiar online space where students could interact more freely and consistently. across all cases, students who were normally quiet in physical classrooms became more willing to comment, ask questions, and respond to peers in the asynchronous facebook environment, aligning with earlier studies that highlight the role of social media in increasing learner participation and lowering affective barriers. second, participation in social-media mediated tasks promotedleadership skills, particularly when students were assigned roles or responsibilities within group activities. leadership behaviours emerged naturally through online coordination, decision-making, and peer support, demonstrating that facebook can function as a space for ‘micro-leadership,’ where learners manage tasks and guide group interactions—an area under-explored in previous research and directly addressing the gap identified in the literature review. third, learners demonstrated humour competence through meme creation, playful exchanges, and multimodal expression. humour helped reduce anxiety, strengthened rapport, and encouraged authentic language use, supporting previous evidence that humour enhances motivation and communicative confidence. in the online setting, humour also became a creative tool for meaningmaking, allowing students to blend cultural references, english captions, and visual symbolism in ways not typically achievable in traditional classroom tasks. together, these findings reveal that engagement, leadership, and humour do not operate independently; instead, they reinforce one another when mediated through social media. increased engagement created more opportunities for leadership to emerge, and humour contributed to an emotionally safe environment that encouraged both interaction and initiative. facebook, therefore, acted not merely as a digital platform but as a social learning space where affective, interpersonal, and linguistic dimensions intersected. although challenges such as distraction and uneven participation were present, the overall evidence suggests that intentional pedagogical design — combined with reflective teacher practice — can transform social media into a meaningful extension of the efl classroom. future research may further examine these three dimensions using larger participant groups or more robust experimental designs. still, this study demonstrates that even small-scale, reflective, teacher-led interventions can generate valuable insights into how learners engage, lead, and express themselves creatively in digital language-learning environments. looking ahead, further studies may investigate how these patterns of engagement, leadership, and humour unfold in larger or more diverse student populations, or explore whether similar dynamics emerge on alternative platforms such as instagram, zalo, or tiktok. such comparative work would help determine the extent to which the pedagogical benefits observed here are platform-specific or reflective of broader digital learning behaviours. 218 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 205-221 huy, n. q., & bao, d. (exploring the use of facebook in developing efl skills and student…..) acknowledgment the researchers gratefully acknowledge the participation and valuable contributions of all the students who took part in this study. their time, insights, and willingness to share their experiences made this research possible. declarations author contribution : the research was collaboratively undertaken by both authors, encompassing topic selection, proposal development, methodological application, data analysis, and the preparation of the discussion section. funding statement : no funding is available for this research. conflict of interest : i declare that there are no competing interests. ethics declaration : as the authors, we confirm that this work has been written based on ethical research principles in compliance with our university’s regulations and that the necessary permission was obtained from the relevant institution during data collection. we fully support eltej’s commitment to upholding high standards of professional conduct and practicing honesty in all academic and professional activities. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references adzovie, d. e., nyieku, i. e., & keku, j. a. 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(2023). impact of social media-supported flipped classroom on english as a foreign language learners’ writing performance and anxiety—frontiers in psychology,13, 1052737. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1052737 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40862-023-00218-0 https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i2.5792 https://doi.org/10.52714/dthu.14.3.2025.1509 https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856512457548 https://doi.org/10.33541/jet.v8i1.3284 https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqac051 https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.14000 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1052737 1. introduction 2. literature review 2.1. social media in language education 2.2. facebook and efl learning 2.3. engagement, leadership, and humour in language education 2.4. gaps and research questions 3. methodology 3.1. research approach 3.2. participant recruitment 3.3. participant profiles 3.4. data collection 3.5. data analysis 3.6. researcher positionality 3.7. research procedure 4. data presentation 4.1. case 1: re-engaging students through facebook homework 4.2. case 2: building leadership through facebook collaboration 4.3. case 3: finding connection through humour and memes 5. cross-case analysis 6. interpretation 7. implications for teaching 8. limitations 9. conclusion acknowledgment english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 55-64 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11596 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id exploring factors influencing student silence in efl classes: a case study at an indonesian vocational high school bambang widi pratoloa,1,*, muhammad muzakki arya saktib,2, dat baoc,3 a, b universitas ahmad dahlan, jl. ringroad selatan, kragilan, tamanan, kec. banguntapan, kabupaten bantul, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55191, indonesia c monash university, wellington rd, clayton vic 3800, australia 1 bambangwidip@gmail.com*; 2 muhammad1600004233@webmail.uad.ac.id, 3dat.bao@monash.edu.au *corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 20 january 2024 revised 25 february 2024 accepted 2 march 2024 research on student silence in english as a foreign language (efl) classrooms has become increasingly important in language learning environments worldwide. this study investigates the factors contributing to student silence in efl classes at a vocational high school in indonesia. the research focused on students in an 11th-grade class, adopting a qualitative approach to explore the experiences of silent students.the study was conducted in two stages: observation and interviews. in the initial observation phase, the researcher examined classroom conditions during efl lessons to identify students who frequently remained silent. following this, an interview phase was conducted with six students who often displayed silent behavior. pre-prepared questions were used to gather insights into their perspectives on class participation and the challenges they faced in engaging actively. the findings revealed several factors that contribute to student silence in efl classes, including anxiety, limited language proficiency, low self-confidence, lack of motivation, and introverted personality traits. additionally, students reported experiencing difficulties related to understanding the material, maintaining focus, and speaking in class. the study also identified common activities among silent students, such as engaging in side conversations, doodling, using mobile phones, listening to the teacher, reading textbooks, and taking notes. in conclusion, this study provides valuable insights into the phenomenon of student silence in efl classrooms, highlighting several factors that may hinder student participation. these findings could inform strategies for improving the quality of teaching and learning in efl settings, with a particular focus on supporting silent students. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords student silence efl classes factors vocational high school how to cite: pratolo, b. w., sakti, m. m. a. & bao, d. (2024). exploring factors influencing student silence in efl classes: a case study at an indonesian vocational high school. english language teaching educational journal, 7 (1), 55-64. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11596 1. introduction in the realm of education, numerous phenomena warrant careful attention, one of which is the phenomenon of student silence in english as a foreign language (efl) classes. while silence in the classroom can be perceived as a normal occurrence, it can also pose challenges to the teaching and learning process. classroom silence may sometimes be beneficial, fostering reflection and selfassessment; however, it can also indicate underlying issues that hinder engagement. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11596 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:wichuta.c@ku.th* http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11596 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11596&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8716-028x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4143-4951 56 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, april 2024, pp. 55-64 pratolo, b. w., sakti, m. m. a. & bao, d. (exploring factors influencing student silence in efl.....) this raises critical questions regarding the factors contributing to student silence during efl classes. based on preliminary observations, two predominant causes appear to be poor interaction and inadequate communication within the classroom, which may serve as fundamental contributors to this phenomenon. the researcher has chosen to investigate student silence in efl classes due to the limited exploration of this issue in existing literature. additionally, there is a desire to uncover the specific factors leading to student silence in this context. studying student silence in efl classes is crucial, given that students are generally expected to be active participants in the learning process. zafarina (2022) identifies several reasons for student silence, highlighting that a lack of self-confidence and inadequate english competence are two significant challenges in this regard. from the researcher’s personal experience, student silence often stems from individual understandings and characteristics, with many students preferring silence during learning activities. in this context, kоrol (2022) posits that silence provides students with an opportunity to introspect and engage with their surroundings. this introspection is particularly beneficial when students are empowered to set their own learning goals, select their preferred methods, and create varied outputs throughout the learning process. fjeld (2022) further suggests that silence can be interpreted as a psychological break from verbal engagement, indicating that students have their own motivations for remaining silent in efl classes. conversely, huynh and adams (2022) observe that teachers experience silence differently; it can be seen as an opportunity for reflection, a sign of uncertainty, or a deliberate disengagement. it is essential for efl teachers to recognize these nuances, as they play a pivotal role in addressing the phenomenon of student silence. smith and king (2018) argue that educators must cultivate a motivating atmosphere to encourage student participation in the learning process. the issue of student silence in efl classes cannot be overlooked. shachter (2022) emphasizes that when silence arises in educational settings, it should be addressed promptly and effectively. consequently, this issue warrants further research to identify solutions that can mitigate its negative impacts. given these considerations, the researcher is motivated to explore the phenomenon of student silence in efl classes, particularly because it remains underrepresented in academic discourse. the researcher is also deeply curious about this phenomenon and its implications. maher (2021) notes that silence can be advantageous for certain students, particularly those who place significant value on silence in relation to their language proficiency. therefore, any investigation or intervention must be approached with sensitivity. with this understanding, the researcher aims to conduct the study with careful consideration, striving to achieve meaningful results that contribute positively to the field of education. several previous studies are pertinent to this preliminary investigation. the first study by saylag (2014) suggests that while the phenomenon of silence in the classroom may pose challenges, it can also provide advantages for student learning. in particular, students require moments of silence to reflect on what they have learned. it is inherent to human nature to pause for thought before taking action or expressing opinions. in the context of language learning, learners can leverage these moments of silence when appropriate methodologies are employed. the second study conducted by hanh (2020) identifies various factors contributing to silence in the classroom, including linguistic and psychological elements, as well as additional impersonal factors. linguistically, a lack of vocabulary, poor pronunciation, ungrammatical expressions, and low proficiency levels are significant reasons students may choose to remain silent. psychologically, barriers such as lack of confidence, shyness, and the fear of losing face or sounding foolish in front of peers and instructors also inhibit oral participation. another study by zafarina (2022) highlights several reasons for silence in efl classrooms: (1) lack of confidence in answering oral questions, (2) the belief that learning english is difficult, (3) hesitation to speak in front of others, (4) varying levels of language proficiency, and (5) fear of making mistakes and being ridiculed by classmates or judged by the teacher. in this context, the dual issues of lack of self-confidence and inadequate english competence emerge as primary concerns. meanwhile, faizin et al. (2022) presents an intriguing perspective: the silence exhibited by indonesian students does not indicate a deficiency in cognitive development but rather reflects a different mode issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 57 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 55-64 pratolo, b. w., sakti, m. m. a. & bao, d. (exploring factors influencing student silence in efl.....) of participation in the classroom. many students reported feeling more comfortable expressing their thoughts in writing than verbally. lastly, the research conducted by purwanti and yeni (2021) underscores that shyness, categorized as a psychological factor, is a significant contributor to student silence in speaking classes. this factor exacerbates other issues, including lack of confidence, anxiety, low motivation, and fear of making mistakes. this study distinguishes itself by employing a qualitative approach, contrasting with many previous studies that utilized mixed-methods approaches involving questionnaires and interviews. the decision to utilize observation and interviews is grounded in the belief that these methods are more suitable for capturing the complexities of the phenomenon. by employing these techniques, the researcher aims to obtain more valid and nuanced data. 2. methods this study employs a qualitative research design to explore the phenomenon of student silence in english as a foreign language (efl) classes. qualitative research is particularly effective for understanding complex social phenomena and capturing participants' perspectives (hancock et al., 2009; creswell & poth, 2018). by focusing on the lived experiences of students, this research aims to provide in-depth insights into the factors influencing student silence. 2.1. data collection data collection for this study began with classroom observations, followed by interviews with selected students. this two-step approach allows for a comprehensive understanding of the context in which student silence occurs, as well as the perspectives of students who demonstrate silent behavior. 1) classroom observations observations were conducted in several efl classrooms at an indonesian vocational high school. the researcher utilized a structured observation checklist to record instances of student silence, participation levels, and classroom interactions (fraenkel, wallen, & hyun, 2019). this approach facilitated the identification of patterns and contextual factors associated with student silence in realtime settings. 2) semi-structured interviews following the observations, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six students who exhibited silent behavior during class. this method allowed for flexibility in exploring the students' experiences and perceptions regarding their silence (kvale & brinkmann, 2015). the interviews included open-ended questions designed to elicit detailed responses about the factors contributing to their silence and any strategies they felt could encourage participation. the interviews were audiorecorded with participants' consent and subsequently transcribed for analysis. 2.2. participants the study involved a purposive sampling technique to select the six students who displayed notable silent behavior during classroom observations. this targeted approach ensured that the interviews provided rich and relevant data about the phenomenon of student silence. 2.3. data analysis thematic analysis was employed to analyze the data collected from observations and interviews. this method involved identifying, analyzing, and reporting patterns (themes) within the data (braun & clarke, 2006). the analysis process included familiarization with the data, coding, theme development, and refining themes, ensuring that the findings were grounded in the participants' experiences. 3. findings and discussion in this section, the researcher presents the findings of the study, starting with observations conducted prior to interviews. observation was the initial step taken in this research to investigate student silence in efl (english as a foreign language) classrooms. the researcher conducted open, direct observations of class xi pm3, identified as one of the less active or quietest classes during english lessons. these observations, lasting approximately one hour, were documented with video recordings and were conducted on february 15, 2023. 58 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, april 2024, pp. 55-64 pratolo, b. w., sakti, m. m. a. & bao, d. (exploring factors influencing student silence in efl.....) the researcher observed all 36 students in class xi pm3. prior to the observation, a discussion with one of the english teachers helped identify class xi pm3 as the most passive and silent class among the english classes at the school. based on this recommendation, the researcher selected this class for observation. the results of the observation indicated that 64% of the students remained silent and passively listened during the lesson, while only 36% actively engaged and spoke during the learning process. this suggests that the majority of students in the class tended to be passive or silent during english learning activities. several factors appeared to contribute to this classroom silence. first, the students seemed more inclined to listen than to actively participate, which may reflect a preference for passive learning. additionally, a lack of english proficiency among many students was observed, as evidenced by their inability to answer questions posed by the teacher. some students also appeared to pay limited attention to the teacher’s explanations, possibly due to a lack of interest in learning english, which in turn points to low motivation to engage in efl activities. the researcher also noted other behaviors related to student silence. some students who remained silent occasionally engaged in unrelated activities, such as chatting with classmates, doodling, or using their cell phones. these behaviors further underscore the students’ lack of engagement and motivation in participating actively in the lesson. 3.1. factors contributing to student silence this section presents the findings on factors contributing to student silence, difficulties faced by students, and activities engaged in by silent students during efl classes at an indonesian vocational high school, especifically in class xi pm 3. based on student interviews, the researcher identified five primary factors contributing to student silence: anxiety, lack of english proficiency, lack of confidence, lack of motivation, and introverted personality. 1) anxiety anxiety emerged as a significant factor contributing to student silence, with two respondents highlighting this issue during interviews. students reported feeling insecure about their language skills and fearful of negative judgments from others. for instance, respondent b shared, “i feel unsure of myself, especially when answering questions. i am afraid that i will be wrong” (respondent b, february 17, 2023, translated by the researcher). similarly, respondent e stated, “i often feel afraid or anxious if i want to speak, let alone answer questions from the teacher, because i cannot speak english” (respondent e, february 22, 2023, translated by the researcher). these statements reveal how fear of negative judgment and self-perceived inadequacy can lead to silence in the classroom. as noted by curry, maher, and peeters (2020), anxiety among language learners often leads to negative thoughts, such as fear of making mistakes or missing opportunities for practice. gregersen and horwitz (2002) further emphasize that anxious students may avoid speaking to prevent showing a perceived lack of competence. additionally, anxiety can stem from emotional instability (masthurah et al., 2021) and heightened self-awareness, which can hinder students’ engagement in class (king, 2013; tang et al., 2020). 2) lack of english proficiency limited english proficiency was another key factor influencing students' silence. many students lacked confidence in their grammar and vocabulary, making it difficult to participate actively. respondent d expressed this by saying, “i often have difficulties in learning english, so i cannot answer questions and speak in english. therefore, i choose to remain silent” (respondent d, february 22, 2023, translated by the researcher). this response underscores how inadequate vocabulary and grammar skills hinder students from participating, as they feel unable to communicate accurately. students’ limited proficiency can result in silence as they feel unable to construct sentences accurately or interpret lessons fully (hanh, 2020; bao, 2020). this aligns with bahar et al. (2022), who observed that students with limited language abilities may feel embarrassed, making them reluctant to participate. additionally, faizin et al. (2022) issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 59 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 55-64 pratolo, b. w., sakti, m. m. a. & bao, d. (exploring factors influencing student silence in efl.....) argue that the lack of daily english usage exacerbates students’ silence, as they struggle to express even known answers in english. 3) lack of confidence a lack of confidence was frequently mentioned as a factor causing silence, even among students who understood the material. respondent c noted, “i prefer to remain silent even though i actually understand, because i lack confidence when answering questions from the teacher; sometimes i hesitate when answering and speaking in english” (respondent c, february 17, 2023, translated by the researcher). this statement highlights how a lack of confidence can prevent students from sharing their understanding, despite having the knowledge. this lack of confidence often stems from low selfesteem and is exacerbated by limited language skills and minimal support (dörnyei, 2005; bahar et al., 2022; lakshmi et al., 2022). according to purwanti and yeni (2021), students lacking confidence may feel embarrassed, fearing ridicule from their peers if they make mistakes. this lack of selfassurance may also result from limited motivation; as juniati et al. (2018) argue, motivation can enhance students' confidence, fostering active participation in efl classes. 4) lack of motivation low motivation was another factor linked to student silence. unmotivated students often preferred silence or engaged in unrelated activities. respondent a admitted, “i don't like english lessons because i think this lesson is difficult, and from the beginning, i was not interested; therefore, i prefer to be silent” (respondent a, february 17, 2023, translated by the researcher). this statement suggests that disinterest in learning english results in minimal classroom engagement. students lacking motivation are often disinterested in learning, feeling that english lessons hold little personal relevance (smith et al., 2018). zhang (2019) argues that motivation is critical for language learning, as it drives students to engage more actively. zafarina (2022) also notes that positive reinforcement, such as encouraging feedback, can help reduce silence by boosting motivation. 5) introverted personality introverted personality traits also contributed to silence. introverted students may feel more comfortable listening rather than speaking. respondent f reflected this by saying, “i am often silent because i do have this kind of personality. therefore, i prefer to be quiet and just listen” (respondent f, february 22, 2023, translated by the researcher). this response shows how introverted students may avoid speaking due to a preference for introspection over active participation. according to wen (2017), introverted learners may struggle to adapt to social interactions in the efl classroom, making it challenging for them to participate. amalia and husna (2020) add that introverts often experience anxiety and shyness, making them reluctant to speak in front of others. this tendency to avoid speaking can result from internalized fears and a preference for introspective engagement over external communication (elfiza, 2017). 3.2. difficulties experienced by students in efl classes in addition to factors contributing to silence, students reported several difficulties they faced in efl classes: difficulty in understanding lessons, focusing, and speaking. 1) difficulty in understanding the lessons many students cited difficulty in understanding lessons due to limited vocabulary and grammar skills. respondent d mentioned, “i often find it difficult to understand or learn english, as i still know little vocabulary” (respondent d, february 22, 2023, translated by the researcher). similarly, respondent e noted, “i usually find it difficult to understand the material, especially difficult material. it is also difficult to understand the sentence structure” (respondent e, february 22, 2023, translated by the researcher). 60 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, april 2024, pp. 55-64 pratolo, b. w., sakti, m. m. a. & bao, d. (exploring factors influencing student silence in efl.....) these responses highlight how gaps in language knowledge contribute to students’ silence, as they may feel unable to engage meaningfully. according to min (2016), students who lack vocabulary and grammar skills often feel unable to communicate fluently. this difficulty can reinforce a preference for silence, as students may feel unprepared to engage actively. 2) difficulty in focusing in efl classes students also experienced challenges in maintaining focus during efl classes. for example, respondent a stated, “i find it difficult to focus in this lesson, because my friends often tease or talk to me” (respondent a, february 17, 2023, translated by the researcher). respondent b added, “i often feel sleepy and tired during english lessons, so i cannot focus on these lessons” (respondent b, february 17, 2023, translated by the researcher). these responses indicate how both external and internal factors disrupt students’ concentration, leading to disengagement. fatmawati and haura (2020) highlight that distractions from peers and personal fatigue are common barriers to focus in the classroom. these distractions can further decrease student engagement, leading to increased silence. 3) difficulty in speaking in efl classes a lack of confidence and fear of making mistakes contributed to students' difficulty in speaking. respondent c described this by saying, “i find it difficult to speak in english, especially when answering questions. it feels like a lack of confidence, even though i actually know the answer” (respondent c, february 17, 2023, translated by the researcher). this response shows how anxiety and lack of confidence can prevent students from expressing themselves, despite understanding the material. juniati et al. (2018) argue that frequent practice, increased vocabulary, and motivational support can help overcome students’ hesitation in speaking. addressing these issues can encourage students to move past silence and engage actively in class discussions. 3.3. activities of silent students during efl classes the study also explored the activities silent students engaged in during class. some students occupied themselves with unrelated activities while others attempted to follow the lesson. respondents reported a variety of activities, including using cell phones, doodling, or chatting. for example, respondent a mentioned, “i often draw or make scribbles in my book, and sometimes also operate my cell phone” (respondent a, february 17, 2023, translated by the researcher). however, a few students reported more constructive activities, such as taking notes or paying attention. respondent c shared, “i usually just stay quiet and focus on listening, but sometimes i also do other things such as drawing on my book or taking notes on the lesson material” (respondent c, february 17, 2023, translated by the researcher). these responses reveal a mixture of disengagement and occasional attentiveness. classroom interaction is essential for effective learning, as it promotes the exchange of ideas between teachers and students (bahar et al., 2022). students who engage in unrelated activities are likely to miss out on these interactions, limiting their learning opportunities. however, positive classroom interactions can encourage students to become more active participants. in examining the factors contributing to student silence in efl classes, this study identified anxiety, lack of english proficiency, lack of confidence, lack of motivation, and introverted personality as significant influences. these factors collectively create a classroom environment where students often feel hesitant or incapable of active participation. many students experience languagerelated challenges that limit their ability to speak up, while psychological and personality-related barriers further reinforce their preference for silence. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 61 vol. 7, no. 1, april 2024, pp. 55-64 pratolo, b. w., sakti, m. m. a. & bao, d. (exploring factors influencing student silence in efl.....) moreover, the difficulties students face in understanding the material, maintaining focus, and expressing themselves contribute to their disengagement in class. students often compensate for these challenges by resorting to various activities during lessons—some distracting, such as using cell phones or chatting with peers, and others constructive, like listening attentively or taking notes. these behaviors reflect the diverse ways students cope with the challenges of learning in a foreign language environment, suggesting a need for tailored support that addresses both academic and emotional barriers. 4. conclusion this study concludes that student silence in efl classes at an indonesian vocational school is primarily influenced by five factors: anxiety, lack of english proficiency, lack of confidence, lack of motivation, and an introverted personality. additionally, students face several difficulties that contribute to their silence, including challenges in understanding lesson content, maintaining focus, and speaking in english. furthermore, silent students engage in a range of activities during efl classes, some of which distract from the learning process, such as chatting with peers, using cell phones, doodling in notebooks, or falling asleep. however, some students also engage in constructive behaviors, including listening attentively to the teacher, reading materials, and taking notes on important information. the findings of this study have several implications for educators and school administrators. firstly, teachers should be aware of the psychological and linguistic barriers that contribute to student silence, such as anxiety and lack of confidence, and consider incorporating supportive teaching strategies, such as positive reinforcement and creating a safe, encouraging classroom environment. addressing language proficiency gaps through targeted interventions, such as vocabulary-building exercises or additional grammar support, may also help reduce students’ hesitation in participating. furthermore, fostering student motivation and engagement through relevant and interesting lesson content, as well as interactive and collaborative learning activities, may encourage more active participation. for students with introverted personalities, alternative forms of participation, such as small-group discussions or written reflections, could be encouraged to accommodate their preferences and help them gradually build confidence in larger group settings. school administrators may also consider professional development opportunities focused on managing student engagement and addressing emotional needs in the language-learning context. such efforts could foster a more inclusive and participative learning environment, ultimately improving students' language skills and confidence in efl classes. acknowledgment the researchers would like to express sincere gratitude to the research participants who have voluntarily participated in this study. declarations author contribution : bwp initiated the idea, explored all the references, developed research instrument, revised draft and wrote the final draft. mmas collected data and wrote draft. db guided the research, added ideas and refined the final draft. funding statement : the research received no funding conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. ethics declaration : the authors acknowledge that this study adheres to ethical research standards set by the university and that the necessary permissions were obtained from the relevant institution for data collection. the authors support the english language teaching educational 62 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, april 2024, pp. 55-64 pratolo, b. w., sakti, m. m. a. & bao, d. 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(2013). mixed method research: instruments, validity, reliability and reporting findings. theory and practice in language studies, 3, 254-262. http://dx.doi.org/10.4304/tpls.3.2.254262 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75438-3_18 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75438-3_18 https://doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2020.1715999 https://doi.org/10.32674/jcihe.v11iwinter.1087 https://doi.org/10.21462/jeltl.v7i2.846 https://doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1105991 http://dx.doi.org/10.4304/tpls.3.2.254-262 http://dx.doi.org/10.4304/tpls.3.2.254-262 1. introduction 2. methods 2.1. data collection 1) classroom observations 2) semi-structured interviews 2.2. participants 2.3. data analysis 3. findings and discussion 3.1. factors contributing to student silence 1) anxiety 2) lack of english proficiency 3) lack of confidence 4) lack of motivation 5) introverted personality 3.2. difficulties experienced by students in efl classes 1) difficulty in understanding the lessons 2) difficulty in focusing in efl classes 3) difficulty in speaking in efl classes 3.3. activities of silent students during efl classes 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 139-149 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12016 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id shaping the future of translation careers: student interest and the need for curriculum reform in the ai era eko setyo humanika a, 1, r. yohanes radjaban b, 2,* a, b universitas teknologi yogyakarta, jl. siliwangi no 1, jombor, mlati, sleman, yogyakarta, indonesia 1 eko.humanika@uty.ac.id;2 ry.radjaban@uty.ac.id* * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 28 november 2024 revised 16 december 2024 accepted 21 december 2024 this study aims to analyze the students’s interest in translation career in the artificial intelligence (ai) era and the growing need for translation curriculum reform. it is observed that the students’ interest in translation carrer fluctuate due to the ai’s advancement, especially in its application to machine translation. being aware of this trend will give valuable insight to the translation education reform. a quantitative-qualitative mixed method approach was employed. this study involves 45 students from the english literature department at the university of technology yogyakarta (uty) during the 20232024 academic year. participants were selected using a stratified random sampling technique and included fourth-year students (who have taken 4 translation subjects in the curriculum), third-year (two subjects), and second-year (not yet taken any). data collection was conducted through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. the questionnaire assessed students’ interest in translation careers and their view on translation instruction, while the interview provided deeper insight on those matters from six respondents representing the positive and negative view. the findings showed that 26,6% of respondents are interested in a translation career, 55,6% are neutral, and 15,53% are not interested. it indicated that only less than one-third of the respondents were interested in a translation career. most of them were students from higher level. it is also found that more than a half of the respondents were undecisive; most of them were from the second and third-year. it is typical because students from fourth-year tend to focus more on career planning. the study also highlights the need to reform translation curricula by integrating machine translation into classroom instruction, as a computer assisted as well as automatic. the findings of this study suggest the need for further research on developing an aibased model for teaching translation. © the author(s) 2024. published by universitas ahmad dahlan this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords translation career students’ interest artificial intelligence machine translation curriculum how to cite: humanika, e. s. and radjaban, r, y. (2024). shaping the future of translation careers: student interest and the need for curriculum reform in the ai era. english language teaching educational journal, 7(3), 139-149. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12016 1. introduction translation is often oversimplified as a simple task of converting a message from one language (the source language) to another (the target language), which anyone fluent in both languages can handle. however, many individual start translating confidently, only to realize that producing an appropriate final product is more challenging than expected. as the saying goes, translation is like chopping an onion: at first, it seems manageable, but before long, the difficulties become apparent. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12016 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:eko.humanika@uty.ac.id mailto:ry.radjaban@uty.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12016 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12016&domain=pdf 140 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 139-149 humanika, e. s. and radjaban, r, y. (shaping the future of translation careers…..) to translate effectively, one must possess what is known as 'translation competence,' which consists of several sub-competences. albir et al. (2019), citing the pacte group, identified five essential sub-competences: bilingual, extra-linguistic, translation-specific knowledge, instrumental, and strategic. mastery of these elements is essential to ensure that the final product is accessible and accurate for the target audience. in other words, a translator must not only be proficient in both the source and target languages but also possess an understanding of the subject matter, knowledge of appropriate translation techniques, and cultural sensitivity. translation, as a form of cross-linguistic communication, has a long history. from the creation of rosetta stone in 196 bc to the dissemination of religious texts during the medieval period and through the renaissance to the colonial era, when translation flourished due to global exploration, the field has evolved significantly. and in the 20th and 21st centuries, technological advancements have reshaped translation practices (o’keeffe, 2023; rokan, 2021). the history of translation as a profession is also rich and multifaceted. as explored in lange, et al. (2024), this profession has existed since ancient civilization, with early examples of evidence found in assyria, egypt, israel, china, greece, and rome. in this period, translators mostly worked on religious or administrative texts, indicating the importance of translation in facilitating communication across cultures and languages. in the medieval period, the translator played a crucial role in transmitting knowledge, particularly in the context of the islamic golden age, where scholars translated greek philosophical and scientific texts into arabic. in the renaissance era, this profession gained recognition and was acknowledged for its contribution to literature and scholarships. during the enlightenment era, translators played a valuable role in spreading ideas and facilitating cultural exchange. the professionalization of translation began in the early 20th century with the establishment of international organizations like the international association of conference interpreters (aiic) and the rising demand for interpreters in global institutions such as the united nations. in indonesia, the translation profession gained official recognition in 2014 when the indonesian minister of administrative and bureaucratic reform issued regulation number 49 on translator's functional position in government bodies. this regulation delineated four professional levels: junior expert, associate expert, senior expert, and principal expert, providing a clear career pathway for translators within governmental departments. the latest progress has shown that technology has a significant role in translation. with technology, translation methods have transformed drastically, moving from conventional manual operations counting on translators’ expertise to more technology-assisted and automated methods. technological innovations have had a notable impact on the translation industry. one of the most significant developments in translation technology is the integration of artificial intelligence (ai), particularly through deep learning and neural techniques in machine translation (mt). this integration has substantially improved translation accuracy and efficiency (mohamed, 2024). it offers faster, more accessible, and affordable solutions for language conversion. these tools can process large volumes of text within seconds, offering real-time translation in multiple languages. in more detail, steigerwald et al. (2022) and datta et al. (2023) highlight the advantages of aibased machine translation, as follows. 1. neural systems employ deep learning techniques, which involve multiple processing layers to analyze and generate language. this approach has significantly improved the fluency and accuracy of the translation. 2. the systems use a data-driven approach that utilizes a vast amount of previously translated texts to train ai models. these models learn patterns and relationships in language, allowing them to generate contextually relevant and grammatically correct translations. 3. these systems can continuously improve as they are exposed to more data. by incorporating user feedback and new translations, these systems can adapt and refine their outputs over time, making them more effective for specialized fields, including scientific literature. 4. they can be trained specifically in scientific jargon and terminology, which is crucial for accurately translating texts in specialized fields. this requires access to high-quality, domainspecific training data. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 141 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 139-149 humanika, e. s. and radjaban, r, y. (shaping the future of translation careers…..) 5. the flexibility, performance, and ability of neural machine translation (nmt) systems to handle complex linguistic features, including in low-resource languages, further highlight their advantages. 6. many ai-powered translation tools, such as google translate and deepl, are designed to be user-friendly and accessible, allowing researchers and the general public to utilize them easily for translation tasks. seeing the impressive advancement of ai-based machine translation, a concern emerges on whether mt will replace human translators in the future, just as the impact of robots taking over numerous jobs in manufacturing industries. ai’s ability to translate quickly, accurately, and without fatigue has raised questions about whether human translators are still needed. indeed, ai systems are becoming increasingly proficient, and in certain contexts, they may outperform human translators. with these facts, the above concern is reasonable. however, despite advancements in machine translations, machine translations have limitations in some ways (chen, 2024). first, the complexity of natural languages—with their irregularities, ambiguities, and rich expressive potential—poses a significant challenge for ai. capturing the full range of linguistic nuances, subtleties, and contextual meaning remains difficult for current machine translation systems. second, ai lacks a true understanding of context and culture, which are essential for accurately interpreting implicit meanings and cultural nuances. as a result, machine-generated translations may suffer from misinterpretations or a loss of meaning. third, while ai systems can generate translations, human involvement is still necessary for preand post-editing to ensure accuracy and quality. thus, current machine translation technology cannot fully replace human translators. the most effective approach appears to be the integration of machine translation tools that assist, rather than replace, human translators. research has shown that combining ai with human intelligence can significantly improve translation quality. herbig et al. (2019) argue that ai-based mt offers a strong starting draft as its output, enabling translators to concentrate on refining the draft. this initial ai-generated draft is generally of high quality, which allows human translators to focus on enhancing clarity, flow, and specific nuances. they also note that ai can lessen the cognitive demands on translators, allowing them to concentrate on more complex aspects like context and nuance that are crucial for top-quality translations. hiebl and grosmann (2023) further support this, highlighting that while ai boosts speed and efficiency, human translators bring essential skills, such as contextual insight, cultural awareness, and subjective judgment, which are invaluable for maintaining translation quality. given these developments, ai's implication in classroom translation instruction is inevitable. yuxiu (2024) confirmed that translation technology can enhance translation education by (1) serving as an effective teaching tool that offers students a more efficient, accurate, and practical translation experience, (2) providing clear advantages and new opportunities for translation teaching, and (3) improving translation efficiency, thus improving translation teaching quality and standards. furthermore, kanglang and fazzal (2021) suggested that educational institutions consider the implications of ai in translation instruction to ensure that human translators continue developing their skills and maintaining relevance in a changing industry. and, caukin et al. (2024) reinforce the idea that ai can create a more inclusive, adaptable, and engaging learning environment for translation students. recent development has convinced that in an era where artificial intelligence is reshaping industries, integrating ai into translation training is no longer optional—it is imperative. by equipping future translators with the skills to navigate ai-driven tools, we ensure their relevance and adaptability in a rapidly evolving field. this research contributes to translation studies by exploring students' interest in translation careers and the need for curriculum reform driven by the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence. it provides valuable insights for curriculum developers to align translation programs with the current realities of the translation industry. 142 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 139-149 humanika, e. s. and radjaban, r, y. (shaping the future of translation careers…..) 2. method 2.1. participant this study included 45 students from the english literature department at uty, representing second-, third-, and fourth-year students from the 2023/2024 academic year. fourth-year students have completed four translation courses as part of their curriculum, third-year students have completed two, while second-year students have not taken any. a stratified random sampling method was used to select participants, ensuring representation from three consecutive academic batches. 2.2. data collecting technique data for this research were gathered using structured questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. the questionnaire contained 14 items, to reveal (1) the respondents’ experiences with aibased machine translation, (2) their interest in the translation profession in light of mt advancements (3) their confidence in choosing translation as one of their future careers, and (4) the need for instructional materials on translation topics within the curriculum. respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement with each statement using a likert scale, ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. in assessing the questionnaire's internal consistency, cronbach's alpha was calculated to evaluate the reliability of responses across items. the overall cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.82, indicating high reliability, as values above 0.7 are generally accepted as reliable for psychological and social science measures (george & mallery, 2021). this level of reliability suggests that the items consistently measure the intended constructs across respondents. for construct validity, item-total correlations were analyzed to determine the degree to which each item was aligned with the overall scale score. items with correlations above 0.4 generally contribute adequately to construct validity (field, 2024). most items demonstrated correlations above this threshold, confirming that the questionnaire items effectively measure the constructs related to machine translation (mt) perception and interest in translation as a career. semi-structured interviews were conducted with 6 students, representing a mix of positive and negative views from their respective batches. these interviews aimed to gain deeper insights into students' career interests in translation and their perspectives on translation instruction within the curriculum. 2.3. data analysis 1) questionnaire data descriptive statistics were used to analyze the questionnaire data, providing an overview of the respondents' views on the topics of interest. inferential statistics were applied to explore potential differences in responses based on academic year, treating academic year as a variable due to the evolving nature of career choices over time. 2) interview data the interview data were analyzed thematically, following a six-step process outlined by byrne, d. a. (2022): becoming familiar with the data, generating initial codes, identifying themes, reviewing those themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the final report. ethical approval was secured from the appropriate institutional review board. informed consent was obtained from all participants, who were assured of the confidentiality and anonymity of their responses. they were also made aware of their right to withdraw from the study at any time without facing any consequences. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. findings the analysis of the questionnaire data indicates that 87 % of this study's respondents are familiar with translation machines, 79.5% reported regularly using the tools to carry out translation tasks, and 82.5% confirm their belief that artificial intelligence-based machine translation (ai-based mt) is a potential tool to assist them in doing their translation. these results suggest a generally positive outlook toward ai-based mt, with 81% of respondents expressing favorable views on the subject. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 143 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 139-149 humanika, e. s. and radjaban, r, y. (shaping the future of translation careers…..) further analysis of the questionnaire responses indicates that students are particularly drawn to aibased mt due to its ability to translate quickly and efficiently, reduce repetitive tasks, and demonstrate improved accuracy. these factors appear to enhance their career interest in the translation field. the diagram below illustrates the data on students' interest in pursuing translation careers based on their academic batch. fig. 1. students’ interest in translation career by batch the quantitative data in the diagram above show that in batch 2021/2022, the ‘strongly disagree’ and ‘disagree’ responses to the statement stood at 20%. this indicates that one-fifth of respondents had a negative perspective on the statement presented in the survey. the ‘neutral’ category comprised 40% of the responses, suggesting that almost half of the respondents neither agreed nor disagreed, indicating indecision or uncertainty. meanwhile, the positive response to the statement comprised 40%, with 13.3% of participants expressing agreement and 26.7% strongly agreeing. this suggests a more moderate level of positive sentiment toward the statement, as only a third of the respondents expressed a favorable opinion. in the 2022/2023 batch, there is a little difference in sentiment compared to the previous batch. the combined ‘strongly disagree and ‘disagree’ answers decreased to 13.3%, which indicated a reduction in the number of respondents expressing negative opinions. this suggests that fewer participants disagreed with the statement, indicating a potential decline in opposition. however, the ‘neutral’ category notably increased, from 40% to 60%. this increased neutrality indicates a growing sense of indecisiveness or uncertainty among the respondents. the combined ‘agree’ group remained at 26.6%, with equal distributions of 13.3% expressing agreement and strong agreement. this decrease from the previous year implies a little decline in overall positive sentiment towards the statement. in the most recent batch, 2023/2024, the data reveals interesting changes. the combined ‘strongly disagree’ and ‘disagree’ groups remained stabil at 13.3%, indicating a continued lack of significant opposition. however, the proportion of neutral responses increased dramatically to 66.7%, making it the dominant sentiment among the respondents. this significant increase in neutrality indicates a notable change towards indecision or uncertainty. the combined ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’ group experienced a decline to 20%, with 13.3% of respondents expressing agreement and 6.7% strongly agreeing. the reduction in strong agreement reflects a decrease in the intensity of positive sentiment, while the overall level of agreement also decreases. the qualitative data from the interviews revealed several interesting findings. respondents who agreed noted that their experience with ai-based mt provided them with valuable insights into the translation process. it allowed them to concentrate on the fundamental challenges of translation while leaving technical matters to the machine. this enabled them to finish their translation tasks more quickly and with fewer or no minor errors like mistyping and misspellings. however, these respondents also believe mt cannot fully replace human translators. they noted that while mt performs well in academic and technical contexts, it struggles with cultural and literary translations. one respondent mentioned, "in our literary translation course, we found that machine translation fails to capture the nuances from the source language into the target language." another respondent confirms: “one example is when machine translation is asked to translate berakit-rakit ke hulu, berenang-renang ke tepian. bersakit-sakit dahulu, bersenang-senang kemudian. the translation is very literal. the meaning has been transformed but not the rhyme. this reflects a belief that human translators are still essential for texts requiring a high degree of cultural and literary sensitivity. 144 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 139-149 humanika, e. s. and radjaban, r, y. (shaping the future of translation careers…..) these respondents also highlight an urgent need to integrate mt into translation sessions within the classroom. currently, most translation activities follow a traditional approach, primarily focusing on text analysis, transfer, and restructuring. in this conventional procedure, students begin their translating by analyzing the source text to understand its core message. they then transfer this message by identifying equivalent expressions and restructuring the text according to the target language's grammatical rules and contextual nuances. as technology has provided the instrument to help translators do their job, this study's respondents recommend using machine translation in classroom sessions. it can be in the form of a computerassisted translation (cat) tool or even automatic translation. they know that professional translators have used mt to do the job. keeping students away from mt in the classroom activity means keeping them in distance from the real world of the translation industry. a different argument emerges from the respondents who disagree with the statement in the question. these disagreeing respondents foreshadow the future threat of machine translation for humans. one of the respondents claims:” the quality of google translate improves significantly from time to time. it used to produce bad translations, but now it has performed impressively in translating text. in many cases, human interference to revise or edit the translation is unnecessary. google translate is more than enough for the readers who only want to know the message.” another respondent quoted a machine translation vendor who claimed that their product could achieve 90% translation accuracy, suggesting that the remaining 10% improvement is merely a matter of time with these considerations, they do not choose translation as one of their career options in the future. they believe that the number of job opportunities in the translation field in the future will decrease significantly because clients can already account for machine translation. they do not want to take the risk. despite different views on translation careers, respondents generally agree on the value of integrating mt into classroom translation sessions. they see the potential use of machine translation as a cat tool and a form of automatic translation. by familiarizing them with these tools, the classroom could better prepare them for the realities of the translation industry, where proficiency with technology is increasingly essential. 3.2. discussion the data analyzed in this study shows that 79.5% of respondents are familiar with mt and often use it for translation assignments. this finding is in line with recent studies and surveys. hellmich and vinall (2023) claim that mt tools are commonly used by students learning foreign languages, with around 70% reporting frequent use of services like google translate. bindels and pluymaekers (2022) report in their study conducted with first-, second-, and third-year translation undergraduate students in the netherlands that 65% of their respondents use mt in their tasks. in france. loock and lèchhauguette (2021) conducted a survey of 89 students enrolled in a translation course at the university of lille and found that 83% of them used online mt tools for their homework assignments. almost a similar phenomenon is seen in spain. a survey conducted by pastor (2021) to the students of the translation program of the university de valència identified that 72% of her respondents reported resorting to mt as a problem-solving tool when faced with text fragments containing especially difficult sentences or complex syntactic structures. it is also reported that 100% of her respondents believe that mt can help them to translate under certain conditions. in turkey, çakir and bahyan (2021) reported in their study to english language and literature students at a state university in turkey that 87% of their respondents use mt (53% every day and 34 % sometimes). another review by lee (2023) highlights that mt has become an integral part of foreign language education, with usage rates increasing post-pandemic due to greater reliance on digital resources in remote learning environments. students prefer using mt for its accessibility and immediate feedback, particularly for writing, translating complex texts, and facilitating understanding in a second language. these findings confirm the widespread use and integration of mt tools among students, with many relying on them for their translation tasks. the respondents in this study also recognized the advantages of mt—such as speed, efficiency, and reduced monotony—which have sparked their interest in translation as a career. many students highlighted that mt’s ability to enhance translation issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 145 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 139-149 humanika, e. s. and radjaban, r, y. (shaping the future of translation careers…..) accuracy and productivity has positively impacted their view of the profession, suggesting that the convenience offered by mt tools is contributing to their career interest. research that explored whether the convenience and advantages of mt encourage students to pursue careers in translation indicates mixed impacts, as mt introduces both benefits and challenges in the field. in his study to 35 second-year students of taras shevchenko national university, ukraine, bakhov et al. (2024) found that using ai-assisted tools in translation education can significantly improve students' academic performance and translation quality. this enhancement in their skills increases their confidence and interest in pursuing a career in translation. other studies explore the positive response to the issue. tian et al. (2023), in their study of 108 grade 2021 students selected from three chinese universities, highlighted that future work selfelaboration positively relates to students' exhibition of translation technology. in line with the above studies, garcía-escribano and díaz-cintas (2023) observed that integrating mt in audiovisual translation training has sparked interest in post-editing careers. however, when considering career options, data in this study disclose that most respondents are generally neutral about pursuing a career as a translator. as seen in figure 1, 55.56% of the respondents expressed no strong opinion, 28.86% showed interest, and 15.53% opposed the idea. the data also indicates that uncertainty is higher among students from batch 2022/2023 (60%) and 2023/2024 (66.7%) compared to the more decisive students in batch 2021/2022 (40%). additionally, batch 2021/2022 students show more career clarity, with 60% already set on their career options, compared to 33.3% in batch 2023/2024. such determination is typical, as students in higher semesters often become more focused on specific career decisions than those in lower. the data also reflect broader trends observed in translation programs worldwide. hao and pym (2022) reported that only around one-third of translation program graduates pursue work as translators or interpreters. various studies illustrate this trend with specific figures: for example, among swansea university graduates in 2020 (sample of 29), 34.48% were employed in translation services. an emt survey with 1,138 graduates found 49.03% working as translators or interpreters, while a study by schmitt, gernstmeyer, and müller reported that 67.29% of 1,278 graduates held translation or interpreting positions. meanwhile, in indonesia, husein and bahar (2020) conducted a survey with 45 students from the university of muhammadiyah gorontalo, which revealed that respondents had a moderate interest in pursuing careers as translators. as indicated in the findings, respondents of this study see the profession from two perspectives. the agreeing group perceives it with optimism. they see new possible opportunities in the emergence of ai-based mt. meanwhile, respondents confirming disagreement stated their concern about mt’s threat to the human role in translating jobs. they are concerned that job opportunities will significantly decline due to the advancements in machine translation. the results of this study align with those of kirov and malamin (2020), who found that translators generally perceive the impact of ai on their profession with a mix of concern and optimism. while many see ai as a potential threat, they also recognize that these technologies can help reduce repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on editing machine-translated text and provide a new opportunity: machine translation post-editing (mtpe). responding to advancements in mt, researchers have long worked to incorporate mt into classroom translation instruction. this integration began in the 1960s but gained significant momentum in the 2010s due to rapid advancements in neural machine translation (nmt) technologies. this approach utilizes multiple processing layers to examine and produce language, that significantly enhance translation fluency and precision. in 2023, mt was incorporated into legal translation courses to enable students to gain practical skills, mtpe. this evolution highlights how mt has changed from a simple automation tool to a vital element in translation education, equipping students with essential skills for a technology-driven industry (steigerwald et al., 2022; cuenca, et al, 2020; cunha, 2023). several approaches have been proposed for integrating mt into translation courses. for instance, bulut (2019) suggested a six-week instructional scenario that combines human and machine translations. students were asked to translate texts both manually and with the aid of mt, followed by a comparative analysis of their human translations versus the mt output. this approach allows 146 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 139-149 humanika, e. s. and radjaban, r, y. (shaping the future of translation careers…..) students to critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of mt, particularly in terms of context and cultural sensitivity and enhances their understanding of translation accuracy. another approach involves a series of automated translation activities, such as pre-editing source texts, providing prompts, and post-editing machine-generated output. pre-editing involves modifying the source text to improve the quality of the mt output, including simplifying complex sentences and ensuring consistency in terminology (miyata & fujita, 2021). prompts, which provide specific instructions to mt systems, are another tool that can refine the translation process. for example, specifying "rhyme" in the prompt when translating an indonesian proverb results in a more creative and contextually appropriate translation. this highlights the importance of training students in the strategic use of mt prompts (white et al., 2023). post-editing is another key skill that translation students must develop. it involves revising and improving the mt output to ensure accuracy, coherence, and fluency. the post-editing process can be divided into several steps: initial assessment, error correction, fluency and coherence improvements, and final quality assurance (shin & chon, 2023). teaching students these post-editing skills is crucial to preparing them for the demands of the professional translation industry, where mt is increasingly used in combination with human expertise. finally, pastor (2021) proposed a comprehensive approach for advanced translation students, which includes practicing with different mt engines, analyzing mt errors, and engaging in postediting tasks. this also involves evaluating mt outputs both manually and automatically, as well as exploring the professional implications of mt in the translation field. 4. conclusion the emergence of ai has significantly reshaped students' interest in translation careers. this study confirms that the influence could be twofold. on one hand, some students view ai as a tool that can enhance their translation skills and efficiency rather than seeing it as a threat. this technological advancement opens up new career paths within translation. on the other hand, some other students are concerned that automation might replace traditional translation jobs. the fear is that machine translations could diminish the demand for human translators, leading to fewer job opportunities in the field. however, despite these concerns, the limitations of ai remain evident—particularly in its inability to fully capture the nuances of culturally rich texts, idiomatic expressions, and literary works. as students become more aware of these shortcomings, they are beginning to recognize the irreplaceable role of human translators. human expertise, particularly in cultural sensitivity, emotional depth, and creative interpretation, remains essential for high-quality translations. these insights reinforce the enduring relevance of human translators in a profession increasingly influenced by technology. looking ahead, the future of translation careers lies in the integration of ai and human expertise. by combining the strengths of both, the translation process can be enhanced, producing high-quality outputs that improve the speed and efficiency of mt while preserving the essential qualities that only human translators can provide. the next step, therefore, is to incorporate ai tools into translation training programs in universities, ensuring that students are equipped to navigate the evolving landscape of the profession. future research should focus on developing ai-based teaching models for translation that effectively integrate machine translation tools. these models could provide students with practical skills in using mt alongside human judgment, preparing them for a technology-driven translation industry where proficiency in both domains is essential. acknowledgment we express our gratitude to the rector of the university of technology yogyakarta, lppm, and the head of the english literature department for their support and for providing research facilities. we also sincerely thank the respondents for their participation and cooperation during the data collection process. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 147 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 139-149 humanika, e. s. and radjaban, r, y. (shaping the future of translation careers…..) declarations author contribution : authors 1 and 2 collaboratively conducted the research, including proposing the topic, drafting the proposal, applying research methodologies, performing analysis, and presenting the data and discussion. author 1 took the lead in the article’s publication process and both contributed to the publication fee. funding statement : no funding is available for this research. conflict of interest : i declare that there is no competing interests. ethics declaration : as the author, i confirm that this work has been written based on ethical research principles in compliance with our university’s regulations and that the necessary permission was obtained from the relevant institution during data collection. i fully support eltej’s commitment to upholding high standards of professional conduct and practicing honesty in all academic and professional activities. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references albir, a. galan-manas, a. kuznik, a. neunzig, w. olalla-soler, c. rodriguez-ines, p. & romero, l. 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(2024). application of translation technology based on ai in translation teaching. system and soft computing. vol. 6 pp.1–8. netherland: elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sasc.2024.200072 https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2024.3366802 https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921791 http://dx.doi.org/10.29228/translogos.11 http://dx.doi.org/10.5565/rev/tradumatica.273 http://dx.doi.org/10.22161/jhed.3.4.2 https://hdl.handle.net/10125/73523 https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biac062 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1122612 https://arxiv.org/list/cs/recent https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2302.11382 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sasc.2024.200072 1. introduction 2. method 2.1. participant 2.2. data collecting technique 2.3. data analysis 1) questionnaire data 2) interview data 3. findings and discussion 3.1. findings 3.2. discussion 4. conclusion declarations english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 152-163 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14368 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id a framework for playful pedagogy: nurturing child imagination in second language learning dat bao a, 1, *, tran thi hoang nguyen b, 2 a monash university, wellington rd, clayton vic 3800, australia b van lang university, 69/68 dang thuy tram street, ward 13, binh thanh district, ho chi minh city, vietnam 1 dat.bao@monash.edu*; 2hhnguyentrann@gmail.com *corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 15 june 2025 revised 17 july 2025 accepted 4 august 2025 this conceptual article argues that although imagination is a highly important dynamic of the mind with strong potential to assist language development, imagination alone does not work by itself. instead, a strategic framework is needed to support imagination by connecting it with playful teaching and amusing content. the article begins by pinpointing what playful pedagogy means and what role imagination plays in the learning process. secondly, the discussion presents some challenges to such learning, delving particularly into some constraints on child imagination and other constraints on english learning among children. thirdly, the discussion highlights the need for a playful pedagogy and amusing content to support it. this is followed by some insights into nurturing imagination for learning. finally, the article unpacks the above-mentioned framework in ways that would assist task design in language education. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords imagination creativity playful teaching/pedagogy playful learning how to cite: bao, d. & nguyen, t. t. h. (2025). a framework for playful pedagogy: nurturing child imagination in second language learning english language teaching educational journal, 8(2), 152-163. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14368 1. introduction play is indisputably essential in child education. the essence of playful learning, while relying deeply on imagination, needs a pedagogy relevant to it. children are likely to lose learning interest if they happen to be taught by a serious teacher who does not know how to play with them. playful pedagogy is a philosophy that respects children agency to be themselves. it allows the freedom of experiencing the world through a child lens rather than following any fixed mindset advocated by adults. this understanding is inspired by developmental psychologists such as vygotsky (1978), and by many sociologists, sociocultural theorists, psychologists and neuroscientists. through play with children, educators, instead of teaching, lead children by following them. adopting playful pedagogies in nurseries, kindergartens, and primary schools, educators co-create an imagined world with children in which they share resources, build narratives, engage in action, develop worldviews, bond with peers, co-construct meaning, and become creative. this philosophy is captured in the chart below (figure 1) in which imagination acts as the core of child learning. three elements centered on imagination to activate it include learner playfulness, teacher playfulness, and inspiring content. if one of these components are missing, imagination cannot be optimised, and children may not enjoy the learning process. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14368 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:dat.bao@monash.edu mailto:2hhnguyentrann@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14368 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14368&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4143-4951 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2641-1369 153 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 152-163 bao, d. & nguyen, t. t. h. (a framework for playful pedagogy: nurturing child imagination…..) fig. 1. a playful pedagogy framework the rest of the article will now unpack the strategic structure above. first, it provides insights into what playful pedagogy means, how the child’s mind works, and what role imagination plays in the learning process. secondly, the discussion presents some challenges to such learning, delving particularly into some constraints on child imagination and other constraints on english learning among children. thirdly, the authors elaborate on the need for a playful pedagogy and the need fort amusing content to support that pedagogy. fourthly, the discussion emphasises ways of nurturing imagination for learning satisfaction. eventually, the article unpacks the above-mentioned framework in ways that would assist task design in language education. 2. method 2.1. research design the design of this study is framed by a conceptual qualitative inquiry and grounded in traditions of educational research and applied linguistics. this was not a hypothesis testing study but a demonstration with regards to work toward pedagogical framework articulated as child imagination and playful pedagogy in second language learning more clearly and explicitly. it takes an exploratory and interpretive stance, mobilising theory, ad hominem observation, and some selected empirical evidence to consolidate a psycho-sociocultural perspective on elt. 2.2. data sources and materials three sources were used in the development of the framework: theoretical and empirical literature foundational work within developmental psychology (e.g., vygotsky, piaget), sociocultural perspectives (rifiyanti & hidayat, 2024), and creativity studies were integrated in a systematic manner to create a map of definition and operationalisation of imagination and creativity within child learning. research studies on playful pedagogy as well as on elt-elt also became particularly useful for understanding second language contexts (prošić-santovac & savić, 2021). anecdotal notes – short stories based on actual experiences with children (e.g., at parks, in classrooms, during informal play) were written as expert vignettes. these were not analysed as data but as samples which articulate ways in which children employ imagination in their learning or interactions. pedagogical examples – practices, such as role-play, puzzles, storytelling, music and games, from classrooms and textbooks were interpreted as indication of how playful language learning practices can be documented as evidence of practice. 2.3. analytical procedures analysis adhered to an interpretive, iterative thematic synthesis: stage 1: identifying concepts – concepts were identified from the literature including imagination, playfulness, content engagement, and teacher– child interaction. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 154 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 152-163 bao, d. & nguyen, t. t. h. (a framework for playful pedagogy: nurturing child imagination…..) stage 2: thematic categorisation – these constructs were collated to generate key themes that are repeated: activating imagination; playful teaching; playful learning through social and emotional sharing; and the significance of amusing content. stage 3: framework model building – these themes were combined into strategic model with bottom abductive (figures 1 and 2 article). the procedure was iterative, in which categories evolved as more data sources were reviewed. stage 4: pedagogical translation – the framework was used to analyse sample classroom tasks and guiding questions in order to verify its utility for elt task design. 3. an introductory anecdote about the child’s mind once in a park where children were playing, one of the authors overheard a little girl asking her father: 'daddy, what is the sky made of?' the father nonchalantly replied: ‘i don’t know.’ the child looked disappointed. she moved away. her trust in adults’ wisdom seemed shaken. as teachers and parents, we are taught to bond with children by playing with them, sharing what they care about, inspiring their curious minds (chau et al., 2025), and encouraging new questions. unfortunately, we sometimes pay more attention to logic than imagination, routinely holding on to established principles and systematic knowledge already documented in textbooks and curricula. if students are not interested enough in these ideas, teachers assume students are not learning. in behaving as such, we frame children’s worldview within a boundary. as our thinking was provoked by the above incident, we wondered if the same ‘absurd’ question is being asked to a child, instead of a logical adult, what answer it would be. one day, we directed the enquiry to a random child in the park: 'what do you think the sky is made of?’ without hesitation, she replied: 'the sky is made of blue!' as a grownups, we would have never thought of this kind of answer. the child’s creative response demonstrates her personal observation and the freedom to articulate her worldview regardless of school knowledge. 4. imagination as learning imagination is a major ingredient that shapes learning. in children, the inclination to see the invisible stimulates and constructs play experience, which is known as imaginative play and which can be fostered through simulation, role-play and make-believe situations in a safe, stress-free environment (bao, 2018a; bao & liu, 2018). imaginative play, or dramatic play, allows children to make-believe, that is, to play without predetermined rules. it is through such involvement that one practises their social skills by mirroring the way others interact for building a better understanding of social norms. such experience represents a vital part of child development including critical decisionmaking, cognitive skills, and social skills. imagination, which is the freedom to see, feel, and play that gives rise to creativity, is important to be nurture at an early age (wulandari, 2024). thanks to that ability, one can play even without props and toys. examples of dramatic play are being astronauts, ballerinas, animals, fictional aliens, and mythical creatures. the children conceptualised in this article referred to in the article ranges from the early years to early teen age. this is a stage when the development of learning facility takes shape and is likely to grow into adulthood if well fostered. a broad range of facilities that are connected to imagination include critical thinking, problem-solving skills (shi & cheung, 2024), artistic perception, an invention mind, motor skills and physicals development, language competence, emotional intelligence, social interaction, building friendship and team spirit. by activating their imagination, children not only discover concepts and develop mentally but also make friendships and learn to collaborate with others. 5. constraints on child imagination all human beings possess the capacity for imaginative creativity. unfortunately, sometimes the schooling and circumstances in which children are raised can further disconnect them from their creative selves (wakayama, 2025). for example, according to vasilovici (2024), the introverted 155 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 152-163 bao, d. & nguyen, t. t. h. (a framework for playful pedagogy: nurturing child imagination…..) culture and outcome-oriented education policies of many schools happens to restrict the development of imagination during the adolescent years. the continuation of nurturing toward imagination should be a lifelong educational policy. according to wakayama (2025), children begin imitating the people around them in their first year, and from this imitation, imaginative or pretend play emerges. thus, infants may initially imitate facial expressions; as they mature, they may recreate or rebuild events they have experienced; subsequently, their play will be influenced by their imagination (bao, 2018c). youngsters engage in imitative play by copying or imitating, and they are not simply duplicating what they have observed, but also contributing their own thoughts. concerning imaginative play in early children, piaget (1962), vygotsky (1978), and ewing and saunders (2025)'s works have explained the role of imagination in the development of cognition. in vygotsky’s (1978) conceptualisation, the core of play is that it allows the children cognitive independence from tangible reality, which is impossible before the age of three. ewing & saunders (2025) see imagination as an intellectual ability that can be attained and can improve intellectual functioning throughout the life cycle. young children's play is a transitional stage between the solely situational limits of early childhood and the adult thinking, which can be completely free of real-world constraints. without the liberating effects of imaginative play, further cognitive development would be impossible (bežilová, 2024). in the meantime, there exist other constraints on english learning among young learners. linguistically, the english language taught as a subject can easily be boring, and many primary school students are seen to have a certain resistance to learning english (vasilovici, 2024). cognitively, compared with adults, primary school students have a stronger ability to perceive and accept-language (frost et al., 2019). socioculturally, in an efl contexts, the mother tongue is used in schools, workplaces, the broader society, with relatively few opportunities for daily communication in english. primary school students also face a similar situation when learning english. in an environment with limited conditions, to help students, master english knowledge and the english language, teachers need to improve the effect of classroom teaching and improve students' enthusiasm for learning english by enhancing their interest in english teaching (bao, 2021). 6. the need for playful teaching one of the authors remember having a teacher, back in his primary years, who was a charismatic, knowledgeable comedian in the classroom. his classmates and loved to play, of course, but above all, they need a teacher who play with us rather than only to guide and observe our playing. now thinking back on those years, he realised that his class enjoyed pushing our playfulness beyond any limit thanks to a teacher who is also a clown and who never felt ashamed in sacrificially embarrassing himself for the sake of our learning. the connection between a playful teacher and how students respond to such a teacher is known as playful learning (see, for example, vasilovici, 2024). in such learning, instructions are suggested rather than being given directly (wakayama, 2025). it is by reducing control, inhibiting fear, and establishing bonding that playful pedagogy boosts function skills, cultivate joy, assist memory, and support cognitive flexibility. 7. the need for amusing content playful teaching cannot happen by itself but need substance to rely on and proceed. to make such substance possible, it is important that teachers think about how to increase interesting content so that children are inspired enough to resort to the best of their imagination (akyildiz, 2023). some examples of such content are vivid stories, cute images, dramatic actions, beautiful songs, interesting games, and role-play, among others. research has shown that the effective use of music and songs in second language teaching can potentially foster multiple intelligences, reduce anxiety, improve motivation, stimulate imagination, enhance recall of facts, and create an emotional climate conducive to learning (bao, 2023; bokiev & ismail, 2021; serea & regueira martín, 2023). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 156 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 152-163 bao, d. & nguyen, t. t. h. (a framework for playful pedagogy: nurturing child imagination…..) teaching, ideally, should be entertaining so that students can receive education with joy (vasilovici, 2024). primary school students are in a growth stage, especially because they like to play various fun games. in english teaching, teachers can teach english through fun games according to the characteristics of primary school students. for example, teachers can hand out puzzles with english words for cats and dogs to students, and let them spell out complete patterns of cats and dogs. when the pattern is successfully spelled out, the students will see the english words for cats and dogs. students can know and master these words unconsciously. compared with the traditional english teaching mode, this fun puzzle game is not to write the english words of cats and dogs on the blackboard, and then guide students to memorize them mechanically, but to let students enjoy the joy of winning the puzzle in the process and mastered english words unconsciously. teachers can use stories to increase interest (cindrić & milković, 2023) . incorporating stories into primary school english teaching can turn mechanical and boring english knowledge into vivid images, and through plot descriptions, it can create a light and pleasant english classroom environment, make english teaching more dynamic, and fully stimulate students to learn english knowledge motivation and enthusiasm (bao, 2018b; harris, 2022). for example, when explaining the positional prepositions “in, on, under, and behind,” if the meaning and usage of these prepositions are purely explained, it is difficult to stimulate the interest of primary school students, and it is difficult for students to learn and understand. teachers can use these prepositions to design a vivid story, such as a treasure hunt story in a castle, like using "in" for gems in a box, "on" for a clock on a table, etc. treasure hunters search for treasures in the castle and find treasures one by one, attract students' attention through vivid plots, and learn and master the usage of these prepositions in the story. primary school students have a strong ability to imitate (see, for example, brilianti & sugirin, 2024). when they see other people doing something, if they find it interesting, they tend to imitate it (telaumbanua et al., 2025). given this, before carrying out english teaching, teachers should pay attention to which scenes, which behaviors, and which characters students like to imitate. after mastering what students like to imitate, have them imitate using english. in the scene, the teacher can first design the dialogue between them and put the english words to be learned into the dialogue. for example, some students like to play the role of salesclerks and consumers in the supermarket, then the teacher can design the supermarket shopping dialogue, so that students play the roles of salesclerks and consumers, and integrate words such as money, buy, and thing into english conversations. the key is that teachers should know what kind of roles students like, and then carry out targeted teaching design. 8. nurturing imagination in children childhood is an important stage where the mind has elasticity ready for establishing values and mindsets (harris, 2022). pedagogy plays a huge role in helping children learn through imaginative play. to foster learning through imaginative play, teachers might make a few basic modifications to their preschool classroom. indeed, imaginative play can be utilised to present any skills or concepts that a teacher has taught and wants students to practise. literacy abilities are spontaneously fostered in language acquisition through imaginative play, as children communicate and act out coherent stories (harris, 2022). teachers can promote the language acquisition of students by providing scenarios in which they can demonstrate or apply what they have learned. imaginative play can be proof of student learning. observation and documentation of child experiences are helpful strategies for gathering assessment information. in teaching english as a foreign language (efl) to young children, factors to be considered include which language skills to teach and how, where the language will be used, the classroom environment, the choice of suitable content and materials, and evaluation criteria (graddol, 2006). to effectively implement imaginative plays in early childhood classrooms, it is necessary to change the learning process in thai schools, which is predominantly passive and teacher-centered, to a child-centered or learner-centered approach, in addition to incorporating the previously mentioned factors into the teaching approach. 9. some considerations for creative task design elt materials for young learners need to incorporate conditions for children’s imagination and creativity to grow in both linguistic and social skills. if creativity is not well cultivated in young 157 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 152-163 bao, d. & nguyen, t. t. h. (a framework for playful pedagogy: nurturing child imagination…..) children, it may be lost as children get older, especially when the society requires too much conformity. the current discourse has not researched enough on ways of connecting children imagination with second language acquisition. this reality applies to a wide range of academic books which devote primarily to children’s l1 and l2 education theories such as the works of prošićsantovac & savić (2021), vasilovici (2024), among others; with a few exceptions such as a book by copping (2016) that deals with creative case studies. while many scholars highlight the need for nurture children creativity, few principles and approaches are offered to provide such support. in the meanwhile, the discourse related to teacher training mentions a number of qualities that would enable someone to effectively teach english to children. the qualities include knowledge of children’s holistic development, cultural understanding, age-appropriate pedagogy, scaffolding skills, and effective communication (vasilovici, 2024) without much discussion on teacher strategies to bring out creative potential in the child. drawing on the playful pedagogy framework proposed earlier, i would like to recommend the following five conditions that task designers might need to consider as elements that can promote children’s creative learning. the recommendations outlined below, which include how to boost imagination and enable playfulness, serve to unpack the framework, which is presented again here with more details (figure 2). fig. 2. unpacking the playful pedagogy framework 9.1. activating imagination imagination, being centered in the middle of the chart, is the core of all child learning. children with rich imagination have more inner space than others. they tend to be resourceful, observant, adaptable, and capable of coping with challenging situations in life. coursebook tasks need to inspire in children the passion to see the world through their own lenses. an example of such a task would be one that invites learners to invent or complete a story, which allows imagination as connected with the child’s experience and personality (see, for example, harris, 2022). besides, tasks should activate learners’ intrinsic motivation, so that children want to engage with an activity out of interest, enjoyment, and willingness to take challenge. ewing and saunders (2025) argue that children vary in how they develop creative behaviour. some are born with a creative disposition while others depend more on learning experience and interaction with social environment. because of these differences, some learners might need more stimulus than others. 9.2. playful teaching and learning through social sharing as children have different dispositions, preferences, and behaving styles, their responses to events can be highly diverse. possibility thinking is fundamental to creativity (ewing & saunders, 2025), which can be manifested through both self-creation and self-expression. when being encouraged to find their way around a problem, children are likely to activate their resourcefulness for options. once a child produces an exciting idea or a lovable item, he/she might wish to make it known to peers. gok (2023) contends that creativity does not happen inside one’s head, but through the interaction between issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 158 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 152-163 bao, d. & nguyen, t. t. h. (a framework for playful pedagogy: nurturing child imagination…..) a person’s mind and sociocultural context. course materials need to build the social space for such interaction to happen and tap into individuals’ original efforts. in addition, activities can be designed in ways that allows teachers to interact positively with children. as richert et al., (2024) indicates, creative thinking, which is connected to inquiry and problem solving, should be supported through teacher support. classroom interaction can either nurture or repress creative development. for example, negative verbal interactions can make young children feel inadequate, confused and frustrated. conversely, children feel capable, enlightened and encouraged with positive verbal interactions (wakayama, 2025). according to noor et al. (2025), it is important that during their early years of l2 learning children like their teacher in order to enjoy learning the language and willingly participate in classroom activities. 9.3. playful teaching and learning through emotional involvement many educators and theorists perceive creativity as a cognitive and socio-affective process (feldhusen, 2001; prošić-santovac & savić, 2021; vasilovici, 2024). they believe that creativity encompasses both rational and emotional dimensions. the rational dimension refers to creativity as thinking practice, such as to guess or pursue an idea; to come up with relevant ideas around issue; to seek unusual or clever alternatives; to combine things into a novel form. the emotional dimension, in the meanwhile, internalizes creativity as a feeling process, which include curiosity about a topic, manifested in wondering and asking questions; a tendency to play with ideas and follow intuition to see what happen; the courage to expose oneself and willingness to share ideas with others; and the willingness to take risk or take challenge. some of the above elements have been widely discussed in the discourse, which contends that creativity involves divergent thinking (telaumbanua et al., 2025), self-determination (vasilovici, 2024), curiosity (ewing & saunders, 2025; prošić-santovac & savić, 2021); imagination (vygotsky, 1930/1978), flexibility (vasilovici, 2024), risk-taking (ewing & saunders, 2025), immersion (vasilovici, 2024), innovation (ewing & saunders, 2025) and collaboration (vasilovici, 2024). 9.4. amusing content that evokes the child’s risk-taking, playful nature being playful refers to the inclination to be humorous, the desire to give an unusual response, and the willingness to accept risk or ambiguity. the unprejudiced tendency to explore the world is inherently the nature of many children, and when such behavior occurs, an extensive range of alternatives might result. scholars have widely agreed that divergent thinking is a process well recognized particularly among young children (baer & kaufman, 2005; telaumbanua et al, 2025; vasilovici, 2024). rich thinking proves to be active across different types of play which stimulate young children’s creativity (richert et al., 2024). materials need to allow alternatives to occur through open-ended, problem-solving, and imaginative resources (e.g., puzzles, play-dough, blocks, sand, etc.) that can be employed in multiple ways. of course, divergent thinking alone is not equal to creativity, simply because divergence does not capture the entire description about creativity (ewing & saunders, 2025); instead such thinking needs to interact with a range of other factors, some of which have been mentioned in this chapter. 9.5. amusing content that brings out the child’s individual personality children’s creativity is often demonstrated in an original, unplanned, and self-expressive manner (richert et al., 2024). a number of features make children’s l2 learning processes quite distinctive from adults’ l2 learning. for example, children’s concentration tends to be shorter than adult’s; young learners easily lose interest in activities that are predictable (shih, 2025); children tend to focus more on meaning than form (vasilovici, 2024); children resist formal teaching and prefer to learn experientially and acquire language incidentally. it is important to note the above inclinations among young children in order to provide ageappropriate support. sometimes, to encourage young learners’ expressive disposition, educators might like to focus more on the creative process itself rather than worry about the excellence of their creations (richert et al., 2024). it is because children may not yet have the expertise and skills to ensure high quality in the output (prošić-santovac & savić, 2021). it is also necessary to realise that the creative ability of each child is linked to his/her own personal stage of development (ewing & saunders, 2025) and can be considered as being original for that child in relation to children in his/her class or age group (gok, 2023). besides, the knowledge and skill resources that children employ for 159 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 152-163 bao, d. & nguyen, t. t. h. (a framework for playful pedagogy: nurturing child imagination…..) their creative expression is not confined within second language learning but may also be transferred from their first language and culture (telaumbanua et al., 2025). 10. guiding questions and examples for playful teaching and learning the guiding questions below, which are processed from the principles discussed above, can serve as an instrument for course writers to consider for supporting creative activities. these criteria, which is explained in figure 2, can also be used to detect the innovative nature of second language tasks, that is, to recognise the extent to which a task brings out learners’ creative potential 10.1. activating imagination • do tasks stimulate learners’ observation and adaptive responses? • do learners have a chance to visualize something hidden/incomplete/non-existent? • do tasks encourage multiple ways of seeing? • is there a chance to tie objects/events together in a less common way? 10.2. playful teaching and learning through social sharing • do tasks build a social space for children to enjoy interaction? • are learners asked to brainstorm ideas? • can learners share personal thoughts? • are learners encouraged to be resourceful? 10.3. playful teaching and learning through emotional involvement • do tasks arouse learners’ curiosity as well as pursue it? • are there stories for learners to say what they think and how they feel? • do activities allow learners to explore a range of emotions? • are learners invited to take risk and/or challenge? 10.4. amusing content that evokes playful nature • do tasks make learners sometimes laugh? do they encourage learners to become flexible thinkers? do they tease out learners’ unusual responses? • do tasks collect new ways of seeing, acting, and saying things? • do tasks allow for different types of play? • do tasks meet learning purposes through clever, unusual content/structures/sequences? 10.5. amusing content that encourages self-expression and personality • do tasks respect learners differences by allowing choices and preferences? • is there a chance for self-expression/personality-based responses? • do tasks sometimes focus on the creative process itself rather than judgement of the outcome? • are tasks suited to the child’s own stage of development (without too much emphasis on adults’ judgement and social knowledge)? in recommending these dimensions of creative effort, we do not mean to divide and place creativity in any convenient compartments. instead, these features of creativity might be mutually overlapping in reality. to ensure the questions above are clear to the reader, we would like to provide a few examples. below are some examples of imagination-focused tasks: • choosing what to wear for different types of party; painting with unconventional tools other than a brush (adaptive response) issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 160 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 152-163 bao, d. & nguyen, t. t. h. (a framework for playful pedagogy: nurturing child imagination…..) • seeing through a closed door; imagining a missing part; walking through a jungle (visualization) • reinventing a new function for object items; noticing something one never saw before; drawing a green sky and blue grass (multiple ways of seeing) • imagine how the wind makes friends with a tree; building a character with peculiar features (combining things) examples of social-sharing tasks: • making up a story together (enjoyable interaction) • in groups guessing what happens next (brainstorming ideas) • making new rules for classroom conduct (personal thoughts) • finding ways to save a cat that fell into a pond (being resourceful) • examples of emotion-oriented tasks: • guessing, asking, observing, finding, comparing, describing, explaining, drawing, etc. (pursuing curiosity) • expressing ideas and feelings about characters, events, and problems (personal view) • helping or comforting less fortunate person; reading to children and asking them to share feelings (exploring emotions) • discussing how to build a tree house or how to wash a gorilla (take risk and challenge) examples of playful tasks: • removing constraints from reality; changing proportion of things; pretending one can fly, giving human features to animals, (flexible thinking & unusual responses) • becoming someone else or slipping into the role of non-humans; making characters out of sticks and leaves; giving new names or new functions to items (new ways of seeing) • miming, decorating a cake, travelling through space, singing a song, finding as surprise gift for a close friend (different types of play) • showing an alien around; shuffling words to make up new texts; answering questions before reading the story (unusual content/structures/sequences) examples of self-expressive tasks: • designing a dream bedroom, making a floor plan of one’s favourite school (allowing choices and preferences) • creating a new dish; designing an ideal tv program (personality-based responses) • drawing an alien; designing a robot; collectively develop a cute monster (focus on the creative process itself) • designing a bird nest, creating a bird family, making paper planes, miming animal walk (child’s own stage of development) 11. a concluding anecdote about learning satisfaction having begun the article with an anecdote, we would like to close it with one too. once during one of our class discussions on learning, one of the authors raised this question: ‘does learning or playing bring more satisfaction?’ one student, a highly diligent person, responded: 'learning brings satisfaction as learning shapes the future'. a second student explained: ‘playing is more satisfying as play makes me feel good!’ then a third student suggested: ‘playing after learning brings joy because you don't feel guilty'. the 161 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 152-163 bao, d. & nguyen, t. t. h. (a framework for playful pedagogy: nurturing child imagination…..) discussion went on for a while, until we realised that we did not have to separate learning from playing. why choose one while we could have both simultaneously? eventually, both students and the lecturer agreed that it is learning through play that brings the most satisfaction. to make this possible requires the teacher to walk through imagination with students. creative imagination can be prioritised over boring reality as a way to make learning more fantastic. playful learning happens at its best when teaching is also playful. students are willing to play and become silly when the teacher is willing to play and behave in silly ways. acknowledgment the authors thank all the participants who have shared their voices so that this study could be accomplished. the authors’ gratitude also goes to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and substantial feedback so that this manuscript could be published and reach wider readers. declarations author contribution : the research was collaboratively undertaken by both authors, encompassing topic selection, proposal development, methodological application, data analysis, and the preparation of the discussion section. author 1 assumed primary responsibility for managing the publication process, while both authors jointly contributed to covering the publication fee. funding statement : no funding is available for this research. conflict of interest : we declare that there are no competing interests. ethics declaration : as the authors, we confirm that this work has been written based on ethical research principles in compliance with our university’s regulations and that the necessary permission was obtained from the relevant institution during data collection. we fully support eltej’s commitment to upholding high standards of professional conduct and practicing honesty in all academic and professional activities. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references akyildiz, s. t. 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(2024). an efl teacher’s perceptions on the use of storytelling in private indonesian kindergarten. doctoral dissertation, universitas islam indonesia. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47073-9_13-1 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69362-5_7 https://doi.org/10.33096/tamaddun.v23i1.647 https://doi.org/10.1108/jme-10-2023-0116 https://doi.org/10.1108/jme-10-2023-0116 https://doi.org/10.53299/bajpm.v5i1.1233 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-2524-6_9 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 124-136 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.10076 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id the contribution of online inservice teacher education program (ppg dalam jabatan) on teachers' changes basikin universitas negeri yogyakarta, jl. colombo no.1, karangmalang, yogyakarta, d.i. yogyakarta 55281, indonesia basikin@uny.ac.id a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 16 june 2023 revised 12 august 2023 accepted 25 august 2023 teacher professional development (tpd) programs have been considered an important aspect in teacher development and quality improvement. they are believed to be able to improve teachers’ knowledge and skills which in turn improve students’ learning and improvement. this study examined the contribution of a tpd program for english teachers, ppg in indonesia on the teacher professionalism, particularly on their beliefs about good english teaching, knowledge and skills in english teaching, and practices in the classroom teaching. data were collected through an open-ended survey, observation, and reflective interviews with online-inservice ppg teacher alumni. findings suggested that although teacher participants reported that ppg contributed to changes in their beliefs about better english teaching and knowledge and skills in teaching english, such changes were not reflected in their teaching practices. such findings implied an improvement of the ppg program structure to include support provided to teachers when they implement the knowledge and skills in the classrooms. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords teacher change teacher professionalism teacher professional development how to cite: basikin. (2023). the contribution of online inservice teacher education program (ppg dalam jabatan) on teachers' changes. english language teaching educational journal, 6 (2), 124-136. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v6i2.10076 1. introduction teacher professional development (tpd) has been considered a critical factor in enhancing educational quality and teacher effectiveness (arifani et al., 2019; gore et al., 2017). it has been recognized for its vital role for enhancing teacher competencies (situmorang et al., 2022); addressing the evolving needs of students (goodwyn et al., 2022); preparing teachers for the changing technological landscape and educational systems (haug & mork, 2021; meniado, 2023; sadeghi & thomas, 2023). given such implications, guskey (2002) posited that for a tpd program to be successful, it should be able to alter both teachers' practices and their beliefs – a concept termed as teacher change. guskey further emphasized that a change in teachers' beliefs is dependent on the new practices improving student achievement – i.e., teachers' beliefs of a novel practice is dependent on whether such practice has a tangible effect on student achievement. coldwell’s (2017) defines tpd as both formal and informal methods and initiatives aiming at fostering the growth of teachers in their professional capacities. in addition, sancar et al. (2021) have defined tpd as a long-term process that begins with a teacher education program, during which teacher candidates learn theories on how to be teachers in pre-service tpd through classroom sessions and practice the knowledge through micro-teaching and internships at schools (goodwyn et al., 2022). at this stage, the roles of teacher educators are crucial since they are expected to assist the student teachers in connecting theories and practices (kalloo et al., 2020). tpd does not end once student teachers complete their education, instead it continues throughout the teachers’ career when they are https://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/article/view/10076/version/9131 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:basikin@uny.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/article/view/10076/version/9131 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v6i2.10076domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3743-4254 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 125 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 124-136 basikin (the contribution of online inservice teacher education program …..) involved in daily teaching and learning activities. this continuous learning, especially of the formal methods are termed in-service tpd. researchers in tpd shared the beliefs that the sole main evidence of a success of a tpd is the ability for the tpd to encourage changes in teachers. it is a failure and a waste of time, energy, and money when teachers did not change after attending a tpd program. in the context of professional development, changes refer to the process by which teachers alter their instructional practices, beliefs, and attitudes as a result of their learning and experiences in professional training activities (guskey, 2002b; whitworth & chiu, 2015). this change, according to clarke and hollingsworth (2002), stems from training initiatives, adaptation processes, personal development, local form, systemic restructuring, and or learning. however, it should also be noted that changes following a tpd could be affected by multifaceted parameters (ahadi et al., 2024). in terms of teacher change, guskey (2002a, 2002b) has proposed a model of professional development and teacher change (figure 1). in his model guskey identified three changes that were potentially to happen in relation to teacher attendance in a tpd. those changes were 1) changes in teacher classroom practices, 2) changes in students’ learning outcome, and 3) changes in teachers’ beliefs and attitudes. although it was proposed in quite some time, the model has been adopted by many researchers when looking at the effectiveness of a tpd in relation to teachers changes. however, critiques have also arose and put forward by researchers. critiques towards guskey’s model centered on the simplistic nature of the linear order of the changes (opfer & pedder, 2011). it is such critiques that triggered the need for a study to see a more intricate, rather than linear impact of tpd on teachers. figure 1. guskey’s model of tpd and teacher changes however, research has shown different findings in the effectiveness of tpd activities in improving teachers’ knowledge and skills. their effectiveness depends on specific characteristics that include active learning, coherence, and duration of the activity (bryk, 2015; darling-hammond, 2017; 2021; mukrim et al., 2023), whether or not they prompt teachers to question their professional routines and learn new approaches to their teaching practices (sims et al., 2021). some research shows the positive impact of tpd related to changes in teacher beliefs about teaching (klassen et al., 2023; meyer et al., 2023; sancar et al., 2021), teacher practices (ehlert & souvignier, 2023; ho et al., 2023; mukrim et al., 2023). little however is known about the impact of tpd on improvement in student achievement. especially in the indonesian context, there has been little evaluation on pd program that extent to the time where teachers had to implement the new instruction in the classroom. this research was situated in the context of a tpd to certify teachers to become professional teachers in indonesia, called the teacher professional education program, or to ppg or program pendidikan profesi guru. ppg is designed so that teachers have literacy in information and communication technology, innovation, and language skills to manage problem-based and projectbased learning (gtk, 2022). in addition, they also have the skills of the industrial revolution era 4.0 which prioritizes critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity. there are two types of ppg in the context of indonesian teacher development. the first ppg is a oneyear preservice teacher professional education preparing bachelors’ degree graduate to become teachers. this ppg is conducted offline. the second ppg is an online inservice program to sertify teachers to become professional teachers. the online ppg for in-service teachers aims at preparing teachers as professional educators who have good character, are knowledgeable, adaptive, creative, innovative, and competitive with the main task of educating, teaching, guiding, directing, training, and assessing and evaluating students. participants are required to finish the programs and earns 38 credits or equals https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?as45ms https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?as45ms https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?as45ms https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?as45ms https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?ndf4e9 126 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 124-136 basikin (the contribution of online inservice teacher education program …..) to two semesters’ credits. the program covers three parts of 1) upgrading teachers’ knowledge, 2) developing learning kits, and 3) teaching practicum. the program is also to address improvement in the four indonesian teacher professional competences covering the interpersonal competences, social competence, professional competence, and pedagogic competence. because ppg is a high stake tpd program where the results is very importance, it is very important to evaluate its effectiveness. this research, therefore, will seek for answers the questions of 1) whether ppg contributes to changes in teachers’ beliefs about teaching english, and 2) whether the changes in the beliefs are manifested in the classroom teaching practices. this research is important firstly because research on ppg has not been measuring comprehensively among changes in the beliefs, perceived knowledge and skills, and classroom practices (averina & kuswandono, 2023; mukrim et al., 2023). in addition, there has been no agreement on the effectiveness of tpd related to whether they can result on sustained changes. secondly, past research has focused mostly on investigating the characteristics of effective pd in traditional face-to-face formats (daud et al., 2020). to date, there is little evidence on the quality of formal online pd activities, or how formal online pd contribute to improving teachers’ professional practices. it is therefore necessary to get evidence on the contribution of online tpd. this is crucial such as a tpd in the indonesian context when ppg has significant impact on teacher profession, for example to certify teachers to be considered being professional. 2. methodology 2.1. research design this research was qualitative research aiming at exploring the impacts of an online in-service teacher professional development (ppg) program on teacher professionalism. in achieving the objective, a purposive sampling method was used to select participants, targeting ppg alumni who registered into the ppg program in 2022. an open-ended survey was sent to 40 alumni, of whom 30 responded to the survey that was available in december 2022. the responding participants were teachers with experiences between 5 to 15 years from 8 provinces in indonesia (presented in table 1). as a follow up study, three participants who were observed when they were teaching and interviewed to reflect and confirm their practices. observations and reflective interviews focus on two aspects of student-centered practices in the classroom and the amount of english spoken by teachers when teaching. each participants taught twice. 2.2. instrument and data collection technique data collection for this study was conducted through an open-ended survey, which was designed based on the principles outlined in guskey's model of teacher change (guskey, 2002). the survey was divided into two sections. the first section focused on gathering demographic information from the participants. this included details about their teaching experience, the districts where they are currently teaching, the type of schools (public or private) where they are employed, and their educational qualifications. the second part of the survey was two open-ended questions asking 1) changes in the beliefs and 2) their teaching practices resulting from their participation the ppg program. these two questions were developed based on the syntheses of changes that were possible to happen among teachers after attending a tpd. this survey was given approximately two months after the participants finished their ppg. in addition to these open-ended questions, the researcher also conducted class observations on three teachers twice each. the observations were done by watching video recorded of classrooms after the data from the questionnaire were analyzed. the observations were aimed at checking whether teachers taught as what they believed stated in the survey. they focused on looking at whether the teachings practiced by the participants were conducted based on learner-centered perspectives and whether teachers provided the students with adequate exposures of english to scaffold students english mastery. the results of the observation were followed up and checked with participants’ reflection about their classroom practicing on their beliefs. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 127 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 124-136 basikin (the contribution of online inservice teacher education program …..) 2.3. data analysis the collected data from the open ended questions, class observations, and reflective interview were analyzed using the descriptive qualitative data analyses following data coding proposed by saldana in leavy (2023). coding was done by reflecting on the meaning of every qualitative datum, condensing the data, looking for categories and themes, and generating the bones for the analysis, and finally assembling the bones into the working skeleton (charmaz, 2014; charmaz & thornberg, 2021). this working skeleton is in the forms of core categories, key assertion, primary themes, and theories. data credibility and trustworthiness in this analysis were gained by doing intercoder reliability and dialogical intersubjectivity. intercoder reliability was conducted by having more than one coder of the data working on the data analysis process and comparing the results of the coding. dialogical intersubjectivity was done by continuous communication and discussion between the coders throughout the process of data analysis. every time coders finished with a category of data, for example data from open-ended questionnaire, they discussed what and how they did the analyses, and what trends emerged from the data. this was done with the data from classroom observations and the reflective interviews. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 the description of the subject there were 30 teachers participating in this study. the description and distribution of the subjects are presented in table 1. table 1. subject description and distribution demographic information categories n cumulativ e educational qualification bachelor in english education 28 30 others 2 teaching experiences < 5 years 7 30 6 10 years 19 11 15 years 4 school types public schools 24 30 private schools 6 provinces west java 18 30 riau islands 3 north sulawesi 3 west sulawesi 2 north kalimantan 1 north sumatra 1 south sulawesi 1 west kalimantan 1 3.2. changes in the beliefs about english teaching findings from the present study reveals that the in-service teacher professional development contributed to changes in participants’ beliefs about english teaching. two major belief changes found https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?yb8u7j https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?yb8u7j 128 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 124-136 basikin (the contribution of online inservice teacher education program …..) in the responses were related to teaching english that were reported by the participants. the first belief is the belief that teaching english must be learner-centered. some emerging themes related to this belief were like focusing on learners, paying attention to students’ needs, and paying attention to learners’ differences. one participant for example stated, “we have to understand the students' needs and the students are the center in the classroom.” (p.2) in addition, one participant said “before attending the tpd program, i felt that teaching english only focused on delivering the material. however, after participating in ppg … i realized that teachers must understand the students' characteristics and [learning] needs…” (p.3) the second belief change reported by the most of participants about teaching english was related to the provision of adequate english exposures to the students. this belief was related to the amount of english the participants spoke when teaching. before attending the ppg, most participants reported that they spoke english less than 30% in the classrooms. most of the language they spoke was indonesian – bahasa indonesia. very few of them reported more than 50% of english spoken in the classrooms. most of the reasons why they spoke little english were because their students did not understand english. this made the participants were fear for low students’ understanding and not completing the materials they had planned. the third beliefs change about language teaching was related to the beliefs that language classrooms should be fun. a participant suggested that “from ppg, i understand more about teaching strategies, teaching methods, and i also know some platforms to make the teaching process more fun. i also learned how to make better powerpoint slides, fun english games, and even create my own simple english games.” (p.23). 3.3. changes in the knowledge and perceived teaching abilities in terms of whether there were changes in the knowledge and ability to teach english, 29 participants reported that their knowledge changed. changes in participants’ knowledge included knowledge about better, more interesting, and more effective english learning. this was like what some participants said “ … now, now … i know a lot of knowledge about that” (p.2); “ … but after attending ppg classes i became aware of a lot of methods and media that can be used to make learning english more interesting (p.27)”: “ … “now i know what good media are like” (p.16). other participants also reported on their better understanding about how to understand the students and how to conduct specific teaching strategies, such as implementing differentiated learning. another finding identified from the participants’ responses was related to the improvement in participants’ perceived abilities. various improvements were reported including improved ability to use innovative learning methods, better media, and assessments. one participant, for example, said: “before participating in tpd, i taught using old methods. i did not use any media and my students were not interested in my lessons. after participating in tpd, i started using innovative learning methods and used more media. as a result, my students have become more interested in my lessons” (p6). another participant reported the improved knowledge about media and media usage by saying that “before the program i just know a little bit about technology that can be used for media teaching learning, but after this program i know and can use many media technology that can use for teaching learning process” (p.9). in addition, participants also reported better ability in writing lesson plans (p2, p4, and p5) and assessing students’ learning (p2, p3, p6, p12, and p17). 3.4. changes in teachers’ practices data about teachers’ practices were collected through the observation on teachers teaching in the classrooms. they are about the learner-centered activities and the number of english teachers spoke during the teaching. they also functioned to check whether changes in the beliefs about teaching english that the participants reported in were practiced in the classrooms. from the class observations, it was found that although participants reported changes in their beliefs toward the student-centered english learning, they did not successfully put the beliefs into practices. most of the time, more than 75% of the class activities, teachers still dominated the class. on few occasions did teachers facilitated group works. very few students did initiate conversations, issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 129 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 124-136 basikin (the contribution of online inservice teacher education program …..) ask questions, or answer questions from the teachers. interactions are mostly in the form teacher – student interaction (figure 2). figure 2. trends in classroom interaction practiced by teachers figure 2 shows that the teacher dominated the interactions. although students were clustered in few group activities, their interactions were mostly guided by the teacher. rather than engaging the students, the teacher functioned more in controlling the activities – and the students. teachers very often broke their own commitments, for example commitment about time given to the groups to finish works. teachers interfere group interaction by asking not necessary questions such asking whether groups had finished working while time was still available. the second change in the belief about teaching english that was reported by the participants was related to the necessity of adequate english exposures provided to the students. changes, however, were barely observed in the classrooms. teachers still spoke english very little when teaching and interacting with the students. most of the time, conversations were in indonesian, or english accompanied with indonesian translation. teachers sometimes brought recordings or english videos as inputs of learning. however, when discussing the english recording – songs or recorded texts, or short videos, discussion were mostly in indonesian. even routines were mostly in indonesian – classroom english were rarely used. altogether, the amount of english spoken in the classrooms were still between 25% 55%. 3.5. data from the reflective interviews reflective interviews were done after data from the classroom observations were analyzed and trends were identified and discussed. these interviews aimed at revealing the underlying reasons motivating teachers’ teaching in the classrooms. it was evident that although teachers believed that learning should be learner centered and that students need adequate supports in the forms of adequate exposures of english, their teaching were still far different from the beliefs. important features emerging from the classroom observations was that teacher-centered learning was still clearly identified in the classrooms – negotiations about what, how to learn, and how learnings were assessed were still not evident, teaching was still dominated by the teachers, and among-student interactions were rare. reasons why teachings were as such were revealed from the reflective interviews. the first reason was that practicing the beliefs was not very easy. participant no. 4 (p4) for example says that ‘it was difficult to ask students to be active in the classrooms. their confidence in speaking english was very low”. this was confirmed by several other participants saying that they were tempted to dominate the class because students remained silent, even after they provided time and support for the 130 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 124-136 basikin (the contribution of online inservice teacher education program …..) students. this was why teachers tended to speak less english and more indonesian. although they believed that english exposures were not enough and needed to be improved, they had not practiced the beliefs. the second findings were related to the less post-program support at schools. some participants stated that when they tried to practice their beliefs, they often got difficulties. they knew how they supposed to do in order that teaching was successful. however, they always faced problems in the implementation process. unfortunately, support was often not available when they faced problems. in most schools, their senior teachers, those who finished ppg earlier did not practiced teaching as it was taught in the program. when they were struggling to implement their new knowledge about better english teaching, they did not get adequate support. 3.6. discussion 1) changes in participants’ perceived knowledge, skills, beliefs, and practices. findings from the present study reported that there were changes in their knowledge and skills in their teaching english. participants also reported their beliefs about how they supposed to teach english, particularly their beliefs in adequate exposure and learner-centered classrooms. finding from classroom observation, however, did not support participants’ claims. changes in the belief and their improved knowledge about teaching englis did not seem to manifest in their classroom teaching practices. when compared to guskey’s model of teachers’ change due to attendance to a pd program, the reported changes did not seem to in line with the model. this is in line with germuth (2018) who found that although teachers very often reported the changes in their knowledge and skills of teaching, they rarely implement the knowledge about the new instruction in their classrooms. she further argued that this is because the limited access to support when they had been back at schools. particularly when the pd was conducted online, perceived changes in teachers’ knowledge and skills were not necessarily reflected in changes in their teaching practices (ehlert & souvignier, 2023; meyer et al., 2023). 2) mismatch in teachers’ beliefs and practices in english learning findings from this study revealed the differences in teachers’ beliefs about english teaching and classroom practices. changes in both the beliefs about learner-centered learning and the adequate english exposures were not observed in the classrooms. as it was described in the findings, teachers still dominated the interaction. interaction (figure 1) did not reflect the prescribed pattern of interaction in learner-centered learning, where interaction was richer not only between teacher and students with communication initiated and controlled by teachers (sajidin & ashadi, 2021). interaction should be more dynamic reflecting more interaction among students in addition to interaction between teacher and students (figure 2). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 131 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 124-136 basikin (the contribution of online inservice teacher education program …..) figure 3. hypothetical interaction in student-centered learning findings have been identified in previous studies concluding that teachers’ perceived beliefs are not necessarily congruent with their observed practices (borg, 2011; farrell & ives, 2015). especially when the time between the survey and the observation was relatively short. there were at least two explanations to answer this mismatch. first explanation about the mismatch was related to the inadequate understanding that participants had about learner-centered learning. learner-centred learning is a broad multifaceted concept that has been defined from several perspectives (nunan, 2013; starkey, 2017). this wide-ranging nature of the concept has made it difficult for teachers to operationalize it in the classroom (neumann, 2013; schweisfurth, 2015). first evidence observed from the classroom practices was related to the absence of negotiation learning with the students about what and how to learn as well as how learning was assessed. negotiation was important because learner-centered learning promoted individualized learning experiences. it catered to diverse learner needs and preferences (tomlinson, 2014) and fostered higher engagement and relevance. negotiating learning would facilitate students to find personal meaningfulness in the learning content. second, there was a suspicion that what was meant by centering to learners understood by the participants was merely related to active participation among the students (sajidin & ashadi, 2021). the teaching conducted by the participants failed to bring the more important ingredients of leaner-centered learning such as the promotion of personalized learning experiences to address the unique needs and preferences (tomlinson, 2014) and accommodating varying learning styles and proficiency levels (gardner & miller, 2013). unsuccessful implementation of learner-centered learning due to lack of teachers understanding had long been put forward by researchers (dello-iacovo, 2009; dyer, 1994; todd & mason, 2005). this also applied with the remaining minimum exposures of english in the classrooms, despite the increasing perceived language skills reported by the participants. the reason that little use of english in the classrooms was related to the low ability of the students to understand english seemed to be questionable. a possible cause of the limited english exposure in the classroom was due to teachers’ low proficiency and confidence to speak english. this was congruent with findings such as the cases of low proficiency among english teachers in asia (dudzik & nguyen, 2015; hamid & nguyen, 2016), indonesian english teachers had problems (wulyani et al., 2021). they found that indonesian english teachers had sub-standard vocabulary mastery, reading mastery than the expected baseline, and their writing ability was only slightly below the required baseline of 5.5. this was in line with earlier studies suggesting the low proficiency of english teachers in indonesia (anita et al., 2019; renandya et al., 2018). the second explanation was by looking at the differences not as a mismatch, but as developing skills among the participants. researchers often looked at the non-congruent nature between teachers’ beliefs and their practices as a developmental process, particularly when those teachers were made aware of these differences (farrell & ives, 2015). in addition, changes in teaching practices required much time and support. these were among the constraints of this study. there was not enough time between the participants’ attendance to ppg and the observations on the classroom practices. support to teachers’ practices was so minimal as well. because inservice ppg was conducted online, support needed to participants teaching practices was probably not enough. when referring to guskey’s model of tpd and teacher change (guskey, 2002), the beliefs changes reported by the teacher did not seem to reflect on the changes outlined in the model. while changes in the model refers more to the sustained change of beliefs because their new practices were proven to bring positive changes in the students’ achievement, changes reported by the participants were more related to changes in their perceived beliefs. they, therefore, were potentially not reflected in their practices. this is in line what reported in meyer’s and yang’s findings (meyer et al., 2023; yang, 2023). 3.7. limitation of the study this study revealed changes in teachers’ perceived beliefs about teaching english and knowledge and skills in teaching english. however, such belief changes do not manifest in the classroom practices of the participants. such a deviation from the model of teacher change after attending a tpd program (guskey, 2002; whitworth & chiu, 2015) perhaps was due to the limitation of this study where observations of the practices were conducted shortly after teachers’ attendance in the tpd. this 132 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 6, no. 2, august 2023, pp. 124-136 basikin (the contribution of online inservice teacher education program …..) is also perhaps because this study had no access towards whether support was available to participants when implementing the results of the tpd. research has suggested that the availability of support is an essential aspects of successful pd programs (aelterman et al., 2016; kang, 2020; sancar et al., 2021; yang, 2023). when support is available, struggling teachers in the implementation of new instruction will keep on trying. when it is not, teachers will quit trying the new instruction and go back to their old ways of teaching. future studies, therefore, would yield better and more comprehensive findings when they include the availability of support when teachers try the new instruction in their classrooms. 4. conclusion findings from this study revealed that ppg contribute to both the participants’ beliefs about the better way to teaching english, that were by implementing student-centered learning and providing more english exposure to students. ppg also contributed to the improvement of their perceived knowledge and skills in teaching english. however, it failed to provide the evidence of the belief changes in participants practices in the classrooms. improved perceived knowledge and skills in teaching english did not seem to support their teaching, either. such discrepancy with a more widely model of change suggested by previous research might stem from the growing status of teachers’ knowledge skills or the absence of adequate support available to participants. an implication of the findings was related to the needs to provide support for teachers when they tried to practice their new knowledge. support was necessary to assure that when teachers got difficulties in implementing the newly understood better practices, they go on trying, but not quitting. support might be in the form of community learning at schools, teacher special group discussion, workshops on post training activities, or other collegial teacher forums. without adequate support teachers would go back to their old practices when they face difficulties and drawbacks. based on the findings, this study recommends more comprehensive future research to involve more subjects and more comprehensive research designs, for example, involving quantitative data with more subjects and are conducted longitudinally. longitudinal quantitative data will hopefully yield in more comprehensive and representative findings. acknowledgment i would like to express my gratitude to the anonymous participants who took parts and made contributions in this research. declarations author contribution : this paper is a single writer paper as a part of research on the online ppg. the writer prepared and drafted the manuscript, constructed the instruments, collected and analyzed the data. funding statement : the research is funded individually. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflicts of interest. ethics declaration additional information : : i as the author 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(2023). towards “good” teaching —a narrative inquiry of a chinese efl veteran teacher's trajectory of professionalism. teaching and teacher education, 134, 104315. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2023.104315 https://doi.org/10.29333/iji.2022.15237a https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2017.1281829 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2004.08.003 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10972-014-9411-2 https://doi.org/10.25455/wgtn.16306128.v1 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2023.104315 1. introduction 2. methodology 2.1. research design 2.2. instrument and data collection technique 2.3. data analysis 3. findings and discussion 3.1 the description of the subject 3.2. changes in the beliefs about english teaching 3.3. changes in the knowledge and perceived teaching abilities 3.4. changes in teachers’ practices 3.5. data from the reflective interviews 3.6. discussion 1) changes in participants’ perceived knowledge, skills, beliefs, and practices. 2) mismatch in teachers’ beliefs and practices in english learning 3.7. limitation of the study 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations references english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 1-13 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.12734 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id exploring classroom management challenges and strategies among efl school pre-service teachers in the kurdistan region of iraq mokhles saleh ibrahim a,1, nehad faisal ahmad b,2*, mohammed hussein mohammedb,3 a soran university, soran, erbil, 44008, kurdistan of iraq b soran university, soran, erbil, 44008, kurdistan of iraq 1 mokhles.ibrahim@soran.edu.iq; 2 nehad.ahmed@soran.edu.iq* ; 3 mohammed.mohammed@soran.edu.iq *corresponding author article info abstract article history received 6 february 2025 revised 24 march 2025 accepted 10 april 2025 this research aimed to investigate the pre-service teachers' challenges and strategies in classroom management during the school practicing process. the mixed-method research approach was implemented in the study. the data was collected through diary writing and semi-structured interviews. the study participants were six male and six female undergraduate students or pre-service teachers in the faculty of basic education at a public university in the kurdistan region of iraq (kri). in addition, five professors from the faculty, who observed them during the process, were assigned as the interviewers. furthermore, the data from the diary was organized by means of checklist and then analyzed by using spss program. furthermore, the data from the semi-structured interview was analyzed by using the thematic descriptive analysis method. the results of the study showed that male and female pre-service teachers have common challenges in managing their teaching classrooms effectively. however, the study found that pre-service teachers implement various strategies for dealing and addressing the classroom issues. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords classroom management pre-service teachers diary writing school practicing how to cite: ibrahim, m. s., ahmed, n. f., & mohammad, m. h. (2025). exploring classroom management challenges and strategies among kurdish pre-service teachers: a case study at soran university. english language teaching educational journal, 8(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.12734 1. introduction class management describes teachers' strategies and skills to govern and guide classroom activities productively, orderly, respectfully, and within a positive learning environment. several theoretical models underpin classroom management, including behaviorist models, which emphasize reinforcement and punishment for maintaining discipline—cognitive approaches highlighting student self-regulation's role, and social learning theories focus on observation and modeling as tools for behavioral change. however, classroom management refers to a teacher's efforts to encourage educational and emotional-social development in the classroom (burden, 2025), but clark et al. (2023) believed that effective education is not adequate to build universal classroom management, but instructional methods can also be viewed as such. it can be regarded that classroom management requires both personal and institutional efforts to change the student’s behavior and ecological safety. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.12734 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:mokhles.ibrahim@soran.edu.iq mailto:nehad.ahmed@soran.edu.iq mailto:mohammed.mohammed@soran.edu.iq http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.12734 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/tefl.v3i2.1261&domain=pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 2 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 1-13 ibrahim et.al (exploring classroom management challenges and strategies …..) in the context of efl (english as a foreign language) teaching, classroom management issues often arise due to cultural, linguistic, and contextual differences that can impact teacher-student interactions. the process of language teaching in the efl contexts has prioritized academic goals and curriculum, but fails to address an essential aspect such as; classroom management (shakerkhoshroudi et al., 2020). according to rahmah (2024), classroom management is one of the most significant predictors of student achievement. for pre-service teachers, especially in efl settings, these challenges are compounded by language barriers, cultural misunderstandings, and unfamiliar learning environments. pre-service teachers often struggle to address diverse student needs and foster a safe learning atmosphere. these challenges are amplified in efl contexts, where limited student language proficiency makes communication and understanding more difficult. in addition, some challenges are applicable to the language skills, for instance in teaching speaking classes, teachers face some technological and students’ language competency issues (muluk, et al., 2021). several strategies such as; clear expectations and routines, have been recommended to assist pre-service teachers with classroom management. sueb et al. (2020) highlight the importance of setting clear classroom expectations to prevent misbehavior. also, adaptation to linguistic and cultural contexts: suryati and ratih (2024) emphasize tailoring classroom strategies to the specific needs of efl settings. another strategy is differentiated instruction, visual aids, and collaborative learning, which mustofa (2024) identifies as successful approaches. lastly, teacher training programs should provide pre-service teachers with practical experience, mentorship, and preparation to handle diverse classroom realities confidently. 1.1. review of literature the research on classroom management traces back to kounin’s work in 1970; it laid the groundwork for research in the field by integrating certain features of classroom management into the learner’s behavior in the classes (nanyele, 2024). several research have been conducted concerning classroom management difficulties and challenges faced by both in-service and preservice teachers. this is basically due to the participants’ characteristics and the context-bounded nature of the chosen research approach; the results of each study may differ from one another. the first relevant study that was incorporated into the current study is by maharani and fithriani (2023) which aimed to recognize the classroom problems and the pre service reflection during school practicum. the participant were 5 undergraduate students of the english education department, indonesian public institution in medan. the research concluded that the problems appear in various instructional phases of classroom such as activities, using teaching instruments, classroom layouts and collaborative learning. likewise, in their study entitled " the effects of teaching practicum on efl pre-service teachers' ersin et al. (2020) claimed that practicum rise pre service teachers’ awareness how to handle the actual problems in real contexts. it can be argued that school practicing would assist the student-teachers to identify the problems and rise their awareness. in another associated investigation, hidayat et al. (2024) implemented a study under the title "teachers’ challenges in efl classroom management", the study used a qualitative approach to find the common problem encountered by efl teachers. the study concluded that some linguistic problem while managing classes and the use different strategies to deal with the problems such as determination strategy, group discussion strategy, and communication strategy. in related research, rodel (2023) explored the classroom challenges and pre-service teacher perceptions and impacts, the research used descriptive-correlational study design to obtain in-depth data. the study found that pre-service teachers employed different strategies in their preand post-school practicing process. despite of a good amount of literature, existing studies on classroom management may fail to address the specific challenges efl pre-service teachers face. while general strategies are documented, detailed analyses of the unique difficulties in efl contexts are rare (shakerkhoshroudi et al., 2020). thus, this study seeks to bridge this gap by examining the classroom management issues experienced by efl pre-service teachers, identifying challenges, and highlighting effective strategies. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 3 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 1-13 ibrahim et.al (exploring classroom management challenges and strategies …..) 1.2. the aim of the study the research aims to examine the challenges english pre-service teachers in kri encounter in controlling and managing the classrooms throughout their instructional time in school practice and determine the most common procedures they use. more specifically, it aims to answer the following research questions: 1. what classroom management challenges do efl pre-service teachers face in schools? 2. what strategies do efl pre-service teachers use to manage their teaching classrooms? 2. research method 2.1. research design the current study employs a mixed-method approach due to the nature of the study and the data collection procedures. further, mixed methods design combines qualitative and quantitative methods, which can considerably impact the quality of every phase of the research, from gathering data to analyzing and interpreting it. this can possibly produce comprehensive and productive findings (dawadi, et al. 2021). in the sense of that, kumar (2024) argued that integrating methodologies that contribute to our comprehension and knowledge of social behavior in both breadth and depth is essential to the future of social science research. 2.2. the participants of the study the participants were six female and six male efl pre-service teachers who were undergraduate students from faculty education at a public university in kurdistan region of iraq (kri). additionally, eight efl teachers were interviewed to have better and in-depth insights of the classroom management challenges and strategies in the schools by pre-service teachers, as they were responsible for supervising and observing the pre-service teachers during the process. this infers that this study employed convenience and purposive sampling methods accordingly for the purpose of data collection due to the nature and objectives of the study, which could possibly enhance the validity and reliability of the collected data. this has even been confirmed by akyıldız and ahmed (2021), who stated that qualitative research focuses on explaining within a specific group, while quantitative research uses carefully selected samples to generalize conclusions to the entire community. therefore, the current research involved the students and teachers to obtain valuable data reflecting the research community. 2.3. the data collection instruments since both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in the study, two primary instruments were employed to collect the data. the initial tool was a checklist, there were two parts and certain items consisted of the sections in which the number of items was chosen based on the evaluation which needs for the domains. the components were divided and arranged in accordance with challenges and classroom management techniques faced by pre-service teachers, with five likert scales. the second instrument for collecting data was a semi-structured interview with some prearranged questions and more questions were added based on the nature of the interview and the participants’ responses. 2.4. data collection procedure multiple methods were used in the data-collecting phase to obtain extensive insight into the challenges and strategies used in classroom management. twelve pre-service teachers were assigned to the school to conduct their teaching practicum. throughout this period, they were asked to write down a diary recording their classroom management difficulties and strategies. after collecting the diaries, a checklist was used to organize and analyse the collected data. furthermore, the supervising teachers who observed the pre-service teachers in school practicing were interviewed. the purpose of these interviews was to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the data by acquiring the opinions of the supervising teachers regarding the difficulties and strategies used by the pre-service teachers. 2.5. data analysis after the data collection procedure was completed, two different approached were used for the purpose of data analysis. having said this, the numerical data was gained from the checklists and 4 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 1-13 ibrahim et.al (exploring classroom management challenges and strategies …..) then anlysed by using spss (statistical package for the social sciences) version 27 software. additionally, the thematic analysis method was utilized for analyzing qualitative data form the interviews. concerning this, the collected data from the semi-structured interviews was first transcribed and then analysed into six main themes. 2.6. validity and reliability validity in research refers to the accuracy or truthfulness of the research tools and interpretations drawn from research findings (william, 2024). therefore, the current study consulted an expert committee to ensure the effectiveness and accuracy of the data collection tools, and then made necessary adjustments based on the committees’ recommendations. having said this, five experts in the field of the study reviewed the checklist and the semi-structured interview questions. their feedback and remarks were taken into consideration to improve the quality of the data collection methods. furthermore, this study considered both; internal reliability, which is related to the consistency of data and findings, and external reliability, which deals with reproducing the research at different times. 3. findings and discussion of the study 3.1. results of the checklist used for the participants’ diary the data collection method for the study involves diary writing by the participants, and a checklist instrument was developed to evaluate the participants’ diaries. the instrument consists of two domains, each including eight different statements. thus, this section is dedicated to analyze and present the results obtained from the current instrument. due to the nature of the research data, the diaries were analyzed statistically. furthermore, the analysis of the checklist’s statements was tabulated as; 1 which refers to completely unsatisfactory, 2 unsatisfactory, 3 neutral, 4 satisfactory, and 5 completely satisfactory. in the current research, gender differences were analyzed to determine the difference between the two pre-service genders in terms of classroom management challenges and strategies. the t-test was employed to know the differences. therefore, we fail to reject the null hypothesis. there is not enough evidence to conclude that the result is statistically significant at α=0.05 level. this suggests that gender did not play a pivotal role in challenges and strategies in classroom management (see table 1). table 1. pre-service gender score comparison 3.1.1 the results of the checklist for the classroom mangement challenges this section consisted of eight items. the mean and standard deviation scores were obtained according to the diaries' checklist. the first statement, “the pre-service teachers encountered the behavior problems differ in frequency and intensity.” this item in this domain scored a mean of 4.417, with a standard deviation of 0.793. the second item, "the difficulties bother the pre-service independent samples test levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2tailed) mean differenc e std. error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper whole mean equal variances assumed .417 .533 -.262 10 .799 -.08333 .31842 -.79281 .62614 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 5 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 1-13 ibrahim et.al (exploring classroom management challenges and strategies …..) teacher and students, " scored a mean of 4.333 and a deviation of 0.651. the third statement about the challenges and problems related to "the procedure of pre-service teachers, the policies they develop and their instructional strategies caused the problems" obtained a mean score of 3.083 and a standard deviation of 0.996. the fourth statement, "the pre-service teacher’s management strategies encourage more disruptive behaviors," scored a mean of 2.5 and a standard deviation of 0.674. the fifth statement is entitled, " the pre-service teacher behavior has a negative impact on the classroom problems," obtained 2.917 and 1.165 mean and standard deviation, respectively. the sixth statement, " the class size or the number of students in the classes challenges the pre-service teachers," item in this part received a mean score of 2.182, with a standard deviation of 1.662. item number seven, titled “time management and the content contribute to classroom problems and difficulties”, obtained 3.5 as the mean and 1.382 standard deviations. the final statement in this domain states, “the pre-service teachers have an intrinsic motivation for change,” with a mean of 4.417 and a standard deviation of 0.793. the overall scored mean is 3.432, and the standard deviation is 1.319 (see table 2). table 2. descriptive statistics on the challenges and problem the study reveals that pre-service teachers face various behavior problems, which can be exacerbated by various factors such as the procedures, policies, and instructional strategies used, as well as the challenges posed by class size. 3.1.2. the checklist results for classroom management strategies the second section of the checklist focused on the pre-service teachers’ classroom management techniques and strategies during school practice period. this category has eight items in the framework used to gather data. as shown in table 3, the first statement, "the pre-service teachers were creative in developing the classroom techniques and strategies, " received a mean of 3, with a standard deviation of 1.128. the second statement in this part of the checklist is developed to determine whether the pre-service teachers used the students' self-regulating strategies and techniques; the items scored 3.08 and 0.996 as mean and standard deviation, respectively. the third in the current section was used to gather data on the participants' strategies to engage the learners in the class activities; it scored a mean of 3.5 and a standard deviation of 0.674. the fourth item aimed to know the pre-service teachers’ manner of intervention of disruptions; this item received a mean of 2.08 and a standard deviation of 0.515. the fifth item in this part, "the teachers use a non-assertive or hostile response style, " scored 2.08 and 0.515 as mean and standard deviation, respectively. the no items n mean sd. 1 the pre-service teachers encountered behavior problems differ in frequency and intensity 12 4.417 0.793 2 the difficulties bother the pre-service teacher and students. 12 4.333 0.651 3 the procedures of pre-service teachers, the policies they develop, and their instructional strategies caused the problems. 12 3.083 0.996 4 the pre-service teacher’s management strategies encourage more disruptive behaviors. 12 2.5 0.674 5 the pre-service teacher behavior has a negative impact on classroom problems 12 2.917 1.165 6 the class size or the number of students in the classes challenges the pre-service teachers. 12 2.182 1.662 7 time management and the content contribute to classroom problems and difficulties. 12 3.5 1.382 8 pre-service teachers have an intrinsic motivation for change. 12 4.417 0.793 overall 3.432 1.319 6 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 1-13 ibrahim et.al (exploring classroom management challenges and strategies …..) sixth statement was employed to recognize the pre-service teachers’ devotion to students’ diversity; it obtained a mean of 2.91 and a standard deviation of 0.515. the seventh item was provided to know whether rewards and punishments are given as positive reinforcement; it scored 3.25 as mean and 0.866 as standard deviation. the last statement in this domain, "the teachers establish the values of care and respect in dealing with problems, " received a mean of 3.83 and a standard deviation of 0.717. this section's overall obtained mean is 3.156, with a standard deviation of 0.921 (see table 3). table 3. descriptive statistics on the techniques and strategies the study found that pre-service teachers' classroom management techniques during their practicum showed moderate effectiveness, with moderate creativity, self-regulation, and engagement. they faced challenges in managing disruptions and exhibited a non-assertive response style. they showed moderate commitment to student diversity, positive reinforcement, and care and respect values. 3.2. results of the semi-structured interview as mentioned in the methodology section, the semi-structured interview was used as the data collection instrument. interviews were conducted with university professors who observed the preservice teachers during their school practice period. the rationale for selecting these professors to participate in the study was their great awareness, knowledge, and experience of the challenges and strategies faced by pre-service teachers. the process of interview was started with some predetermined questions and more questions were added based on the nature of the interview and the interviewees’ responses. the collected data form the interviews was analysed and classified into six main themes as follows: 3.2.1. theme one: the management strategies and disruptive behaviors these questions and the theme were developed to determine whether the pre-service teacher’s management strategies and techniques encourage the students to engage in more disruptive behaviors. having said this, participant a revealed that student misbehavior often results from inconsistent rules and boring content. participant b believed that pre-service teachers managing grades one to six used basic techniques and sought the principal's help to resolve serious misbehavior. similarly, participant c replied that the pre-service teachers used classroom management strategies to redirect noise, separate disruptors, set clear rules, and reward good behavior. additionally, participant g stated that pre-service teachers struggled with classroom management, failing to engage pupils, adjust their tone, manage time effectively, or facilitate participation. participant h believed no items n mean sd. 1 the pre-service teachers were creative in developing the classroom techniques and strategies 12 3 1.128 2 the pre-service teachers develop the students' self-regulating strategies and techniques. 12 3.08 0.996 3 they used strategies to engage the learners in the class activities. 12 3.5 0.674 4 the teachers engage in the low-profile intervention of disruptions 12 3.58 0.793 5 the teachers use a non-assertive or hostile response style. 12 2.08 0.515 6 the students' diversity is considered in the methods and strategies employed. 12 2.91 0.515 7 rewards and punishments are given as positive reinforcement. 12 3.25 0.866 8 the teachers establish the values of care and respect when dealing with problems. 12 3.83 0.717 overall 3.156 0.921 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 7 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 1-13 ibrahim et.al (exploring classroom management challenges and strategies …..) that pre-service teachers' lack of experience and organizational skills are the primary factors that encourage disruptive behavior. 3.2.2. theme two: time management and content contribution the main aim of this question and the theme was to know whether pre-service teachers' time management and the content of the lessons were the cause of the classroom problems and difficulties faced by pre-service teachers during school practice. during the interviews, participant a responded that the pre-service teachers poor time management and mismatched content difficulty left students confused, disengaged, and with incomplete tasks. participant b highlighted that some pre-service teachers' effective time management and well-prepared lesson plans help maintain classroom order and engagement, reducing disruptions. conversely, some poor time management and unengaging content from them lead to chaos and increased misbehavior. for instance, participant f revealed that pre-service teachers who effectively managed time reviewed the past lessons, introduced new content, encouraged participation, and checked homework. however, inexperienced teachers struggled with time management, resulting in rushed lessons and unchecked homework. in the sense of that, participant d observed that pre-service teachers could use the 40-minute lesson to include revision, introduce new topics, and facilitate activities. rather than the content itself, content delivery methods often contribute to classroom issues. participant e explained that pre-service teachers needed strong classroom management and content aligning with students' needs and interests to prevent complaints, neglect, disinterest, and boredom. 3.2.3. theme three: classroom issues and external violence the main goal of this theme was to find out the problems and causes of the violence faced by pre-service teachers during school practice. in other words, this is to know whether these behavior problems caused by students’ families or societies. according to the dataset, participant a highlighted that most student misbehavior stems from family life and societal influences. negative home experiences or lack of support can lead to emotional struggles, while community issues also contribute, causing students to express these feelings in class. participant b agreed that in kurdish society, family size and support play a key role in shaping student behavior, with larger families often leading to more aggression and smaller, supportive families resulting in less violent behavior. participant c believed that classroom problems and violence stem from a mix of factors, including family dynamics, societal pressures, and media influence. parents' roles, emotional struggles, and peer pressure contribute to student behavior, highlighting the need for collective action and change. participant d strongly believed that family and society play a key role in shaping children's character, reflected in their school behavior. participant e explained that students' misbehavior is sometimes attributed to their families and society. many children consider violence, mockery, and sarcasm as normal or as a way to respond to their peers. 3.2.4. theme four: managing time to address misbehaviors this theme aimed to determine whether the pre-service teachers manipulate time in dealing with misbehaviors. participant a believed role-playing effectively prevents misbehavior by keeping students focused and involved. these strategies significantly reduce disruptions and maintain classroom order when paired with well-planned lessons. participant b stated that the pre-service teachers struggled to manage these misbehaviors. in one instance, the principal had to ask the students to remain calm and quiet before my observation, warning them of punishment if they misbehaved. this showed that the teachers were not yet fully equipped to handle classroom disruptions independently. participant c highlighted that pre-service teacher can effectively manage time and misbehavior by establishing routines, redirecting focus, addressing issues privately, and using positive reinforcement to enhance engagement and minimize disruptions. participant d observed that, with some exceptions, they are not good at dealing with misbehaviors because they are mostly concerned with delivering the content they have planned for in their course plans. so, they try to employ the allocated time to explain the content and necessary class activities. participant e believed that the pre-service teachers could address misbehavior immediately with positive reinforcement, create a secure classroom environment, and use interactive, competitive activities as effective 8 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 1-13 ibrahim et.al (exploring classroom management challenges and strategies …..) strategies. private conversations with disruptive students to listen, support, and resolve issues can also greatly improve behavior. 3.2.5. theme five: ensuring a safe and comfortable learning environment the purpose of this theme was to know about the strategies used by the pre-service teacher to maintain a safe and comfortable learning environment. participant a highlighted that pre-service teacher struggled to manage classroom issues and create a friendly environment due to limited experience, often prioritizing content over students' emotional needs. female teachers tended to handle these challenges better due to their caring nature. participant b stated that the pre-service teachers provided a safe and comfortable learning environment. they were generally kind and gentle with the students, as these young learners were in basic school and needed a nurturing approach. participant c thought that most of them did. in many cases, the teacher invited them to sing the school motto, draw a related funny picture on the board, or even make a joke to boost them up. respondent d stated that they generally could not do so because the learning environment in public school is uncomfortable, and the pre-service teachers can not improve it due to lack of experience and potential. for instance, they mostly shouted to control their classrooms and sometimes intimidate pupils. participant e believed that to maintain a safe environment, the pre-service teachers dealing with students with aggressive behaviors or bullying potential should receive support and work with parents while developing a sense of community to promote appropriate behavior. 3.2.6. theme six: consistency in applying rules and penalties the current theme was developed to explore the nature of the rules and penalties used by preservice teachers in terms of consistency and impartiality. participant a highlighted that i could not generalize this to all pre-service teachers, but i noticed that many female teachers were stricter. this may be related to their caring nature and experiences at home, where they often had to manage their siblings. because of this, they were more likely to set clear rules for their students. these rules were necessary, and students knew they had to follow them. if they did not, they would face penalties. i did not notice any prejudice from the male or female teachers; they applied the rules fairly and consistently to all students. participant b believed that the pre-service teachers did not impose strict penalties. overall, they were fair and supportive to everyone. students more engaged and eager to participate often had more attention, but this was typical and understandable in any classroom setting. participant c clarified that there were times when a pre-service teacher preferred to give a chance to boys more than girls or, on another occasion, would talk to the first line in the classroom; of course, they were notified, but i do not think that would be enough and more have to be done to prevent that. participant d replied that they did not successfully impose such penalties or punishments equally. whether they could not observe all the misbehavior or prioritized explaining the lesson over applying the rules, they could not impose penalties regularly. finally, participant e elaborated that the preserve teachers i observed generally applied the rules and imposed penalties regularly without prejudice. 3.3. discussion this research provides a valuable understanding of the pre-service teachers' challenges, problems, techniques, and strategies for managing teaching classrooms during school practice. using a 5-point likert scale checklist ranging from "completely unsatisfactory" (1) to "completely satisfactory" (5). as shown in table 1, the data analysis results show no statistically significant differences between genders in any measured variables. both male and female pre-service teachers face challenges and problems, and their techniques and strategies are similar. this result aligns with other studies masood et al. (2022) conducted, which concluded no difference between male and female teachers in classroom management. the behavior problems and challenges beginning or pre-service teachers face vary in frequency and intensity. as illustrated in table 2, the data analysis from the participant diary and the checklist is satisfactory, but the pre-service teachers encounter various problems. the obtained finding is issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 9 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 1-13 ibrahim et.al (exploring classroom management challenges and strategies …..) consistent with the conclusions drawn by serliana, utami and kamil (2021). they concluded that the pre-service teacher faces minor and major problems. on the other hand, the findings revealed that classroom management problems bother students and teachers during teaching practice in the schools since the data analysis is satisfactory. likewise, the teacher’s classroom management policy did not contribute to their challenges, as the data indicated a statistically neutral result. this goes in line with results of pakpahan (2023). the research highlighted that pre-service teacher fail to establish effective classroom management rules and policies. furthermore, the data obtained from the checklist revealed that the pre-service teacher’s management strategies and behavior did not negatively impact classroom problems, as the mean scores for both statements were rated as unsatisfactory. as illustrated in table 2, the data discovered that the class size did not affect the pre-service teachers during school practice because they scored unsatisfactory on the likert scale. additionally, the data analysis revealed that time management was not problematic for pre-service teachers, as it was rated as neutral. furthermore, the current research showed that pre-service teachers are intrinsically motivated to change because the data scored satisfactorily. the results align with renko et al. (2022), who stated that the pre-service teacher must be encouraged to have a sense of motivation for change among the students. regarding the techniques and strategies implemented by the pre-service teachers, the data revealed that they were not creative in developing classroom management strategies and did not encourage self-regulating strategies to manage student behavior, as the analyzed data scored neutral. as göktepe (2020) highlighted, contextual limitations, hierarchical structures, and mentors' lack of support caused the pre-service teachers' negative feelings to grow steadily, hindering the formation of their teacher identity. these results imply that pre-service instructors could fail to promote selfregulating mechanisms to control students' behavior constantly and might not always be innovative in developing classroom management strategies. pre-service instructors need to be better equipped to engage students in class activities if teacher education programs are improved to incorporate a broader range of engagement techniques. concerning this, bamrungsin and khampirat (2022) concluded that professional development programs can positively impact pre-service teachers by helping them develop strategies and engage learners. these findings reveal that they lack these professional development aspects. another statement in this checklist section addresses the nature of the strategies and techniques, specifically whether they engage learners in class activities. it scored neutral. the obtained data from the checklist revealed that the pre-service teachers’ manner of intervention in disruptions is unsatisfactory. likewise, the participants did not use a non-assertive or hostile response style to deal with the behavior problems, as the data scored unsatisfactory. the data analysis from the checklist given from the diaries revealed that the participants did consider the diversity of students because they scored unsatisfactory. it can be interpreted that the pre-service teachers neglected one of the vital aspects of classroom management. dewsbury (2020) stated that students' learning might be negatively impacted if the classroom lacks diversity. the rewards and punishment are the two strategies and techniques teachers employ as positive reinforcement in dealing with classroom on-task and off-task behaviors. this item scored neutral from data analysis. fuad et al. (2021) mentioned that punishment and rewards are essential factors in encouraging students to study in school. likewise, the values of care and respect are vital in classroom management. the analyzed data from the participants' diaries revealed that they consider them, but it is not adequate since the scored data is neutral. the analysis of interview data discovered that pre-service teachers’ strategies to deal with disruptive behaviors were ineffective. this means that the lack of effective strategies and techniques was a recurring theme, with several observers expressing concerns about pre-service teachers handling disruptions. one of the interviewees highlighted that “pre-service teachers' lack of experience and organizational skills are the primary factors that encourage disruptive behavior.” the findings were confirmed by chitiyo et al. (2020), who concluded that classroom management lacked consistency, as evidenced by the various approaches to dealing with each behavior. presumably, time management is one of the difficulties preservice teachers face in classroom management routines. the results showed that the pre-service teachers did not have good time 10 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 1-13 ibrahim et.al (exploring classroom management challenges and strategies …..) management. one of the interviewees replied that “the pre-service teachers' poor time management and mismatched content difficulty left students confused, disengaged, and with incomplete tasks.” the results are supported by harun and samat (2021), who revealed that pre-service teachers face many difficulties in their teaching experience, and poor time management results are a core challenge. moreover, preservice teachers face behavior problems, and this current research intends to know the nature and causes behind them. one of the teachers who observed the pre-service during school practice mentioned that “most student misbehavior stems from family life and societal influences. ogbu and simons (2022) stated, "discipline problems experienced in school may originate in the family or in society at large; some of them are caused by school policies, teachers and other school personnel. likewise, it aimed to reveal whether the pre-service teachers allocate time to address the target behavior to prevent them. a participant highlighted that “with some exceptions, they are not good in dealing with misbehaviors because they are mostly concerned with delivering the content, they have planned for in their course plans. all teachers should provide a safe school environment or movement to deliver good lessons and content. in this study, the researchers tried to find whether the pre-service teachers granted it. the obtained results from the interview responses showed that the pre-service teachers attempted to establish it. one of the participants replied, “overall, the pre-service teachers provided a safe and comfortable learning environment”. mansfield et al. (2020) recommended that training pre-service teachers could increase their confidence in dealing with sensitive issues and maintain a helpful learning environment. furthermore, the research tried to reveal the participants' opinions about the pre-service teachers’ consistency in applying the rules and punishments, as some of the participants claimed that the pre-serve teachers generally apply the rules and impose penalties regularly without prejudice. 4. conclusion the research reveals that pre-service teachers face various challenges, including classroom management, behavior issues, class size, time management, and intrinsic motivation. they lack creativity in developing strategies and do not encourage self-regulation. the study suggests that teacher education programs should incorporate a broader range of engagement techniques to equip pre-service instructors better and guide them how to manage their teaching classes more effectively. moreover, disruptive behavior intervention is unsatisfactory, and rewards and punishment are not effective in the context of this study. perhaps more importantly, the lack of time management skills among the efl pre-service teachers is a major challenge, which negatively affects their performance and achievement of learning outcomes. therefore, providing instructional trainings can certainly promote the pre-service teachers’ abilities and skills for effectively managing their instructional classrooms, and specifically boosting their confidence and experience in dealing with sensitive issues and maintaining helpful relationships with students. 4.1 implications these study results and findings can have implications for university course designers, professors, administrators, and researchers. first, university programs and curricula need to reflect the teaching processes in schools. second, university professors should integrate more real-life examples and cases into the course content they deliver. third, the duration of school practicum could be extended by adding extra weeks. finally, the findings of this study can guide researchers in the field of teacher education to have more focus on specific issues, and conduct studies in diverse contexts with various participants. 4.2 limitations and recommendations for future studies it is important to note that this study was conducted at a public university in the kri and focused on the content of the teachers' curriculum, specific pre-service teacher skills, and the application of these methods in the classroom. additionally, the number of participants was limited to twelve preservice teachers due to their intensive official practicum workload and the diary-writing requirements for the study. in order to better generalize the findings, therefore, this study recommends taking more universities and participants for future studies. this study also recommends using observation as a issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 11 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 1-13 ibrahim et.al (exploring classroom management challenges and strategies …..) data collection method alongside the mentioned methods in this study in order to have more in-depth understandings about the research phenomenon and truly discover how the pre-service teachers manage their teaching classrooms in a real context. acknowledgment we express our gratitude to soran university and the academic staff of the english departments for their support and for providing research facilities. we also sincerely thank the participants of the study for their willing participation and cooperation during the data collection process. we also strongly acknowledge the professors form different universities in kri who contributed to the improvement of the research tools by providing useful comments. declarations author contribution : authors 1, 2 and 3 collaboratively conducted the research, including proposing the topic, drafting the proposal, applying research methodologies, performing analysis, and presenting the data and discussion. author 1 took the lead in the article’s publication process and both contributed to the publication fee. funding statement : no funding is available for this research. conflict of interest : we declare that there is no competing interests. ethics declaration : as the authors, we confirm that this work has been written based on ethical research principles in compliance with our university’s regulations and that the necessary permission was obtained from the relevant institution during data collection. i fully support eltej’s commitment to upholding high standards of professional conduct and practicing honesty in all academic and professional activities. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references akyıldız, s. t., & ahmed, k. h. 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(2024). mastering validity and reliability in academic research: meaning and significance. international journal of research publications, 144(1), 287-292. https://doi.org/10.47119/ijrp1001441320246160 https://doi.org/10.55849/ijen.v1i5.389 http://etheses.uingusdur.ac.id/id/eprint/11026 https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01484-y https://doi.org/10.47750/jett.2023.14.05.024 https://doi.org/10.24256/ideas.v9i2.2075 https://doi.org/10.22111/ijals.2020.5952 https://doi.org/10.24191/ajue.v16i1.8982 https://doi.org/10.29408/veles.v8i1.24451 https://doi.org/10.47119/ijrp1001441320246160 exploring classroom management challenges and strategies among efl school pre-service teachers in the kurdistan region of iraq mokhles saleh ibrahim a,1, nehad faisal ahmad b,2*, mohammed hussein mohammedb,3 a soran university, soran, erbil, 44008, kurdistan of iraq b soran university, soran, erbil, 44008, kurdistan of iraq 1 mokhles.ibrahim@soran.edu.iq; 2 nehad.ahmed@soran.edu.iq* ; 3 mohammed.mohammed@soran.edu.iq *corresponding author how to cite: ibrahim, m. s., ahmed, n. f., & mohammad, m. h. (2025). exploring classroom management challenges and strategies among kurdish pre-service teachers: a case study at soran university. english language teaching educational journal, 8(1), 1-... 1. introduction class management describes teachers' strategies and skills to govern and guide classroom activities productively, orderly, respectfully, and within a positive learning environment. several theoretical models underpin classroom management, including be... in the context of efl (english as a foreign language) teaching, classroom management issues often arise due to cultural, linguistic, and contextual differences that can impact teacher-student interactions. the process of language teaching in the efl c... according to rahmah (2024), classroom management is one of the most significant predictors of student achievement. for pre-service teachers, especially in efl settings, these challenges are compounded by language barriers, cultural misunderstandings, ... several strategies such as; clear expectations and routines, have been recommended to assist pre-service teachers with classroom management. sueb et al. (2020) highlight the importance of setting clear classroom expectations to prevent misbehavior. al... 1.1. review of literature the research on classroom management traces back to kounin’s work in 1970; it laid the groundwork for research in the field by integrating certain features of classroom management into the learner’s behavior in the classes (nanyele, 2024). several res... the first relevant study that was incorporated into the current study is by maharani and fithriani (2023) which aimed to recognize the classroom problems and the pre service reflection during school practicum. the participant were 5 undergraduate stu... in another associated investigation, hidayat et al. (2024) implemented a study under the title "teachers’ challenges in efl classroom management", the study used a qualitative approach to find the common problem encountered by efl teachers. the study ... despite of a good amount of literature, existing studies on classroom management may fail to address the specific challenges efl pre-service teachers face. while general strategies are documented, detailed analyses of the unique difficulties in efl co... 1.2. the aim of the study the research aims to examine the challenges english pre-service teachers in kri encounter in controlling and managing the classrooms throughout their instructional time in school practice and determine the most common procedures they use. more specifi... 1. what classroom management challenges do efl pre-service teachers face in schools? 2. what strategies do efl pre-service teachers use to manage their teaching classrooms? 2. research method 2.1. research design the current study employs a mixed-method approach due to the nature of the study and the data collection procedures. further, mixed methods design combines qualitative and quantitative methods, which can considerably impact the quality of every phase ... 2.2. the participants of the study the participants were six female and six male efl pre-service teachers who were undergraduate students from faculty education at a public university in kurdistan region of iraq (kri). additionally, eight efl teachers were interviewed to have better an... 2.3. the data collection instruments since both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in the study, two primary instruments were employed to collect the data. the initial tool was a checklist, there were two parts and certain items consisted of the sections in which the number o... 2.4. data collection procedure multiple methods were used in the data-collecting phase to obtain extensive insight into the challenges and strategies used in classroom management. twelve pre-service teachers were assigned to the school to conduct their teaching practicum. throughou... 2.5. data analysis after the data collection procedure was completed, two different approached were used for the purpose of data analysis. having said this, the numerical data was gained from the checklists and then anlysed by using spss (statistical package for the soc... 2.6. validity and reliability validity in research refers to the accuracy or truthfulness of the research tools and interpretations drawn from research findings (william, 2024). therefore, the current study consulted an expert committee to ensure the effectiveness and accuracy of ... 3. findings and discussion of the study 3.1. results of the checklist used for the participants’ diary the data collection method for the study involves diary writing by the participants, and a checklist instrument was developed to evaluate the participants’ diaries. the instrument consists of two domains, each including eight different statements. thu... in the current research, gender differences were analyzed to determine the difference between the two pre-service genders in terms of classroom management challenges and strategies. the t-test was employed to know the differences. therefore, we fail ... table 1. pre-service gender score comparison 3.1.1 the results of the checklist for the classroom mangement challenges this section consisted of eight items. the mean and standard deviation scores were obtained according to the diaries' checklist. the first statement, “the pre-service teachers encountered the behavior problems differ in frequency and intensity.” this ... table 2. descriptive statistics on the challenges and problem the study reveals that pre-service teachers face various behavior problems, which can be exacerbated by various factors such as the procedures, policies, and instructional strategies used, as well as the challenges posed by class size. 3.1.2. the checklist results for classroom management strategies the second section of the checklist focused on the pre-service teachers’ classroom management techniques and strategies during school practice period. this category has eight items in the framework used to gather data. as shown in table 3, the first s... table 3. descriptive statistics on the techniques and strategies the study found that pre-service teachers' classroom management techniques during their practicum showed moderate effectiveness, with moderate creativity, self-regulation, and engagement. they faced challenges in managing disruptions and exhibited a n... 3.2. results of the semi-structured interview as mentioned in the methodology section, the semi-structured interview was used as the data collection instrument. interviews were conducted with university professors who observed the pre-service teachers during their school practice period. the rati... 3.2.1. theme one: the management strategies and disruptive behaviors these questions and the theme were developed to determine whether the pre-service teacher’s management strategies and techniques encourage the students to engage in more disruptive behaviors. having said this, participant a revealed that student misbe... 3.2.2. theme two: time management and content contribution the main aim of this question and the theme was to know whether pre-service teachers' time management and the content of the lessons were the cause of the classroom problems and difficulties faced by pre-service teachers during school practice. during... however, inexperienced teachers struggled with time management, resulting in rushed lessons and unchecked homework. in the sense of that, participant d observed that pre-service teachers could use the 40-minute lesson to include revision, introduce ne... 3.2.3. theme three: classroom issues and external violence the main goal of this theme was to find out the problems and causes of the violence faced by pre-service teachers during school practice. in other words, this is to know whether these behavior problems caused by students’ families or societies. accord... 3.2.4. theme four: managing time to address misbehaviors this theme aimed to determine whether the pre-service teachers manipulate time in dealing with misbehaviors. participant a believed role-playing effectively prevents misbehavior by keeping students focused and involved. these strategies significantly ... this showed that the teachers were not yet fully equipped to handle classroom disruptions independently. participant c highlighted that pre-service teacher can effectively manage time and misbehavior by establishing routines, redirecting focus, addres... 3.2.5. theme five: ensuring a safe and comfortable learning environment the purpose of this theme was to know about the strategies used by the pre-service teacher to maintain a safe and comfortable learning environment. participant a highlighted that pre-service teacher struggled to manage classroom issues and create a fr... in many cases, the teacher invited them to sing the school motto, draw a related funny picture on the board, or even make a joke to boost them up. respondent d stated that they generally could not do so because the learning environment in public schoo... 3.2.6. theme six: consistency in applying rules and penalties the current theme was developed to explore the nature of the rules and penalties used by pre-service teachers in terms of consistency and impartiality. participant a highlighted that i could not generalize this to all pre-service teachers, but i notic... 3.3. discussion this research provides a valuable understanding of the pre-service teachers' challenges, problems, techniques, and strategies for managing teaching classrooms during school practice. using a 5-point likert scale checklist ranging from "completely unsa... the behavior problems and challenges beginning or pre-service teachers face vary in frequency and intensity. as illustrated in table 2, the data analysis from the participant diary and the checklist is satisfactory, but the pre-service teachers encoun... on the other hand, the findings revealed that classroom management problems bother students and teachers during teaching practice in the schools since the data analysis is satisfactory. likewise, the teacher’s classroom management policy did not contr... as illustrated in table 2, the data discovered that the class size did not affect the pre-service teachers during school practice because they scored unsatisfactory on the likert scale. additionally, the data analysis revealed that time management was... regarding the techniques and strategies implemented by the pre-service teachers, the data revealed that they were not creative in developing classroom management strategies and did not encourage self-regulating strategies to manage student behavior, a... another statement in this checklist section addresses the nature of the strategies and techniques, specifically whether they engage learners in class activities. it scored neutral. the obtained data from the checklist revealed that the pre-service tea... the data analysis from the checklist given from the diaries revealed that the participants did consider the diversity of students because they scored unsatisfactory. it can be interpreted that the pre-service teachers neglected one of the vital aspect... the rewards and punishment are the two strategies and techniques teachers employ as positive reinforcement in dealing with classroom on-task and off-task behaviors. this item scored neutral from data analysis. fuad et al. (2021) mentioned that punishm... the analysis of interview data discovered that pre-service teachers’ strategies to deal with disruptive behaviors were ineffective. this means that the lack of effective strategies and techniques was a recurring theme, with several observers expressin... presumably, time management is one of the difficulties preservice teachers face in classroom management routines. the results showed that the pre-service teachers did not have good time management. one of the interviewees replied that “the pre-service... moreover, preservice teachers face behavior problems, and this current research intends to know the nature and causes behind them. one of the teachers who observed the pre-service during school practice mentioned that “most student misbehavior stems f... all teachers should provide a safe school environment or movement to deliver good lessons and content. in this study, the researchers tried to find whether the pre-service teachers granted it. the obtained results from the interview responses showed t... 4. conclusion the research reveals that pre-service teachers face various challenges, including classroom management, behavior issues, class size, time management, and intrinsic motivation. they lack creativity in developing strategies and do not encourage self-reg... 4.1 implications these study results and findings can have implications for university course designers, professors, administrators, and researchers. first, university programs and curricula need to reflect the teaching processes in schools. second, university profess... 4.2 limitations and recommendations for future studies it is important to note that this study was conducted at a public university in the kri and focused on the content of the teachers' curriculum, specific pre-service teacher skills, and the application of these methods in the classroom. additionally, t... acknowledgment we express our gratitude to soran university and the academic staff of the english departments for their support and for providing research facilities. we also sincerely thank the participants of the study for their willing participation and cooperati... declarations references akyıldız, s. t., & ahmed, k. h. (2021). an overview of qualitative research and focus group discussion. international journal of academic research in education, 7(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.17985/ijare.866762 bamrungsin, p., & khampirat, b. (2022). improving professional skills of pre-service teachers using online training: applying work-integrated learning approaches through a quasi-experimental study. sustainability, 14(7), 4362. https://doi.org/10.3390/... burden, p. r. (2025). classroom management: creating a successful k-12 learning community. john wiley & sons. chitiyo, j., chitiyo, a., & dombek, d. (2020). pre-service teachers' understanding of problem behavior. international journal of curriculum and instruction, 12(2), 63-74. clark, k. n., blocker, m. s., gittens, o. s., & long, a. c. 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(2024). mastering validity and reliability in academic research: meaning and significance. international journal of research publications, 144(1), 287-292. https://doi.org/10.47119/ijrp1001441320246160 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 25-36 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.12747 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id measuring up: rasch analysis of english reading comprehension test for informal education learners arandha may rachmawatia,1,*, agus widyantorob,2 a,b english language education department, yogyakarta state university, jl. colombo no. 1, karangmalang, caturtunggal, depok, sleman, yogyakarta, 55281 indonesia 1arandhamay.2023@student.uny.ac.id *; 2agus_widyantoro@uny.ac.id *corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 9 february 2025 revised 27 march 2025 accepted 08 april 2025 this study aims to evaluate the quality of english reading comprehension test instruments used in informal learning, especially as english literacy tests. with a quantitative approach, the analysis was carried out using the rasch model through the quest program on 30 multiple-choice questions given to 30 grade ix students from informal educational institutions in bantul. the results of the analysis showed that although all questions were included in the fit category for the rasch model, the level of reliability was relatively low, that was 0.52 for items and 0.39 for participants. in addition, 13.3% of the questions showed inconsistent results (misfit), this means that there is inconsistency in the results and quality of the questions that need to be improved. the analysis of the level of difficulty also showed that there were questions that were too easy or too difficult. these findings highlight the importance of revising the test items and the need to increase the number of participants and items to obtain more accurate measurement results. this study also provides practical implications regarding the need for continuous and planned instrument development in the context of informal education, to provide valid and reliable evaluation tools to measure students' literacy skills. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords informal education learners rasch analysis reading comprehension how to cite: rachmawati, a.m. & widyantoro, a. (2025). measuring up: rasch analysis of english reading comprehension test for informal education learners. english language teaching educational journal, 8(1), 2536. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.12747 1. introduction according to butterfuss et al. (2020), reading comprehension involves three main elements: the reader, the text, and the reading activity, all of which are situated in a broader social and cultural context. to effectively comprehend a text, readers must have various abilities, such as working memory, inference, attention, motivation, and linguistic and conceptual knowledge. in the context of foreign language learning, srisanga and everatt (2021) added that reading comprehension is influenced by low-level skills (such as vocabulary and grammar mastery) and high-level skills (such as making inferences and monitoring comprehension). both support each other in forming a complete understanding of the contents of the text. in second language (l2) learning, reading comprehension becomes more complicated due to significant differences in experience, institutions, and culture between the first and second languages (rafatbakhsh & ahmadi, 2023). furthermore, test evaluation can also support the development of data-based learning systems that enable personalization of learning according to the reader's ability level (stenner, 2023). https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.12747 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:arandhamay.2023@student.uny.ac.id mailto:agus_widyantoro@uny.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.12747 26 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 25-36 rachmawati & widyantoro (measuring up: rasch analysis of english reading comprehension test) the limited time for learning in formal schools causes the need for additional learning support outside of school. informal learning makes a significant contribution in the context of language learning because it allows learners to experience authentic, contextual, and continuous learning processes outside the formal classroom. in informal environments, such as everyday social interactions, media consumption, and community involvement, language learners can develop communicative competence naturally and oriented towards meaning. this approach allows them to use the target language in real situations, thereby improving fluency, vocabulary, and cultural understanding (johnson & majewska, 2022). in addition, informal learning fosters intrinsic motivation because learners are actively and personally involved in learning experiences that suit their interests and needs (smith & seal, 2021). from a critical education perspective, informal learning encourages linguistic empowerment, because learners not only learn language structures but also use them as tools to negotiate meaning and strengthen identities in certain social contexts (jones & brady, 2022). along with the development of technology and digital media, informal spaces such as social media and online platforms also expand opportunities for flexible language learning that is integrated with everyday life (smith, 2021). thus, informal learning in language learning offers a holistic, relevant, and experience-based approach, which enriches learners' linguistic and socio-cultural competencies. the concept of language learning outside the classroom or informal context has attracted great interest among educators and researchers (chong & reinders, 2022). there are still limited studies evaluating the quality of test instruments in the context of informal education, especially in the bantul area. several previous studies have shown the effectiveness of the rasch model in evaluating and validating various types of language tests, including reading comprehension tests. aryadoust et al. (2021) conducted a comprehensive review of the application of the rasch model in language assessment and emphasized the importance of reporting unidimensionality, local independence, and item and person reliability. dunn (2024) developed the rasch model with a generalized linear mixed model approach to analyze lexical factors that influence the level of item difficulty in vocabulary tests. meanwhile, morea et al. (2024) used rasch analysis to validate a receptive vocabulary test in young language learners, showing the importance of the match between item difficulty and test taker ability. nguyen (2022) combined rasch analysis and cfa to validate the construct structure of a college student reading achievement test, and found that a one-factor model was the most appropriate to represent reading ability. anggia and habók (2023) highlighted the importance of adjusting text complexity and task difficulty in developing a rasch-based reading test for efl students, which can improve the fit between reader ability and text characteristics. a study by noroozi and karami (2024) also confirmed the relevance of the rasch model in evaluating various aspects of validity based on the messick framework in a university-level english proficiency test. meanwhile, polat (2022) and toker and seidel (2023) applied variants of the rasch model such as the many-facet rasch model and the mixture rasch model to evaluate rater behavior and respondent heterogeneity, highlighting the flexibility of this model in the context of complex language assessment. educational strategies are needed to develop students' abilities in informative learning by organizing methods and reflecting on the environment as a media space for transferring information (tkacová et al., 2022). the concept of rasch analysis refers to an approach in item response theory (irt) that is used to measure individual abilities and the quality of test items objectively and accurately. this model was developed by georg rasch and is based on the probabilistic principle, where the probability of a person answering an item correctly is predicted by the difference between the person's ability and the item's difficulty level. rasch analysis assumes that good data is data that fits the model, not a model that is adjusted to the data (subagja et al., 2023; winarti & mubarak, 2020). technically, rasch analysis allows the transformation of ordinal scores into interval scales (logit), allowing direct comparison between respondent ability and item difficulty on a single measuring line. thus, rasch provides a reliable and fair way to evaluate individual ability and item quality without relying on sample characteristics or score distributions (rizbudiani et al., 2021; priyani & sugiharto, 2024). in addition, rasch analysis allows for examination of item characteristics such as statistical fit (infit and outfit mnsq), unidimensionality, local independence, and differential item functioning (dif), which are useful for detecting bias between respondent groups (christensen & ammentorp, 2024; prabowo & rahmadian, 2023). according to luber et al., (2020), although in the rasch model, item selection for developing tests is a problem, this is an effort to plan so that the quality of the test meets needs and objective. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 27 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 25-36 rachmawati & widyantoro (measuring up: rasch analysis of english reading comprehension test) this study aims to evaluate the quality of english reading comprehension test in the context of informal institutions through the rasch model analysis. this study also provides the empirical insights into reliability, the suitability of test items and participants, and the level of difficulty of the questions used. furthermore, it enables to encourage the test instrument to be better for the informal learning context in the future. 2. method 3.1. research design this research is quantitative research that uses an approach to evaluate objective theory by testing the relationship between variables that can be measured using research instruments. the data obtained can be analyzed using statistical procedures. this research was designed as survey research, which focuses on collecting information and research samples through questionnaires as the main tool for collecting data and aims to obtain an overview of various aspects of the population group. the modeling used in this research is item response theory (irt). this is a probabilistic model that attempts to explain the relationship between each test taker's response to the test items through the ability variable, which is measured using an instrument. 2.2 participants the participants for this research classified in table 1. were 30 students of class ix of junior high school from one of the informal education institutions in bantul. the sampling technique uses convenience sampling, namely selecting participants who are willing to be samples in the research (creswell, 2014). in an effort to minimize bias and errors in responses, there is a briefing before the test was carried out. table 1. data of participants students’ gender grade total female ix 20 male ix 10 the data collection process was carried out using google forms from 15 to 22 december 2024. before asking test participants to fill in answers on the test instrument, test participants are first given an understanding of the procedures and confidentiality of the data provided. furthermore, test participants are also given an explanation regarding the material being tested so that test participants can more easily fill in the answers on the instrument. 2.3 instrument this research focuses on developing questions related to reading comprehension as english literacy test. the reading used in this test instrument includes articles, reports, textbooks, etc. (brown & abeywickrama, 2018). based on the objectives of the test instrument, the researchers used descriptive, narrative, greeting, advertisement, recount, and report texts. these types of text were chosen because they fit the context of the english materials that fit. on merdeka curriculum standards. the most of the questions used in this instrument were adapted from previous tests to balance the level of differences based on the bloom taxonomy. this foundation is used to guide variations at the cognitive level, remembering, understanding, and analyzing text. details and specifications of questions on the test instrument with a total of 30 multiple choice questions have been presented and sorted by type in table2. table 2. test item specification questions type number of questions item numbers identifying information from a text 2 4,25 understanding information in a text 2 1,7 understanding the meaning of words or phrases in context 4 2,5,8,15 understanding the main idea of a text 1 6,21 28 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 25-36 rachmawati & widyantoro (measuring up: rasch analysis of english reading comprehension test) questions type number of questions item numbers interpreting information from infographic data 2 26,9 concluding which readers benefit from the text 3 11, 12, 13 applying the correct conjunction to complete a gap sentence 1 20 analyzing the purpose of a text 4 3,22,27,29 analyzing correct information based on the text 3 10, 19,28 analyzing the main information from a text 2 16,24 analyzing the possible outcome of a specific action based on the text 2 17,23 identifying relationships between ideas and predicting the main idea of a missing paragraph 2 18,30 predicting actions or responses of the reader 1 14 total questions 30 2.4 data analysis data analysis in this study used the rasch model approach from the item response theory with the help of the quest program. this model was chosen because it is able to provide detailed information regarding the quality of the test items and the abilities of the test participants, as well as separating instrument parameters from participant characteristics. there are four main components in this analysis, namely reliability, item and participant suitability, question difficulty level, and identification of unclear items. first, reliability analysis was conducted to evaluate the consistency of the instrument (item reliability) and the consistency of participants' answers (case reliability). reliability values were analyzed based on quest output and interpreted using categories commonly used in rasch analysis, such as high, medium, and low. second, the fit of the items and participants to the rasch model was analyzed using two parameters, namely infit mean square (mnsq) and infit t. the range of infit mnsq of 0.77 to 1.33 was used as the fit limit, according to the standard of wright and mok (2004), which indicates that the participant's response is still within the acceptable variation limits. in addition, the infit t value with a range of -2 to 2 is used to identify participant responses that deviate statistically from model expectations. third, the level of difficulty of each question item is analyzed based on the threshold value in the logit generated from the quest program. the logit value is then classified into five categories, namely very easy (b < -2), easy (-2 ≤ b < -1), moderate (-1 ≤ b ≤ 1), difficult (1 < b ≤ 2), and very difficult (b > 2). this grouping helps in assessing the balance of the distribution of the level of difficulty of the questions in the instrument. finally, identification of problematic questions is done by marking questions that have a perfect score value, namely questions that are answered completely correctly or completely incorrectly by the participants. questions like this are considered not to provide meaningful information and are categorized as misfits in the rasch model, so they need to be revised or eliminated. the results of this entire analysis process are then interpreted by referring to related literature to determine the overall quality of the instrument, as well as to provide recommendations for the use, revision, or elimination of certain items in the context of measuring english literacy in informal education. 3.5. validity and reliability the validation process in research is a process that refers to the accuracy or truth of research tools and interpretations taken through research findings (william, 2024). the validation of the instrument was conducted by an english lecturer and a teacher as the expert judgments who inditifiy the content of items in the instrument. furthermore, the validity and reliability process will be presented based on the result of classical test theory (ctt) and item response theory (irt). this tool also has important features as a measure of item and person reliability, item suitability to the model, and the level of difficulty of each item (faradillah & febriani, 2021). thus, the validity and reliability of this research instrument can be seen in the results to ensure the quality of the scores on the tests being tested. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 29 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 25-36 rachmawati & widyantoro (measuring up: rasch analysis of english reading comprehension test) 3. findings and discussion 3.1. test reliability the reliability analysis of the instrument was conducted using the rasch model with the help of the quest program. the results of the test reliability analysis on instrument items based on the rasch model in this study are presented in table 3. table 3. statistical summary of item and person estimates estimates mean sd sd (adj) reliability infit mean square outfit mean square infit t outfit t mean sd mean sd mean sd mean sd item .00 .93 .67 .52 1.00 .15 1.19 .74 -.01 .65 .20 .87 case 1.94 .78 .49 .39 1.00 .25 1.19 .77 -.01 .85 .18 .90 table 4. item and person reliability in rasch model fit indicates interpretation infit mnsq interpretation outfit t interpretation <0.67 low >1.33 misfit ≤ 2.00 fit 0.67-0.80 sufficient 0.77-1.33 fit ≥ 2.00 misfit 0.81-0.90 good <0.77 misfit 0.91-0.94 very good >0.94 excellent table 3 presents a summary of the statistics of the item and participant estimates in the rasch model, focusing on the aspects of reliability and data fit. from the table, it is known that the item reliability value is 0.52, while the participant reliability is 0.39. according to the standards commonly used in measurement theory, this reliability value is relatively low, both for the instrument and the respondents. low reliability indicates that the instrument is not consistent enough in measuring the participants' abilities, and there is a possibility of large score fluctuations if the test is re-administered under similar conditions. one of the main causes of this low reliability is the limited number of participants and items, namely only 30 students and 30 questions. however, when reviewed from the infit mean square (mnsq) and outfit t values, it was found that all items were within the acceptable range of values. the average infit mnsq value for items was 1.00 with a standard deviation of 0.15, and for participants it was also 1.00 with a standard deviation of 0.25. this value is in accordance with the criteria in table 4, which states that an item is categorized as fit if it has an infit mnsq value between 0.77 and 1.33. the outfit t value on the item also showed supportive results, with an average of 0.20, within the fit range ≤ 2.00. the infit t for the item was -0.01, this means that the participants were also classified as very close to ideal score. the suitability of the test items to the rasch model as seen from the infit and outfit values shows that even though the reliability value is low, the instrument is still statistically appropriate to the assumptions of the rasch model. this reflects the nature of the rasch model which places more emphasis on the suitability of the response pattern to the mathematical model, rather than relying solely on the consistency of the results (reliability). in other words, the rasch model can provide useful information about the performance of items and participants even when reliability is low. however, reliability remains an important aspect in instrument evaluation. low reliability values may indicate that the instrument has not been able to distinguish participants' abilities sharply. therefore, increasing the number of questions and participants is highly recommended so that the instrument produces more stable and reliable measurements. that way, both aspects of suitability and consistency can be achieved simultaneously to improve the quality of the test instrument. 30 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 25-36 rachmawati & widyantoro (measuring up: rasch analysis of english reading comprehension test) 3.2. estimation of person fit after discussing the results of the reliability tests on all items and cases, the next stage is related to the person fitting into the rasch model. the purpose of these estimates is to provide supporting or contradictory findings. table 5. person fitting the rasch model items infit mnsq infit t criterion items infit mnsq infit t criterion 1 1.06 .41 fit 16 .93 -.19 fit 2 perfect score misfit 17 1.12 .39 fit 3 1.38 1.06 fit 18 .97 .14 fit 4 .90 -.16 fit 19 perfect score misfit 5 1.04 .22 fit 20 .75 -1.10 fit 6 .99 .13 fit 21 1.43 1.54 fit 7 .65 -1.76 fit 22 .72 -.72 fit 8 .81 -.31 fit 23 .83 -.55 fit 9 .71 -.91 fit 24 .65 -1.32 fit 10 .77 -.88 fit 25 1.13 .43 fit 11 1.32 1.03 fit 26 1.26 .70 fit 12 1.18 .54 fit 27 1.25 .60 fit 13 .65 -1.32 fit 28 perfect score misfit 14 1.31 .68 fit 29 1.29 .96 fit 15 .97 .05 fit 30 perfect score misfit criterion for fit person: 0. 77 ≤ infit mnsq ≤ 1, 33 or -2 ≤ infit t ≤ 2 table 5 presents the results of the person fit estimation analysis, which aims to determine whether the answer patterns of test participants are in accordance with the expectations of the rasch model. in this model, a person is categorized as fit if the infit mean square (mnsq) value is in the range of 0.77 to 1.33 or the infit t value is in the range of -2 to 2. the results of the analysis show that out of 30 test participants, 26 participants (86.7%) were in accordance with the fit criteria, while 4 participants (13.3%) were categorized as misfit. fit participants showed that their responses to test items were consistent with the predictions of the rasch model, meaning that they answered easy items correctly and were more likely to answer difficult items incorrectly, as expected. this reflects that most participants followed a rational response pattern appropriate to their ability level. in contrast, four participants who were classified as misfit had answer patterns that deviated from the model predictions. three of them obtained a perfect score, that is, answering all questions correctly. although at first glance it looks positive, in the context of rasch, a perfect score actually complicates the analysis because it cannot show variations in ability to answer questions with different levels of difficulty. one other participant showed an infit mnsq or infit t value outside the criterion limit, which was likely caused by random answers, unintentional, or lack of concentration during the test. this issue is essential to observe because although in general the majority of participants are fit; the presence of misfit participants can affect the accuracy of the ability parameter estimation. however, because the number is only 13.3%, its influence on the overall analysis results is relatively small. in the context of instrument development, these results indicate that in general participants can understand and respond to questions consistently, and the instrument is quite good at measuring participants' abilities according to the assumptions of the rasch model. overall, this person fit analysis strengthens the validity of the instrument, because the most participants show consistency in their answer forms. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 31 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 25-36 rachmawati & widyantoro (measuring up: rasch analysis of english reading comprehension test) 3.3. estimation of item fit the other part is the estimation of item fit. this aims to show whether the test items on the instrument have functioned well or not based on the person-fit criteria in the previous section. items fitting are also estimated individually using the results of the quest program output. the results of the output show a collection of information related to the suitability and feasibility of each test item for the rasch model. the results of the items fitting analysis in this research are illustrated in table 6. table 6. items fitting the rach model items infit mnsq infit t criterion items infit mnsq infit t criterion 1 .98 .00 fit 16 .85 -1.00 fit 2 .87 -.20 fit 17 .88 .00 fit 3 1.03 .20 fit 18 1.11 .40 fit 4 .85 -.10 fit 19 1.18 .50 fit 5 .75 -1.50 fit 20 .99 .10 fit 6 .75 -1.50 fit 21 .82 -1.50 fit 7 1.29 .90 fit 22 1.18 .50 fit 8 1.00 .30 fit 23 perfect score misfit 9 perfect score misfit 24 1.08 .40 fit 10 1.18 1.10 fit 25 perfect score misfit 11 .95 -.30 fit 26 .83 -1.30 fit 12 .79 -.40 fit 27 .82 -.30 fit 13 .97 .10 fit 28 1.06 .30 fit 14 .91 -.10 fit 29 1.17 .50 fit 15 1.07 .30 fit 30 1.10 .40 fit criterion for fit items: 0,77 ≤ infit mnsq ≤ 1,33 or -2 ≤ infit t ≤ 2 table 6 presents the results of the item fit analysis based on two main indicators in the rasch model, namely infit mean square (mnsq) and infit t. these two indicators are used to assess the extent to which each item functions as it should in measuring the participants' abilities. in the context of the rasch model, an item is considered fit if the infit mnsq value is between 0.77 and 1.33 or the infit t value is in the range of -2 to 2. the results of the analysis showed that out of 30 questions, 27 (90%) were included in the fit category, while 3 (10%) were categorized as misfit. the three misfit items were questions number 9, 23, and 25, all of which received perfect scores from the participants. this means that all participants answered the questions correctly, so that there was no variation in responses that could be analyzed. in the rasch model, this issue is considered uninformative because the questions are unable to differentiate abilities between participants. these types of questions are considered too easy (or in some cases too difficult), so they do not contribute to effective measurement. meanwhile, the other 27 items encountered the suitability criteria. the infit mnsq values on these items were within the specified tolerance limits, indicating that most of the questions had functioned optimally in measuring participants' reading ability. this indicates that the questions were able to provide valid and representative information regarding the variation in participants' abilities based on the level of difficulty of each item. these findings generally indicate that the quality of the items in this instrument is quite good, because most of them meet the statistical requirements in the rasch model. however, the existence of misfit items should be a concern, because it can reduce the effectiveness of the instrument as a whole. therefore, items that show perfect scores should be revised or replaced with items that have a moderate level of difficulty in order to provide more informative response variations and improve the quality of measurement. 32 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 25-36 rachmawati & widyantoro (measuring up: rasch analysis of english reading comprehension test) 3.4. item difficulty level to find out the level of difficulty of an item through the quest program, you can find out by looking at the data from the item estimate (threshold) analysis. in table 7, the data resulting from the analysis is described with the criterion for each item. table 7. items’ difficulty level items threshold interpretation items threshold interpretation 1 .58 moderate 16 1.17 difficult 2 -.28 moderate 17 -.74 moderate 3 -.28 moderate 18 -1.47 moderate 4 -.74 moderate 19 -.74 moderate 5 -.28 moderate 20 -.24 moderate 6 1.19 difficult 21 1.08 difficult 7 .06 moderate 22 -.74 moderate 8 .34 moderate 23 missing very easy 9 missing very easy 24 -1.47 easy 10 1.19 difficult 25 missing very easy 11 1.19 difficult 26 2.05 very difficult 12 -.28 moderate 27 -.28 moderate 13 -.28 moderate 28 -.74 moderate 14 .06 moderate 29 -.28 moderate 15 -.76 moderate 30 -.28 moderate criterion b>2 very difficult -1≤b≤1 moderate -1≤ b ≥-2 easy 1<b≤2 difficult b<-2 very easy table 8. percentage of items’ difficulty level and quality judgement criterion quality frequency item numbers percentage very difficult very good 1 26 3.3% difficult good 5 6,10,11,16,21 16.7% moderate good 20 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,12,13,14,15,17,18,19,20,22,27,28,29,30 67% easy not good 1 24 3.3% very easy not good 3 9,23,25 10% based on the results of data analysis in table 7 and table 8 regarding the level of difficulty of the questions (item difficulty level), it can be concluded that the majority of questions in the test instrument are in the moderate difficulty level category. as many as 20 out of 30 questions or around 67% are included in the moderate category. this shows that most of the questions are at a level of difficulty that is appropriate for measuring students' general abilities. questions with a moderate level of difficulty are generally able to provide fairly accurate information about students' abilities, because they are not too easy so that they are not challenging, and not too difficult so that they do not make it excessively difficult for students. in addition to questions with a moderate level of difficulty, there are 5 questions (16.7%) that are classified as difficult and 1 question (3.3%) that is very difficult. questions in this category are needed to measure students' abilities with a higher level of understanding, such as the ability to analyze, evaluate, and draw conclusions from reading texts. however, the proportion of these difficult questions still needs to be monitored so that they do not dominate the test, so as not to burden students psychologically or cognitively. on the other hand, there is also 1 question that is classified as easy issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 33 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 25-36 rachmawati & widyantoro (measuring up: rasch analysis of english reading comprehension test) (3.3%) and 3 other questions (10%) that are classified as very easy. the existence of these too easy questions does not provide any benefit in differentiating the level of ability between participants, because they tend to be answered correctly by almost all students. from the analysis, it can also be seen that the distribution of questions in terms of difficulty level is quite ideal because it is dominated by questions with a moderate level of difficulty, while questions that are classified as very difficult and very easy are only a few in number. this is important to ensure that the test instrument can be used effectively to measure students' abilities at various levels of ability. however, the existence of questions that are very easy or very difficult should be reviewed, because these types of questions are likely not to provide sufficient information in the evaluation process. in addition, based on the overall quality analysis of the questions, 86.7% of the questions were classified as good and only 13.3% were poor. questions that were included in the poor category generally came from groups of questions that were too easy or too difficult. therefore, to improve the quality of the test instrument, these questions need to be improved or replaced so that the overall test has better discriminatory ability. the arrangement of the question sequence is also an important concern. it is better to arrange the questions starting from the easiest, then to the medium level, and ending with the difficult ones. this sequence can help participants work on the questions more comfortably and increase their motivation in completing the test. in conclusion, although in general this test instrument is quite good in terms of the distribution of difficulty levels, revisions are still needed on extreme questions so that the test results are more valid and representative in measuring students' abilities as a whole. 3.5. discussion the results of this study indicated that the english reading comprehension test instrument used in the context of informal learning had statistical conformity to the rasch model, although it still shows weaknesses in terms of reliability. the item reliability value of 0.52 and participant reliability of 0.39 are low, indicating that the instrument has not been able to measure participants' abilities consistently. this is in line with the findings of winarti and mubarak (2020), and is supported by recent research from priyani and sugiharto (2024) which emphasizes that low reliability can be caused by limited number of participants or items that do not match the participants’ ability level. in terms of item fit, 27 out of 30 items (90%) were in the fit category based on the mnsq infit and infit t values, meaning that most of the items functioned as they should in measuring participants' abilities according to the rasch model’s expectations. however, there were three items that showed perfect score from all participants. although this seems ideal, it is problematic in the rasch context because it does not provide the response variation needed to differentiate participants' ability levels (aryadoust et al., 2021). similar findings were also expressed by noroozi and karami (2024) and morea et al. (2024), who suggested that such items be revised to provide more meaningful information. the person fit analysis also supports these findings. as many as 86.7% of participants showed a pattern of answers that matched the rasch model, while the other 13.3% were in the misfit category, most of whom also obtained a perfect score. this is consistent with the view of rizbudiani et al. (2021), which state that a perfect score can reduce the accuracy of participants ability estimates. christensen and ammentorp (2024) even emphasized that rasch analysis is very effective in detecting anomalies like this, especially in formative and diagnostic assessments that require high precision. based on the difficulty level of the questions, most (67%) were in the moderate category, which means they are were in accordance with the general abilities of the participants. this is ideal for learners in informal contexts who tend to have diverse backgrounds and ability levels (johnson & majewska, 2022). however, there are also questions that are too easy (10%) and very difficult (3.3%). questions with extreme levels like this need to be reviewed because they can disrupt the balance of distribution and the overall effectiveness of the instrument (anggia & habók, 2023; nguyen, 2022). questions that are too easy are unable to distinguish participants’ abilities, while questions that are too difficult can cause cognitive and psychological stress (stenner, 2023). these findings emphasized the importance of improving the quality of the instrument through item revisions, increasing the number of participants, and compiling more even levels of question difficulty. as suggested by subagja, rubini, and kurniasih (2023), increasing the number of items and respondents can improve the reliability and discrimination of the instrument. further research can also 34 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 25-36 rachmawati & widyantoro (measuring up: rasch analysis of english reading comprehension test) consider the use of more complex rasch models, such as the many-facet rasch model (polat, 2022; toker & seidel, 2023), to capture broarder variability in the dynamic context of informal learning in addition, the rasch model remains a powerful tool despite its low reliability. research by dunn (2024) and prabowo and rahmadian (2023) showed that rasch analysis is able to provide an in-depth evaluation of item function, individual response patterns, and potential measurement bias. this is especially relevant in informal education that requires assessment instruments that are adaptive and responsive to the needs of diverse learners (chong & reinders, 2022; tkacová et al., 2022). thus, although this instrument has generally shown good conformity with the rasch model, improvements are still needed on items that are too easy or too difficult, as well as increasing reliability by increasing the number of participants and items. this is important so that the instrument can produce more accurate, fair, and representative measurements of students' literacy skills in the context of informal learning. the application of rasch analysis in this study has been shown to provide a significant contribution to the scientific and systematic evaluation of the instrument. 4. conclusion the english reading comprehension test instrument for students in informal educational institutions has a fairly good level of suitability to the rasch mathematical model, with 90% of the items included in the fit category. however, the low reliability values for both items and participants indicate that the instrument's ability to measure and differentiate students' abilities still needs to be improved. in addition, the existence of items that are too easy or too difficult, as well as participants with perfect scores, are indicators that revisions to several items need to be made in order to improve the measuring power and fairness of the instrument. the implications of these findings point to the need for more systematic and sustainable instrument development in the context of informal education. teachers and managers of educational institutions need to be more careful in designing questions with a balanced level of difficulty and relevant to the abilities of students. the application of the rasch model has proven effective in diagnosing item quality in depth, so that it can be used as a tool to improve the validity and reliability of the instrument. in practice, the development of questions must be accompanied by an increase in the number of participants and a variety of reading texts that are appropriate to the context of students' lives. thus, assessment in informal learning is not only an evaluation tool, but also a learning instrument that encourages deep understanding and the development of sustainable literacy competencies. acknowledgment we would like to thank the english language education department, yogyakarta state university, for providing the facilities and academic support needed for this study. our sincere thanks go to the english tutoring center and students who participated in this research. their help and cooperation made this study possible. declarations author contribution : the authors collaboratively carried out all stages of the research process, including the formulation of the research problem, design of the study, data collection, analysis and interpretation of the data, and preparation of the manuscript. funding statement : no funding is available for this research. conflict of interest ethics declaration : : the authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to the content or conduct of this study. this study adhered to ethical standards for research involving human participants. informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to their involvement in the study. institutional approval was also secured from the relevant academic body. additional information : no additional information is applicable to this study. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 35 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 25-36 rachmawati & widyantoro (measuring up: rasch analysis of english reading comprehension test) references anggia, h., & habók, a. 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(2004). an overview of the family of rasch measurement models. in e. v. smith jr. & r. m. smith (eds.). in introduction to rasch measurement theory, models and applications 1(1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.15639/teflinjournal.v34i2/301-319 https://doi.org/10.22219/jpbi.v10i3.34345 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40862-023-00214-4 https://doi.org/10.24042/ajpm.v12i2.9939 https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11090476 https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/learn/index https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/learn/index https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3747-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3747-7 https://doi.org/10.29303/jppipa.v9i10.5177 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19052767 https://doi.org/10.52380/ijcer.2023.10.1.349 https://doi.org/10.47119/ijrp1001441320246160 https://doi.org/10.23917/ijolae.v2i1.8985 1. introduction 2. method 3.1. research design 2.2 participants 2.4 data analysis 3.5. validity and reliability 3. findings and discussion 3.1. test reliability 3.2. estimation of person fit 3.4. item difficulty level 3.5. discussion 4. conclusion acknowledgment we would like to thank the english language education department, yogyakarta state university, for providing the facilities and academic support needed for this study. our sincere thanks go to the english tutoring center and students who participated ... declarations english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 164-176 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14228 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id exploring ai-mediated linguistic and cognitive support for nonnative english speakers in english-only higher education ching-yi tien a, 1, *, noor azam haji-othman b, 2 a shou university, no.1, sec. 1, syuecheng rd., dashu district, kaohsiung city 84001, taiwan b universiti brunei darussalam, jalan tungku link, be1410, brunei darussalam 1 tien@isu.edu.tw *; 2 azam.othman@ubd.edu.bn *corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 10 august 2025 revised 25 november 2025 accepted 9 december 2025 available online 15 december 2025 the release of chatgpt by openai in 2022 marked a major milestone, beginning a new phase in how artificial intelligence (ai) is used in education and transforming the way students access and engage with academic resources. this study explores how non-native englishspeaking students handle the language challenges of content-area courses in higher education when instruction is focused solely on professional subjects in an english-only setting, with limited explicit language support to improve english skills. using a sample of undergraduate students (n = 63), this research examines differences in ai tool usage, perceptions, and outcomes based on gender, nationality, major, and year of study. independent samples t-tests and one-way anova were performed on variables that measure perceived language learning benefits, cognitive skill development, creative tool use, and the overall effectiveness of ai tools. open-ended questions provided qualitative data for this study. the findings show that ai and generative ai tools meet students’ linguistic needs, address cognitive demands, support personalized learning, enhance understanding of subject material, and improve academic performance. contrary to earlier research suggesting male students are more proficient with ai, this study finds that female students are more likely to view ai tools as beneficial for integrating thinking and higher-order cognitive skills. the study also discusses potential challenges related to ai use and notes its methodological limitations. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords artificial intelligence higher education language learning cognitive ability nnes student how to cite: tien, c. y., & haji-othman, n. a. (2025). exploring ai-mediated linguistic and cognitive support for non-native english speakers in english-only higher education. english language teaching educational journal, 8(3), 164-176. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14228 1. introduction since john mccarthy coined the term artificial intelligence (ai) in 1956 (zawacki-richter et al., 2019), the field has evolved from abstract theory to a pervasive force shaping nearly all aspects of modern life. within education, the covid-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital technologies, prompting a rapid shift toward online and blended learning models (salido et al., 2025; ng et al., 2023). this transformation laid the groundwork for the growing integration of ai-supported learning tools in higher education. the release of chatgpt by openai in 2022 represents a significant turning point in the use of ai in education, particularly in how learners interact with and access language learning resources (he, 2025; moorhouse, 2024; moorhouse & wong, 2025; moorhouse et al, 2025). concurrently, educational institutions are increasingly incorporating generative ai (genai) to enhance personalized learning. these systems allow instructional content to be tailored to learners’ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14228 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:tien@isu.edu.tw mailto:azam.othman@ubd.edu.bn http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14228 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i3.14228&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6347-6116 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3218-4492 165 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 164-176 tien, c. y., & haji-othman, n. a. (exploring ai-mediated linguistic and cognitive support for non-native…..) individual needs, styles, and paces (trošelj et al., 2024), with genai technologies offering new forms of interactivity and customization that traditional methods often lack (torun & ozer sanal, 2025). within this context, ai and genai tools are being explored for their potential to support secondlanguage learners in higher education (alqarni et al, 2024; chen, 2024; choi, 2025; chuang & yan, 2025; kwok et al., 2024; liu & fan, 2025; nguyen & nguyen, 2025). prior studies have highlighted several benefits of ai integration, including increased learner autonomy (moorhouse & wong, 2025), enhanced vocabulary acquisition (alharbi & khalil, 2023), and improved academic writing (chen et al., 2026; thangthong et al., 2024; ozfidan et al., 2024), gender differences in engagement with genai tools in academic contexts (hillman, 2025; tang, 2025). these tools allow students to design individualized practice tasks, receive instant feedback, and engage in simulated conversations, features particularly valuable for learners with limited access to consistent language practice opportunities. even before the rise of genai, tools like grammarly have been widely adopted for academic writing support (van wyk, 2025). dizon and gayed (2024) conducted a systematic review of grammarly’s use in l2 contexts. they argued that such tools are best employed alongside instructor feedback, allowing teachers to focus on higher-level concerns such as content and coherence, while the tool addresses surface-level errors. however, they caution that effective use of these tools requires training in their strengths and limitations to avoid blind dependence and to foster critical engagement. then, the emergence of chatgpt has intensified scholarly interest in ai’s pedagogical value (alhur et al., 2025; lin & tsou, 2025; tsou et al., 2024). studies have shown positive correlations between its use and improved student performance, engagement, and perceptions of learning (lu et al., 2024; wang & fan, 2025; wei, 2023). research also points to ai’s potential to enhance vocabulary acquisition and content-specific learning. in their 2024 study, nga and ha explored the use of ai to improve vocabulary among university students, highlighting the importance of addressing data privacy and security concerns. they emphasized that educational institutions must safeguard student data and that educators should be cautious about students becoming overly dependent on ai tools, as this reliance could impede the development of autonomous learning abilities. similarly, nguyen (2023), in a study on sustainable fashion education, observed that students using nlp tools like chatgpt reported improved vocabulary and content comprehension (rahimi et al., 2025; zhou et al., 2025). however, studies also stressed the need for clear instructional policies to prevent passive learning and to encourage active engagement (al-harahsheh et al., 2025; tran, 2025). nevertheless, ai engagement is not always reflective or strategic. burkhard (2022) observed that while some learners adopted ai writing tools uncritically, raising concerns about unintentional plagiarism, still others hesitated due to skepticism or a lack of metacognitive strategies. beyond language development, ai is increasingly researched for its impact on students’ cognitive growth (ng, 2024; wang et al., 2025). holmes et al. (2023) argue that when integrated effectively, ai tools can enhance critical thinking by encouraging learners to analyze, evaluate, and generate content. however, findings remain mixed. xu (2024) reported positive cognitive outcomes among university students using ai-assisted learning, while gerlich (2025), employing a large-scale mixed-methods design, found that frequent reliance on ai tools may lead to cognitive offloading and reduce critical thinking, especially when not supported by pedagogical scaffolding. despite its growing presence, the adoption of ai in educational settings remains uneven. zawackirichter et al. (2019), in a systematic review of 146 studies, found that research in this field is dominated by stem disciplines, with only a small fraction led by scholars from education. this highlights the need for more pedagogically-grounded research on how ai affects language learning, particularly in subject-related courses and cognitive engagement. additionally, concerns about ai’s implications for human expertise continue to surface. for instance, humanika and radjaban (2024) found that while some translation students viewed ai as a useful tool to enhance efficiency, others feared that it could diminish job prospects by automating complex linguistic tasks. however, its limitations in processing idiomatic and culturally embedded language remain evident. despite increasing interest in ai in education, a significant research gap persists regarding how non-native english-speaking (nnes) students in content-based courses in efl higher education settings use ai to support both linguistic and cognitive development. few studies focus on learners in non-english-speaking contexts, such as taiwan, where international and local students share multilingual academic environments but face similar linguistic challenges in english-medium issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 166 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 164-176 tien, c. y., & haji-othman, n. a. (exploring ai-mediated linguistic and cognitive support for non-native…..) coursework. to fill this gap, the present study investigates how nnes students at an international college in taiwan use ai tools to enhance language skills, academic achievement, and cognitive engagement in content courses with limited explicit language support. the findings aim to clarify ai’s potential and limitations in emi classrooms and contribute to more informed pedagogical decisionmaking. unlike previous research centered on language-specific applications, this study explores how students use ai to bridge both linguistic and cognitive gaps in english-only content-course environments. the research questions guiding this study are as follows. 1. how do ai tools assist non-native english-speaking students (nnes) in managing linguistic demands in content-area courses where instructors do not address students’ language development? 2. to what extent do ai applications support cognitive development among non-englishspeaking students? 3. what are students’ perceptions of the usefulness, challenges, and integration of ai tools in their academic routines? 4. are gender, student status, academic major, and year-of-study significant factors influencing students' adoption of ai applications? 2. method 2.1. participants participants were recruited through convenience sampling from two courses at an international college in southern taiwan. class one consisted of 14 students (22.2%) from the program in international media and entertainment management enrolled in advertising courses, while class two included 36 students (57.1%) from the department of global communications and applied english taking an introduction to linguistics course. additional students from other departments also enrolled. both 18-week courses were delivered in english and focused on content instruction with minimal explicit language support. the demographic breakdown of the 63 participants was as follows: 18 (28.6%) were male, 44 (69.8%) were female, and 1 (1.6%) preferred not to specify their gender. among the participants, 25 (39.7%) were international students, while 38 (60.3%) were local students. international students mainly came from southeast and east asian countries such as indonesia, thailand, vietnam, and japan. the students' year distribution was: freshman (1.6%), sophomore (30.2%), junior (47.6%), and senior (20.6%). all participants had studied english for more than ten years. 2.2. data collection technique data for this research were collected at the end of the spring 2024 semester. the questionnaire items were adapted from prior studies on ai-assisted learning (e.g., lu et al., 2024; wang & fan, 2025) and were reviewed by two experts in applied linguistics for content validity. a structured questionnaire contained 32 items, with four items in part i aimed at understanding the demographic information of the participants; eight items in part ii seek to find out the use of ai tools in students’ english language skills; six items in part iii aim to reveal ai applications that support students’ cognitive skills; nine items in part iv aim to investigate how students integrate ai tools into their study routines; part v included five open-ended questions about students’ preferred tools, perceived improvements, challenges, and suggestions for using ai in their academic work. participants rated their agreement on a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). to assess the survey's internal consistency, cronbach’s alpha was calculated. the scale demonstrated excellent internal consistency (cronbach’s α = .924; 23 items), indicating that the items reliably measure the same construct. additionally, the cronbach’s alpha based on standardized items was 0.930, showing that even when accounting for differences in item variance, the reliability remains very high. according to conventional thresholds, a cronbach’s alpha above 0.90 is considered excellent (george & mallery, 2003). all items confirmed that the questionnaire was effective in measuring responses related to the use of ai applications among the participants in higher education. 167 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 164-176 tien, c. y., & haji-othman, n. a. (exploring ai-mediated linguistic and cognitive support for non-native…..) 2.3. data analysis descriptive statistics were generated using spss version 27. before conducting inferential tests, data were checked for normality and homogeneity of variance. a one-way anova was used to examine differences across gender, major, and year of study, and independent samples t-tests compared international and local taiwanese students. open-ended responses were analyzed through thematic analysis to identify recurring themes in ai use. ethical approval and informed consent were obtained prior to data collection. 3. finding and discussion 3.1 findings to assess how effective ai tools are in helping non-native english-speaking students handle linguistic challenges in content-area courses where instructors do not prioritize language development, descriptive statistics were utilized to analyze questionnaire data. the open-ended responses were reviewed to supplement the qualitative data and assist the researcher in gaining a more comprehensive understanding of how students used the ai tool during their academic programs. the following sections generally address the four research questions of this study. rq1: how do ai tools assist non-native english-speaking (nnes) students in managing linguistic demands in content-area courses where instructors do not address students’ language development? to answer the first research question, the data from part ii of the questionnaire were analyzed using spss 27 software. the results are arranged in descending order to highlight the most-to-least perceived benefits of ai tools. table 1. students’ usage of ai tools for addressing linguistic challenges item mean s.d. 1.2 ai tools have helped me with grammar and sentence structure. 4.19 1.030 1.4 ai tools have made me more confident in writing english. 3.97 1.015 1.1 ai tools have enhanced my vocabulary. 3.95 1.069 1.5 ai tools have helped me to understand english-only content courses better. 3.84 1.081 1.8 ai applications make my schoolwork more engaging and fun. 3.78 .941 1.7 ai applications give valuable feedback on my language skills. 3.73 .971 1.3 ai tools have improved my pronunciation and speaking skills. 3.51 1.230 table 1 summarizes students’ perceptions of how ai tools support their language needs. students rated ai as most helpful for improving grammar and sentence structure (m = 4.19, sd = 1.03), followed by boosting writing confidence (m = 3.97, sd = 1.02) and expanding vocabulary (m = 3.95, sd = 1.07). they also agreed that ai tools improved their understanding of english-only content courses (m = 3.84, sd = 1.08). pronunciation and speaking skills received the lowest scores (m = 3.51, sd = 1.23), indicating more limited perceived benefits. ai was seen as moderately effective for engagement (m = 3.78, sd = 0.94) and providing feedback (m = 3.73, sd = 0.97). regarding the most useful tool, chatgpt was chosen by 54% of students, followed by grammarly (33.3%), copilot (4.8%), gemini (1.6%), and others (6.3%). responses from the open-ended section of the qualitative data include a question about “what specific ai tools or applications have you used to improve your english language skills?” chatgpt was mentioned 20 times, followed by grammarly (14), quillbot (4), google (3), voicetube (2), and others (2) by the participants. these results suggest that chatgpt and grammarly are the primary tools students prefer for improving or getting help with their language skills. when asked, can you describe any notable improvements you have noticed in your english skills or thinking abilities since using ai tools? participants reported various improvements from using ai or genai applications, such as a better vocabulary, improved grammar and sentence structure, enhanced comprehension and speed, increased confidence, and stronger critical thinking. below are the students' direct quotes. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 168 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 164-176 tien, c. y., & haji-othman, n. a. (exploring ai-mediated linguistic and cognitive support for non-native…..) s3: i learned more vocabulary that i do not usually use in daily life. s7: ai tools have helped me enhance my vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure. s31: my sentence structure is better than before. s46: grammarly helps me to correct my grammar mistakes, and chatgpt gives me lots of useful information. s50: i can understand the content more easily than before. s26: find the answer quickly. s39: more confident to type english, no need to worry about mistakes s45: i learn to know what good, high-quality writing and information look like. both descriptive statistics and participant feedback show that ai and genai tools significantly enhance the english language skills of non-english speakers, especially when explicit english instruction is not the main focus of the content courses. rq2: to what extent do ai applications support cognitive development among non-englishspeaking students? to address rq2, quantitative data from questionnaire part iii were analyzed. the descriptive statistical results are presented in table 2. the results are ordered from highest-to-lowest to emphasize the perceived benefits of ai tools in cognitive skills as reported by students. table 2. the utilization of ai tools for cognitive skills item mean s.d. 2.1 ai applications have improved my ability to analyze information. 3.95 .958 2.2 ai applications have helped me in developing better problem-solving strategies. 3.90 .928 2.4 ai applications have enhanced my ability to make connections between different pieces of information. 3.86 .965 2.3 ai applications have made me more critical of the information i encounter. 3.84 .884 2.5 ai applications have helped me improve my focus and concentration. 3.44 .980 table 2 shows students’ perceptions of how ai tools supported their cognitive skills. ai was rated most helpful for analyzing information (m = 3.95, sd = 0.96), followed by developing problemsolving strategies (m = 3.90, sd = 0.93) and connecting ideas (m = 3.86, sd = 0.97). critical thinking also showed positive, though slightly lower, improvement (m = 3.84, sd = 0.88). the lowest rating was for sustaining focus and concentration (m = 3.44, sd = 0.98), indicating a more limited perceived effect. when asked which tool best supported problem-solving, students most often chose chatgpt (60.3%), followed by google (30.2%), copilot (4.58%), gemini (3.2%), and others (1.16%), reflecting a strong preference for general-purpose ai tools. in response to the open-ended question about whether their cognitive abilities had improved after using ai tools, students reported both benefits and some concerns. below are selected direct quotes from the participants. s14: i can go through with my ideas from concept to execution. it provides me with a clear structure and step-by-step solutions to problems, which have improved my ability to think outside the box. running my essays through chatgpt allows me to catch any redundant information/phrases/etc., and the program gives me feedback that i can apply in real-time. s50: i can understand the content more easily than before. s57: i have become better at clarifying any data or material from my learning. several participants highlighted the cognitive benefits of using ai tools like chatgpt in their academic work. they noted improvements in organizing ideas from concept to execution, enhanced problem-solving through structured and step-by-step guidance, and the ability to think more creatively. additionally, ai tools were seen as helpful for real-time feedback, improving clarity, minimizing redundancy in writing, and making learning materials easier to understand. 169 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 164-176 tien, c. y., & haji-othman, n. a. (exploring ai-mediated linguistic and cognitive support for non-native…..) despite the positive effects of using ai and generative ai (genai), several students expressed concerns about becoming overly reliant on these tools. their responses reflect worries about diminished independent thinking and writing skills. selected quotes include: s9: i cannot think by myself. s42: i have become lazy to think and go directly to ai when i encounter questions. s52: it is getting worse because i do not have to think about it by myself. s63: initial overreliance on ai tools to generate content… worsened my ability to express myself through writing. some students reported that excessive reliance on ai tools negatively impacted their cognitive engagement. they noted a decline in their motivation to think independently, problem-solve, and articulate their thoughts clearly in writing. these reflections highlight the importance of balancing ai use with active learning to avoid dependency and maintain essential critical thinking skills. q3: what are students’ perceptions of the usefulness, challenges, and integration of ai tools in their academic routines? to address the research question concerning students’ perceptions of the usefulness, challenges, and integration of ai tools in their academic routines, table 3 presents the items sorted by mean score, from highest-to-lowest. table 3. usage of ai tools in academic routines item mean s. d. 3.5 i believe ai tools are beneficial for language learning. 4.05 .888 3.8 i have seen positive results in my learning due to ai tools. 3.90 .979 3.6 ai tools have helped me achieve my learning goals. 3.90 .979 3.2 ai tools like canva are easy to navigate and use. 3.84 1.208 3.1 i always use the ai tool canva to create presentation content. 3.78 1.301 3.7 ai tools have helped me improve my grade. 3.73 .987 3.9 i have no negative concerns about using ai tools for my studies. 3.33 1.178 3.4 ai tools like midjourney are easy to navigate and use. 2.98 1.338 3.3 i always use the ai tool midjourney to create visual content. 2.70 1.466 3.5 i believe ai tools are beneficial for language learning. 4.05 .888 the data in table 3 shows a largely positive attitude toward ai tools in educational settings. the highest agreement is for the statement “i believe ai tools are beneficial for language learning” (m = 4.05, sd = 0.89), indicating a strong consensus on ai’s value in improving language skills. positive impacts on learning outcomes are also reflected in responses to “i have seen positive results in my learning due to ai tools” and “ai tools have helped me achieve my learning goals” (both m = 3.90, sd = 0.98), suggesting that ai is considered effective for advancing education. ai’s role in improving academic performance is moderately supported (“ai tools have helped me to improve my grade,” m = 3.73, sd = 0.99), confirming their perceived usefulness beyond simple tasks. regarding concerns, the average score for “i have no negative concerns about using ai tools for my studies” is 3.33 (sd = 1.18), reflecting a generally neutral to positive view, although some students still hold reservations. the participants recruited for this study were enrolled in university-level linguistics and advertising courses. the researcher also aimed to explore whether students were using other generative ai tools, such as canva and midjourney. therefore, additional questions regarding the application of these tools were included in the questionnaire. the results below report students’ ease of use and tool preferences. when examining usability, tools such as canva received moderately favorable ratings for ease of navigation and use (m = 3.84, sd = 1.21). the regularity of canva’s use for creating presentation content is also relatively high (m = 3.78, sd = 1.30), indicating its popularity and user-friendliness among students. in contrast, lower means are observed for midjourney in both ease of use (m = 2.98, sd = 1.34) and frequency of use for creating visual content (m = 2.70, sd = 1.47). these results highlight potential barriers for participants, such as learning curves or tool accessibility, associated with more specialized ai tools. overall, tools focused on language and presentation (e.g., canvas) are seen as more accessible and beneficial compared to generative visual ai (e.g., midjourney), which may necessitate further training or support. the results also suggest that issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 170 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 164-176 tien, c. y., & haji-othman, n. a. (exploring ai-mediated linguistic and cognitive support for non-native…..) while ai tools are embraced for both content creation and skills development, their adoption is differentiated by type and complexity. to better understand students’ perceptions of the usefulness, challenges, and integration of ai tools, the survey included several open-ended questions. the qualitative responses showed that chatgpt was by far the most frequently used tool (30 mentions), followed by canva (6), grammarly (4), quillbot (3), and gemini (2). this pattern highlights a strong reliance on a single, general-purpose generative ai tool for various academic tasks, while other applications were used more selectively for functions such as editing, paraphrasing, and visual content creation. students also reported several challenges related to ai use. the most common concern was overreliance, with some participants noting that frequent dependence on ai made them “lazy to think” and weakened their ability to express ideas independently. others expressed concerns about accuracy, pointing out that ai sometimes produces outdated, incorrect, or awkward translations, highlighting the need for critical evaluation and fact-checking. language barriers were also mentioned, as certain tools struggled to interpret user intent or generate context-appropriate phrasing. additionally, though less frequently, concerns included cost, limited access to full features, internet dependency, and regional restrictions blocking access to specific platforms, all of which could hinder students’ ability to explore a broader range of ai tools. q4: are gender, student status, academic major, and year-of-study significant factors influencing students' adoption of ai applications? to answer the final research question, descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (anova), and independent samples t-tests were used. the results are shown in the following sections. 1) gender an anova was performed to explore gender differences in perceptions of ai tools among male, female, and those who select “prefer not to say.” although most items showed no statistically significant differences, suggesting generally similar perceptions across groups, three items revealed notable variation. for item 1.6 (preferred ai tool for language learning), females more often chose higher-coded tools than males, f(2, 60) = 4.23, p = .019. significant differences also appeared for item 2.1 (analytical ability), f(2, 60) = 3.58, p = .034, and item 2.4 (integrative thinking), f(2, 60) = 3.71, p = .030, with female participants perceiving greater cognitive benefits. overall, while attitudes toward ai were similar across genders, differences were seen in tool preferences and higher-level thinking skills, especially among female students. 2) international vs. local students independent samples t-tests were performed to compare perceptions of ai tools between international and local students. no statistically significant differences were found across all items. for example, regarding whether ai tools improved vocabulary (item 1.1), the difference was not significant, t(61) = -0.433, p = .667. similarly, there were no significant differences for grammar support, pronunciation, writing confidence, or problem-solving skills (all p > .05). these findings suggest that both international and local students generally hold similar views on how ai tools influence their learning. 3) academic major an anova was conducted to determine whether students’ academic majors (i.e., imem, gcae, or other) affected their opinions of ai tools in language learning and cognitive development. no significant differences were found for any item (all p > .05). for example, the difference in perceptions of grammar and sentence structure support was close but not statistically significant, f(2, 60) = 2.73, p = .074. this indicates that students from different academic backgrounds generally view the impact of ai tools similarly. 4) year-of-study anova results revealed significant differences across academic years. academic engagement (item 1.8) and perceived development of critical thinking (item 2.3) varied notably, f(3, 59) = 4.05, p = .011, and f(3, 59) = 2.91, p = .042, respectively. problem-solving applications (item 2.6) approached significance, f(3, 59) = 2.70, p = .054, indicating a possible trend in tool preference across levels. these results suggest that academic progression influences certain perceptions of ai, with the most notable differences observed in engagement. 171 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 164-176 tien, c. y., & haji-othman, n. a. (exploring ai-mediated linguistic and cognitive support for non-native…..) 3.2. discussion this study aimed to examine how non-native english-speaking students handle the linguistic challenges of content-area courses in higher education when instruction is solely focused on professional subjects in an english-only setting, with limited explicit language support to improve english proficiency. four research questions were addressed and discussed. while some findings align with existing literature, several new insights have also emerged. both quantitative and qualitative findings indicate that ai and genai applications play a substantial role in meeting students’ linguistic needs, thereby enhancing their academic performance in content-area courses. students reported that these tools were particularly effective in supporting grammar improvement, vocabulary expansion, writing accuracy, and comprehension of complex subject matter. this aligns with prior research suggesting that ai-assisted learning environments can provide immediate feedback, scaffold language learning, and reduce cognitive load, allowing learners to focus more effectively on content understanding (e.g., ng et al., 2023; moorhouse & wong, 2025). in the present study, participants highlighted the value of ai tools in bridging the gap between their existing english proficiency and the linguistic demands of english-only instruction. for example, aipowered grammar checkers and writing assistants were frequently cited as instrumental in producing academically appropriate texts. meanwhile, ai chatbots and translation features helped clarify discipline-specific terminology and concepts. the findings also revealed that students perceived these tools as confidence-building resources, enabling them to participate more actively in academic discussions and written assignments. moreover, the results indicate that participants have become adept at using ai and genai tools to engage in personalized, or so-called adaptive, learning, an approach supported by numerous studies (campbell & cox, 2024; shalevska, 2024; torun & sanal, 2025; wei, 2023). the notable improvement in students’ knowledge after using tools such as chatgpt and grammarly highlights their potential to foster independent learning. further, it fosters autonomous learning, a vital skill in higher education. however, the results also suggest that while ai tools are embraced for content creation and skills development, their adoption is differentiated by type and complexity. the study also revealed that students perceive ai tools as valuable for boosting cognitive skills. quantitative data showed that the top-rated benefit was improved analytical skills, followed closely by better problem-solving strategies and the ability to combine information from different sources. improvements in critical thinking were also recognized, though to a lesser extent, while focus and concentration received the lowest ratings, indicating a more variable impact in this area. these findings align with xu’s (2024) study, which showed that ai can significantly enhance cognitive skills like critical thinking and problem-solving. qualitative feedback reinforced these findings. students explained how ai tools, especially chatgpt, helped them organize ideas from start to finish, approach problems systematically, think more creatively, and improve the clarity of their writing through realtime feedback. many also noted that ai made learning materials more accessible and easier to understand. overall, these linguistic and cognitive outcomes suggest that ai tools serve as a dual scaffold in emi settings. as students develop more precise vocabulary, grammar, and comprehension with ai support, they can shift cognitive resources toward higher-level tasks such as analysis, synthesis, and problem-solving. this interaction indicates that linguistic improvements may enable more advanced cognitive engagement in english-only courses. at the same time, the results emphasize the importance of preventing overreliance. incorporating ai-literacy activities, such as evaluating ai-generated outputs or keeping brief reflective logs, can help students use ai more strategically while preserving opportunities for independent thinking. several participants reported decreased motivation to think independently, reduced autonomy in problem-solving, and a weaker ability to express ideas without ai assistance. this finding echoes gerlich’s (2024) study, which showed that greater use or dependence on ai tools is associated with reduced or declining critical thinking skills. these concerns align with ongoing debates about balancing ai support with the development of independent cognitive and language skills. a key contribution of this study is examining how background factors (gender, nationality, academic major, and year of study) influence students’ adoption and perceptions of ai tools. regarding gender, although overall attitudes toward ai were similar, female students were more likely to view ai as helpful for integrative thinking and higher-level cognitive skills. this finding contrasts issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 172 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 164-176 tien, c. y., & haji-othman, n. a. (exploring ai-mediated linguistic and cognitive support for non-native…..) with studies like tang et al. (2025) and hillman (2025), which reported stronger ai engagement among male students. these differences may stem from contextual factors such as cultural background, academic environment, or disciplinary expectations. there were no significant differences between international and local students or across academic majors, indicating that these groups generally shared similar views on ai’s linguistic and cognitive benefits. however, the year of study showed notable variation; upper-year students reported higher engagement and greater cognitive improvements from using ai. this pattern suggests that academic maturity and familiarity with ai may influence how students integrate these tools into their learning. these results highlight the need to customize ai-supported learning activities to match students’ developmental levels and academic needs. 3.3. limitations this study has several limitations. first, convenience sampling from two classes at a private university in southern taiwan restricts how broadly the findings can be applied. second, although quantitative data were complemented with open-ended responses, the absence of interviews prevented a deeper exploration of student perspectives. future research should incorporate focus groups and additional data sources, such as behavioral traces or performance measures, and explore different disciplines to see if gender and year-of-study effects remain. the findings also highlight the importance of pedagogical strategies that use ai as a scaffold to support independent learning and critical thinking. training students to use ai strategically rather than routinely will help maximize its benefits and reduce overdependence. 4. conclusion this study examined how non-native english-speaking students manage the linguistic demands of english-only content courses with minimal language support. the results show that ai tools, especially chatgpt and grammarly, significantly assisted students with their language skills and thinking processes, enhancing grammar, vocabulary, and analytical abilities, though concerns about reliance persisted. perceptions were generally positive across various groups, with some differences based on academic year. more research in broader settings is needed to understand how nnes students use ai and the challenges they face. the study highlights the need for clear institutional guidelines to encourage responsible and strategic use of ai in higher education. as ai becomes more integrated into learning environments, universities should promote practices that improve teaching, learning efficiency, and student engagement. overall, this research provides empirical evidence from a non-native english-speaking context, demonstrating ai’s potential to support language and cognitive development while emphasizing the importance of guiding learners to use ai thoughtfully and independently. acknowledgment the researcher gratefully acknowledges the participation and valuable contributions of all the students who took part in this study. their time, insights, and willingness to share their experiences made this research possible. declarations author contribution : the research was collaboratively undertaken by both authors, encompassing topic selection, proposal development, methodological application, data analysis, and the preparation of the discussion section. funding statement : no funding is available for this research. conflict of interest : i declare that there are no competing interests. 173 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 3, december 2025, pp. 164-176 tien, c. y., & haji-othman, n. a. 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(2025). exploring chatgpt-facilitated scaffolding in undergraduates' mathematical problem solving. journal of computer assisted learning, 41(4), e70077. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.70077 https://doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2024.2362326 https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-04787-y https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12874 https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-024-00330-4 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-019-0171-0 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.70077 1. introduction 2. method 2.1. participants 2.2. data collection technique 2.3. data analysis 3. finding and discussion 3.1 findings 1) gender 2) international vs. local students 3) academic major 4) year-of-study 3.2. discussion 3.3. limitations 4. conclusion acknowledgment english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11570 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id the impact of blended-esp instructional model on fostering english proficiency among students majoring in traditional chinese medicine ruirui yu a,1,*, wilawan champakaew b,2 a, b school of liberal arts, mae fah luang university, 333 moo 1 thasud, muang, chiang rai, 57100, thailand 1 454293766@qq.com *; 2 wilawan.cha@mfu.ac.th * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 16 june 2024 revised 12 august 2024 accepted 15 august 2024 english proficiency is essential for traditional chinese medicine (tcm) majors to maintain strong connections with the international academic community and promote global academic interaction. however, the english instruction effect was not optimal due to large class sizes, limited class time and learning resources, less interaction, or outdated teaching and evaluation methods (wang, 2016; ren, 2017; chen & liang, 2020; liu, 2022). this study aimed to investigate the impact of the blended-esp instructional model (beim) on fostering students’ english proficiency as well as explore their attitudes and perspectives on the implementation of beim. the participants were 73 second-year tcm majors enrolled in the tcm english course at a tcm university in china. the instruments were preand post-tests, a questionnaire, and an interview. the data was analyzed using mean, standard deviation, paired t-test, segmented analysis, and thematic analysis. the results demonstrated the effectiveness of beim on fostering students’ english proficiency for the significant differences between the scores before and after implementing beim at 0.000 (p = 0.000). the results of the questionnaire and interview also revealed students’ positive attitudes and perspectives on beim. students’ selfdisciplinary, english proficiency, and national culture awareness and confidence should be highlighted when conducting blended-esp instruction. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords blended instruction english for specific purposes traditional chinese medicine english english proficiency tcm culture confidence how to cite: yu, r., & champakaew, w. (2024). the impact of blended-esp instructional model on fostering english proficiency among students majoring in traditional chinese medicine. english language teaching educational journal, 7(2), 109-123. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11570 1. introduction traditional chinese medicine (tcm), as an original medical science of the chinese nation, is a summary of the health and wellness concepts and medical practice of the chinese nation for thousands of years (chan, 2016; liu et al., 2021). it is gradually known for its efficacy in disease treatment, health maintenance, and its concept of health prevention as it enters the global stage. traditional chinese medical culture also has been a prominent element of chinese culture and its national soft power (zhang & zhang, 2018; kadetz & stanley-baker, 2021). english proficiency plays a crucial role in facilitating worldwide academic interaction (lin & lei, 2021; soruç et al., 2021), and it is equally necessary for students majoring in tcm to establish and maintain strong connections with the international academic community. many research achievements in the field of tcm also call for publishing in english-language international publications or academic exchange and collaboration https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11570 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:454293766@qq.com mailto:wilawan.cha@mfu.ac.th http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11570 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8852-3097 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5693-8039 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11570&domain=pdf 110 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 yu, r., & champakaew, w. (the impact of blended-esp instructional model…..) with international scholars. as a result, attaining a certain level of english proficiency is crucial for tcm students and practitioners so that they are able to read and understand english literature, research reports, and translate professional tcm knowledge into english for sharing and dissemination with international peers. furthermore, as research on chinese medicine occupies a prominent global position, international academic exchanges and cooperation play a crucial role in enhancing the international influence and advancement of traditional chinese medicine. proficiency in english is quite essential for tcm students and practitioners to actively engage in academic exchanges with overseas peers, fully participate in international conferences, and effectively collaborate on research projects. in short, tcm students and practitioners need to have adequate english proficiency to meet their professional needs. colleges and universities have long recognized the importance of foreign language capacity, particularly english language proficiency, in order to cultivate globally competitive professionals (cai, 2004; shen, 2010; shen, 2015; shen, 2019). english proficiency is necessary for medical students to consult the latest medical literature, publish international papers, attend international medical conferences, and exchange ideas with international peers (zhang et al., 2020). medical students lacking the capacity to comprehend and acquire knowledge from english literature and academic publications could be unable to track international progress and update their knowledge at any time. the majority of medical students would pursue clinical or scientific research work after graduation, which suggests that apart from their demanding job, they also need to consistently stay updated with the latest developments in the medical domain both domestically and internationally to enhance their professional expertise. research on tcm english is also important for fostering the internationalization of tcm as well as inheriting and promoting its culture. in recent years, research on tcm english has achieved fruitful results, including the creation of new words, standardization of terminology, and text interpretation; promoting the standardized development of tcm internationally; providing better technical support for the global dissemination of tcm; emphasizing the transmission of the unique value and concept of tcm; fostering the exchange of chinese and western medicine; and promoting the diversity of global medical culture (pan et al., 2021). tcm english learning facilitates students’ english proficiency in some tcm fundamental concepts, including but not limited to yin-yang theory, five elements theory, meridian theory, and tcm therapeutic principles. however, the conventional tcm english instruction paradigm consists of teachers, textbooks, simple multimedia, and students. the teacher’s explanations in the class, together with the students’ attentive listening and memorization, establish the basis of the classroom setting. teachers pass knowledge on to students by utilizing various instructional tools such as chalk, writing on blackboards, powerpoint presentations, and a variety of simple multimedia resources. mostly, students passively receive and internalize the knowledge passed on by their lecturers; they lack interest or motivation in learning (wu, 2015; liu, 2022). since the teaching content is based on the university’s compulsory unified textbooks, tcm vocabulary explanations, language points, and content analysis are the main components of conventional teaching contents. the final exam incorporates content from the textbook and closely aligns with the lessons learned in class. there is limited time for teachers to expand on further language points or organize group discussions in the classroom due to the necessity of completing instructional tasks and test preparation. the absence of substantive classroom discussions impedes students’ capacity to develop their problem-solving and creative thinking abilities. the study findings of wang (2016), ren (2017), and chen & liang (2020) support this claim. furthermore, some teachers, influenced by their years of teaching experience, continue to use the outdated teaching concepts and approaches. the implementation of the internet to assist teaching seems superficial. finally, conventional tcm course evaluations mostly concentrate on exam scores and classroom performance, which means that online instruction receives little attention and “smart classroom” equipment becomes a decoration rather than a useful instruction tool. this teaching mode creates a dull classroom environment, has low teaching effectiveness, and maintains less active interaction between teachers and students. as esp in china enters its third stage of development, characterized by deep integration with modern educational technology (hu, 2019), tcm english instruction using basic multimedia tools is no longer sufficient to meet the diverse and mobile characteristics of today’s young students on digital campuses. as the number of “smart classrooms” increases on campuses, instructors need to update their teaching methods and effectively utilize information technology to issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 111 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 yu, r., & champakaew, w. (the impact of blended-esp instructional model…..) implement blended instruction models. they should also encourage students to utilize their mobile phones to enhance their learning (liu, 2022). previous studies on tcm english mostly concentrated on the curriculum design of tcm english (ren, 2017; zhang et al., 2020), the compilation of international tcm english textbooks (li & zhang, 2013), the international dissemination of tcm culture (hou & lyv, 2021), the development of tcm cultural soft power (zhang & zhang, 2018; kadetz & stanley-baker, 2021), the construction of tcm translating theory systems (si, 2019), the training of tcm translators or interpreters (chan, 2016), and the cultivation of tcm english teacher teams (wu, 2015). however, there was relatively limited research on the tcm english instructional models, particularly regarding the correlation between the blended tcm english instructional model and the enhancement of students’ english proficiency. to cultivate more competitive international professionals in tcm and foster international exchanges in its practice and culture, further research is required in the domain of blended tcm english instructional models to improve students’ english proficiency in the tcm field. therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the impact of a blended-esp instructional model on fostering english proficiency among students majoring in tcm as well as explore their attitudes and perspectives on the implementation of beim. this study consisted of two research questions. 1. can the blended-esp instructional model (beim) foster university students’ english language proficiency? 2. what are students’ attitudes and perspectives on the implementation of the blended-esp instructional model (beim)? 2. method the current study aimed to examine the impact of beim on fostering english proficiency among students majoring in tcm as well as explore their attitudes and perspectives on the implementation of beim. the study was carried out from february 2024 to may 2024 after being approved by the mae fah luang university ethics committee on human research (no. ec24017-10). this study employed a mixed-methods experimental design, utilizing a pre-test, a post-test, and an attitude questionnaire for quantitative data collection, alongside a semi-structured interview to obtain qualitative data. 2.1. participants purposive sampling was utilized to recruit the participants. the study population was second-year undergraduate students majoring in tcm at guizhou university of traditional chinese medicine, china. the participants were 73 second-year undergraduate tcm majors who enrolled in the “traditional chinese medicine english” course in the second semester of the academic year 2023. all 73 students were selected as participants because they had completed the “college english 1” and “college english 2” courses during their first year’s study, while they had never enrolled in the tcm english courses. all of them exhibited the same levels of english proficiency in the field of tcm, and voluntarily participated in the study. 2.2. research framework the blended-esp instructional model (beim) adopted in this study was based on three previous instructional models: the production-oriented approach (poa) (wen, 2015), esp teaching mode construction based on the poa (zhang, 2019), and the“four-dimension”online teaching of english for tcm in the covid-19 pandemic (chen & liang, 2020). the beim consisted of eight main components: instruction concept, instruction hypothesis, instruction technology, instruction procedure, face-to-face instruction mode, online learning mode, self-regulated learning mode, and multi-dimensional evaluation. it included three instructional steps: (1) pre-instruction, (2) whileinstruction, and (3) post-instruction. 112 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 yu, r., & champakaew, w. (the impact of blended-esp instructional model…..) fig. 1. the blended-esp instructional model (beim) in the study 1) pre-instruction in terms of the instruction concept, beim adopted the learning-centered, needs-based, and language and content integrated concepts. the “learning-centered” concept, derived from the production-oriented approach (poa) (wen, 2015), advocated that all classroom teaching activities should serve the occurrence of effective learning. the “needs-based” and “language and content integrated” concepts were based on the prominent characteristics of esp courses. the “needs-based” concept emphasized that the tcm english course should be based on students’ professional learning needs and future employment needs. the difference between the tcm english course and the general english course was that the former needed to consider both the english language proficiency and tcm content expression at the same time, which corresponded to the concept of “language and content integrated”. there were two instruction hypotheses in beim. the first one was that effective learning can happen synchronously and asynchronously by combining the benefits of physical classroom instruction and online instruction (hu & yang, 2018); the second one was that information and communications technology (ict) can facilitate instruction by removing the barriers of space and time. the tcm english course was delivered using the superstar learning platform, which could integrate mobile teaching, mobile learning, mobile reading, and mobile social networking. the efficacy of the superstar learning platform has been substantiated by several researchers in promoting its teaching effects, especially in promoting comprehensive understanding of medical english and tcm english (chen & liang, 2020; su et al., 2021). the juku correction website (www.pigai.org) was selected as the main technology application in the preand post-tests. it was an intelligent online grading platform for correcting english writings that built an english writing database and was launched in 2010 in china. the grading website, a cloud-based online service, has demonstrated http://www.pigai.org/ issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 113 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 yu, r., & champakaew, w. (the impact of blended-esp instructional model…..) accuracy and effectiveness in automatically grading english essays. the tcm english course, by implementing beim, mainly consisted of three instructional procedures. first of all, students were required to preview lessons before class online. secondly, students were encouraged to actively engage in the interaction in the classroom and online simultaneously. thirdly, students were encouraged to review lessons and finish assignments after class online. 2) while-instruction the instruction modes included face-to-face instruction mode, online learning mode, and selfregulated learning mode. face-to-face classroom instruction constituted 60%, online learning comprised 30%, and self-regulated learning represented 10%. the face-to-face instruction mode pertained to face-to-face instruction in the physical classroom setting. the online learning mode primarily utilized the superstar learning system as the platform and the juku correction website as the supplementary technological application. the self-regulated learning mode encompassed students’ online self-monitoring and self-management of their learning processes. 3) post-instruction the multi-dimensional evaluation, consisting of language outcome, skill outcome, and emotional outcome, was used to assess the effectiveness of beim. the language outcome referred to the students’ english language proficiency in tcm, the skill outcome pertained to the students’ selfregulated learning ability, and the emotional outcome was to investigate the students’ tcm cultural confidence. 2.3. research instruments the instruments employed in this study comprised a writing pre-test, a writing post-test, an attitude questionnaire, and a semi-structured interview. the two tests were employed to evaluate the students’ writing proficiency in describing or introducing traditional chinese medicine in english. the pre-test and post-test consisted of 4 writing tasks, each worth 25 points, resulting in a total of 100 points. the students’ writing tasks should consist of a minimum of 120 words and a maximum of 180 words, adhering to the writing rubrics of the college english test band 4 (cet 4) in china. the attitude questionnaire utilized the five-point likert scale, with 5 representing “strongly agree”, 4 representing “agree”, 3 representing “neither agree nor disagree”, 2 representing “disagree” and 1 representing “strongly disagree” to assess students’ attitudes towards implementing beim. the questionnaire consisted of two sections: the first section gathered the participants’ personal information, while the second section focused on the participants’ perspectives regarding the implementation of beim. the semi-structured interview aimed to gather students’ in-depth perspectives on beim. the interview consisted of eight questions and was conducted face-to-face. 2.4. data collection procedures the beim was implemented into the tcm english course for a duration of ten weeks. lessons delivered in the face-to-face classroom setting made up 60% (2 hours), while online learning comprised 30% (1 hour), and learning through self-regulation made up 10% (20 minutes). on the first day of the course, the instructor introduced the course, the beim, learning content, instruction process, proportion of each mode, course requirements, and evaluation system to the students. after the introduction, the students completed the writing pre-test. the students’ pre-test scores were initially assessed automatically by the juku correction website. subsequently, three english teachers meticulously reviewed the scores based on the grading rubrics that encompassed criteria covering content, vocabulary, grammar, organization, and mechanics. for the face-to-face classroom instruction, the instructor used the “traditional chinese medicine english” textbook edited by zhaoguo li and qingrong zhang (li & zhang, 2013), published by shanghai science and technology press. there were a total of eight learning lessons, and one unit was covered for one week. the eight units were: lesson 1 traditional chinese medicine: history and development lesson 2 the basic characteristics of tcm theoretical system lesson 3 the theory of yin and yang lesson 4 the theory of five elements lesson 5 the five zang-organs and six fu-organs 114 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 yu, r., & champakaew, w. (the impact of blended-esp instructional model…..) lesson 6 qi, blood, and body fluid lesson 7 the four diagnostic methods lesson 8 acupuncture and moxibustion in terms of online learning, the course “an introduction to chinese medicine” from guangzhou university of chinese medicine was chosen as supplemental online learning resources. this course focused on using the fundamental theories of tcm to teach the english expressions related to its core concepts, knowledge, and cultural ideas. there was a total of eight learning units, each of which covered knowledge about tcm and various aspects of tcm culture. the students accessed the learning link on the superstar learning platform issued by the instructor, and they accomplished assignments after learning by utilizing their mobile phones or laptops. as for self-regulated learning, students were required to complete assignments such as preview and review lessons, finish learning tasks, activities, and discussions, and propose questions after class on the superstar learning platform. the platform kept records of students’ learning, and the instructor also checked their learning progress frequently. in the last class of the ten weeks’ instruction, students were required to participate in the writing post-test to assess their english proficiency after implementing beim. the students’ post-test scores were evaluated and verified as the same as the pre-test. subsequently, the questionnaire was conducted on the questionnaire star platform (www.wjx.cn) to examine the students’ perspectives on the implementation of beim. finally, the semi-structured interview was carried out to collect students’ in-depth views. the interview was conducted in a person-to-person manner. 2.5. data analysis the descriptive statistics were utilized to analyze the collected quantitative data, and the thematic analysis approach was employed to analyze the gathered qualitative data in this study. the students’ preand post-tests scores were analyzed by using mean, standard deviation, paired t-test, and segmented analysis. if the mean value of the post-test was higher than that of the pretest, it signified that beim had the potential to enhance students’ english proficiency. when the mean value of the post-test was roughly equal to that of the pre-test, no significant improvement was observed. a lower mean post-test value than the pre-test suggested that beim did not improve students’ english proficiency. the data obtained from the questionnaire was analyzed using the statistical measures of mean and standard deviation. the data collected from the participants’ interview responses was analyzed by thematic analysis. five themes emerged from the interview regarding students’ perspectives on the preference model, strengths and weaknesses of the beim, perceived improvement, application of technology, and tcm cultural confidence, based on the percentage derived from the frequencies of the tokens in the interviewees’ responses. 3. findings and discussion 3.1. the effectiveness of beim on fostering students’ english proficiency table 1. comparison between students’ pre-test and post-test scores paired differences t df sig. (2-tailed) mean std. deviation std. error mean 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper pair 1 pre-score post-score -23.7808 12.8087 1.4991 -26.7693 -20.7923 -15.863 72 .000 note: p< 0.05 according to the data in table 1, the paired sample t-test indicated that the p-value for the significance of the variable pre-score paired post-score was 0.000 (p = 0.000). therefore, there was a significant difference between the score before the test and the score after the test, clearly demonstrating the important influence of beim on improving students’ english proficiency. based on the writing tasks on the juku correction website, it was found that the majority of students struggled to use the correct vocabulary to express tcm knowledge, and only a small number of students were issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 115 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 yu, r., & champakaew, w. (the impact of blended-esp instructional model…..) able to score above 80 points in the pre-test, primarily because they relied on advanced common vocabulary, complex sentence structures, and accurate english grammar instead of using accurate and appropriate tcm terms. however, the students’ writings in the post-test demonstrated that the majority of them were able to effectively utilize tcm terminology in their writing tasks. table 2. segmented analysis for students’ pre-test and post-test scores pre-test post-test frequency (number of students) cumulative percent frequency (number of students) cumulative percent valid 0-60 (unqualified) 34 46.6 60-80 (average) 37 50.7 12 16.4 80-100 (excellent) 2 2.7 61 83.6 total 73 note: n=73 the segmented analysis was utilized to classify students’ scores into three distinct categories: unqualified for scores between 0 and 60, average for scores between 60 and 80, and excellent for scores between 80 and 100. according to table 2, the pre-test results showed that 46.6% of the students received scores that were either unqualified or below average. only 2.7% of the students achieved scores that were classified as excellent. nevertheless, in the post-test, a significant proportion of students, specifically 83.6%, achieved a level of excellence, while no students fell into the unqualified or below average category. the segmented analysis revealed that the implementation of beim had positive impacts on enhancing students’ english proficiency. this conclusion was supported by the fact that most students’ scores in the pre-test were either unqualified or below average, whereas the majority of students achieved excellent scores after the implementation of beim. this finding aligned with previous research indicating that esp instructors could employ appropriate online platforms to mitigate the challenges posed by substantial workloads in both language and content instruction, thereby ensuring students’ learning outcomes through the utilization of these platforms (alvarez, 2020; zou et al., 2021; yi & bin baki, 2022). 3.2. students’ attitudes towards beim the attitude questionnaire included two sections. the first section examined students’ final examination scores for the tcm english course. the second section consisted of 10 questions on students’ perceptions of beim implemented in the course. fig. 2. results of students’ final exam for the tcm english course 116 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 yu, r., & champakaew, w. (the impact of blended-esp instructional model…..) according to the data obtained from the first section of the questionnaire (fig. 2), most of the students achieved a score of 80+ points (61.64%), followed by a score of 90+ points (24.66%) in their final exams. only a small proportion of the students (9.59%) obtained 70+ points, while 4.11% selected 60+ points for their final exam scores. no one chose to obtain a score below 60+ points. in conclusion, the majority of students in this course achieved satisfactory final exam grades, with a total score concentrated between 80 and 90 points, which was the largest proportion. table 3. results of students’ attitude questionnaire (second section) questions mean std. deviation interpretation ① you are satisfied with the blended-esp instructional model in terms of improving your tcm english learning. 4.21 .706 positive ② the blended-esp instructional model can foster your english language proficiency. 3.93 .733 positive ③ the blended-esp instructional model can enhance your motivation to learn tcm english. 4.10 .767 positive ④ the blended-esp instructional model can increase communication between the teacher and students both online and in face-to-face classroom. 4.01 .736 positive ⑤ the lesson plans, relevant contents, learning activities and assignments are appropriate. 4.11 .737 positive ⑥ the usage of technology by the instructor is acceptable and efficient. 4.10 .748 positive ⑦ the proportion between face-to-face classroom instruction and online learning designed by the instructor is appropriate. 4.00 .764 positive ⑧ blended learning provides you more opportunities to review tcm english learning materials. 4.19 .720 positive ⑨ your self-regulated learning can be stimulated through practicing the blended-esp instructional model for tcm english course. 4.03 .687 positive ⑩ your cultural confidence towards tcm can be boosted through practicing the blended-esp instructional model for tcm english course. 4.16 .707 positive the five-point likert scale (5 = “strongly agree”, 4 = “agree”, 3 = “neither agree nor disagree”, 2 = “disagree”, and 1 = “strongly disagree”) was employed for the 10 questions to measure students’ perceptions towards the beim implemented in the course. the likert scale mean score was interpreted as follows: 1.0-2.4 = negative attitude, 2.5-3.4 = neutral attitude, and 3.5-5.0 = positive attitude. table 3 indicated that the 73 students showed positive perceptions towards the 10 questions, with mean values of 4.21, 3.93, 4.10, 4.01, 4.11, 4.10, 4.00, 4.19, 4.03, and 4.16, respectively. among the 10 questions, the mean value for question 1 was 4.21, ranking the highest, revealing that students hold positive and satisfied attitudes toward implementing beim to improve their tcm english learning. this finding was consistent with previous studies, which suggested that blended instructional models, which combined the strengths of both offline and online instruction, could benefit students more in their english learning than traditional classroom teaching or solely online instruction. (yang et al., 2017; cai, 2019; asaad hamza sheerah, 2020; jiang et al., 2021; wu, 2023). 3.3. students’ perspectives on the implementation of beim fifteen students were invited to participate in the semi-structured interview based on their voluntary participation. the eight interview questions were designed to explore the students’ in-depth perspectives on the beim implemented for the tcm english course. the overall findings from the semi-structured interviews indicated that students held positive views regarding the implementation of beim for the tcm english course. the findings were categorized into 5 themes that arose from the interviews on the students’ perspectives on the preference model, strengths and weaknesses of beim, perceived improvement, application of technology, and tcm cultural confidence. table 4 presented a comprehensive overview of the students’ overall perspectives regarding the implementation of beim. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 117 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 yu, r., & champakaew, w. (the impact of blended-esp instructional model…..) table 4. students’ overall perspectives on the implementation of beim no. theme students’ perspectives ① preference model the blended-esp instructional model ② strengths and weaknesses of beim strengths: rich online resources; strong flexibility; personalized learning; interesting learning experiences; convenient online preview and review weaknesses: students with poor self-discipline might not complete learning assignments on time. ③ perceived improvement tcm english terms and expressions; tcm english proficiency; tcm cultural confidence; self-regulated learning ability ④ application of technology students embraced the application of the superstar learning platform and juku correction website in their tcm english learning. ⑤ tcm cultural confidence students’ cultural confidence towards tcm was greatly enhanced. 1) students’ perspectives on the preference model the fifteen participants unanimously endorsed beim, expressing a strong preference for it. they stated that this model significantly enhanced their tcm english learning by integrating the advantages of both offline and online teaching and learning. some of the students’ responses were listed below to shed light on their statements. “i prefer blended learning. firstly, it can make learning more efficient and save time. some assignments and tasks can be completed after class without taking up classroom time, allowing time to be fully used. secondly, a single learning mode can easily lead me into a dull and routine learning state.” (student id:42) “i think the blended instruction is very good. the classic works of tcm and the english tcm materials available online have expanded my knowledge, enhanced my vocabulary, and aligned my studies more closely with my major. the second is the combination of online and offline modes, which not only improves face-to-face communication, but also makes it convenient to collect and sort out extensive information on the internet.” (student id: 51) “i prefer the blended model. the combination of online and offline can complement each other. if i cannot keep up with the teacher, i can still take the time to review the knowledge learned online. and online learning can be done anytime, anywhere.” (student id: 63) based on the students’ responses, they expressed a preference for beim over the solely physical classroom model or online model. this finding was in line with the findings of the attitude questionnaire, indicating that students held positive attitudes towards beim. the benefits of a blended model were stated to encompass diversity in learning styles, efficient and interesting learning experiences, saving classroom time, optimal utilization of online learning resources, and convenient online preview and review (wang, 2023). blended instruction offered a significant advancement in terms of increasing the availability of teaching and learning time and space, when compared to traditional face-to-face classroom teaching (cai, 2019; yang et al., 2017). 2) students’ perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of beim in terms of the strengths of beim, many students reported that the blended instruction helped them utilize online resources to enhance their learning. it also offered outstanding flexibility, allowing them to arrange their learning content based on their own learning pace and needs. the flexibility in space and time and diversity in learning styles helped develop their self-directed learning ability, which was significant for lifelong learning. this research finding was in line with chen and san’s study, which indicated that students could develop their self-directed learning through a highly contemporary, personalized, and sustainable self-directed learning habit by utilizing the benefits of online learning platforms (chen & shan, 2021). “the advantage is that beim can better meet our learning needs. it can help us not only learn new knowledge but also save more time.” (student id:10) 118 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 yu, r., & champakaew, w. (the impact of blended-esp instructional model…..) “i think the strengths of beim are flexibility and diversity, which can make full use of online resources to enrich the learning content.” (student id: 38) “the beim has increased the happy learning atmosphere in the classroom, and happy learning can better improve our learning effectiveness, better understand the learning content, and improve learning efficiency.” (student id: 51) “the beim allows me to engage in self-directed learning by watching online learning videos and completing preview tasks before class, while classroom time is used for discussion, deepening understanding, and applying knowledge. blended learning has strong flexibility, and we can arrange learning according to our own situation.” (student id: 60) however, students also reported the weaknesses of beim from their own perspectives. the most prominent feedback from the students was that they occasionally struggled with self-discipline while conducting online learning or self-regulated learning, resulting in incomplete or superficial completion of learning assignments, and limited english improvement. for example, student id 10 stated that “for me, the drawbacks outweigh the benefits of using online learning activities to improve my english proficiency. online learning means i have to resist the temptation of mobile entertainment information, but my self-control ability is relatively limited. so, the online learning activities are not very attractive for me, and my english promotion is very limited.” they also reported that sometimes the tcm vocabulary was challenging, they could not hold their concentration. occasionally, the instructor could not timely monitor whether they were indeed studying seriously online. “the weaknesses are that it requires high self-discipline. sometimes i am not so self-disciplined, then i am unable to finish online tasks on time.” (student id: 38) “the teacher cannot timely supervise whether we are really studying seriously online. some of the tcm vocabulary is so difficult that i sometimes lose concentration.” (student id: 51) this study found that students’ online learning or self-regulated learning required them to be highly self-disciplined; otherwise, they might be unable to achieve the instructor’s expected goals. according to students’ responses, if they had poor self-discipline or the instructor did not make online learning tasks as compulsory assignments, they might feel that doing online assignments was a waste of time and were not motivated to complete them. then, the instructor’s intended teaching and learning objectives might not be met. this finding was confirmed by some previous studies, which claimed that students’ ability to monitor, manage, and regulate their own learning was highlighted by educational psychology (cleary & platten, 2013; shekhar & devi, 2012). considering this, instructors who conduct blended instruction should care about students’ performance online, set regulations for students to be self-disciplined, and require them to finish tasks on time, no delays or plagiarism. 3) students’ perspectives on the perceived improvements regarding the perceived improvements, students’ feedback indicated that they acquired a number of tcm terms and expressions in english, enhanced their english proficiency to articulate tcm knowledge and culture, and developed a deeper comprehension of the philosophical chinese medical system through their participation in this course. “i used to understand tcm knowledge in chinese, but now i can use english to introduce it. this course introduced much tcm knowledge and culture; vocabulary in the medical field has also been added. after learning tcm english, i can better tell the stories of tcm to foreigners.” (student id: 63) “this course helped me master many tcm terms and expressions in english. it may help me to expand my international perspective as a healthcare professional in the future and enhance my cross-cultural communication skills.” (student id: 58) some of the students mentioned that tcm english learning would be very helpful for them to improve their scientific research ability and pursue a postgraduate study. this discovery was consistent with zhang’s research, which asserted that learning english for specific purposes was essential for the development of students’ scientific research abilities, and academic english was a core component of their postgraduate studies (zhang et al., 2020). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 119 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 yu, r., & champakaew, w. (the impact of blended-esp instructional model…..) “by studying this course, i improved my english proficiency to express tcm knowledge, gained a deeper understanding of the rich philosophical chinese medical system. i think it will be very helpful for me to develop my scientific research ability and continue a postgraduate education.” (student id: 60) online learning materials provided on the superstar learning platform could enhance students’ interest in learning tcm english and provide a more flexible and diverse learning experience. additionally, students could effectively utilize their fragmented time to learn via some online platforms, such as the superstar learning platform and the juku correction website. “it can improve my interest in learning english and through online learning resources, making learning more flexible and diverse. and this can also help me better use fragmented time to improve my tcm english proficiency.” (student id: 38) besides, students’ self-regulated learning ability has been improved by implementing beim. utilizing contemporary information technology to enable english teaching and learning to progress toward individualized and self-directed learning without being constrained by time or place, has been one of the teaching objectives clearly stated in the “college english curriculum teaching requirements” in china. facilitating students to acquire knowledge through self-regulated or selfdirected learning was essential for fostering their interest and motivation in learning, which was one of the indispensable conditions for fulfilling academic achievements (el-adl & alkharusi, 2020). “the learning materials, activities, or tasks on the superstar learning platform improved my selfregulated learning. i can choose the learning materials, pace, and difficulty level to suit my own needs and interests, and my english for tcm improved a lot.” (student id: 42) 4) students’ perspectives on the application of technology based on the students’ responses, it could be seen that they embraced the application of the superstar learning platform and juku correction website in their tcm english learning. with the assistance of these educational technology tools, students’ learning resources were expanded, personalized learning was guaranteed, students’ interest in learning and classroom participation were improved, and the interaction between the instructor and students was enhanced. “i think the superstar learning platform and the juku correction website changed the traditional teaching method, expanded our learning resources, improved our learning participation and effectiveness, and strengthened the interaction and flexibility.” (student id:10) “we can access richer learning resources from superstar learning provided by our teacher. i think technology made our classroom presentations more vivid, increased our enthusiasm for participating in classroom discussions, and enhanced interaction between the teacher and us after class.” (student id: 3) “the superstar learning platform provided abundant resources; we can learn according to our own pace and also communicate learning problems with our classmates or teachers at any time.” (student id: 39) by leveraging the benefits of modern network technology, a variety of online learning systems and platforms offered students increased access to learning resources. students could break through the limitations of english learning in class time and classroom space; they could choose learning resources that fit their own needs for learning and select learning content depending on their interests, needs, goals, and task requirements. this discovery was in line with wu’s study, which indicated that smart platforms were crucial for improving college students’ cognitive engagement in self-directed learning and their learning outcomes (wu, 2023). “i can revise my writing according to the comments and suggestions provided by the juku correction website after class. at the same time, it also helps to cultivate my ability to independently solve problems.” (student id: 63) 5) students’ perspectives on tcm culture confidence this study indicated that the study of tcm english had typically increased students’ confidence in chinese medicine culture. according to students’ responses, acquiring english proficiency through this course helped them express tcm knowledge and culture in english more accurately and confidently. this was very helpful for their future postgraduate studies, participation in international 120 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 yu, r., & champakaew, w. (the impact of blended-esp instructional model…..) medical conferences, or career development as physicians. this finding was consistent with zhang’s research, which believed that learning english in a specific field was not only essential for enhancing students’ scientific research capacity but also a key component in their postgraduate education, even career development (zhang et al., 2020). “learning this course helps me better express tcm knowledge and concepts in english, allowing me to introduce tcm culture more accurately and confidently. if more people can express tcm culture in english, it will enable foreigners to experience its charm. by taking this course, i can confidently demonstrate the unique value of tcm culture in communication with international peers. it also improves my confidence in tcm culture.” (student id: 3) “studying tcm english enhanced my english interpretation of tcm knowledge; it is helpful in promoting my further study and career development. it also boosted my confidence and pride in tcm culture.” (student id: 58) since tcm is an ancient medical science that encompasses the health and wellness principles and medical practices developed by the chinese nation over thousands of years, tcm culture has been a significant element of china’s rich traditional culture (hou & lyu, 2021). an essential element of cultivating excellent international professionals in the tcm field is to enhance students’ confidence in tcm culture. “by studying the tcm english course, i can learn to express basic tcm knowledge in english. our country now widely advocates and encourages the study and application of tcm. in foreign countries, tcm has received increasing attention too, and my cultural confidence in tcm has naturally developed.” (student id: 38) as a result, english instructors should understand that language education can facilitate the integration of both language and culture. when teaching a foreign language, instructors should help students build their own national cultural awareness and cultivate their confidence in their national culture as well. 4. conclusion in conclusion, the findings of this study confirmed some previous studies, indicating that students generally possessed positive attitudes towards the blended-esp instructional model, which effectively enhanced their english proficiency due to its advantages, including strong flexibility, abundant resources, personalized learning, convenient online review and preview, and effective teacher-student interactions. on modern campuses, english instructors are expected to leverage digital technology to develop innovative instructional models to enhance their pedagogy. meanwhile, blended instructional models also require students to possess a high level of self-discipline; otherwise, it may result in delays, plagiarism, or any other negative consequences. furthermore, the results suggested that students’ cultural confidence toward tcm was enhanced when they learned tcm english. therefore, students’ self-disciplinary, english proficiency, and national culture awareness and confidence should be highlighted when conducting a blended-esp instruction. however, there is still space for further and more research in this field. the primary focus of this study was to examine the impact of beim on fostering tcm students’ english proficiency by adopting writing preand post-tests, with a research duration of 10 weeks. english proficiency comprises not only writing skills but also numerous components such as reading, listening, speaking, and even translation skills. future studies can explore the impact of this model on students’ overall english proficiency from multiple perspectives. in addition, this study mainly utilized the superstar learning system as the main online platform for implementing the blended instruction, and the juku correction website as the solely intelligent correction system for grading the students’ english writing tests. for future study, the mixed use of multiple online platforms (such as unipus, rain classroom, dingtalk, tencent meeting, etc.) can be explored. meanwhile, more specialized intelligent writing correction platforms like itest or iwrite could be used to assess the precision in evaluating students’ written works in comparison to the juku correction website. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 121 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 109-123 yu, r., & champakaew, w. (the impact of blended-esp instructional model…..) acknowledgment the researchers would like to express sincere gratitude to all the participants, whose efforts and enthusiasm played a crucial role in this study. declarations author contribution : ruirui yu conducted the research, designed the instruments, gathered and analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. wilawan champakaew guided the research, examined and approved the manuscript. funding statement : the research is funded by the office of postgraduate studies, mae fah luang university, chiang rai, thailand conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references alvarez jr., a. v. (2020). learning from the problems and challenges in blended learning: basis for faculty development and program enhancement. asian journal of distance education, 15(2), 112-132. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1285361 asaad hamza sheerah, h. 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(2020). developing a curriculum model of english teaching for master’s degree nursing education in a chinese medicine university. international journal of nursing sciences, 7(1), 99–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnss.2019.12.001 zhang, j. (2019). research on teaching mode construction of esp course for textile engineering based on production-oriented approach. theory and practice in language studies, 9(8), 1055– 1064. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0908.26 zou, c., li, p., & jin, l. (2021). online college english education in wuhan against the covid-19 pandemic: student and teacher readiness, challenges and implications. plos one, 16(10), 124. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258137 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnss.2019.12.001 https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0908.26 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258137 1. introduction 2. method 2.1. participants 2.2. research framework 1) pre-instruction 2) while-instruction 3) post-instruction 2.3. research instruments 2.4. data collection procedures 2.5. data analysis 3. findings and discussion 3.1. the effectiveness of beim on fostering students’ english proficiency 3.2. students’ attitudes towards beim 3.3. students’ perspectives on the implementation of beim 1) students’ perspectives on the preference model 2) students’ perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of beim 3) students’ perspectives on the perceived improvements 4) students’ perspectives on the application of technology 5) students’ perspectives on tcm culture confidence 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 118-132 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14229 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id designing ai-integrated e-book for english for specific purposes (esp) in health science education surip haryani a,1,*, maulida rahmawati emha b,2 a, b universitas madani, jl. wonosari km.10 kr.gayam sitimulyo, piyungan, bantul, yogyakarta 55792, indonesia 1 yani@umad.ac.id *; 2 maulidaemha@umad.aci.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 15 june 2025 revised 17 july 2025 accepted 4 august 2025 this research formulates and tests an ai-integrated e-book to increase english for specific purposes (esp) learning by health science students in order to enhance speaking performance. conventional esp materials in health sciences are typically static and non-interactive, limiting opportunities for real-time communicative practice. using a research and development (r&d) design, the project followed four stages: (1) needs analysis involving students, lecturers, and curriculum stakeholders; (2) design and development of ai-integrated e-book; (3) implementation and testing with 58 students through preand posttests; and (4) evaluation and refinement after reflection questionnaires. fifty-eight health science students completed preand post-tests, measured for the fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and content/coherence. the findings revealed a strong demand for aiintegrated esp materials in need analyses, a notable enhancement in speaking ability (pre-test m = 11.71, post-test m = 19.22; p < .001), with improvements noted in all performance areas. feedback from reflections showed significant satisfaction, emphasizing advantages like accessibility, content relevance, and motivation, while students pointed out issues with internet stability and chatbot constraints. these results validate the benefits of ai integrated e-book into esp education and provide actionable insights for esp teachers, curriculum planners, and organizations aiming to integrate interactive ai resources in healthcare education teaching materials. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords ai-integrated e-book english for specific purposes health science education peaking performance interactive learning how to cite: haryani, s. & emha, m. r. (2025). designing ai-integrated e-book for english for specific purposes (esp) in health science education. english language teaching educational journal, 8(2), 118-132. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14229 1. introduction artificial intelligence (ai) and english for specific purposes (esp) education has been more imperative than ever in this digital age, spearheading the sustainable development goals (sdg 4: quality education) by creating inclusive, equitable, and innovative materials for learning. the speed and power of innovation in ai technologies like adaptive learning, nlp chatbots, and speech recognition bring unmatched promise to improve language learning experiences, especially in some fields like health sciences (haryani, 2025). against this context, the present study seeks to design and validate an ai-powered interactive e-book for health science students to deliver more adaptive, interactive, and efficient esp training. esp, as hutchinson (2017) suggest, is all about addressing specific learning needs of learners, and therefore is a good area to apply ai. existing literature suggests that esp learners possess positive https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14229 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:yani@umad.ac.id mailto:maulidaemha@umad.aci.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14229 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14229&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0009-0007-1038-2291 119 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 118-132 haryani, s. & emha, m. r.. (designing ai-integrated e-book for english for specific purposes…..) attitudes toward ai-based tools, and assign greater motivation for and efficiency in learning (abimanto & mahendro, 2023; zawacki-richter et al., 2019). for example, studies show that aibased adaptive learning systems are capable of adapting content presentation as per the level of learners' proficiency, thus creating increased interest (rong et al., 2021). besides, ai chatbots have been shown to enhance oral communication skills via real-time practice conversation (subiyantoro et al., 2023). however, with these encouraging accounts, deployment of ai for esp material production in medicine is still fairly limited, remaining susceptible to shortages in specialized resources and scope for maneuver in meeting individual learners' needs (chang et al., 2023). traditional esp learning methodologies, especially medicine english, have been considered very uninspiring, contextually incomplete, and unable to cater to the different learner profiles (tapalova & zhiyenbayeva, 2022). the deficits of traditional learning materials necessitate the development of new ones in place that can bridge the gap between theory and practice. interactive e-books supplemented with ai are an excellent option for multimedia embedding, real-time feedback, and dynamic adjustments based on learner progress (halkiopoulos & gkintoni, 2024). previous studies have indicated the possibilities of ai chatbots in language acquisition (hapsari & wu, 2022), but few have explored their application in medical esp. drawing on past research studies in 2023 and 2024, where the application of ai by indonesian esp lecturers was investigated (du & gao, 2022; chuang et al., 2022), the current study suggest a new hybrid of adaptive learning, nlp-driven chatbots, and speech recognition in an independent interactive e-book format. this mixture would increase students' mastery of medical english vocabulary and communication skills at high interest rates. in contrast to past research that mainly focused on static e-books or general ai tools, this study suggests a domain-specific ai-fortified learning tool measured by both quantitative and qualitative means (oktafiani et al., 2021). the originality of this study is in its focused optimization of ai for use in the generation of interactive health sciences e-books with the goal of bridging some content specialization and adaptive delivery gaps. the designed model not only promises to enhance language learning outcomes but also helps to revolutionize learners' experience with esp materials, making learning more context-specific, relevant, and engaging. recent research has shown that combining interactive e-books with higher-order thinking skills (hots) tasks can greatly improve learner involvement and mastery of content, especially in science disciplines (sianturi et al., 2021). intelligent assistants powered by ai for personalized and adaptive learning have demonstrated significant potential in customizing instruction to meet the specific needs of individual learners (sianturi et al., 2021; goel, 2020; adamu & awwalu, 2019). in the realm of esp, the integration of bilingual curricula and ai-fueled collaborative learning approaches has been noted to enhance both language proficiency and cooperation (asrifan et al., 2025). progress in generative ai has notably enhanced the creation of customized intelligent tutoring systems (maity & deroy, 2024), whereas the ai in education 5.0 framework provides a thorough model for adaptive learning settings (yamamoto et al., 2024). systematic reviews emphasize the efficacy of ai-driven adaptive e-learning in health education (fontaine et al., 2019; komolafe et al., 2025) and the promise of virtual patient simulation tools in medical (gellner et al., 2025). additionally, personalized learning methods (das, 2025), and advanced interactive multimedia systems for e-healthcare (yamamoto et al., 2024) offer chances for further improvement of ai-driven esp teaching resources. although many studies have investigated the role of artificial intelligence in education, some studies have approached it in a fragmented manner. for instance, prior works on ai chatbots emphasize their potential to reduce speaking anxiety and promote engagement (hapsari & wu, 2022), while others have demonstrated the value of adaptive learning systems in personalizing instruction (tapalova & zhiyenbayeva, 2022). nevertheless, these studies often focus on a single ai feature in isolation, such as chatbots or adaptive platforms, rather than integrating multiple ai capabilities into a cohesive learning resource. likewise, recent studies on esp e-learning materials highlight the effectiveness of interactive e-books (sianturi et al., 2021), though many do not include ai-based feedback or real-time engagement. an additional gap exists within the realm of health sciences esp. although ai's role in education has been extensively examined in general efl or higher education contexts (gutiérrez, 2023; wangdi, 2024), studies specifically focusing on english for health professionals are still limited. current esp research often emphasizes needs analysis or traditional materials (haryani, 2025; šokčević, 2024), yet issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 120 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 118-132 haryani, s. & emha, m. r.. (designing ai-integrated e-book for english for specific purposes…..) there is limited exploration of ai-augmented approaches that integrate domain-specific terminology, clinical communication tasks, and tailored practice. this research fills that void by developing and experimentally evaluating an ai-driven interactive e-book for esp in health sciences, combining adaptive learning, nlp-driven chatbots, and speech recognition into one platform. this approach not only confirms the efficacy of ai for esp education but also shows how these advancements can meet the requirements of stakeholders, such as students, curriculum designers, and esp instructors in this regard, this study responds to three research questions: 1. how can an interactive e-book using ai be designed and developed for health science esp students? 2. to what extent is the e-book effective in developing learners' professional english capabilities? 3. what are the problems and solutions involved in utilizing ai with health science esp content? 2. method 2.1. research design the research utilized a research and development (r&d) instructional technology approach to conceptualize and pilot test an ai-based interactive e-book for esp learning of health science students. the design commonly used in instructional technology to produce and validate learning innovations mentioned by gall & borg in farhana et al (2021) and sugiyono in buhari (2019). the process followed five main stages: (1) needs analysis, (2) design and development, (3) implementation and testing, and (4) evaluation and refinement, adapted from established r&d frameworks and recent applications in ai-enhanced esp learning (sianturi et al., 2021) 2.2. participants the respondents involved fifty-eight students studying in faculty of health science in universitas madani, who were purposively sampled based on prior experience in esp courses. the participants consisted of 58 health science students from universitas madani who were actively enrolled in english for specific purposes (esp) courses. they represented multiple study programs and academic levels: diploma in pharmacy (n = 12; semesters 2, 4, and 6), diploma in midwifery (n = 5; semester 6), bachelor of nursing (n = 35; semesters 2, 4, 6, and 8), and nursing profession program (n = 5; semester 2). this distribution ensured variation across both disciplinary backgrounds and levels of study, ranging from early to advanced semesters. such purposive sampling was considered appropriate because the selected students were those most directly exposed to esp instruction in their curriculum and thus were the most relevant population for testing the ai-integrated e-book since they were able to participate in the research after hospital practice session finished. thos who could not participate were mostly at the hospital for clinical practice. 2.3. sampling technique a purposive sampling method was used, concentrating on students who were currently enrolled in esp classes and had just finished their hospital practicum. this group was chosen due to their availability throughout the study period and because they represented the most pertinent population to offer insights on the incorporation of ai into healthcare esp education. students from the faculty of health sciences were not included as they were still completing their practicum placements until the end of august, which made their involvement unfeasible. the criteria for including students were: (1) being enrolled in one of the three health science programs (nursing, midwifery, pharmacy), (2) being available to take both the pre-test and post-test assessments, and (3) agreeing to provide informed consent. curriculum stakeholders and esp instructors were involved due to their positions in curriculum development and the implementation of esp programs. 2.4. the data collection instruments the data were collected through student needs analysis questionnaire, preand post-tests for learning outcome, and feedback questionnaire to obtain qualitative feedback on the application of the ai-integrated interactive e-book. (scores, descriptive statistics, inferential tests) and qualitative 121 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 118-132 haryani, s. & emha, m. r.. (designing ai-integrated e-book for english for specific purposes…..) insights (themes from reflections) to comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness and usability of the constructed learning object. the data were collected during the research during june – august 2025. 2.5. needs analysis the needs analysis stage collected data from curriculum stakeholders, esp lecturers, and health science students using questionnaires to identify learning problems, desired content, and potential ai features for esp (du & gao, 2022). the design and development phase adopted iterative prototyping, integrating adaptive learning, nlp-based medical chatbots, and speech recognition, which were reviewed by esp experts and instructional designers for content validity and usability (asrifan et al., 2025; maity & deroy, 2024). 2.6. design and development development was guided by an iterative prototyping methodology from initial content creation starting with needs analysis, through ai-function integration, and repeated usability testing iterations. expert evaluators—constituting esp lecturers, instructional designers, and healthcare professionals— tested the e-book for accuracy of content, language suitability, and usability. feedback at every level of testing was used to develop more accurate interface design, enhance ai response, and guarantee fluid interaction between students and the system the ai-enhanced e-book was tailored to address english for specific purposes (esp) health sciences students' learning requirements. the material was taken from a health-science-oriented esp course syllabus and supplemented with natural medical dialogues, words, and clinical situations to render it functional in real working settings. the end product, accessed via link http://bit.ly/pdf-apple, combines three principal ai-facilitated features: adaptive learning – the system dynamically adjusts the level of difficulty in content as per students' current performance so that higher and lower performing students both face challenges and support commensurate with their level. natural language processing (nlp) chatbot – students can practice real-time, ai-supported medical communication in english, including simulation of patient encounter, case presentation, and healthcare consultation. speech recognition – this functionality gives real-time pronunciation feedback, allowing students to practice their medical english speech skills with clinical vocabulary and role-playing simulations. dual ai interaction modes chat session: students can type questions or prompts related to the e-book content in a real-time chat box. this feature supports open-ended discussions, especially for writing practice, vocabulary clarification, and grammar checking. voice chat session: students can converse naturally with ai using either indonesian or english. when used in english, ai responds in a native-speaker accent, serving as a speaking partner for pronunciation modeling. ai also provides corrective feedback when students’ pronunciation is inaccurate, making it a valuable tool for oral fluency and confidence building. the design process took an iterative prototype process, starting with needs analysis, esp content writing, addition of ai capabilities, and cycles of subject matter expert testing. reviewers from esp lecturers, health science faculty members, and instruction designers examined the e-book in content accuracy, language appropriateness, technical ease of use, and ai response. interface redesigning, ai functionalities, and learning support tool enhancements were informed at each iteration, with the ultimate output optimized for esp instruction in health sciences. 2.7. implementation and testing the execution stage commenced with giving a pre-test to identify baseline esp ability of students in health science settings. after the test, students received a guided tutorial session during which the researchers showed them how to use the ai-enhanced e-book. the briefing consisted of an e-book setup introduction, description of each element, and a live simulation of learning using ai through a model unit of the e-book. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 122 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 118-132 haryani, s. & emha, m. r.. (designing ai-integrated e-book for english for specific purposes…..) through simulation, the students and researchers replicated using ai functionalities—chat session for text chat and voice chat session for voice practice—according to the materials presented for learning. students demonstrated how ai is utilized to review material, rehearse pronunciation, rehearse medical communication role-play, and get automated feedback. following orientation, students were presented with a couple of weeks of self-study through the ebook integrated with ai. to assist them round the clock, there was an online forum for discussion where students could ask questions, exchange experiences, and pose challenges encountered in utilizing the e-book. the researchers assisted in monitoring the group by offering explanations and constructing problem-solving forums that are both related to learning content and technical utilization of ai features. students took a post-test at the conclusion of the instructional period to assess their learning progress and a user satisfaction survey to assess their motivation, perceived value, and overall experience with the ai-driven e-book. these results gave both quantitative and qualitative assessments of the effectiveness of the implementation. pre-test was given to establish students' baseline esp competence. interactive ai-powered e-book was implemented on a designated instructional period. post-test and user satisfaction survey were given to ascertain learning gains and motivation. 2.8. data analysis quantitative data were analyzed statistically, and qualitative data were coded and thematic analysis adhering to braun and clarke’s six-phase method in taylor (2024). responses were read multiple times for familiarity, then meaningful segments were systematically coded. codes were subsequently categorized into possible themes, which were examined and polished to guarantee consistency. pretest and post-test quantitative data were compared with paired t-tests to check for statistical significance using 23 version of spss (statistical package for the social sciences). the open-ended reflection responses' qualitative data were examined through thematic analysis. themes were identified and labeled, and corresponding quotes were chosen to exemplify each one. the researcher performed the analysis, and a senior lecturer was involved in peer debriefing to improve credibility. emerging themes featured “flexibility in access,” “technical challenges like internet instability,” and “suggestions for more diverse multimedia resources.” 2.9. evaluation and refinement students were provided with a guided questionnaire to gather their views, experiences, and suggestions on utilizing the interactive e-book powered by ai. the questionnaire had closed-ended and open-ended questions to measure usability judgment, entertainment, and learning support evaluations and obtain qualitative feedback for improvement. the data gathered were analyzed to identify frequent themes, the strengths, and weaknesses. these were used as input in fine-tuning the ai-included e-book, e.g., in content presentation modification, flexibility of ai functionality, and designing the user interface. 2.10. ethical issues the ethical clearance was obtained from the institutional ethics committee. participants were provided with informed consent and assured regarding confidentiality and voluntary participation. the research utilized a research and development (r&d) instructional technology approach to conceptualize and pilot test an ai-based interactive e-book for esp learning of health science students. proof of ethical clearance of kepk/ump/170/vii/2025 can be provided upon request. 3. finding and discussion 3.1. findings 1) needs analysis needs analysis phase required three respondent groups namely health science students (n=58), members of curriculum division (n=10), and esp lecturers (n=3) to ascertain priorities, challenges, and readiness for ai-mediated interactive e-books. data were analyzed descriptively using 23 version of spss, and findings are presented in descriptive statistic table 1. 123 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 118-132 haryani, s. & emha, m. r.. (designing ai-integrated e-book for english for specific purposes…..) table 1. descriptive analysis of the need for ai integration in english for specific purposes (esp) for healthcare n mean median minimum maximum sd iqr students’ need analysis score 58 20.86 21 6 25 3.21 4 stakeholder of curriculum and esp teachers need analysis score 13 21.05 21 16 25 2.16 1.50 the need analysis data from students (n = 58) revealed a mean score of 20.86 with a median of 21, a score range of 6–25, and a standard deviation of 3.21. the distribution was negatively skewed (left-skewed) and leptokurtic (high kurtosis), indicating that most respondents obtained relatively high scores concentrated around the mean. this suggests that the majority of students perceived a strong need for integrating ai into english for specific purposes (esp) learning in healthcare. the need analysis data from curriculum and esp lecturers (n = 13) showed a mean score of 21.05 with a median of 21, a score range of 16–25, and a standard deviation of 2.16. the equality of mean and median reinforced that the distribution was fairly balanced, though slightly skewed toward higher scores (negative skewness). with a relatively narrow range of values (16–25), most lecturers expressed similar assessments, indicating broad agreement that ai integration is necessary in the development of esp instruction for healthcare education. this is consistent with hapsari and wu (2022) studies that ai chatbots alleviate speaking fear and increase interaction. furthermore, the expressed willingness to embrace ai-based interactive e-books affirms chang et al (2023) findings on educators' adoption of ai tools when exposed to adequate training. overall, the needs analysis supports the project's emphasis on creating an ai-compatible interactive e-book for esp in health science, specifically on learning medical terms, adaptive learning, and practicing speaking in real time—concerns highlighted as high priority by all of the stakeholder groups and backed up in earlier studies (haryani, 2025; šokčević, 2024; gutiérrez, 2023). 2) design and development output the ai-enhanced interactive e-book english for healthcare professionals was designed via the needs analysis and iteratively prototyped. figures 1, 2, and 3 depict the most important interface and integration features. fig. 1. home feature interactive menu showing, chat with pdf and voice with pdf modes, allowing textbased and voice-based interaction with the book content. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 124 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 118-132 haryani, s. & emha, m. r.. (designing ai-integrated e-book for english for specific purposes…..) fig. 2. chat with pdf feature of ai integrated e-book fig. 3. voice with pdf feature of ai integrated e-book this integration combines adaptive learning, nlp chatbot for medical conversation imitation, and speech recognition for pronunciation suggestions, as recommended by tapalova and zhiyenbayeva (2022) and hapsari and wu (2022) according to the needs analysis results, the ai-driven interactive e-book english for healthcare professionals was created and utilized to highlight required learning needs in medical english competency. the material was categorized into thematic units (i.e., patient interview, medical vocabulary, clinical case discussion), and each unit included concise learning objectives, interactive exercises, multimedia materials, and ai-driven feedback features. there are three major ai-enabled capabilities of the e-book: 1) adaptive learning – dynamically adjusting task difficulty based on learners' performance and progress. 2) nlp chatbot – simulating real-life medical conversation for practice in listening and speaking with immediate feedback. 3) speech recognition – live pronunciation assessment and correction. this model aligns with earlier suggestions for technology-assisted and personalized esp learning (tapalova & zhiyenbayeva, 2022; chang et al., 2023) and is in line with the promotion of medical communication competence by hapsari and wu (2022). through its inclusion of adaptive learning pathways and multimodal interaction, the e-book addresses the dual demands identified in the needs analysis of contextual use and engagement of learners. 125 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 118-132 haryani, s. & emha, m. r.. (designing ai-integrated e-book for english for specific purposes…..) 3) implementation & testing the implementation stage was where interactive ai-powered e-book was incorporated into esp courses of health science students for a specific period of teaching. pre-test was administered to the participants to measure their speaking ability under five categories—fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and content & coherence. according to the descriptive analysis, the median speaking score for students prior to the intervention (pre-test) was 11, with a lowest score of 5 and a highest score of 15. following the intervention, the median score on the post-test rose to 19.5, with a lowest score of 11 and a highest score of 23. the interquartile range (iqr) for the pre-test was 2, whereas for the post-test it rose to 3, reflecting a difference in the level of progress among students. the wilcoxon signed-rank test produced a significance value (sig. 2-tailed) of 0.000 (p < 0.05), demonstrating a statistically significant difference between the scores of the pre-test and post-test. consequently, the intervention demonstrated efficacy in enhancing the speaking skills of the students. table 2. descriptive analysis of pre-test and post-test speaking scores n median minimum maksimum iqr sig (2tailed) pre-test score 58 11 5 15 2 0.000 post-test score 58 19.5 11 23 3 fig. 4. comparison pre-test and post-test scores this level of improvement is significantly greater relative to earlier studies on these ai-powered platforms (gutiérrez, 2023), and this suggests that adaptive learning, nlp chatbot, and real-time speech recognition feedback might have significantly influenced students' speaking skills. these results are supplemented by previous assertions that ai can be applied for personalized and interactive esp learning improvement (tapalova & zhiyenbayeva, 2022; hapsari & wu, 2022), especially if developed based on learners' requirements and professional backgrounds. 4) evaluation & refinement at the end of the implementation period, the students were required to fill a reflection questionnaire in order to assess their learning experience with the ai-boosted interactive e-book. the data of reflection were descriptively analyzed in 23 version of spss, and the outcomes are shown in table 3. table 3. descriptive statistics – student reflection of ai-integrated e-book n mean median minimum maksimum sd iqr analysis of students’s reflection on ai integrated e-book 58 76.2 79.5 39 90 13.7 19 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 126 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 118-132 haryani, s. & emha, m. r.. (designing ai-integrated e-book for english for specific purposes…..) the data indicate that student feedback had a mean score of 76.22 and a median of 79.50, with a relatively wide distribution (sd = 13.71; range = 51). overall, most students provided positive feedback on the ai-integrated e-book program for english for specific purposes (esp) in healthcare, although there was considerable variation across individual responses. qualitative comments on open-ended questions also provided richness to the assessment: 1) 1preferred features: access flexibility, sensitivity of ai chatbot, provision of interactive pronunciation and grammar check, and contextualization of medical english words. 2) problems mentioned: fluctuating internet connection for impacting audio-based ai capabilities, question constraint on chatbot option, and need for more heterogeneous multimedia (video/audio). 3) suggestions for improvement: adding the voice interaction of the ai to finish indonesian– english functionality, adding more comprehensive multimedia assets, and adding more varied case scenarios. they are in line with previous studies on the motivational and pedagogical advantages of aiassisted learning tools (hapsari & wu, 2022; tapalova & zhiyenbayeva, 2022). the technical problems that have been noted will inform development improvement for the second cycle of development, such as feature stability improvement, improvement of ai functionality, and diversity of interactive content. fig. 5. average score of students’ reflection 3.2. discussion the current results align with previous studies on learning innovations involving e-books and ai. the incorporation of interactive digital books with tasks that require higher-order thinking skills, as shown by sianturi et al (2021), highlights the ability to enhance cognitive involvement in esp settings. likewise, ai-powered customized and adaptive learning frameworks noted by sajja et al (2023), and goel (2020) correspond with the adaptive pathways utilized in the present aiaugmented e-book. in the design of esp curricula, the bilingual and collaborative learning methods outlined by asrifan et al (2025) provide additional backing for incorporating ai to 127 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 118-132 haryani, s. & emha, m. r.. (designing ai-integrated e-book for english for specific purposes…..) promote language proficiency and collaboration. furthermore, the generative ai model for intelligent tutoring described by maity and deroy (2024) alongside the ai in education 5.0 framework proposed by ari irvan et al (2024) offer conceptual support for enhancing the system's future functionalities. zawacki-richter et al (2019), fontaine et al (2019), and komolafe et al (2025) underline the effectiveness of adaptive e-learning in training healthcare professionals, whereas advances in virtual patient simulation (shaw et al., 2025) and (nofal et al., 2025) showcase wider application opportunities. ultimately, the incorporation of smart interactive multimedia in e-healthcare (tyagi et al., 2021) strengthens the significance of multimodal resources, a concept already integrated into the e-book's existing design. the findings from the needs analysis indicated a robust and uniform interest in ai-assisted instructional tools among students, curriculum stakeholders, and esp instructors. this agreement aligns with earlier findings that technology-enhanced learning settings are both sought after and progressively anticipated in higher education (haryani, 2025; šokčević, 2024). this research builds on previous findings by incorporating viewpoints from various stakeholders, thus reinforcing the case for adoption at the curriculum level. the development and design stage produced an interactive e-book enhanced by ai, featuring adaptive learning, a chatbot based on nlp, and capabilities for speech recognition. this integration surpasses previous studies that typically focused on an individual ai tool (such as chatbots or adaptive platforms alone) by merging various ai capabilities into a single platform (tapalova & zhiyenbayeva, 2022; chang et al., 2023). this design corresponds with ongoing demands for multimodal and tailored learning routes (hapsari & wu, 2022) and shows that r&d-driven instructional design can convert theoretical models into practical, user-focused solutions for esp. the execution and evaluation phase yielded compelling proof of enhancement: the median speaking scores of students rose from 11 in the pre-test to 19.5 in the post-test, with the wilcoxon signed-rank test validating statistical significance (p < 0.05). this increase is significantly greater than in certain earlier research on ai-driven platforms (gutiérrez, 2023). the finding indicates that combining adaptive learning, chatbots, and speech recognition could have complementary impacts on the speaking advancement of learners. still, the differences noted in learning gains—where some students exhibit minimal or even adverse progress—underscore the necessity for customized assistance and deeper exploration of engagement trends among learners. the refinement and evaluation process also showed that learners preferred the e-book since it was available, pertinent, and autonomous-enabling in nature, as indicated by high general scores for reflection (m = 76.22). however, open-ended remarks exposed continued problems in the form of unstable internet access, chatbot limitation, and a greater need for multimedia input. these are in agreement with earlier work on infrastructural and technical challenges in implementing ai (du & gao, 2022) and emphasize that the quality of ai-supported learning is contextual factors outside of content design that mediate. pedagogically, the implication of the findings has a two-fold impact. first, esp teachers can deploy ai-capable e-books as additional learning materials to respond to the ongoing problem of learning medical terminology and real-life speaking practice. second, curriculum planners can see the integration of such ai-capable learning materials as part of organizational efforts to improve esp instruction in health-related areas. notably, scalability and sustainability require ongoing improvement, technical assistance, and teacher capacity development, in harmony with organizational preparedness in ai implementation (amiri et al., 2024). finally, this study is not without limitations. the sample was restricted to one institution and a relatively small cohort of health science students, limiting generalizability. the reliance on selfreported reflections also introduces potential response bias. future studies could expand to multiinstitutional settings, include longitudinal tracking, and employ mixed measures of engagement and performance. furthermore, ethical considerations regarding data privacy and responsible ai use should be more explicitly addressed in subsequent research. overall, this study contributes by demonstrating that an ai-enhanced interactive e-book can serve as a feasible and effective medium for esp learning in healthcare, while also exposing practical and pedagogical challenges that need to be addressed to ensure broader adoption. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 128 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 118-132 haryani, s. & emha, m. r.. (designing ai-integrated e-book for english for specific purposes…..) 4. conclusion this research aimed to create, execute, and assess an ai-powered interactive e-book for english for specific purposes (esp) within the health sciences, catering to the requirements highlighted in the preliminary analysis and the goals specified in the intro. the findings showed notable enhancements in students’ speaking skills, favorable user approval, and a strong alignment between the developed resources and learners identified needs, validating the anticipated advantages mentioned initially. at the same time, the study revealed variability in individual performance and technical constraints, such as internet stability and chatbot limitations, which should be considered in future iterations. beyond confirming the effectiveness of the intervention, the results highlight practical implications for esp instructors and curriculum designers, while also pointing to the potential of scaling this model across other esp domains and health-related programs. future advancements should concentrate on improving feature consistency, broadening multimedia and language capabilities, and implementing this model in wider educational settings to boost accessibility and increase learner involvement. acknowledgment the authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology (kemendiktisaintek) under the pdp research grant scheme. appreciation is extended to the curriculum division and stakeholders of universitas madani, unimugo and stikes pemkab purworejo for granting permission and providing need analysis, as well as to the students of the faculty of health sciences universitas madani who participated in the study and the english lecturers whose contributions and feedback helped ensure the quality and relevance of the developed materials. declarations author contribution : surip haryani was responsible for the entire research project. he also led the writing of the manuscript and the collaboration with the second author. maulida rahmawati emha participated in the data collection, transcription and analysis. she also revised the manuscript. both authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research is funded by the government of kemenidktisaintek as a part of pdp grand 2025 program with the contract no 0012/he.pp2m/um/vi/2025) 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 with the regulations of our university and that we have obtained the permission from the relevant institute when collecting data. the ethical clearance was granted with the registered number of kepk/ump/170/vii/2025. we support eltej in maintaining high standards of personal conduct, practicing honesty in all our professional practices and endeavors. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. 129 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 118-132 haryani, s. & emha, m. r.. 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(2019). systematic review of research on artificial intelligence applications in higher education – where are the educators? in international journal of educational technology in higher education (vol. 16, issue 1). springer netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-019-0171-0 http://www.ejel.org/ https://doi.org/10.24815/siele.v11i3.37472 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6542-4/cover https://doi.org/10.2196/58753 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-019-0171-0 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.14057 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id dialogic feedback in english language teaching (elt): modalities, outcomes, and research trends ani susanti a,1,*, tengku intan suzila tengku sharif b,2, alex masardo c,3 a department of english language, universitas ahmadi dahlan, jl. ringroad selatan, kragilan, yogyakarta,55191, indonesia b universiti teknologi mara pahang branch, lintasan semarak bandar tun abdul razak 26400 jengka pahang, malaysia c school of education, health and science, university of gloucestershire, city campus, gloucester, gloucestershire, gl1 1sq, united kingdom 1 ani.susanti@pbi.uad.ac.id*; 2 intansuzila@gmail.com, 2amasardo@glos.ac.uk *corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 12 february 2025 revised 12 march 2025 accepted 5 april 2025 this systematic literature review examines dialogic feedback research in english language teaching (elt) based on 23 empirical studies published between 2010 and 2025. following the prisma (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses) guidelines, the review applied a rigorous selection and screening process to ensure transparency and replicability. six main modalities of dialogic feedback are identified: face-to-face dialogic feedback, written dialogic feedback, technology-mediated dialogic feedback, peer dialogic feedback, supervisory dialogic feedback, and teacher professional development dialogic feedback this typology reflects variations in feedback interaction modes, participants, and instructional settings, offering a more nuanced framework for understanding how dialogic feedback operates across formal and informal learning contexts. these modalities promote interactive, learner-centered feedback processes across varied learning environments. the analysis highlights four key educational outcomes: improvements in writing proficiency, enhanced feedback literacy, increased learner engagement and reflection, and the development of learner autonomy and self-regulation. these outcomes demonstrate a consistent pedagogical value of dialogic feedback in supporting active learning ecosystems. research trends reveal three chronological phases: early conceptual exploration, empirical classroom application, and recent growth in digital feedback practices. studies predominantly employ sociocultural theory, dialogic pedagogy, feedback literacy, and self-regulated learning frameworks. methodologically, the field has advanced from qualitative designs to mixed method and quasiexperimental approaches, mostly within asian efl university writing contexts. notable gaps include the lack of longitudinal studies, minimal focus on speaking skills, and underrepresentation of diverse geographical and educational contexts. future research should address these gaps by expanding skill focus, geographical coverage, and methodological rigor to ensure more equitable and effective dialogic feedback practices in elt. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords dialogic feedback english language teaching feedback literacy systematic literature review technology-mediated dialogic feedback how to cite: susanti, a., tengku intan suzila, t.s. & masardo, a. (2025). dialogic feedback in english language teaching elt: modalities, outcomes, and research trends. english language teaching educational journal, 8(1), 37-53. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.14057 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.11938 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:ani.susanti@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:intansuzila@gmail.com mailto:amasardo@glos.ac.uk http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.14057 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i1.14057&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2529-9112 38 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) 1. introduction in recent decades, the role of feedback in educational settings has undergone a significant transformation. traditional conceptions of feedback often portrayed it as a unidirectional, teachercentered process, primarily aimed at correcting errors and reinforcing surface-level accuracy (yang & carless, 2013). under this paradigm, learners were positioned as passive recipients of information, with limited opportunities to engage meaningfully with the feedback provided (christensen, 2004). unlike conventional formative feedback, which often focuses on teacher input and performance correction, dialogic feedback foregrounds mutual exchange and learner agency. it uniquely fosters reciprocal meaning-making through interactive dialogue, allowing learners to reflect, question, and co-construct understanding in real time. however, growing emphasis on learner-centered pedagogy and constructivist theories of learning has prompted a redefinition of feedback as a more dynamic, dialogic, and formative practice (carless & boud, 2018). this evolution reflects a broader educational shift where the feedback process is conceptualized not only as a mechanism for evaluation but also as a crucial avenue for knowledge co-construction. by promoting reciprocal communication between teachers and learners, dialogic feedback encourages learners to engage actively in their learning processes, fostering deeper understanding, autonomy, and critical thinking. the emergence of learner-centered pedagogy and the influence of constructivist and sociocultural learning theories have contributed to a redefinition of feedback as an interactive, dialogic process. dialogic feedback, in particular, is recognized as a reciprocal form of communication between teachers and learners, characterized by two-way exchanges that foster active learner participation, reflection, and co-construction of knowledge (skidmore & murakami, 2016; steen-utheim & wittek, 2017). within the field of english language teaching (elt), dialogic feedback has attracted considerable scholarly attention as a pedagogical approach that supports not only error correction but also the broader development of language skills through meaningful classroom interactions (tam, 2020). rooted in sociocultural learning theories, especially vygotsky’s (vygotsky, 1978) notion of socially mediated learning, dialogic feedback positions feedback as a developmental tool within the learner’s zone of proximal development (zpd). dialogic exchanges allow teachers and peers to scaffold learner understanding, enabling learners to reflect on their performance, clarify misunderstandings, and make more substantial improvements in their language use. a growing body of empirical research highlights the effectiveness of dialogic feedback in fostering deeper engagement with language learning tasks, particularly in writing-focused classrooms (jwa, 2024; tam, 2020). beyond writing, dialogic feedback has also been linked to the improvements of learner autonomy, metacognitive regulation, and feedback literacy (carless & boud, 2018; liu & lu, 2025; turner, 2023b). the ever-expanding adoption of educational technology has further diversified the modalities through which dialogic feedback is delivered. with the increased use of online collaborative platforms, video-based responses, and more recently, ai-assisted feedback tools, dialogic feedback is no longer confined to in-person classroom discussions (han & mimi li, 2024; zhou et al., 2025). technology-mediated dialogic feedback offers flexible, multimodal, and often asynchronous interaction opportunities, providing learners with greater access to iterative feedback processes and enabling differentiated support tailored to individual learning needs. nevertheless, several gaps remain within the current literature on dialogic feedback in elt. existing reviews have largely focused on general feedback strategies or narrow dimensions such as written corrective feedback (hyland & hyland, 2006), without fully addressing dialogic feedback as a distinct pedagogical construct. furthermore, the majority of research has been conducted in higher education writing contexts, with relatively limited exploration of dialogic feedback’s role in the development of oral communication skills, vocabulary acquisition, or integrated language tasks (bouwer et al., 2024). additionally, the geographical distribution of existing studies is uneven, with a disproportionate focus on the global north and specific asian efl settings, while perspectives from africa, latin america, and diverse esl environments remain underrepresented (enita & sumardi, 2023; han & mimi li, 2024). in response to these limitations, this systematic literature review aims to provide a comprehensive synthesis of dialogic feedback research in elt published between 2010 and 2025. this review focuses on four key objectives: (1) to identify the dominant modalities of dialogic feedback employed in elt issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 39 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) settings; (2) to examine the educational outcomes associated with dialogic feedback practices; (3) to map the chronological, theoretical, and methodological developments of dialogic feedback research; and (4) to explore contextual patterns in terms of educational level, geographical focus, and technological integration. by addressing these dimensions, this review offers an updated understanding of the dialogic feedback landscape in elt and highlights key gaps and directions for future pedagogical practice and research. in line with these objectives, this study seeks to answer the following research questions: 1. what are the dominant modalities of dialogic feedback employed in elt contexts? 2. what educational outcomes are associated with the use of dialogic feedback in elt? 3. how has dialogic feedback research in elt evolved over time in terms of chronology, theoretical frameworks, contextual focus? 4. what gaps exist in the current body of research on dialogic feedback in elt, and what future directions can be identified? 2. method this systematic review was conducted in accordance with the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma) guidelines to ensure transparency, replicability, and methodological rigor (mateo, 2020). the main objective was to examine the feedback modalities, educational outcomes, theoretical foundations, chronological development, and methodological trends of dialogic feedback research in english language teaching (elt) published between 2010 and 2025. the review process followed three main stages: (1) literature search, (2) study screening and eligibility evaluation, and (3) data extraction and synthesis. 2.1. search strategy the literature search was conducted using the scopus database prior to manuscript submission in early 2025. a comprehensive boolean search strategy was applied across all fields using the following search string: (“dialogic feedback” or “feedback dialogue” or “feedback conversation” or “feedback interaction”) and (“english language teaching” or “efl” or “esl” or “language learning”). to ensure relevance to educational research, the search was limited to articles published in english between 2010 and 2025 and filtered by subject areas within the social sciences and arts and humanities categories. 2.2. inclusion and exclusion criteria to maintain a focused and rigorous selection of studies, inclusion criteria were established as follows: empirical studies with a primary focus on dialogic feedback in language learning; studies conducted within english language teaching (elt), including efl or esl contexts; published in peer-reviewed journals; available in full-text english language publications between 2010 and 2025. exclusion criteria were applied to remove: studies exclusively focusing on monologic or written corrective feedback without dialogic interaction; research outside of language learning contexts (e.g., mathematics, science education); inaccessible full-text articles. publication potentially on similar focus before 2010 2.3. study selection process a systematic multi-stage screening process was employed to ensure relevance and quality. initially, 267 records were identified through the scopus database search. the first filtering phase 40 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) excluded non-journal sources, specifically reviews (n=24), conference proceedings (n=15), and editorials (n=3), yielding 225 journal articles. to ensure accessibility and research transparency, an open-access filter was applied, resulting in 85 records. further keyword relevance filtering reduced the number to 39 studies. finally, a full-text eligibility assessment was conducted based on the inclusion criteria, culminating in the selection of 23 studies for the final synthesis. the complete selection process is depicted in the prisma flowchart (figure 1). fig. 1. prisma flowchart of study selection. 2.4. data extraction and synthesis data extraction and coding were conducted systematically based on a structured coding scheme. key data points extracted included authorship, year of publication, geographical context, research objectives, research design, data collection methods, theoretical frameworks, feedback modalities, educational outcomes, and contextual factors. the coding process followed a deductive approach, informed by pre-established analytical categories derived from prior literature on dialogic feedback and english language teaching (elt). these categories served as the basis for organizing and interpreting data consistently across studies. a thematic content analysis was then employed to synthesize findings across five analytical dimensions: (1) feedback modalities, (2) educational outcomes, (3) chronological development, (4) theoretical frameworks, and (5) setting and context. this dual approach combined quantitative mapping of research characteristics with qualitative narrative synthesis, enabling the identification of prevailing trends, recurrent patterns, and critical gaps in dialogic feedback research in elt. 4. finding and discussion from the stipulated five synthesized aspects, the findings of this systematic literature review are integrated around three key analytical dimensions: (1) the modalities of dialogic feedback, (2) the educational outcomes associated with dialogic feedback practices, and (3) the chronological, theoretical, methodological, and contextual trends evident in dialogic feedback research. organizing the findings according to these dimensions enables a clearer understanding of the dominant forms through which dialogic feedback is delivered, the specific pedagogical benefits it contributes to language learning, and the broader developmental patterns shaping the academic discourse on feedback in elt. by systematically mapping these themes, the review captures both well-established feedback practices, such as face-to-face and written feedback, and recent innovations, including technology-mediated and ai-supported dialogic feedback. thus, this structured framework offers a issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 41 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) comprehensive and systematic overview of how dialogic feedback has been conceptualized, applied, and empirically examined within english language teaching (elt) between 2010 and 2025. to facilitate accessibility and clarity, table 1 provides a synthesized summary of the main themes and representative studies included in the review, serving as a reference point for the in-depth discussions that follow in subsequent sections. table 1. summary of findings on dialogic feedback in elt dimension key themes description representative studies dialogic feedback modalities face-to-face dialogic feedback written dialogic feedback technology-mediated feedback peer dialogic feedback supervisory dialogic feedback teacher professional development dialogic feedback six distinct modes of dialogic feedback delivery identified in elt, spanning direct verbal exchanges, reflective writing, peer interactions, supervisory relationships, professional development contexts, and technology-mediated platforms including ai tools. chung & fisher (2022); tam (2020); zhou et al. (2025); jwa (2024); saeed & al qunayeer (2022); neupane bastola & hu (2021) educational outcomes writing development feedback literacy learner engagement and reflection autonomy and self-regulation dialogic feedback contributes to multiple educational gains, particularly in writing proficiency, enhanced engagement with feedback, improved reflection, and learner independence. turner (2023); deng & sitthitikul (2025); liu & lu (2025); maneepakhathorn (2023); wu et al. (2021) research trends chronological development: early conceptual, classroom application, recent technology integration. methodological shifts: from qualitative dominance to mixed method and quasi-experimental approaches. theoretical frameworks: sociocultural theory, dialogic pedagogy, feedback literacy, selfregulated learning contextual settings: concentration in asian efl higher education writing contexts a clear trajectory of expanding research focus, with innovations in methodology and technology, yet persistent gaps in geographical diversity, educational level, and oral skill focus. yang & carless (2013); carless & boud (2018); han & li (2024); kazemi et al. (2025); enita & sumardi (2023) 3.1. modalities of dialogic feedback the analysis of the selected studies identifies diverse modalities through which dialogic feedback is implemented in english language teaching (elt). these modalities reflect the evolving pedagogical approaches used to facilitate meaningful interaction and learner engagement during the feedback process. rather than a one-size-fits-all model, dialogic feedback manifests across multiple formats, ranging from direct, face-to-face interactions to written exchanges, digitally mediated dialogues, and peer-to-peer feedback mechanisms. this section categorizes the modalities into six distinct types based on delivery modes and interaction patterns: face-to-face dialogic feedback, written dialogic feedback, technology-enhanced dialogic feedback, peer dialogic feedback, supervisory dialogic feedback, and teacher professional development dialogic feedback. each modality is discussed in relation to its delivery method, level of learner involvement, and dominant research focus, providing a clearer understanding of how dialogic feedback operates in various elt settings. a brief summary of these modalities is presented in table 2. 42 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) table 2. summary of dialogic feedback modalities in elt modality focus of interaction delivery modes representative studies face-to-face dialogic feedback direct verbal interaction between teacher-student or peers; promotes real-time clarification and negotiation of meaning. classroom discussions, tutorials, oral conferencing, in-person peer feedback. chung & fisher (2022); alqefari (2022); lee (2018); washbourne (2014); saeed & al qunayeer (2022) written dialogic feedback iterative dialogue through written responses; promotes reflective engagement and deeper revisions. written annotations, margin comments, reflective journals, feedback dialogues in writing drafts. turner (2023); jwa (2024); merkel (2018); maneepakhathorn (2023); zhou et al. (2025) technologyenhanced dialogic feedback feedback facilitated through digital platforms, enabling asynchronous interaction and multimodal engagement. google docs, chatgpt, ai feedback tools, audio-video responses, digital oral dialogue journaling (dodj). daryanto et al. (2025); han & li (2024); zhou et al. (2025); kazemi et al. (2025); saeed & al qunayeer (2022) peer dialogic feedback learner-to-learner interaction focused on collaborative meaning-making and mutual improvement. in-class peer review, online peer commenting, collaborative group feedback sessions. alqefari (2022); deng & sitthitikul (2025); merkel (2018) supervisory dialogic feedback personalized, formative feedback within supervisory academic relationships. thesis consultations, supervisory conferencing, written supervisory feedback exchanges. neupane bastola & hu (2021); charteris & smardon (2015); fernández-toro & furnborough (2018) teacher professional development dialogic feedback dialogic feedback among educators to foster professional reflection and pedagogical change. professional learning dialogues, collaborative workshops, dialogic inquiry communities. chung & fisher (2022); charteris & smardon (2015); carless & boud (2018) the analysis of the reviewed studies demonstrates that face-to-face dialogic feedback continues to serve as a foundational practice in elt classrooms, particularly within traditional in-person learning environments. this modality facilitates synchronous, real-time interaction between teachers and learners, allowing immediate clarification, scaffolded guidance, and personalized feedback responses. studies such as (alqefari, 2022; chung & fisher, 2022; lee, 2018; saeed & al qunayeer, 2022; washbourne, 2014) consistently highlight the pedagogical value of verbal exchanges, especially during classroom discussions, individual writing tutorials, and oral conferencing sessions. these interactions have been shown to promote learner engagement, enhance immediate understanding, and encourage active participation, particularly in productive language skills like writing and speaking. however, while face-to-face feedback enables high levels of personalization, several limitations emerge from the literature. large class sizes, high teacher workloads, and varying levels of teacher feedback competence can inhibit the consistency and depth of dialogic interaction. moreover, some studies caution that without structured feedback protocols, face-to-face feedback risks becoming superficial or overly corrective, potentially undermining learner autonomy. these insights highlight the necessity for institutional policies that allocate sufficient time and resources to support sustainable face-to-face dialogical feedback practices. in contrast, written dialogic feedback represents a prevalent asynchronous modality, offering learners the opportunity to engage more deeply and reflectively with teacher comments across iterative writing processes. past studies have (jwa, 2024; maneepakhathorn, 2023; merkel, 2018; turner, 2023a; washbourne, 2014; zhou et al., 2025) demonstrated that written feedback, delivered through annotated margins, digital comments, or structured reflective journals, supports sustained cognitive engagement and revision practices. this modality has been particularly valued in writing classrooms, where the temporal distance allows learners to process feedback at their own pace and revisit suggestions multiple times. importantly, written dialogic exchanges foster critical reflection and promote metacognitive skills, enabling learners to develop greater self-regulation in their learning. however, the reviewed studies also raise important considerations: the lack of immediacy can limit dialogic negotiation of meaning, and learners may misinterpret written feedback without opportunities for clarification. additionally, the quality of written dialogic feedback is often contingent on teachers’ issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 43 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) proficiency in crafting constructive, balanced comments, underscoring the need for feedback literacy development among educators themselves. the increasing adoption of technology-enhanced dialogic feedback signifies one of the most dynamic shifts in contemporary elt feedback practices. recent studies (daryanto et al., 2025; deng & sitthitikul, 2025; han & mimi li, 2024; zhou et al., 2025) illustrate how digital platforms such as google docs, video and audio screencast tools, and ai-powered feedback systems like chatgpt have expanded the possibilities for dialogic interaction. this modality offers unique affordances, including multimodal engagement, flexible timing, and broader accessibility, particularly in online and blended learning contexts. technology-mediated feedback facilitates iterative engagement, empowers learners to control the pace of their feedback interaction, and supports collaborative revision through shared digital spaces (kazemi et al., 2025; saeed & al qunayeer, 2022). nevertheless, several critical concerns emerge across literature. while technology enhances convenience, studies caution against the risk of depersonalization, where automated or template-driven feedback may lack contextual nuance and reduce learner motivation (han & mimi li, 2024). furthermore, reliance on digital platforms introduces equity challenges, as access to technology and digital literacy skills vary widely across educational contexts. consequently, there is a growing consensus in recent literature that while technology-mediated dialogic feedback can enrich feedback processes, it must be thoughtfully integrated with pedagogical principles that preserve interactional authenticity, ensure inclusivity, and promote active learner engagement. in summary, these findings underscore the diversity and adaptability of dialogic feedback modalities within elt, spanning face-to-face interactions, written exchanges, and digitally mediated platforms. each modality presents distinct strengths: oral dialogue promotes immediacy, written exchanges foster reflection, and technology enhances accessibility and scalability. the increasing shift towards digital feedback modalities reflects broader trends in learner autonomy and flexible learning pathways. therefore, educators are encouraged to adopt a strategic, context-sensitive approach in combining these modalities, ensuring that dialogic feedback remains effective, equitable, and aligned with both pedagogical goals and learner needs. 3.2. educational outcomes of dialogic feedback the analysis of the 23 selected studies reveals four prominent educational outcomes associated with dialogic feedback in english language teaching (elt). beyond improving language accuracy, dialogic feedback contributes to learners’ metacognitive development, engagement, and independent learning skills. specifically, the outcomes identified are: (1) writing development, (2) feedback literacy, (3) learner engagement and reflection, and (4) learner autonomy and self-regulation. this section presents a synthesis of these outcomes, illustrating how dialogic feedback enhances learning processes in elt classrooms. a detailed overview of these educational outcomes is summarized in table 3. a consistently reported benefit of dialogic feedback across the reviewed literature is its significant contribution to writing development. multiple studies converge in maintaining that sustained dialogic engagement supports improvements in both the content quality and linguistic accuracy of student writing (alqefari, 2022; deng & sitthitikul, 2025; jwa, 2024; maneepakhathorn, 2023; merkel, 2018). dialogic interactions allow for iterative feedback cycles, enabling learners to develop clearer argument structures, improve textual coherence, and reduce common grammatical errors. notably, dialogic feedback fosters a more personalized and responsive revision process, where learners can clarify misunderstandings, negotiate teacher comments, and implement targeted revisions. however, while gains in writing proficiency are well-documented in short-term interventions, there remains a scarcity of longitudinal research exploring whether these improvements are retained across extended academic periods, especially beyond controlled classroom environments. 44 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) table 3. summary of educational outcomes of dialogic feedback in elt educational outcome definition observed benefits representative studies writing development improvement in writing performance, focusing on coherence, structure, and linguistic accuracy. enhanced text quality, iterative revisions, deeper engagement with language tasks. turner (2023), alqefari (2022), maneepakhathorn (2023), jwa (2024), deng & sitthitikul (2025), merkel (2018) feedback literacy learners' ability to understand, process, and apply feedback effectively. improved feedback uptake, development of evaluative judgment, active feedback engagement. carless & boud (2018), fernándeztoro & furnborough (2018), jwa (2024), merkel (2018), deng & sitthitikul (2025) learner engagement and reflection increased motivation, participation, and reflective thinking during learning activities. higher engagement, reduced anxiety, stronger classroom participation, reflective learning habits. neupane bastola & hu (2021), wu et al. (2021), charteris & smardon (2015), zhou et al. (2025), jwa (2024) autonomy and self-regulation enhanced capacity for selfdirected learning through goal setting and progress monitoring. greater learner independence, improved self-monitoring, long-term learning autonomy. daryanto et al. (2025), saeed & al qunayeer (2022), han & li (2024), zhou et al. (2025), kazemi et al. (2025) another prominent educational outcome is the advancement of feedback literacy, where learners demonstrate improved capacity to interpret, evaluate, and utilize feedback effectively. dialogic feedback transforms the traditional passive feedback process into an active and reciprocal learning strategy (carless & boud, 2018; deng & sitthitikul, 2025; fernández-toro & furnborough, 2018; jwa, 2024; merkel, 2018). through dialogic exchanges, learners develop metacognitive strategies for making sense of feedback, recognizing patterns in their own errors, and taking ownership of their learning progress. particularly within academic writing courses, feedback literacy is shown to correlate with increased feedback-seeking behavior and reflective engagement with revision tasks. nevertheless, the research also signals challenges in fostering feedback literacy among learners unfamiliar with dialogic practices, especially in contexts where prior educational experiences have emphasized unidirectional or summative feedback models. in this regard, teacher training becomes essential, not only to familiarize educators with dialogic principles but also to equip them with techniques for facilitating metalinguistic reflection, scaffolding learner agency, and cultivating an open classroom culture where feedback is viewed as a collaborative learning tool. the enhancement of learner engagement and reflective practice emerges as a third core outcome facilitated by dialogic feedback. dialogic interaction not only boosts learners’ motivation but also deepens their sense of involvement in the learning process (bastola & hu, 2021; charteris & smardon, 2015; jwa, 2024). through active participation in feedback conversations, learners report feeling more empowered, less anxious about receiving critique, and more committed to their own learning progress. reflection is similarly amplified, as learners engage in meta-discussions about their performance and become more adept at setting personal learning goals. however, several studies caution that meaningful engagement is contingent upon the teacher’s facilitation skills and institutional culture surrounding feedback. where dialogic feedback is poorly scaffolded or inconsistently applied, its potential to foster reflection and engagement may be significantly diminished. finally, autonomy and self-regulation stand out as salient outcomes, particularly in studies examining technology-mediated dialogic feedback. dialogic feedback contributes to the development of learner autonomy by encouraging self-monitoring, independent revision, and proactive engagement with feedback resources (daryanto et al., 2025; han & mimi li, 2024; kazemi et al., 2025; saeed & al qunayeer, 2022). in digital environments, the flexibility of asynchronous dialogic exchanges allows learners to manage feedback according to their individual schedules and revisit feedback content multiple times, fostering more self-directed learning behaviors. nevertheless, this benefit appears closely tied to learner digital literacy and motivational orientation; learners lacking selfregulation skills or familiarity with digital platforms may struggle to capitalize on these affordances, suggesting that effective implementation requires integrated support mechanisms for learner training and scaffolding. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 45 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) in summary, the reviewed studies consistently demonstrate that dialogic feedback produces multifaceted learning outcomes, enhancing not only linguistic skills but also learner autonomy, engagement, and reflective capabilities. the repeated emphasis on writing improvement, feedback literacy, engagement, and self-regulation highlights dialogic feedback as a versatile and transformative pedagogical tool in elt. these outcomes underline the importance of integrating dialogic feedback into diverse classroom settings, with appropriate scaffolding, to maximize both immediate learning gains and long-term academic development. 3.3. research trends in dialogic feedback 1) chronological research trends an integrated examination of chronological and methodological trends offers a comprehensive view of how dialogic feedback research has evolved in english language teaching (elt) over the past 15 years. the reviewed studies indicate a steady progression from early conceptual and descriptive studies to more structured classroom-based inquiries, and more recently, to technologically sophisticated and empirically rigorous investigations. this temporal shift is closely tied to the evolution of research methodologies, where the initial dominance of qualitative, small-scale designs has gradually been supplemented and in some cases replaced by mixed-methods, experimental, and technology-mediated approaches. tracking this combined development reveals how both the focus of dialogic feedback studies and their research rigor have matured in response to the changing pedagogical landscape and advancements in digital learning tools. this chronological development illustrates how dialogical feedback research has evolved as detailed in table 4. table 4. summary of chronological development of dialogic feedback research in elt period research focus dominant methodological features representative studies 2010–2014 early conceptual phase conceptualization of dialogic feedback; reflective practices in translator training and teacher education. qualitative narratives, reflective case studies, small-scale classroom observations; minimal measurement of learning outcomes. washbourne (2014); louw et al. (2014) 2015–2020 empirical classroom application practical implementation in writing classrooms, action research on dialogic interaction; focus on learner and teacher perceptions. qualitative dominance: interviews, focus groups, reflective journals; initial introduction of mixed methods with pre-post classroom observations. charteris & smardon (2015); wu et al. (2021); alqefari (2022) 2021–2025 technologyenhanced expansion integration of ai tools, asynchronous and multimodal platforms; focus on learner autonomy, engagement, and measurable learning gains. mixed-method and quasiexperimental designs, preand post-tests, control groups, aidriven learning analytics, digital trace data. han & li (2024); zhou et al. (2025); kazemi et al. (2025) the initial phase (2010–2014) of dialogic feedback research was primarily conceptual in nature, with studies focused on exploring pedagogical possibilities rather than producing empirical validation. research during this period, such as (washbourne, 2014) and (louw et al., 2014), were dominated by qualitative approaches, including reflective practitioner narratives, teacher autoethnographies, and small-scale classroom observations. these studies provided important insights into the perceived benefits of dialogic interaction in specific contexts like translator training and teacher development, helping to establish initial theoretical frameworks. however, this early body of work was methodologically limited, with a strong reliance on anecdotal evidence and an absence of systematic data collection protocols. few studies incorporated quantifiable learning outcomes or comparative controls, making it difficult to generalize findings beyond the specific cases examined. while the contributions of this phase were foundational in establishing dialogic feedback as a legitimate pedagogical interest, they were insufficient in offering scalable, evidence-based practices, signaling a clear need for methodological expansion in subsequent years. the second phase (2015–2020) marked a period of expansion and practical application, as dialogic feedback research shifted towards classroom-based investigations, particularly in higher education efl contexts across asia. there is a growing tendency to adopt action research designs and classroom interventions, often aimed at improving academic writing instruction (alqefari, 2022; charteris & 46 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) smardon, 2015; wu et al., 2021). during this phase, qualitative dominance persisted, with widespread use of semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, reflective journals, and classroom discourse analysis. some methodological diversification emerged through the inclusion of triangulated data sources and limited pre-post assessment designs. however, most studies remained exploratory, limited in scale, and conducted within localized institutional contexts, typically involving small samples without randomization or longitudinal tracking. while this period expanded the practical relevance of dialogic feedback research, methodological rigor remained constrained, with most studies prioritizing participant perspectives and descriptive classroom outcomes over controlled, generalizable measurements of learning impact. the recent phase (2021–2025) has seen a significant methodological evolution, characterized by a noticeable turn towards greater empirical rigor, technological integration, and quantitative sophistication. several studies have adopted quasi-experimental designs, larger sample sizes, and mixed-method approaches that combine qualitative inquiry with quantitative performance measures (han & mimi li, 2024; kazemi et al., 2025; zhou et al., 2025). a notable methodological shift has been the introduction of preand post-testing, use of control groups, and collection of learning analytics, including revision patterns, engagement metrics, and even ai-generated feedback data. digital platforms such as google docs, chatgpt, and asynchronous tools like digital oral dialogue journaling (dodj) have allowed dialogic feedback studies to scale beyond face-to-face environments into blended and online learning spaces. this transition has enabled researchers to move beyond selfreported learner perceptions, incorporating objective performance indicators and behavioral data. however, critical gaps remain, including limited adoption of fully randomized control trials (rcts), infrequent longitudinal follow-up, and an over-representation of technologically well-resourced settings, suggesting that while methodological sophistication is improving, further advancements in design diversity and contextual inclusivity are still warranted. the combined analysis of chronological and methodological trends underscores a notable maturation of dialogic feedback research in elt. over time, the field has transitioned from exploratory, teacher-centered qualitative studies to more sophisticated, mixed-method, and technology-integrated empirical investigations. this trajectory reflects growing pedagogical demands for evidence-based practices and technological shifts towards digital learning environments. despite significant progress, important methodological gaps remain, particularly regarding longitudinal impact studies and large-scale randomized control trials. future research should continue expanding methodological rigor by embracing longitudinal tracking, multimodal data sources, and experimental designs while preserving the learner-centered and dialogic ethos that defines this field. 2) theoretical framework trends a thorough review of the selected studies highlights the centrality of theoretical frameworks in shaping dialogic feedback research. while sociocultural theory remains, the dominant foundation underpinning dialogic feedback practices, the past decade has witnessed a diversification of theoretical orientations. alongside sociocultural theory, dialogic pedagogy, feedback literacy, and self-regulated learning theories have gained prominence, reflecting broader educational trends toward learner agency, reflective learning, and formative assessment. theoretical frameworks not only inform how dialogic feedback is conceptualized but also influence research designs, data interpretation, and practical applications in elt classrooms. examining these frameworks is crucial for understanding how dialogical feedback is positioned within contemporary language education discourses. a summary of the dominant theoretical frameworks is presented in table 5. a review of the selected studies reveals that sociocultural theory remains the most dominant and enduring theoretical framework shaping dialogic feedback research in elt. grounded in vygotsky’s (vygotsky, 1978) sociocultural model, particularly the concept of the zone of proximal development (zpd), dialogic feedback is conceptualized as a process of scaffolded learning wherein knowledge is constructed through guided interaction between more knowledgeable others (teachers or peers) and learners. empirical studies underscore how dialogic exchanges facilitate cognitive development by enabling learners to operate within their zpd (carless & boud, 2018; yang & carless, 2013). this aligns with broader pedagogical movements in elt that emphasize communicative competence, interactive learning environments, and the social dimensions of language acquisition. however, while sociocultural theory provides a robust foundational rationale for dialogic feedback, its application has often remained at a conceptual level, with fewer studies operationalizing the zpd in measurable pedagogical interventions, suggesting a need for more practical elaboration in future research. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 47 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) table 5. summary of theoretical framework in dialogic feedback research framework core focus representative studies sociocultural theory learning as socially mediated, dialogic interaction within the zone of proximal development. yang & carless (2013), carless & boud (2018), deng & sitthitikul (2025) dialogic pedagogy focus on open-ended classroom dialogue promoting co-construction of meaning. charteris & smardon (2015), skidmore & murakami (2016), tam (2020) feedback literacy development of learners' ability to understand and use feedback effectively. carless & boud (2018), jwa (2024), fernández-toro & furnborough (2018) self-regulation & reflection emphasis on learner autonomy, self-regulated learning, and reflective practice. turner (2023), maneepakhathorn (2023), zhou et al. (2025) alongside sociocultural perspectives, dialogic pedagogy and feedback literacy frameworks have gained increasing traction in recent years, reflecting evolving priorities in language education. dialogic pedagogy advocates for more egalitarian classroom discourses, promoting reciprocal, twoway communication between students and teachers (charteris & smardon, 2015; tam, 2020). this approach shifts classroom dynamics from top-down information delivery to a shared inquiry model, where learners are encouraged to ask questions, challenge ideas, and participate in meaning-making processes. simultaneously, the feedback literacy model advances a learner-centric orientation to feedback, emphasizing the development of learners’ capacities to understand, interpret, and apply feedback constructively (carless & boud, 2018; jwa, 2024). these frameworks collectively signal a paradigm shift from viewing feedback as a corrective tool towards fostering learner agency, critical thinking, and active engagement with feedback processes. despite this positive trend, some studies also point to the practical challenges of nurturing feedback literacy, especially in traditional or examoriented elt cultures where students are accustomed to passive feedback consumption. more recent research on dialogic feedback, particularly within technology-enhanced learning environments, has incorporated self-regulated learning (srl) and reflective practice theories. dialogic feedback can be instrumental in fostering metacognitive skills, including goal-setting, selfassessment, and self-correction (maneepakhathorn, 2023; turner, 2023a; zhou et al., 2025). the integration of srl perspectives highlights dialogic feedback’s role in promoting long-term learner autonomy, equipping students with transferable academic skills that extend beyond immediate classroom tasks. similarly, reflective practice frameworks encourage learners to engage in deeper selfevaluation and critical reflection on their learning trajectories. these theoretical expansions are particularly relevant in the context of online and blended learning modalities, where learners are often required to manage learning with greater independence. however, a recurrent gap in recent literature is the limited exploration of affective dimensions within dialogic feedback, such as emotional engagement and motivation, suggesting that future research could benefit from incorporating complementary frameworks like affective engagement theory to provide a more holistic understanding of dialogic feedback in elt. the diversity of theoretical frameworks employed in dialogic feedback studies reflects the expanding pedagogical ambitions of elt research. while sociocultural theory provides a stable foundation, newer frameworks such as feedback literacy and self-regulated learning respond to contemporary educational demands for learner agency and metacognitive development. the increasing intersection of dialogic feedback with concepts like autonomy, reflection, and digital literacy also reveals an encouraging shift towards holistic language education. however, there remains room to incorporate underexplored perspectives, including emotional engagement theories and crosscultural communication models, to better account for affective factors and intercultural dynamics in dialogic feedback interactions. 3) contextual and geographical trends an examination of the geographical and contextual focus of dialogic feedback studies reveals notable regional concentration and pedagogical preferences. the majority of dialogic feedback research originates from asian efl contexts, particularly in higher education writing instruction. while studies from china, indonesia, and saudi arabia dominate the field, there is a significant lack of representation from africa, latin america, and certain segments of southeast asia. furthermore, dialogic feedback has been primarily studied within academic writing courses, with limited exploration in speaking, listening, and non-academic settings. investigating these trends will provide 48 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) important insight into the inclusiveness and applicability of current dialogic feedback research. the distribution of research settings and context is summarized in table 6. table 6. summary of contextual trends in dialogic feedback research dimension focus representative studies geographical focus predominantly asia (china, indonesia, saudi arabia); limited representation from africa and latin america. daryanto et al. (2025), saeed & al qunayeer (2022), han & li (2024) skill focus strong focus on writing skills; emerging research on speaking and teacher development. turner (2023), zhou et al. (2025), chung & fisher (2022) educational level predominantly higher education; limited but growing research in secondary and teacher education settings. wu et al. (2021), alqefari (2022), jwa (2024) a prominent trend emerging from the reviewed studies is the dominance of asian efl contexts, particularly within east and southeast asia. a significant concentration of research is situated in countries such as china (deng & sitthitikul, 2025; han & mimi li, 2024), indonesia (daryanto et al., 2025), and saudi arabia (saeed & al qunayeer, 2022), reflecting a regional emphasis on communicative competence, academic writing improvement, and national-level educational reforms. this regional trend aligns with the growing investment in higher education modernization and english proficiency development in many asian countries, where english serves as a critical tool for global competitiveness. the strength of this geographical focus lies in its ability to provide rich, contextspecific insights into dialogic feedback practices within high-stakes efl learning environments. however, such regional dominance simultaneously limits the cross-cultural generalizability of findings, as many sociocultural, institutional, and linguistic variables in these contexts differ substantially from esl settings in western countries or from under-resourced learning environments elsewhere. in terms of educational settings, the literature consistently prioritizes dialogic feedback in higher education classrooms, predominantly within academic writing instruction. dialogic feedback is often implemented in essay writing, thesis supervision, and academic project consultations (jwa, 2024; merkel, 2018; turner, 2023a). while a small number of studies have begun to extend dialogic feedback practices into oral performance assessment (zhou et al., 2025) and teacher professional development programs (chung & fisher, 2022), these remain outliers. this narrow academic focus creates a contextual imbalance, as dialogic feedback’s applicability to secondary education, vocational education, or informal learning environments remains largely unexplored. consequently, the field risks perpetuating an incomplete understanding of how dialogic feedback operates across different learner age groups, proficiency levels, and non-academic learning purposes. a further observation is the limited geographical diversity in the overall body of research. regions such as africa, latin america, and portions of the middle east remain underrepresented in the dialogic feedback literature, as do esl environments in anglophone countries where english serves as a dominant societal language. additionally, studies seldom explore dialogic feedback within vocational training programs, workplace english settings, or community education spaces. this skewed research landscape raises critical concerns regarding equity and inclusivity, as it suggests that much of what is known about dialogic feedback stems from relatively privileged, well-resourced, and academically oriented populations. as a result, there is an urgent need for future studies to diversify both the geographical reach and contextual applications of dialogic feedback, ensuring that pedagogical recommendations and theoretical conclusions are sensitive to a broader array of learner needs, especially those from marginalized or non-traditional educational backgrounds. the current geographical and contextual concentration in dialogic feedback research highlights both progress and limitations. while the growing body of research in asian contexts enriches the field with valuable insights from efl environments, the limited representation of global south regions and non-academic settings restricts the scope of knowledge production. future research should prioritize geographical diversification, expand beyond academic writing to include oral language skills and multimodal literacies, and investigate dialogic feedback practices in varied educational levels, including primary, vocational, and informal education. doing so will foster more equitable, contextsensitive, and globally relevant insights into dialogic feedback practices in elt. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 49 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) 3.4. research gap and future direction despite the expanding interest in dialogic feedback, several notable gaps persist within the current body of research in elt. one major limitation concerns the overrepresentation of studies focusing on writing instruction, particularly in higher education settings (deng & sitthitikul, 2025; jwa, 2024; turner, 2023a). while dialogic feedback has been shown to improve writing proficiency and revision quality, other core language skills such as speaking, listening, reading, and vocabulary learning remain significantly under-researched. only a limited number of studies have extended dialogic feedback to speaking instruction (wu et al., 2021; zhou et al., 2025) and very few address its application in listening or integrated language tasks. this narrow focus restricts the pedagogical application of dialogic feedback in communicative language teaching (clt) classrooms, where balanced skill development is crucial. future studies should explore dialogic feedback beyond writing contexts, particularly in speaking-oriented classrooms and multimodal language learning environments. secondly, the geographical distribution of dialogic feedback research demonstrates a strong concentration in asian efl contexts, primarily in china (deng & sitthitikul, 2025; han & mimi li, 2024), indonesia (daryanto et al., 2025), and saudi arabia (saeed & al qunayeer, 2022). although these studies provide valuable insights into dialogic feedback in efl settings, there is limited research from african (nehring et al., 2010), latin american, or western esl contexts (lee, 2018; washbourne, 2014). this imbalance raises concerns about the cultural transferability and contextual adaptability of dialogic feedback practices. the absence of studies from diverse socio-educational environments limits the generalizability of current findings, especially regarding learner attitudes, teacher beliefs, and institutional practices. there is a pressing need for more cross-contextual studies that include underrepresented regions and esl settings to develop a more globally nuanced understanding of dialogic feedback. methodologically, most studies continue to rely on short-term qualitative designs or small-scale classroom interventions (alqefari, 2022; maneepakhathorn, 2023), with limited use of longitudinal designs or robust experimental approaches. although recent studies have incorporated quasiexperimental designs and mixed-methods approaches (kazemi et al., 2025; zhou et al., 2025), largesample studies and randomized controlled trials (rcts) remain scarce. furthermore, the long-term effects of dialogic feedback on learner autonomy, engagement, and language development are still largely unknown due to the absence of longitudinal research (charteris & smardon, 2015; jwa, 2024). future research should adopt more rigorous methodologies, combining qualitative depth with quantitative generalizability, and investigate the sustained impact of dialogic feedback practices across different proficiency levels and educational stages. finally, the increasing use of technology and ai tools introduces both innovation and new research gaps. while recent studies have explored ai-assisted feedback mechanisms (daryanto et al., 2025; han & mimi li, 2024), the pedagogical implications, ethical considerations, and learner perceptions of ai-mediated dialogic feedback are not yet fully understood. additionally, there is insufficient attention to the development of feedback literacy, with few studies systematically addressing how learners can be trained to understand, process, and use dialogic feedback effectively (carless & boud, 2018; fernández-toro & furnborough, 2018). addressing these gaps will require further exploration into how technology can enhance—rather than replace—dialogic interaction, and how structured feedback literacy interventions can empower learners to maximize the benefits of dialogic feedback in both traditional and digital learning environments. 3.5. limitation of the study a primary limitation of this review is the absence of a formal quality appraisal of the 23 included studies. while the inclusion criteria ensured relevance, empirical focus, and peer-reviewed publication status, no standardized evaluation tool, such as the casp (critical appraisal skills programme), mmat (mixed methods appraisal tool), or grade (grading of recommendations, assessment, development and evaluations), was employed to assess methodological rigor, validity, or risk of bias across studies. consequently, the findings synthesized in this review may be subject to variation in quality, potentially influencing the overall reliability and generalizability of the conclusions. secondly, the review is limited by its exclusive reliance on studies indexed in scopus and written in english. this language and database restriction may have excluded relevant research published in other languages or included in regional or discipline-specific databases, thereby introducing a degree of selection bias. as a result, the global representation of dialogic feedback practices, particularly from 50 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) underrepresented contexts such as latin america, africa, or non-english-speaking europe, may not be fully captured. third, although the review identifies patterns in theoretical frameworks and methodological designs, it does not provide an in-depth meta-analysis or effect size comparison due to the heterogeneity of study designs, participant populations, and outcome measures. this limits the ability to draw firm conclusions about the relative effectiveness of specific feedback modalities or educational outcomes. lastly, most of the included studies focused on higher education settings, particularly universitylevel english writing classes. this contextual narrowness constrains the applicability of the findings to other educational levels such as primary or secondary schools, vocational training, or adult education. future reviews should consider stratified analysis across diverse learner demographics, skill areas (e.g., speaking and listening), and educational contexts to better inform inclusive pedagogical practices. in sum, while this review provides a valuable synthesis of dialogic feedback research in elt, addressing these limitations in future studies will be essential to ensure broader coverage, methodological robustness, and contextual diversity in this evolving field. 4. conclusion this systematic literature review synthesized findings from 23 empirical studies on dialogic feedback in english language teaching (elt), highlighting significant developments in feedback modalities, educational outcomes, and research trends over the past 15 years. the analysis confirms that dialogic feedback has evolved into a multi-faceted pedagogical approach, promoting not only linguistic development but also enhancing learner engagement, feedback literacy, and self-regulated learning. the reviewed studies demonstrate that dialogic feedback is applied through diverse modalities, including face-to-face, written, peer-to-peer, and technology-mediated interactions, each offering distinct pedagogical affordances. in terms of educational impact, dialogic feedback contributes positively to writing quality, feedback literacy, reflective engagement, and learner autonomy. however, the scope of application remains predominantly focused on higher education writing contexts, with less emphasis on other language skills such as speaking and listening. chronological and methodological trends indicate a clear shift from early conceptual explorations to classroom-based qualitative research and, more recently, to digitally mediated, mixed-method, and experimental designs. while this methodological evolution has enhanced the empirical robustness of dialogic feedback research, notable gaps persist in terms of geographical representation and longitudinal evidence of sustained learning outcomes. based on these findings, this review recommends the continued integration of dialogic feedback as a central component of elt practice, with particular attention to expanding its use across different language skills, learner levels, and learning environments. future research should focus on addressing current limitations by exploring dialogic feedback in underrepresented contexts, including primary and secondary education, vocational training, and diverse cultural settings. furthermore, there is a pressing need for longitudinal, mixed-method studies that examine both the immediate and long-term effects of dialogic feedback on language proficiency and learner development. in parallel, teacher training programs should incorporate modules on dialogic pedagogy, equipping educators with strategies to facilitate effective two-way feedback exchanges across modalities and learner profiles. curriculum designers are also encouraged to embed dialogic feedback principles into assessment practices and instructional design, ensuring sustained learner engagement and metacognitive growth. by broadening its scope and strengthening its empirical foundation, dialogic feedback research can continue to contribute meaningfully to the advancement of reflective, learner-centered language education. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 51 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 37-53 susanti, a. (dialogic feedback in elt: modalities, outcomes, and research…..) acknowledgment this study did not receive any specific funding. the authors would like to express sincere gratitude to devanie firananda happy agtasia and kiki n. hermawanto for the valuable technical support provided during the preparation of this manuscript. declarations author contribution : ani susanti led the research and drafting with constructive input from tengku intan suzila tengku sharif and alex masardo. all authors approved the final manuscript. funding statement : this research did not receive any external funding. conflict of interest : the authors declare no competing interests. ethics declaration : not applicable. this study is a systematic literature review based solely on the analysis of previously published secondary data. no human participants were involved, and therefore, ethical approval and informed consent were not required. additional information : no additional information. references alqefari, a. n. 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(2025). enhancing l2 learners ’ self-regulated speaking through digital oral dialogue journaling: an efl classroom-based study. relc journal, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/00336882251313704 https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2020.1772957 https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2021.1941216 https://doi.org/10.4244/eijy14m06_06 https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399x.2014.908554 https://doi.org/10.3390/su13095211 https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2012.719154 https://doi.org/10.1177/00336882251313704 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. 14-24 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.11912 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id unleashing the power of instruction: internalizing religious moderation values in students’ efl writing nurul puspita a,1,*, septa aryanika b,2 a, b uin raden intan lampung, jl. endro suratmin, bandar lampung and 35131, indonesia 1 nurulpuspita@radenintan.ac.id*; 2 septaaryanika@radenintan.ac.id * corresponding author a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 19 december 2024 revised 14 march 2025 accepted 25 april 2025 writing in english as a foreign language (efl) is a special chance for students to improve their language skills and develop their social awareness. through the use of writing prompts that promote values like tolerance, respect for others, and critical thinking, students are able to express themselves more effectively in english and gain a deeper comprehension of other viewpoints. this study used qualitative research to examine the effects of implementing religious moderation values on efl students' writing ability. analysis of the effects of exposure to these values on writing coherence, argumentation, and intercultural sensitivity was done using data acquired through students interviews and observation sheets. the results show that the incorporating of religious moderation in efl lessons has a positive effect on students' language learning and knowledge of global cultural issues encouraging more considerate and polite conversation. the research emphasizes how learning a language together with a values-based education can result in students who are more adept and socially conscientious, especially in writing class. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords the power of instruction religious moderation students’ efl writing values how to cite: puspita, n. & aryanika, s. (2025). unleashing the power of instruction: internalizing religious moderation values in students’ efl writing. english language teaching educational journal, 8(1), 14-24. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.11912 1. introduction indonesia is admitted universally as one of the moderate islamic countries and has the major muslim population in the world. subsequently, we have always constantly encouraged moderate islam as element of our foreign rule uniqueness in order to determine the essential reputation in the global system. however, dialogue over indonesia’s hesitating moderate islam in indonesia has lately picked up steam, especially in the wake of the substantial public complaints in jakarta in late 2016. as of right now, the tendency toward intolerance in all of its indications in society is developing rather than lessening (fajri & muhtarom, 2022). for instance, inappropriate usage of moderation is often the root cause of religious conflicts in indonesia; promoting the principle of moderation will aid in their resolution (qoffal et al., 2025). it means that as a civilization, we have to increase and incorporate the important values of religious moderation in our daily lives such as incorporation obligation, tolerance, non-violence, and accommodating to local culture. therefore, the existence of religious moderation is desired to facilitate between diversity, where religious devotees can take the middle (moderate) route within the diversity of interpretations, and tolerance without disobeying the core of their religious teaching (muchtar et al., 2022). a midway ground where religion and culture coexist peacefully is religious moderation. furthermore, moderation aims to prevent current religions and beliefs from clashing with the cultural diversity or https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.11912 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:nurulpuspita@radenintan.ac.id mailto:septaaryanika@radenintan.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i1.11912 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 15 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. xx-xx puspita & aryanika (unleashing the power of instruction: internalizing religious moderation values) local wisdom that emerges in indonesia. it is possible to stop radical or restrictive religious viewpoints by adopting an attitude and level of awareness associated to religious moderation toward culture (mahmudin et al., 2022). at last smith (2023) explains that the lack of excess, or the act or state of being less aggressive or intense, is what is meant by moderation. additionally, it is enormously important to adopt religious moderation values over education field. education is also an essential characteristic of assembling a tolerant educational setting for all religious believers. the application of religious moderation in education is to comprehend common thoughtful from an early age between students who have altered religious views. the syllabus or books employed in schools should incorporate the principles of diversity and religious tolerance. additionally, by executing the principles of religious culture in schools as well as the compact focus on teachers and administration of educational organizations, it is anticipated to form closeness and social students so that prospectively, we can figure the atmosphere, ethics and cultivation of a distinguished country and not victimize in contradiction of other people's religions (abdilaa, 2021). it is also explained by nor et al. (2025) that incorporating religious moderation into english instruction, particularly in curricula that emphasize values-based learning and encourage tolerance and moderation to build peaceful communities. it can be said that incorporating religious moderation values in teaching and learning process can foster students’ positive manners in their social lives both at school and at home. the completion of religious moderation value in teaching and learning procedure is not only combined in religious course but also into entire course. for illustration, science and social subject, such as english (pelu, et al., 2022). the existence of islamic integrity values mixed into every subject in school, students could implement the values of islamic character in daily lives fakhruddin et al. (2025). moreover, sholeh et al. (2022) express that through lesson designs, instructional materials, teaching and learning activities, and evaluation, madrasah english language instruction can incorporate islamic moderation norms. thus, participating the islamic moderation value into the teaching and learning process is not a hard work. teachers can designate the education methods which shelter the teaching space activity connecting collaborative activities. in one word, the use of religious moderation values can be simply affected in a school’s curriculum. according patak et al. (2018), teaching english as a foreign language (tefl) becomes more relevant if teachers can participate local information, such as the importance of students’ religion, in addition to the culture of the society in which the students live. by giving information about the students’ social and cultural backgrounds and using real-world examples to illustrate a topic, for instance, teachers can inspire their pupils. additionally, students' cultural backgrounds can be used as a source of input texts while teaching english as a second language. this allows them to learn about and develop local cultures, including moral values and knowledge that are essential for character development. thus, pre-service english instructors who have integrated the local culture into their lesson plans in three areas such as product, practices, and perspective support it. then, some of them blended local customs from different ethnic groups, while others solely included specific local cultures (azhary & fatimah, 2024). students should acquire english language skills, such as speaking, listening, reading, and writing, when studying english as a foreign language (efl). since teaching writing also involves teaching all other skills, it is said to be the most challenging talent to teach. over the course of several decades, educators and academics have worked hard to determine the most effective methods for teaching esl/efl writing. iskandar (2020) expresses that there are two key unfavorable circumstances repeatedly faced by students in the process of writing. first of all, it is understandable when students utilize inappropriate language translations because they typically have a propensity to think in two different languages simultaneously. second, they write more slowly to prevent errors since they are aware of their weakness in writing mechanics. it is also stated by altun (2023) that writing is a difficult process that calls for creativity, critical thinking, and language skills since it involves generating, organizing, and transforming ideas into coherent compositions. extensive studies have been conducted regarding the execution of religious moderation values. for instance, azizah et al. (2022) argue that the study's findings demonstrated a strong correlation between puppet media and storytelling exercises in helping young children, ages 5 to 6, develop a deeper understanding of tolerance and peace making toward differences. additionally, the teacher's approach was successful in instilling the concept of gentleness as moderation and a love of peace. finally, it can 16 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. xx-xx puspita & aryanika (unleashing the power of instruction: internalizing religious moderation values) be claimed that early childhood story activities are strongly linked to fostering values in a moderately religious manner. in addition, pelu, et al. (2022) explain that the study's findings demonstrated that while constructing learning objectives and guidelines for moderation-based english education, english teachers constantly take the implementation into account. when formulating learning objectives and guidelines, educators should be impartial, avoid favoritism toward any student or group, and steer clear of any goals that could incite violence. moreover, hidayat (2022) states that the findings of the research indicated that habib hussein ja'far al-hadar has successfully accomplished the three phases of value incorporation: value transformation, value transactions, and trans-internalization. it demonstrates how the youtube channel's material works to combat extremism and foster tolerance for other religions in millennials. therefore, wahyuningsih and munawaroh (2023) mention that verbal stimulation (advice and reminders), english language material, instructional strategies, instructor conduct, and homework can all contribute to the internalization of religious moderation principles. tolerance, dialogue, fairness, dynamics, creativity, and development are some of these principles. the personality diversity of students and the dearth of english textbooks with religious moderation ideals provide obstacles in the meantime. at last, it is seen to be beneficial to incorporate religious moderation into the creation of english teaching materials in order to shield pupils from radicalism and intolerance (budiasih & dewi, 2023). considering the phenomena above, research on religious moderation values were mostly in islamic study program where they are accustomed with islamic values. therefore, research on integrating religious moderation values into elt settings, particularly in teaching writing and analysing its strengths, remains limited and requires further exploration. the current research, therefore, aims to portray on internalizing the religious moderation values in teaching writing as well as the strength. since writing is a complex skill, it differs based on students’ academic level, prior knowledge, and language skills. furthermore, students should also adhere strictly to the writing process. making a plan, outlining, drafting, and refining the manuscript are the first steps. through collaborative writing strategies, the researchers in this study aim to help students internalize the values of religious moderation when writing essays. one type of collaborative learning that encourages students to collaborate to produce a written piece is the collaborative writing technique. with the primary objectives of switching ideas, peer teaching (such as checking grammar or writing mechanics), or even suggesting concepts to improve the writing, students can share in groups or pairs to put it into practice. they can also acquire social skills like negotiation and openmindedness (wahyuningsih & munawaroh, 2023). in addition, in academic writing classes, collaborative writing exercises greatly enhance the caliber of individual writing (pham, 2023). the students are practicing religious moderation values like tolerance (“tasamuh”) and discussion (“syura”) by employing this method. afterward, the researcher shall offer the topic and theme of the essay, which denotes to local wisdom (“i’tiraf bil urf”). the research is unique in that it takes an innovative approach to incorporating religious moderation values into english as a foreign language (efl) writing instruction, particularly in islamic educational contexts. while earlier research has examined into religious moderation in education, this research distinguishes out because it focuses on internalizing religious moderation values through efl writing, a less usual intersection. providing useful advice on how english teachers might integrate cultural and moral values into language instruction, which may encourage more all-encompassing teaching methods. the primary research and research questions for this research are: 1. how is the incorporation of religious moderation values in students’ efl writing? 2. what is the impact of incorporating religious moderation values in students’ efl writing? 2. method this qualitative research aimed to comprehend the social phenomena of the student performance in essay writing, specifically writing comparison essays with the topic of lampung local wisdom by implementing religious moderation values. therefore, the purpose of this research is to inform the implementation and impact of religious moderation values. since qualitative research aims to understand and evaluate people's meanings, behaviours, and social facts in their everyday environments, it is a crucial technique in many academic disciplines and expert fields (hecker & issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 17 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. xx-xx puspita & aryanika (unleashing the power of instruction: internalizing religious moderation values) kalpokas, 2024). although it offers a variety of data gathering and analysis methods and in-depth, human-centred insights, qualitative research has drawbacks such as limited generalizability and possible researcher bias (lim, 2024). to sum up, qualitative research aims to provide a comprehensive and contextualized understanding of the phenomenon being studied by compiling and analysing nonnumerical data, such as words, images, and behaviours. qualitative research uses a variety of techniques and approaches for the collecting and analysis of non-numerical data in order to get a deeper knowledge of human experiences and behaviours. 2.1 participants students enrolled in an essay writing course in the fourth semester of uin raden intan lampung's english education study program served as the research participants. the participants were recruited through the use of purposive sampling. eighty-six students from four classes participated. the students were chosen due to their extensive writing expertise, which was necessary for them to pass a course on composing paragraphs. 2.2 instruments the implementation of religious moderation values in students’ essay writing used an observation sheet from collaborative writing procedures. it was adopted to examine the internalization of the values by the participants in completing essay writing tasks. the observations comprise 7 steps. for instances, students create pairs or triads to produce concepts, students establish their concepts and create an outline, students split up the outline then produce draft, teams read rough drafts and examine and determine any substantial differences in voice, content, and style, teams merge individual writing into a single essay, team review and edit their essay, and teams collect their essay. it was done in two meetings. therefore, these steps assisted the researchers to interpret the implementation of religious moderation values in students’ efl writing. to interpret students’ experiences in writing an essay while implementing religious moderation values into learning activities, a semi-structured interview was organized. the researcher explored several aspects of religious moderation values into the items of questions. there are several aspects used as the interview guidelines for instance, tasamuh (tolerance), shura (discussion), tathawur wa ibtikar (dynamic/creative/innovative), and musawah (egalitarian). 2.3 data collection in this research, the researchers gathered the data by using observation, and semi-structured interview. first, an observation guideline was generated by using steps of collaborative writing technique theory. second, the students were interviewed by using semi-structure interview. there were about 30 students interviewed. it is related to their experiences in writing an essay through collaborative writing by using local wisdom themes. this kind of interview allows the comprehensive investigation while pertaining consistency across interviews. 2.4 data analysis the interview data were completely transcribed to find necessary information. the information was then coded. by grouping the coded data into distinct group types, the researchers created a conceptual framework (corbin & strauss, 2014). the interview revealed recurring themes that occurred. within the data, researchers find and examine recurrent themes or patterns. this entails categorizing or labelling pieces of the data in order to code it and then organizing the codes into more general themes (maguire & delahunt, 2017). the symbol "s" was used to refer to the students when examining the data. for instance, student 1 is denoted by "s1." the insights gained from the interview sessions were cross-checked and validated with the students' real classroom activities using observational data. the observation data were also used to portray the incorporation of religious moderation values in students’ efl writing. 3. findings and discussion following a comprehensive analysis of data collected from observation guidelines among students’ efl writing of the 4th semester, this section will present the key results regarding their activity in writing a classification essay that incorporated religious moderation values, as presented in table 1. 18 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. xx-xx puspita & aryanika (unleashing the power of instruction: internalizing religious moderation values) table 1. result of observation no. procedures of collaborative writing techniques descriptions 1. students create pairs or triads at your directions or by selecting buddies and then produce concepts by thinking collectively or accompanying preliminary research. in the introduction to teaching writing, the lecturer has explained the topic of the material, which was a classification essay. therefore, the students are divided into several teams. in a team are about 5 students. it is divided equally based on students’ competency without considering their social background (musawah/equality). it is fair, and all students have the same chance to work in teams (i’tidal). moreover, the students are asked to share their knowledge with each other. they started to arrange the brainstorming ideas from the chosen topic. the students are freely to share their creative and innovative ideas (tathawur wa ibtikar). the topic is about the local custom of lampung society (local wisdom). the topics provided are (1) the plantation commodities from lampung, (2) the handicrafts from lampung, (3) the indigenous community groups, (4) the lampung’s traditional dance, (5) the lampung’s traditional food, (6) the lampung’s traditional song, and (7) the lampung’s traditional folklore. 2. together, students establish their concepts and create an outline after writing a mapping of the brainstorming, the students organized their ideas and made an outline. all students try to share their ideas in making thesis statements, topic sentences, and conclusions. the members of the team support and embrace innovative ideas to produce an outline (tathawwur wa ibtikar/dynamism and innovation). the students in their team actively participate in organizing and creating an outline (musawah/egalitarian). 3. students split up the outline, selecting or communicating portions so that each can produce an original draft on their own. the leader of the team showed the result of the outline to members. then, the lecturer suggested that the students should generate their draft individually. it is helping the students to encourage their self-improvement for positive benefit about their writing proficiency (ishlah/reform). in addition, the students practiced generating their original ideas in the initial draft and respecting their members’s ideas (tasamuh/tolerance). 4. teams read rough drafts and examine and determine any substantial differences in voice, content, and style. after completing the initial draft, then the team discussed and resolved several aspects, such as voice, content, and style. the lecturer guided the students to check whether or not the students had generated the ideas based on the main topic. in this essay, the students have classified the topic and mentioned examples of the chosen topic. moreover, the member can prioritize revising their incorrect writing in order to have a positive effect on their essay (aulawiyah/prioritizing priorities). 5. teams merge individual writing into a single essay the next step is collecting an individual writing. the team has consulted and selected each other then they made a decision to promote original single document (shura/consultation/deliberation). 6. team review and edit their essay, ensuring for content and clarity as well as grammar, spelling, and punctuation. the writing document is ready to check. each of the students identify the writing aspects such as content and clarity as well as grammar, spelling, and punctuation. the essay is written by using handwriting. thus, it should be checked carefully by using the writing's rubric that emphasizes the middle path, not the careless rubric (tawassuth/middle path). 7. after the last edit, teams collect their essay to the professor for evaluation and assessment. the team has submitted their handwriting essay. the lecturer checked it. example of introductory paragraph: lampung dance shows rich cultural values. lampung dance expresses respect and reflection of life. as a lampung people, we must preserve it. there are many types of traditional dance from lampung. therefore, the writer will focus on explaining traditional dance from east lampung. the dances are meliting, bedana, and cangget. the second section will present the result of interview. the interview was conducted offline with the students. the students were permitted to respond to the interview questions in both english and indonesian, even though the researchers asked the questions in english. there were several questions related to the research question given to the students. the questions refer to two major themes, such issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 19 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. xx-xx puspita & aryanika (unleashing the power of instruction: internalizing religious moderation values) as students’ experiences and the impact of implementing religious moderation values in students’ efl writing. 3.1. themes 1: students’ experiences of implementing religious moderation values in students’ efl writing. all students who have been interviewed shared their activities during the implementation of religious moderation values based on the steps of the writing process. the following is an example of students’ transcription. s1 : first, we chose the topic. we chose the topic about the indigenous community groups. then, we brainstormed ideas, find familiar vocabulary such as begawi, pepaduan, and siger. we try to give chance one another in sharing our opinions, selected the most relevant points, and finally organized them into essay parts together. s2 : lecturers give instructions to classify essays by giving several topics to choose from about the local wisdom of lampung in each group that has been formed previously and then each group works together to complete the essay according to the topic they choose. in the essay we gave information or create new ideas about some typical lampung foods and classified them according to the characteristics of each food in discussion. s3 : at first, we decided on the topic by drawing a lottery. we got lampung folklore. the uniqueness obtained; we can find out that there are many lampung folklores that people don't know. many of these stories still exist today. then we brainstorm it together. some specific words are telukbetung, kota bumi, liwa, kelengkup gangsa, and more found in our discussion. therefore, we share opinions with each other, choosing the most resonant, and finally organising them into the sections that we want to write into the essay. s4 : first, we brainstormed ideas related to lampung culture. then, we discussed which ideas were most suitable for a classification essay. after that, we selected specific categories and supporting details together. we categorized the words according to the theme, made sure they fit the classification, and checked their meaning and context through discussions and online dictionaries. we also found vocabulary such as "sigeh penguten," "seruit," "tapis cloth," "pindang lampung," and "melinting dance." 3.2. themes 2: students’ reflection on the impact of implementing religious moderation values in students’ efl writing. there were some varied answers from the students interviewed about the impact they obtained of implementing religious moderation values in students’ efl writing. the following is an example of students’ responses. s1 : the presence of words that show the characteristics of each subject analyzed, for example: the classification of traditional lampung food between “seruit” and “tempoyak”. therefore, s1 also mentioned about their discussion. first, each of us must know and get information about lampung culture, then we discuss to summarize the words with vocabulary that others often say, then change the words that are difficult for readers to understand. s2 : “sigeh pengunten”. a traditional welcoming dance performed to greet honored guests. sigeh pengunten is a dance symbol of hospitality and respect in lampung culture, often performed at important ceremonies. it reflects the refinement and elegance of the lampung people. in addition, s2 also discuss and create new innovation for their essay. to facilitate different ideas in a team, several actions can be taken to encourage creativity, open communication. s3 : we chose suitable words by researching keywords and phrases related to lampung folklore. specific words include “tari sembah,” “tari bedana,” and “upacara.” then, s3 mentions the team also tried to solve several differences in writing and essay. by having a group discussion to determine the final outcome that will be used in writing the essay. s4 : we have focus on traditional food at lampung. the terms such as seruit, tempoyak, and gulai taboh. then, in discussion the team took several actions, it can be taken to encourage creativity, open communication. sometimes there is a different idea but there is always a way out for it 20 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. xx-xx puspita & aryanika (unleashing the power of instruction: internalizing religious moderation values) drawing on the interview result, the students agree that the implementation of religious moderation values in students’ efl writing provides positive impacts such as enriching students vocabulary, engaging students’ discussion, fostering students’ critical thinking, and promoting tolerance and harmony through real-life examples. 3.3. discussion the initial result of this research indicates that the implementation of religious moderation values in students’ efl writing has become a major field of research. by internalizing religious moderation values into the teaching writing, the lecturer can produce a learning environment that is more significant and impactful. the religious moderation principles appear during the implementation such as musawah or equality, i’tidal or local wisdom, tathawwur wa ibtikar or dynamism and innovation, shura or consultation or deliberation, and tawassuth or middle path. the following is the example of incorporation religious moderation principles taken from observation and interview result. “it is divided equally based on students’ competency without considering their social background”. “yes, the leader divided roles among team members based on our strengths, such as research, writing, and editing” “it is fair, and all students have the same chance to work in teams” (musawah or equality). “the topic is about the local custom of lampung society (i’tidal or local wisdom). “the members of the team support and embrace innovative ideas to produce an outline”. “we searched online articles, books about lampung culture, interviewed local elders, and referred to school materials.” “we compared several sources and chose the ones that were most accurate, detailed, and easy to understand.” (tathawwur wa ibtikar/dynamism and innovation). “the team has consulted and selected each other then they made a decision to promote original single document” “there were several times i gave my ideas for the topic. we were discussing, sometimes i took it by looking at the reality around me, or experiences from other people”. (shura/consultation/deliberation). “thus, it should be checked carefully by using the writing's rubric that emphasizes the middle path, not the careless rubric” “we have chosen to use sources that are reliable and written by those who know the lampung culture best”. (tawassuth/middle path). the implementation of religious moderation values, in learning writing using collaborative writing technique offers a novel way to promote tolerance. in this technique, students collaborate to produce written pieces that promote candid discussion and introspection on diverse viewpoints. for instance, the students have to share their ideas to the team to brainstorm the topic of a comparison essay about lampung culture. therefore, the member of the team usually finds problems about different ideas. luckly, the implementation of this value emphasize moves to encourage tolerance, peaceful cohabitation, and empathy during the writing process. collaborative writing technique also develops students’ writing abilities while fostering their capacity to respectfully discuss delicate subjects. students can learn and practice these principles through collaborative writing, which guarantees that they will play a crucial role in their moral and intellectual growth. numerous studies have shown that incorporating religious moderation ideals into students' writing in english as a foreign language has significant positive effects on fostering tolerance, respect for variety, and critical thinking. for instance, nirwana and darmadali (2021) explain that improve students' awareness and practice of religious moderation by including religious moderation into english language training, particularly through cross-cultural understanding classes. likewise, sukraini et al. (2021) emphasize that incorporating communication exercises into english language instruction to instil ideals of religious moderation and promote tolerance and respect for diversity among students. in keeping with the national motto of indonesia, "unity in diversity," incorporating the concepts of religious moderation into english language instruction. this outcome is consistent with previous research by nur hamidah et al. (2022) that classifying the application of religious moderation values in university students over national assurance, tolerance, peace, and accommodation of local culture could support avoid radicalization and encourage tolerance between students. more significantly, including religious moderation principles into efl writing fosters tolerance, respect for opposing viewpoints, and critical thinking. by using religious moderation in their efl writing, the lecturer encouraged students to express their thoughts while considering different cultural and religious viewpoints. this approach reduces extremist or unbearable tendencies by encouraging a more balanced viewpoint. furthermore, in addition to encouraging improved writing skills, these methods contribute to the development of a generation of students who are better equipped to navigate issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 21 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. xx-xx puspita & aryanika (unleashing the power of instruction: internalizing religious moderation values) the diversity of the world in a fair and inclusive way. students contribute to the development of a more tranquil and harmonious society once they apply these principles outside of the classroom to their communities and careers. the second result of the research demonstrates that the implementation of religious moderation values in students’ efl writing has a complex impact, supporting social and intellectual advancement. firstly, implementing religious moderation values in education helps students become socially conscious individuals who can facilitate constructive discourse. students who absorb these values are less likely to engage in extremism and more likely to encourage harmony and togetherness within their communities, which can have a knock-on effect on larger societal concerns. it is proven by the result of the interview that there are numerous tribes among the students. “no, i am not from the lampung tribe.” yes, i am part of the lampung tribe.”. secondly, it promotes students’ ability to participate with different viewpoints, encouraging their writing to reflect tolerance. for instance, “yes, sometimes there were incompatible ideas, especially when deciding which cultural aspects were most important to include.” “yes, some of the friends in group discussion have their own way expressing on what is writing an essay. therefore, we discuss it again”. in addition, efl writing classes help to promote intercultural understanding by allowing students to articulate diverse points of view. due to the requirement that students examine and respectfully and thoughtfully explain complex social and religious topics; this approach not only fosters critical thinking skills but also enhances language ability. thus, the students can enrich their vocabularies about local culture. numerous studies have indicated, research on the implementation of religious moderation values in students’ efl writing indicates complex impact in promoting vocabulary enrichment, critical thinking, respect for tolerance, discussion encouragement and harmony. as an illustration, fitri et al. (2022) insert the values of religious moderation on indonesian efl class, it was discovered that teachers emphasized tolerance and understanding in reflective essays and interviews, using these values to expand students' vocabulary and enhance their english writing abilities. likewise, ’aini & zamroji (2025) say that islamic religious education must incorporate religious moderation principles in order to develop pupils into inclusive, moderate people with a well-rounded religious viewpoint. it fosters a nonviolent classroom atmosphere. the results align with earlier research conducted by sabri et al. (2022), the integration of religious moderation in efl classrooms can be effectively achieved through group discussions. group discussion was used in one research to help students develop tolerance and respect for one another while studying islamic ethics, or akidah akhlak. the implementation of religious moderation values in students’ efl writing demonstrates a nuanced and multidimensional impact. research has repeatedly shown that adding values like harmony, tolerance, and respect to efl writing not only expands vocabulary but also encourages critical thinking and a broader understanding of cultural differences. the implementation of religious moderation in writing exercises supports a more comprehensive educational experience, in line with earlier research that highlighted the contribution of human values to improving moral and intellectual development. according to new research as well as previous research, incorporating religious moderation values and collaborative writing not only improves language proficiency but also fosters a tolerant, balanced perspective. therefore, the data indicate that implementing religious moderation into efl writing greatly enhances the development of inclusive, peaceful social attitudes as well as language proficiency. 4. conclusion considering the discussion above, it becomes evident that implementing religious moderation values in students’ efl writing offers a special chance to promote linguistic proficiency and sociocultural awareness. implementing these values encourages students to promote the respect for diversity, tolerance, and critical thinking. students can express their opinions while discussing about lampung local wisdom. by fostering a more balanced perspective, this strategy assists students’ tolerance. moreover, beyond fostering greater writing abilities, these techniques help produce a generation of students more capable of navigating the world's diversity in a balanced and inclusive manner. in addition, religious moderation values effect efl writers in two ways. for instance, students' ability to think critically and be sensitive to cultural differences is improved, which makes it easier for them to function in cross-cultural and international settings. second, students are more likely to 22 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 1, april 2025, pp. xx-xx puspita & aryanika (unleashing the power of instruction: internalizing religious moderation values) acquire a fair, sympathetic, and non-judgmental tone in their writing when ideals like respect for different viewpoints are modelled for them. this all-encompassing approach to language learning not only helps students write better but also develops their character, preparing them to be responsible global citizens who appreciate communication and understanding amongst people. in summary, implementing religious moderation values to efl writing fosters intercultural competency and ethical communication. those two traits are crucial in the connected world of today. it also improves language proficiency. acknowledgment the researchers encompass sincere appreciation to dipa in ministry of religious affairs for the research grants provided. the sincere gratefulness is reserved for the reviewer for their valuable comments, support, and guidance. their time and kind input meaningfully contributed to enhancing this research to its fullest potential. moreover, warm appreciations extended to the participants, whose dedicated efforts and energy were influential in the success of this research. their gracious assistance allowed the research to be successfully finished. declarations author contribution : in this research, there are two researchers, nurul puspita and septa aryanika. nurul is responsible for data collection, manuscript writing, and proofreading. meanwhile, septa is responsible for data analysis and revising the final manuscript. funding statement : the research is funded by dipa in ministry of religious affairs. conflict of interest ethics declaration : : the authors declare no conflict of interest. as authors, we declare that the research used to write this work was ethical, compliant with university policies, and that we have authorization from the appropriate institutions to gather the necessary data. we stand by english language teaching education journal (eltej) in upholding the highest moral standards in our personal lives and acting honorably in all of our professional activities. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references abdilaa, z. 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(2023). incorporating religious moderation values into english language teaching: a portrait of an indonesian vocational school. ijee (indonesian journal of english education), 10(2), 409–427. https://doi.org/10.15408/ijee.v10i2.28946 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.54213/tsaqafatuna.v4i2.233 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-023-09939-2 https://doi.org/10.71039/istifham.v2i3.76 https://doi.org/10.31538/nzh.v5i3.2649 https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.220104.027 https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2022.2070246 https://doi.org/10.33654/enlit.v1i2.1392 https://doi.org/10.15408/ijee.v10i2.28946 1. introduction 2. method 2.1 participants 2.2 instruments 2.4 data analysis 3. findings and discussion 3.1. themes 1: students’ experiences of implementing religious moderation values in students’ efl writing. 3.2. themes 2: students’ reflection on the impact of implementing religious moderation values in students’ efl writing. 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 150-163 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12063 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id ted talk and youtube for english education: an autoethnographic study tran thi hoang nguyen department of english language, van lang university, 69/68 đ. đặng thuỳ trâm, phường 13, bình thạnh, hồ chí minh 70000, vietnam r3gemstone@gmail.com a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 12 october 2024 revised 12 november 2024 accepted 20 november 2024 through a personal exploration using autoethnographic methodology, this study delves into the researcher’s experiences as both a student and a teacher, analyzing the benefits and limitations of integrating these social media tools into english education. data collected through reflective journaling on the usage of these platforms reveals key themes regarding engagement, distractions, and overall academic performance. ultimately, this study seeks to answer how these platforms have enhanced verbal skills and whether such experiences can be synthesized into lessons or activities to further assist other learners in their educational journeys. the findings point to both positive and negative impacts on teaching and learning development in elt, with the positive impacts being processed into practical strategies for supporting teaching and learning. © the author(s) 2024. published by universitas ahmad dahlan this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords youtube ted talks verbal skills learning teaching how to cite: nguyen, t. t. h. (2024). ted talk and youtube for english education: an autoethnographic study. english language teaching educational journal, 7(3), 150-163. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12063 1. introduction the emergence of web 2.0 tools for language learning witnesses a notable shift towards virtual platforms as promising environments for english language acquisition (barrot, 2022). despite such support, many complex elements in the language, including pose significant challenges for many students including grammar, pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, and the four skills (choirunnisa & sari, 2018; hamouda, 2013). in catering for such complexity, platforms such as youtube and ted talks have gained significant traction among both educators and students due to their flexibility, interactivity, and extensive resources. ted talks and youtube cater to diverse learning styles by presenting content in various formats—ranging from engaging videos to interactive discussions—which not only simplifies complex concepts but also makes language learning more accessible and enjoyable. this multifaceted approach enables learners to access lessons anytime, interact with peers and educators, and practice their language skills in a familiar environment. the use of social media for learning english presents both positive and negative impacts on the academic context (mei & aziz, 2022). given these complexities, it is crucial to explore the benefits and limitations of integrating ted talks and youtube into english teaching. the article shares the researcher’s personal experiences both as a student and as a teacher with an analysis of how these platforms have influenced the author’s english development journey. both youtube and ted talks are considered forms of social media, although they serve slightly different purposes and functionalities within that category. youtube is primarily a video-sharing https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.11938 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12063 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2641-1369 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i3.12063&domain=pdf 151 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 150-163 nguyen, t. t. h. (ted talk and youtube for english education…..) platform where users can upload, share, and view videos. it allows for interaction through comments, likes, and subscriptions, making it a highly interactive and community-driven platform. youtube hosts a vast array of content, including educational videos, entertainment, vlogs, and more. ted talks are a series of informative presentations on various topics delivered by experts in their fields. while ted itself is an organization that curates and produces these talks, the platform encourages sharing and discussion around the ideas presented, which aligns with social media principles. ted talks often spark conversations and can be shared across different social media platforms, thereby fostering community engagement around the ideas discussed. both platforms leverage user-generated content and allow for interaction, making them integral parts of the social media landscape, particularly in the context of educational and informative content. 1.1. research gap 1) innovative use of social media social media represents a valuable resource that can diversify teaching and learning approaches (alazemi et al., 2023). huang et al. (2023) argue that social media enhances the educational experience by fostering new modes of communication between educators and students. despite such values, social media addiction can result in negative emotions, diminished interest in social activities, and reduced motivation to learn, all of which may adversely impact academic success (huang, 2014). according to xu (2023), the evolution of education can be broadly categorized into three stages: the traditional experiential-imitative educational system, the computer-assisted educational system, and the big data-driven educational system. the traditional model, which relies on established teaching tools and focuses primarily on learning outcomes, tends to overlook opportunities for student exploration and innovation. along this line, research by chen et al. (2023) found that social media can provide learners with a low-stress environment ideal for developing speaking skills and fostering a sense of community beyond geographical and linguistic bounds. this can happen through tasks like creating and sharing videos on relevant platforms and participating in video discussions. extending classroom discussions to social media allows students to demonstrate their knowledge without the immediate pressure of traditional assessments, thereby increasing engagement. from a positive psychology perspective, alazemi et al. (2023) found that incorporating social media into education enhances writing skills and student engagement. its inherent communication capabilities foster stronger relationships between students and educators, facilitating informal and friendly interactions, as well as efficient information exchanges. social media, however, is a doubleedged sword, having both strengths and weaknesses. in strengths, alazemi et al. (2023) and xu (2023) emphasize that social media can help overcome traditional barriers of time and place in learning. furthermore, social media can enhance independent learning, providing access to an abundance of information and resources, which can motivate students to engage more actively in their studies. effective use of social media in education allows teachers to connect directly with students, thereby broadening the educational experience beyond traditional classrooms. conversely, in weaknesses, some research indicates that while social media can support professional learning among educators, its impact is often limited to individuals within the same department. as noted by nicholas et al. (2024), social media has not significantly fostered collaboration or understanding across different organizational sectors. most discussions have become tools for immediate technical solutions rather than platforms for cross-departmental collaboration. the following sections will look at the pros and cons of social media in some details. 2) research on youtube and ted talk in education lópez-carril et al. (2020) investigate the integration of ted talks as a pedagogical resource within sport management education, leveraging platforms such as youtube and linkedin. their study argues that ted talks can foster critical thinking and engagement by providing a rich source of contemporary insights relevant to students. the authors present practical strategies for educators seeking to incorporate these multimedia resources into their teaching, aiming to develop professional competencies and encourage lifelong learning among students. while their work contributes significantly to the discourse on digital resources in education, it also highlights a notable research gap concerning the empirical exploration of ted talks within sport management curricula. they issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 152 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 150-163 nguyen, t. t. h. (ted talk and youtube for english education…..) emphasize the necessity for further studies to analyze how such resources influence learning outcomes, student engagement, and skill development in this specific educational context. in comparison, brook (2011) provides a broader examination of youtube's potential for language learning and teaching. his review underlines the platform's advantages, including access to authentic language use, diverse accents, and interactive learning opportunities. brook stresses that integrating youtube into language curricula can elevate student motivation and engagement; however, his analysis primarily focuses on the features of the platform rather than providing effective methodologies for its practical implementation in educational settings. he identifies similar research gaps, such as the need for comprehensive studies on the effectiveness of specific channels and videos in language acquisition, and the exploration of cultural understanding through youtube content. both studies related to ted talks and youtube underscore a pressing need for empirical research that investigates the effectiveness and implementation challenges of multimedia resources like ted talks and youtube in education. while lópez-carril et al. (2020) specifically address the context of sport management, and brook focuses on language education, there is a shared recognition of the potential for innovation in teaching practices through technology. additionally, both articles call for further research to fill existing gaps, emphasizing that understanding specific features and their pedagogical impact remains crucial for educators aiming to enhance learning experiences in their respective fields. 1.2. research questions building on these shared characteristics, exploring the intersection between ted talks and social media use offers valuable insights into how digital platforms can support learning, engagement, and knowledge dissemination in contemporary educational contexts. therefore, the research questions are: 1. how has the researcher’s experience and reflection with youtube and ted talks enhanced verbal skills? 2. can such experiences be processed into lessons or activities to support the learning of others? 2. method 2.1. approach this study employs an autoethnographic methodology to explore the influence of social media on education from a personal perspective. autoethnography allows researchers to reflect on their individual experiences while simultaneously contextualizing these experiences within broader social and cultural frameworks. this method enables a deeper exploration of how social media shapes educational experiences and its impact on learning. 2.2. data collection data for the study was collected through the researcher’s reflective journaling. actively engaging with at least six social media platforms in vietnam, including zalo, viber, instagram, facebook, youtube, and ted talks, the researcher selected the last two for this study due to the maximum benefits that they bring compared to many others. on average, the researcher spends about two hours daily on social media, using youtube to refresh knowledge on topics of interest and to acquire new information and using ted talks to improve skills such as attentive listening, public speaking, and critical thinking. the researcher maintained a reflective journal recording her thoughts, feelings, and observations related to the use of youtube and ted talks as well as their effects on her development in teaching and learning. the number of videos is not taken into account. instead, the journal entries provided a comprehensive account of daily interactions with these tools, with focuses on the researcher’s academic experiences, distractions and challenges. the data were thematically analyzed. key themes emerged regarding the benefits and challenges of social media in an educational context. 2.3. method of analysis the analysis process follows three specific steps. first, the researcher generated initial codes that encapsulated significant elements of the data, focusing on aspects such as engagement, distraction, communication, and academic performance. second, these codes were then grouped into broader 153 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 150-163 nguyen, t. t. h. (ted talk and youtube for english education…..) themes, reflecting common patterns that emerged from the researcher’s personal experiences and critical reflections. third, a reflective lens was applied to ensure that the analysis acknowledged the researcher positionality, enhancing the authenticity of the findings and interpretations. 3. findings and discussion 3.1 the researcher’s experience and reflection with youtube and ted talks to enhance verbal skills 1) the advantages of learning english through social media a) rich learning resources social media applications serve four primary functions: entertainment, interaction, knowledge sharing, and education. platforms like youtube, instagram, and whatsapp have become integral to students' daily lives (mei & aziz, 2022). they provide a vast array of educational resources tailored to learners at all levels, from beginners to advanced students preparing for effective academic performance. b) breaking the limits of time and space alshammari et al. (2015) highlight that social media can break down the constraints of time and space, fostering a learner-centered environment. in ielts preparation, for example, social media quickly emerged as a valuable supplement, allowing flexibility to engage with educational content. as such, social media is an effective tool for supporting self-directed learning. it promotes collaboration and rapid resource sharing among users, helping students gather learning materials to complete tasks and homework through their preferred online channels (li, 2017). this functionality is particularly beneficial for those who require quick access to educational resources, fostering a collaborative approach to learning even when traditional classroom settings are unavailable. furthermore, social media platforms provide the flexibility for users to tailor their learning experiences to suit their individual needs, enabling students to "learn at their own pace and according to their own needs" (han, 2022, p. 7). the researcher found it particularly beneficial to be able to replay, pause, or slow down videos when tackling challenging concepts or practicing new vocabulary. this capability allowed intensive absorption of learning materials—something that can be difficult in a traditional classroom setting where time is often limited and the pace can be fast. additionally, short videos make it possible to make effective use of fragmented time. with social media, learning can occur anytime and anywhere. for instance, while waiting for the bus, students can watch a brief video on ielts speaking tips or listen to a native speaker discussing idiomatic expressions. this accessibility allows for seamless language learning, as these short bursts of knowledge throughout the day helped the researcher retain information more effectively and mitigated the learning fatigue that often accompanies long, intensive study sessions. 2) the disadvantages of learning english through social media a) lack of immediate feedback despite the wealth of resources available, one significant limitation compared to traditional faceto-face classes was the lack of immediate feedback. in contrast to in-person classroom settings, the feedback loop on social media often feels one-directional. learners typically consume information from influencers or teachers without the opportunity for direct interaction or personalized guidance, especially in pre-recorded video formats or during live streams. while real-time communication is possible in live classes, these often cater to large audiences, making it challenging to address individual concerns in a comprehensive manner. although learners can leave comments or participate in live discussions, such interactions may feel impersonal and delayed due to the high volume of participants vying for attention. furthermore, the absence of tailored guidance can be particularly challenging for beginners who may struggle with self-correction. in a physical classroom, teachers can assess their students’ progress and provide individualized support. however, the social media landscape can foster feelings of isolation, as learners might feel lost amidst the overwhelming array of influencers and content without sufficient direction. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 154 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 150-163 nguyen, t. t. h. (ted talk and youtube for english education…..) b) distraction another drawback of using social media for language learning is the potential for distraction. many students find themselves spending excessive time on entertainment, which can reduce study time and ultimately affect academic performance. the prevalence of advertisements and the enticing nature of non-educational content can easily divert attention (alshammari et al., 2015). social media is primarily designed for entertainment and social interaction, making it easy for students to be captivated by content unrelated to their studies. one common challenge experienced by many students while learning english is the influx of irrelevant content—such as funny pet videos, movie trailers, and cooking tutorials—that may not match everyone’s personal interests. such entertaining distractions may appear when students need to focus on study, making it difficult to resist the urge to click on them. most social media platforms employ algorithms to keep users engaged by promoting content based on their viewing preferences, creating a feedback loop that continually lures students away from their academic goals and into a realm of endless entertainment. additionally, the fast-paced nature of social media can lead to procrastination, as students often convince themselves to watch "just one more video" instead of focusing on their studies. this cycle not only wastes valuable learning time but can also heighten stress as deadlines approach. c) lack of accuracy another critical disadvantage of learning english through social media is the potential lack of accuracy in the information presented. while platforms like wikipedia are common reference points, they often lack reliability because their contributors may not have formal expertise in their fields (liu, 2010). unfortunately, this issue extends to various english learning resources on social media. numerous self-proclaimed "english learning bloggers" on platforms such as bilibili, tiktok, and red who lack professional qualifications or relevant study abroad experience. this is particularly concerning for beginners who rely on these influencers for foundational knowledge, as they may inadvertently absorb misinformation. errors in grammar, vocabulary, or pronunciation can lead to the development of bad habits that become difficult to correct later. in the researcher’s observation, many students sometimes follow a blogger who claimed to provide "perfect ielts speaking skills." after watching his videos, the researcher realized that the speaker’s grammar and pronunciation were not up to desirable standard. additionally, many advertisements from various organizations showcasing exaggerated success stories of high-scoring students. while these organizations promoted their methods as effective, the researcher later discovered that some of the "successful candidates" were misrepresented or selectively chosen to attract customers. the misinformation can create unrealistic expectations and a false sense of security among learners. such discrepancies can be particularly disheartening, especially when learners realize that those success stories indeed fail to reflect their own experiences. the scores that cannot meet learners’ expectations may lead to feelings of frustration and inadequacy. this highlights the essential need for learners to approach social media content with skepticism, seeking credible and well-sourced information to ensure a more accurate and effective learning experience. to guard off such misled attractions, it is crucial for english language learners to develop our discernment skills, analyze the information we encounter, and use it wisely (liu, 2010). 3) personal reflection on the use of social media as a student the challenge of social media in the researcher’s experience was a state of overuse. during her junior high school years, the researcher became overly reliant on social media to the point of addiction, which led to a noticeable decline in her academic performance. this prompted intervention from both her teachers and parents. reflective data for this study revealed that several of the researcher’s acquaintances also found certain audiovisual materials used by instructors to be distracting. as nema et al. (2023) indicate, existing research shows that multimedia in the classroom can disrupt student engagement and hinder instructor assessment. distraction manifests during many homework sessions as well. the researcher recalled a specific instance when she received an alert on her mobile phone while completing a challenging assignment. curiosity caused her to check the notification, which turned out to be a video shared by a friend. engaging with the video led to a chain reaction of watching subsequent videos, and before the researcher knew it, an hour had passed. this severely disrupted her study schedule, forcing her to 155 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 150-163 nguyen, t. t. h. (ted talk and youtube for english education…..) extend her bedtime to finish the homework. many students have reported similar experiences. it is clear that if such distractions persist, they will negatively impact our academic performance. thus, it is crucial that students allocate their time wisely and set specific time slots for social media usage, ensuring it does not interfere with their studies and lives. in exploring solutions, some students mentioned studying at the school library without their phones, leaving them in their dorm rooms, and waiting until they returned to check their devices. others reported using the 'do not disturb' mode on their phones to prevent distractions from social media during study time. one particularly effective strategy the researcher discovered is using an app called forest, which gamifies the user's focus. upon completing a challenge, players can 'harvest' virtual trees that signify their efforts. success earns them rewards like gold coins that can be used to purchase additional virtual trees, or they can opt to plant real trees, thereby linking productivity to environmental sustainability. this dual benefit helps maintain focus while contributing positively to the world. while the researcher occasionally succumbs to the lure of social media even within the app, achieving goals in forest often leads to a sense of accomplishment. watching virtual saplings grow into thriving trees symbolizes the cultivation of positive learning habits and an improvement in the researcher’s academic performance. this approach allows educators to monitor students’ concentration levels effectively, proving more beneficial than merely warning students about the potential distractions of their mobile devices. 4) personal reflection on youtube and ted talks as a teacher a) youtube as an educator in primary school english, the researcher has witnessed firsthand how social media has revolutionized teaching methodologies. in the past, many vietnamese teachers tended to rely on traditional textbooks and lecture-based approaches, which sometimes restrict student engagement. however, the emergence of platforms such youtube and ted talks have opened up inspiring possibilities, allowing teachers to adopt a more interactive and dynamic teaching style. in her teaching experiences, the researcher has designed class projects that employ social media to enhance student engagement and participation. such activities not only broadened the learning channels available to students but also transformed them from recipients of information into active learners who produce videos and share their findings with a wider audience. it has been incredibly rewarding to watch her students develop their digital literacy and critical thinking skills through this process, achieving a deeper and more meaningful learning experience. one of the most significant impacts of social media on teaching has been the researcher’s ability to create a more interactive classroom environment. for instance, it was found that using video platforms like youtube can effectively capture students’ attention and motivate them to participate in lessons. when introducing topics, the researcher incorporates short, engaging cartoon videos that convey educational content through storytelling. this approach not only makes complex topics relatable but also fosters a sense of curiosity and excitement among students. integrating a think-pairshare model after watching these videos turns students into active participants, encouraging them to discuss ideas, ask questions, and engage critically with what they have learned. in her reflections, the researcher has come to appreciate the vast array of visual and auditory resources available through platforms such as youtube. these resources cater to various learning styles and enable students to grasp concepts more easily. the researcher recalls a specific lesson with her conversation class where she introduced the order of the months using a catchy cartoon video. the combination of music and visuals not only helped students remember the sequence but also made the learning experience enjoyable. observing how students lighting up with understanding reinforced the researcher’s trust in the effectiveness of a multi-sensory approach to education. using youtube has transformed the researcher’s teaching resources, allowing her to access a repository of educational content that extends beyond the limitations of textbooks. she finds the ability to adapt videos to suit students’ interests invaluable. by utilizing platforms such as youtube kids, she is able to curate age-appropriate content that enhances her teaching across various subjects. this flexibility not only enriches the learning experience but also ensures that the material aligns with the curriculum and meets the specific needs of students. during such practice, the researcher has noticed a significant shift in their engagement levels as they share their multimedia projects and receive feedback from peers. one memorable project involved having students document and share their observations of the moon over a month. by posting issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 156 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 150-163 nguyen, t. t. h. (ted talk and youtube for english education…..) their photos on our google classroom forum, they explored the lunar phases hands-on, fostering collaboration and creativity. this experience highlighted how social media can transform ordinary lessons into engaging, collaborative, and meaningful learning opportunities. in her experience as a teacher, the integration of social media into the classroom has reshaped the researcher’s teaching practices and enriched her students' learning experiences. by embracing these tools, she has moved towards a more interactive, personalized, and relevant approach to education. social media has not only provided valuable resources but has also transformed students into active participants in their learning, fostering a culture of communication, collaboration, and creativity. b) ted talk ted talks serve as an effective resource for both students and teachers in the teaching and learning process. in vietnam, where english language proficiency is increasingly essential for academic and professional success, ted talks have emerged as a valuable tool for enhancing learners’ listening and speaking skills. this is largely due to their authentic language presentation, diversity, and accessibility (park & cha, 2013). as globalization continues to shape vietnam's economy and culture, the ability to communicate effectively in english has become more critical than ever (bui, 2013). consequently, educational institutions across the country are placing a strong emphasis on english language learning, elevating its status within the curriculum (hoang, 2020). resources like ted talks have become important supplementary tools for modernizing the classroom experience. ted, which stands for technology, entertainment, and design, is a non-profit organization that offers free presentations available on the internet (nursafira, 2020). the platform features recordings of global conferences that cover a wide range of topics, from business and science to education and entertainment. since becoming publicly accessible in 2006, ted presentations have garnered significant engagement, resulting in more than 1,800 talks and a database of 35,000 transcripts available in over 30 languages—a number that continues to grow (taibi et al., 2010). the talks showcase speakers from diverse linguistic backgrounds and cultures, offering a unique platform for authentic language input and cultural exploration (li, 2024). furthermore, the short duration of each video—typically no more than 18 minutes—makes them easily digestible and encourages lively classroom discussions around relevant ideas and educational experiences (ahluwalia, 2018). this exposure provides students with practical understanding of english, enriching their knowledge beyond traditional textbooks (johnson, 2018). 5) the influence of youtube and ted talks on enhancing verbal skills a) youtube and ted talks as a model for pronunciation and intonation the researcher recalls, as a student in the past, how her english speaking used to resemble a robotic delivery, she struggled to articulate words yet they lacked the natural rise and fall in tone that characterizes fluent speech. consequently, she was unable to convey her emotions effectively during conversations. this issue is not unique to her. many learners in english as a foreign language (efl) contexts share similar challenges, particularly when both teachers and students are non-native speakers (nurhidayat & syarifah, 2019). to address this, the researcher decided to modify her learning approach by exposing herself to authentic materials through youtube and ted talks. employing techniques such as mimicking and shadowing while watching these videos has significantly improved her pronunciation and intonation. pronunciation involves not only articulating words but also producing the correct sounds of the english language. it is argued that practicing and adjusting pronunciation in real time enable learners to refine their skills (nurhidayat & syarifah, 2019). such methods enhance students’ understanding of contextual language models, increasing their awareness of various components such as auditory elements, rhythmic structures, and prosodic features (totoy sani, 2019). as noted by yang (2016), engaging with youtube and ted talks can help students improve phonetic pronunciation and prosody competence, moving one closer to a highly intelligible pronunciation. research by tran and nguyen (2024) also indicates that most students surveyed preferred to mimic the intonation and pronunciation of speakers while using phrases and vocabulary to refine their own speech. while youtube and ted talks have been invaluable for improving her pronunciation, they have also exposed the researcher to a range of english accents from diverse presenters. however, this exposure comes with its own set of challenges. first, the rapid speech of some speakers can make it difficult to follow along, particularly if learners miss one or two vocabulary words (diniya, 2023). 157 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 150-163 nguyen, t. t. h. (ted talk and youtube for english education…..) this can hinder their ability to listen and effectively imitate the words. secondly, with so many accents to choose from, learners may struggle to determine which accent to emulate, making it difficult to achieve consistent fluency (diniya, 2023). to overcome these obstacles, the researcher often rely on transcripts and adjust the video playback speed when struggling to understand the words clearly. b) youtube and ted talks as a catalyst for critical thinking while pronunciation and intonation are vital components of speaking proficiency, critical thinking also plays an essential role. critical thinking encompasses skills developed through understanding a specific topic, evaluating evidence, and critically examining arguments (facione, 1990; wade, 2009). speaking involves articulating ideas. to express ideas effectively, knowledge is required. since the researcher began watching selected youtube and ted talks, she have gained knowledge across various fields, including arts, education, and science. the enlightening content of ted talks encourages her to think critically, a process advocated by tran and nguyen (2024) as being essential to learning efficiency. the slogan "ideas worth spreading," prominently featured in the ted logo, reflects the platform's commitment to sharing knowledge through the insights of seasoned professionals (ted, 2016). as quizhpi picón (2015) notes, ted is dedicated to countering negative narratives by promoting positive ideas and educating audiences on values across multiple disciplines. this framework has made ted an effective tool for enhancing oral english learning and providing fresh cultural perspectives (quizhpi picón, 2015). after watching a talk, the researcher develops a habit of summarizing main points and create questions that encourage deeper exploration of the topics. additionally, engaging in discussions with peers allows her to exchange ideas and receive constructive feedback, further boosting both critical thinking and speaking skills. despite the advantages of youtube and ted talks as resources for critical thinking, there are critiques regarding their content. for instance, some videos can be challenging for second language learners, often containing lengthy sentences, complex concepts, and less commonly used vocabulary (brown, 2015). additionally, many videos include cultural references that may not resonate with all viewers, potentially leading to frustration. critics argue that ted's evolving content has become overly commercialized, diluting its original mission and making the talks less impactful (brown, 2015). scholars such as hustad (2014) and jurgensen (2012) points out that youtube and ted presentations have become more promotional in nature, deviating from their initial objectives. c) ted talks as a model for pronunciation and intonation in addition to enhancing pronunciation, youtube and ted talks have introduced the researcher to various english accents from presenters with diverse backgrounds. however, learning different accents presents its own challenges. one significant obstacle is that some speakers talk at a rapid pace, making it difficult to follow along and causing learners to miss vital vocabulary (diniya, 2023). this can impede attempts to listen attentively and imitate effectively. furthermore, with an array of accents to choose from, learners may find it challenging to select which accent to emulate, complicating learner efforts to achieve fluency (diniya, 2023). to tackle these challenges, the researcher utilizes transcripts and adjusts the video playback speed to better understand listening materials. while ted talks serve as excellent resources for fostering critical thinking, some critiques of their content exist. for example, certain talks can be challenging for second language learners, often containing long sentences, complex concepts, and uncommon vocabulary (brown, 2015). moreover, many ted talks include cultural references that may not resonate with all viewers. critics argue that ted's evolving content has become overly commercialized, which may dilute its original mission and reduce the impact of the talks (brown, 2015). hustad (2014) compares typical ted talks to religious messaging, while jurgensen (2012) highlights that modern ted presentations often prioritize promotional content over the initial objectives of the speakers. despite these criticisms, the benefits the researcher has garnered from engaging with youtube and ted talks are substantial. the wealth of statistical information provided by the speakers has enriched the researcher’s understanding and led to improved performance in her ielts speaking examinations. she now finds it easier to interact with foreigners and engage in meaningful discussions, having built a more substantial reservoir of ideas and enhanced analytical skills compared to her earlier experiences. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 158 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 150-163 nguyen, t. t. h. (ted talk and youtube for english education…..) 3.2 implementation of the researcher’s experiences with youtube and ted talks into lessons or activities to support the learning of others 1) applying youtube and ted talks for enhancing verbal skills this practical section aims to create a dynamic and interactive learning environment that leverages the strengths of social media while addressing its challenges. by actively involving students in the learning process and providing diverse resources, the researcher hopes to cultivate a more engaging and effective educational experience that resonates with their interests and strengthens their language skills. social media can be seamlessly integrated into educational settings with minimal conscious effort (mann et al., 2022). as nicholas et al. (2024) suggest, inspiring social media can significantly boost learning motivation and, observed by alazemi et al. (2023), foster a collaborative learning environment. integrating social media into language education can improve overall proficiency and bolster students' confidence when using the target language (mann et al., 2022). a) activities to improve pronunciation and intonation as mentioned earlier, mimicking speakers from youtube and ted talks has been a valuable method for improving the researcher’s pronunciation and intonation. the researcher would like to employ this technique creatively for classroom teaching and learning through an engaging activity that she calls “ted talk emulation.” in this activity, the teacher selects a powerful ted talk that resonates with students, featuring impactful quotes and a clear presentation style. after choosing a talk, the teacher prepares slides highlighting key phrases and statements. the class is then divided into small groups to foster collaborative learning and peer support. the teacher presents the ted talk in its original format, pausing at strategic moments to encourage students to follow along with the text displayed on the slides. each group member has the opportunity to present a specific section of the talk, imitating the speaker’s delivery style. this approach emphasizes the importance of speech delivery, pronunciation, and nonverbal communication—essential components of effective public speaking. following the mimicry exercise, students share their reflections on the themes and content of the talk. the imagery received during the presentation serves as a literary tool, stimulating students’ connections to the text while conveying meanings that transcend mere words. to further engage participants, students are encouraged to focus on particular sections and expand upon them using their own words, fostering creative thinking. throughout this process, the teacher circulates the classroom, providing guidance, encouragement, and constructive feedback, while promoting critical analysis among students. one of the key advantages of this activity is that it allows students to evaluate their performances and identify areas for improvement by recording their presentations. by emphasizing speaking skills through this method, ted talk karaoke effectively immerses students in authentic content, enabling them to achieve learning outcomes that may not have been possible otherwise. participating in ted talk emulation has strong potential to enhance students’ public speaking abilities. the lively atmosphere and humour involved in the activity can engage learners’ minds, making it easier to focus on the phonetic elements of speech. the researcher has developed a passion for enhancing specific areas of the text and utilizing them creatively to guide student learning. watching such recordings can help students improve their delivery, allowing them to interweave concepts and express opinions clearly and appropriately. b) activities to stimulate idea generation to foster critical thinking in speaking class, the researcher would like to propose an activity called "roleplaying characters." in this activity, students begin by watching a thought-provoking ted talk that explores various innovations and historical figures. rather than concentrating solely on discussion, the focus is on the characters presented in the talk. each student selects a historical figure, inventor, or entrepreneur relevant to the themes discussed in the ted talk. this selection encourages students to delve deeper into these topics and broaden their understanding. once the characters are chosen, students engage in an interactive session where they embody their selected figures, brainstorming ideas and exploring the theme of the ted talk through the lens of 159 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 150-163 nguyen, t. t. h. (ted talk and youtube for english education…..) their characters. this role-playing approach encourages problem-solving as students consider how historical events might unfold and the actions their characters would take in that context. once groups have settled on their characters, they collaborate on a new task. each student develops and verbally presents an argumentative proposal, emphasizing their character’s values, motivations, and potential solutions to relevant issues. this exercise requires students to interpret complex ideas and articulate their perspectives based on their characters’ viewpoints. an engaging debate ensues, facilitating the exchange of ideas, even when they are controversial, as students critically analyze each other’s opinions. the objectives of this activity enable students to comprehend and apply knowledge effectively. participating in such exercises has allowed the researcher to formulate logical arguments for possible solutions while appreciating the value of diverse perspectives. the researcher views these discussions as open forums where everyone—regardless of how radical their stance—has the right to share their thoughts. overall, this strategy can made learning engaging and fulfilling, significantly boosting learner confidence in articulating ideas and honing skills in supporting them. 2) contribution of this study in the field the research discourse as presented in section 5 of this article has pointed out various benefits and features of social media, including ted talk and youtube that enhance language education. while highlighting these tools as valuable resources for language learners and teachers the recent studies tend focuses more on the “what” than the “how’ of social media, that is, not providing sufficient strategies of making the tool effective for teaching and learning. the currently study compensates for this gap by sharing an in-depth reflective account of how the tools work to improve teaching and learning, with specific suggestions for making such efficiency happen. 4. conclusion this article has explored the significant role of youtube and ted talks in enhancing english speaking competency while highlighting their broader benefits for language learners. these tools can help learners improve pronunciation, fluency, and ability to generate ideas. having said that, youtube and ted talks also come with certain limitations. issues such as the complexity of the language, the speed of speech, and cultural nuances can present challenges for learners, potentially leading to misunderstandings. furthermore, the topics covered may not always resonate with all learners, which can further hinder engagement with the material. to address these challenges, it is essential for instructors to implement various strategies to enhance language learning. suggestions include providing vocabulary lists prior to the lecture, facilitating teacher-led discussions on cultural contexts, and offering transcripts to aid comprehension. by integrating different types of lessons alongside youtube and ted talks, educators can create a more well-rounded approach to language learning. broadly speaking, social media can be seen as a double-edged sword, offering both positive and negative aspects. when used wisely, these platforms provide access to knowledge and resources that can enhance our learning experience beyond the classroom setting, opening up a broader range of possibilities in our lives. however, it is also crucial to recognize the limitations of social media use. the phenomenon of the "information cocoon," for instance, can restrict our exposure to diverse viewpoints, trapping us in a comfortable but narrow information bubble. piao and li (2023) highlight that while ai-driven recommendation algorithms attempt to manage information overload, they also contribute to the creation of echo chambers filled with homogeneous content and opinions, exacerbating social divisions and encouraging prejudice. while technology cannot completely replace traditional education, it plays a crucial role in supporting and enhancing educational practices. by improving teaching efficiency and enriching the learning experience, technology can significantly elevate the quality of education. in particular, the thoughtful integration of social media tools creates interactive and engaging learning environments that are essential for the success of modern education. social media serves as an important supplementary method in english teaching; to maximize the effectiveness of these tools, future technology integration should prioritize the needs and preferences of students, focusing on resources they naturally gravitate towards rather than those mandated by educational institutions (liu, 2010). issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 160 vol. 7, no. 3, december 2024, pp. 150-163 nguyen, t. t. h. (ted talk and youtube for english education…..) utilizing social media helps english learners acquire new vocabulary that aligns with their language proficiency, making the learning process more accessible compared to traditional reading materials. furthermore, it stimulates their interest in learning english, allowing them to engage with these tools for extended periods without losing motivation or becoming bored (khan, 2016). social media also empowers students to become more independent and responsible learners by providing opportunities to continue their education outside of traditional classroom settings (han, 2022). it enables them to interact with learning materials in a manner that best suits their personal needs and circumstances, enhancing the adaptability and accessibility of education. moreover, social media benefits teachers as well, giving them the ability to “transform traditional classroom activities and create a more fun and friendly learning environment” (aloraini, 2018, p. 181). during the pandemic, social media platforms played a pivotal role in maintaining access to language learning resources when traditional in-person classes were unavailable. these platforms allowed students to continue practicing english, participating in interactive discussions, and accessing a wealth of learning materials remotely. this flexibility ensured that learners could progress at their own pace, underscoring the essential function social media serves in supplementing formal education, especially in times of crisis. acknowledgment the researcher would like to express her sincere gratitude to all the participants, whose efforts and enthusiasm played a crucial role in this study. declarations author contribution : i am responsible for the entire research project, from initiating the ideas to revising the manuscript. funding statement : no funding is available for this research. conflict of interest : the author declares no conflict of interest. ethics declaration : as an author, i acknowledge that this work has been written based on ethical research that conforms to the regulations of our university and that i have obtained permission from the relevant institutes when collecting data. i support eltej journal in maintaining high standards of personal conduct and practicing honesty in all my professional practices and endeavors. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references ahluwalia, g. 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(2022). effects of mobile learning technologies and social media tools on student engagement and learning outcomes of english learning. technology, pedagogy and education, 31(3), 381–398. https://doi.org/10.1080/1475939x.2022.2045215 https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12283 http://www.ted.com/about/our-organization https://doi.org/10.54855/ijli.24315 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444305173.ch2 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12065-022-00792-1 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12065-022-00792-1 https://doi.org/10.21462/asiantefl.v1i2.16 https://doi.org/10.1080/1475939x.2022.2045215 1. introduction 1.1. research gap 1) innovative use of social media 2) research on youtube and ted talk in education 1.2. research questions 2. method 2.1. approach 2.2. data collection 2.3. method of analysis 3. findings and discussion 1) the advantages of learning english through social media a) rich learning resources b) breaking the limits of time and space 2) the disadvantages of learning english through social media a) lack of immediate feedback b) distraction c) lack of accuracy 3) personal reflection on the use of social media as a student 4) personal reflection on youtube and ted talks as a teacher a) youtube b) ted talk 5) the influence of youtube and ted talks on enhancing verbal skills a) youtube and ted talks as a model for pronunciation and intonation b) youtube and ted talks as a catalyst for critical thinking c) ted talks as a model for pronunciation and intonation 1) applying youtube and ted talks for enhancing verbal skills a) activities to improve pronunciation and intonation b) activities to stimulate idea generation 2) contribution of this study in the field 4. conclusion acknowledgment declarations english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11572 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai chatbots’ writing quality evaluation and plagiarism checking siraprapa kotmungkun a,1, wichuta chompurach b,2,*, piriya thaksanan c,3 a, b, c kasetsart university chalermphrakiat sakon nakhon province campus, 59/6 moo 1, vor por ror or 366 road, chiang khruea, sakon nakhon, thailand 1 siraprapa.ko@ku.th ; 2 wichuta.c@ku.th*; 3 peereeya.t@ku.th a r t i c l e i n f o a b st r act article history received 14 september 2024 revised 21 september 2024 accepted 24 october 2024 this study explores the writing quality of two ai chatbots, openai chatgpt and google gemini. the research assesses the quality of the generated texts based on five essay models using the t.e.r.a. software, focusing on ease of understanding, readability, and reading levels using the flesch-kincaid formula. thirty essays were generated, 15 from each chatbot, and evaluated for plagiarism using two free detection tools— smallseotools and check-plagiarism—as well as one paid tool, turnitin. the findings revealed that both chatgpt and gemini performed well in terms of word concreteness but demonstrated weaknesses in narrativity. chatgpt showed stronger performance in referential and deep cohesion, while gemini excelled in narrativity, syntactic simplicity and word concreteness. however, a significant concern was the degree of plagiarism detected in texts from both ai tools, with chatgpt's essays exhibiting a higher likelihood of plagiarism compared to gemini’s. these findings highlight the potential limitations and risks associated with using ai-generated writing. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords ai chatbot l2 writing plagiarism writing evaluation google gemini openai chatgpt how to cite: kotmungkun, s., chompurach, w., & thaksanan, p. (2024). openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai chatbots’ writing quality evaluation and plagiarism checking. english language teaching educational journal, 7 (2), 90-108. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11572 1. introduction over the past decade, it has become the new era of artificial intelligence (ai). the term "artificial intelligence" (ai) was coined by mccarthy et al. in 1955 to describe machines and processes that can mimic human intelligence and make decisions like humans (mccarthy et al., 1955; zhai, 2023). ai has increasingly integrated into our everyday lives and routine activities (lee & park, 2023). the development of ai models, such as openai chatgpt (generative pre-trained transformer) and google gemini, is one of significant technological breakthroughs that has attracted a lot of attention in various fields including healthcare, education, research, journalism, and industry (evans et al., 2023; zhai, 2023). this was because of the high quality of their outputs across a wide range of topics and their language and content accuracy (stahl & eke, 2023). moreover, since the particular ai models use natural language (nl) text generation, the models can generate “human-sounding” (p. 107) texts in different languages, from a word level to a paragraph level, on almost any topic and in any writing style (jovanovic, 2022). https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11662 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:wichuta.c@ku.th* mailto:peereeya.t@ku.th http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11572 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v7i2.11572&domain=pdf https://orcid.org/0009-0009-8572-6612 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0883-9711 https://orcid.org/0009-0008-3686-9935 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 91 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) in terms of education, especially in efl (english as a foreign language) writing classrooms, technologies have been used for various purposes. for example, machine translation i.e. google translate has been used in english writing classrooms because it was viewed as a helpful, reliable tool helping learners complete their writing tasks (chompurach, 2021). also, ai technologies have been used in completing writing tasks because of their benefits that were time-saving and easy to use as well as access (suaverdez & suaverdez, 2023). therefore, the particular technologies have been used in l2 writing from brainstorming to draft editing (lingard, 2023); moreover, learners could receive their writing skills’ strengths, weaknesses, and concerning comments from ai (barrot, 2023). however, there have been ethical considerations in the use of ai technologies in writing that were authorships, the potential for biases and discrimination, and the risk of plagiarism (suaverdez & suaverdez, 2023). 1.1. large language models: openai chatgpt and google gemini in november 2022, openai, a research laboratory focused on artificial intelligence, released chatgpt (tlili et al., 2023). chatgpt, an openai-developed web-based ai system that utilizes gpt large language models (llm), is projected to revolutionize numerous facets of society (stahl & eke, 2023). according to openai, chatgpt dialogue format enables it to respond to follow-up questions, admit errors, challenge faulty assumptions, and refuse inappropriate requests (openai, 2022; zhai, 2023). in terms of chatgpt3.5, it is the first version of chatgpt which is a large language model from openai. it is built on top of instructgpt, which is a gpt3.5 model that has been fine-tuned on a large dataset of conversational text. chatgpt3.5 has also been fine-tuned using reinforcement learning from human feedback, which helps it to generate text that is more aligned with human preferences (espejel et al., 2023). in december 2023, the evolution of google’s large language models (llms) called google bard took a significant step forward with the advent of large multimodal models (lmms) called google gemini. for bard, it has already made a remarkable impact. this means users can access bard through an easy-to-use interface, which allows them to collaborate directly with a generative ai system (espejel et al., 2023). for gemini, lmms seek to build upon the strengths of llms by incorporating multi-sensory processing capabilities. this expansion aims to achieve more robust and general intelligence, enabling computers to interact with humans on a level closer to how humans naturally communicate with each other (yang et al., 2023 as cited in lee et al., 2023). as mentioned earlier, generative ai (genai) is used in various fields including education. this is because genai is a powerful tool that can be used to enhance students' learning experience in higher education and can respond to user prompts to generate highly original outputs, which can be used for a variety of educational purposes (chan & hu, 2023) including second language (l2) writing (barrot, 2023). 1.2. ai large language models use in education settings during the first decade of the 21st century, significant progress in machine learning and natural language processing enabled the development of more sophisticated ai-powered educational tools (zhai, 2023). for example, these tools could tailor their approach to the individual needs of each learner, provide customized instruction, and even assess assignments (zhai, 2023). with these various benefits, many scholars, instructors, and educators have paid attention to both benefits and drawbacks of these models to education settings. in 2023, the study of baidoo-anu and ansah was conducted to explore how interactive chatgpt was and what its potential benefits and drawbacks on education were. in doing so, the researchers analyzed the research articles on chatgpt from november 2022 march 2023; the data revealed both these llms’ pros and cons. on the one hand, chatgpt was viewed as a personal tutor, an automated essay evaluation, a translator, an interactive virtual tutor, and adaptive learning provider. on the other hand, these llms were perceived as a virtual tutor lacking human interaction, a limited-understanding system, a biased model, a less creative chatbot, a model depending on trained data, a limited contextual understanding system, and a limited ability instructor. these findings in terms of the llm benefits are in line with the study of evans et al (2023). evans et al (2023) have conducted a study to explore the impacts of chatgpt on access-efficiency, employment, and education. the findings revealed chatgpt can be used to improve access and efficiency in a variety of industries and for individuals with disabilities or language barriers. chatgpt 92 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) can be used to create translation tools that can help non-native speakers understand and communicate in a foreign language. for employment, chatgpt created new job opportunities in ai and nl processing but also raising concerns about job displacement. moreover, for education, chatgpt can be used to improve language learning and personalized education. it can provide instant feedback, explanations, and examples to help learners improve their grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension. additionally, chatgpt can be used to enhance the accessibility and inclusivity of education by providing support for students with disabilities or language barriers. this research showed chatgpt can help to break down language barriers and give everyone equal access to information, services, and education. similarly, tlili et al (2023) also found that chatgpt helped users by providing clear and concise explanations of complex topics, using language that was appropriate for the target audience. the researchers have conducted a qualitative research study to investigate chatbots in education. to do this, the study focused on chatgpt as an example of an advanced chatbot that was being used by early adopters. the findings of the study indicated that chatgpt has the potential to transform education in a variety of ways. the majority of participants in the study indicated that chatgpt was effective in increasing the likelihood of educational success by providing users (teachers and students) with basic knowledge of various topics. furthermore, chatgpt was acknowledged by the participants as an efficient tool for providing information of a wide range of complex topics in a clear and concise language. conversely, a few participants held the opposing view that the misuse of chatgpt by learners could also diminish their innovative capacities and critical thinking skills. in terms of university students’ voices on gen ai technologies including chatgpt and google bard, chan and hu (2023) have conducted a survey with closed-ended and open-ended questions to explore 399 university students’ use and perceptions toward genai technologies mentioned earlier. the findings showed the students understood the limitations of genai abilities, but the overall students still had positive attitude toward these technologies. moreover, the students found these genai technologies were great tools because of 24/7 availability and the technologies can help them save time. however, they had got concerns about the way these technologies can undermine the university education value. from previous studies on the impacts of the llms on education, the findings showed chatgpt’s both benefits and drawbacks. on the one hand, chatgpt still lacked human interactions (baidoo-anu & ansah, 2023) and could reduce users’ innovative and critical thinking ability (tlili et al., 2023). on the other hand, chatgpt demonstrated exceptional competencies in various fields including machine translation (mt) (baidoo-anu & ansah, 2023; evans et al., 2023; tlili et al., 2023). students’ voices, however, showed that these genai technologies were great tools (chan & hu, 2023). nevertheless, the potential impacts of chatgpt and the other chatbot powered by google called gemini on education remain less explored. the following section delves into the use of llms in l2 writing, examining how these ai tools have been utilized and their potential implications for language learning and teaching. 1.3. use of large language model in l2 writing writing is one of the most essential skills that l2 learners have to develop (ariyanti, 2016; hyland, 2003; meiranti, 2012), and it is a complex linguistic skill that requires cognitive processing to effectively convey thoughts and emotions in a written form (hasnawati et al., 2023). through this writing activity, l2 students were expected to master grammars, vocabulary words, punctuations (meiranti, 2012), and they should take these aspects into account that are a clear intention, a wellorganized framework, appropriate word selection, effective language use, and coherent thought expression (hyland & jiang, 2017). in terms of essay writing models, ariyanti’s study (2016) provided definitions of each essay type. 1. descriptive essay: provide a clear and detailed portrayal of the topic to effectively convey its essence; 2. classification essay: provides concise definitions of their characteristics, allowing readers to understand the distinctions between them clearly; 3. cause and effect essay: employs the appropriate vocabulary and expressions that effectively convey the relationship between causes and their corresponding effects; issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 93 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) 4. comparison and contrast essay: goes beyond identifying similarities and differences by structuring comparisons effectively and employing appropriate clauses of comparison, contrast, and concession; 5. argumentative essay: focuses on presenting well-reasoned arguments, supported by credible evidence, with careful evaluation of argument strength. with the complexity of l2 writing and the benefits of ai, several educators have adopted these technologies into their writing classrooms. this following research has reported the use of ai technologies in l2 writing classrooms. the study of fitria (2023) reported the benefits, especially on english writing. in her research, fitria (2023) studied how chatgpt wrote english essays. adopting a qualitative research paradigm, the researcher collected data from documents and observation and adopted miles et al’s (2018) three steps including data reduction, data display, and conclusion to analyze the obtained data. the data revealed chatgpt can address a wide range of prompts, including english essays encompassing descriptive narratives on any topics. chatgpt adhered to the conventions of event sequencing and essay structure, employing both active and passive voice constructions while it also maintained appropriate tense usage aligned with the essay topic. for academic writing, mohammed et al (2023) conducted a research study to explore the utilization of chatgpt among arab postgraduate students in india, with a particular focus on its impact on their academic writing. through a questionnaire administered to 40 postgraduates enrolled in five universities across kerala, the study revealed the perceived benefits and tangible effects of chatgpt on their academic writing, language proficiency, and overall academic performance. the findings reported more than a half of the participants (n=29) were familiar with chatgpt. in terms of the potential benefits of chatgpt use, the highest mean score (mean= 3.07) was for the statement saying "chatgpt texts are highly reliable and need not be second checked for reliability" (p. 11). also, the data reported that chatgpt was viewed as an effective tool for variety tasks because it helped them generate ideas, gather information, and enhance their writing skills. therefore, most of the students used chatgpt in these tasks including researching topics, translating texts, and writing assignment. in terms of second language (l2) writing, barrot (2023) has explored the several advantages and challenges of chatgpt. in the study, the researcher reviewed ten studies and suggested the potential benefits of the integration of this technology in l2 writing classrooms. the data revealed since chatgpt enabled users to revise their requests and rejected any unsuitable ones, l2 learners could draw upon these features to conduct sustained and coherent conversations without the anxiety of being criticized. also, chatgpt provided extensive range of writing assistance, from simple to complex tasks. it could produce human-like texts which generally exhibited coherence and grammatical accuracy. this could make it a beneficial resource for users to enhance their writing skills and refine their language usage. moreover, chatgpt could generate outlines in various formats, including sentence, topic, alphanumeric, and decimal system structures. this feature provided l2 students with access to both a guiding framework and a foundation for crafting a well-structured outline tailored to their chosen topics. in terms of feedback, chatgpt provided users their writing strengths, weaknesses, and specific comments by automatically grading following predefined criteria. therefore, instead of completely prohibiting chatgpt, educators can investigate strategies for integrating these aipowered tools into their teaching practices and harness their benefits (barrot, 2023). in 2023, suaverdez and suaverdez (2023) have conducted a study to examine writing texts or papers by ai generators and test them with ai detectors. the researchers collected writing texts from different sources that were an original man-made paper, papers from ai chatbots that were chatgpt (both free and paid), phin (free), and moonbeam (free). the results showed from a free tool called “contentatscale”, the paper from chatgpt (free) received the highest percentage (96%) and the paid one received 91% interpreted as “likely to be human” (p. 6). moreover, openai classifier (free) reported that papers from both free and paid chatgpt were “very unlikely ai-generated” (p. 6) while ones from phin (free) and moonbeam (free) were reported “unclear if it is aigenerated” (p. 6). however, origibnality.ai detected that papers from both free and paid chatgpt and phin (free) were 100% ai while one from moonbeam (free) were 99% ai. in terms of plagiarism checking from the paid checker, the paper from phin received the highest percentage (12%) of plagiarized content while ones from chatgpt free and paid and moonbeam received 8%, 1% and 0%, respectively. for the free checker, the paper from moonbeam received the highest percentage (3%) of plagiarized content while ones from chatgpt paid and free and phin received 1%, 0% and 0%, respectively. the researchers 94 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) also recommended careful evaluation, strategic planning, and establishment of guidelines and regulations for the utilization of ai tools in academic writing and school tasks to minimize the potential negative consequences. reviewing the literature, the researchers found some mixed messages. on the one hand, the potential benefits of chatgpt to english or l2 writing have been reported (barrot, 2023; fitria, 2023; mohammed et al., 2023). on the other hand, there have been worries and concerns about the ethical issues of the ai-model use in l2 writing (suaverdez & suaverdez, 2023). moreover, there has been limited studies exploring gemini’s benefits and drawbacks with using in l2 writing. the present research aims to explore and compare the writing quality of chatgpt and google gemini with the text ease and readability assessor (t.e.r.a.). the researchers chose to focus on these two tools, chatgpt and google gemini, as they are at the forefront of language model innovation (rane et al., 2024). both platforms demonstrate exceptional capabilities in engaging in complex conversations, producing textual content, and generating a wide variety of creative outputs, making them ideal for a comprehensive analysis of ai-generated writing innovation (rane et al., 2024). also, three plagiarism checkers, turnitin and the other free plagiarism checkers: check-plagiarism.com and smallseotools.com were applied to detect the percentages of plagiarized content of each chatbot. research questions 1. what is the writing quality level of openai chatgpt and google gemini based on five essay models in terms of the easability and readability? 2. what is the percentage of plagiarized content in the generated texts from openai chatgpt and google gemini as detected by plagiarism checkers? 2. methods the present study has been conducted following the multi-method qualitative approach (davis et al., 2011). to do so, the researchers can acquire in-depth understanding regarding the quality of ai chatbots’, chatgpt and google gemini, l2 generated writing tasks. 2.1. data collection tools 1) basic prompts to gather data from ai chatbots to enable both ai chatbots to provide expected responses, the researchers adopted the prompt engineering technique from rayhan (2023). prompt engineering is an essential tool for refining the accuracy and authenticity of ai language models because it can be crafted to align with the objectives of specific tasks or domains (rayhan, 2023). to design effective prompts, the researchers have adhered to the design principles for basic prompts which consist of a few words or a short sentence and can be either generalized or task-specific. in doing so, the researchers can ensure that the ai language model generates accurate and relevant outputs for a wide range of tasks and users. the table 1 shows the basic prompts being used in the present study based on the types of essay models. table 1. basic prompts used in the present study essay models basic prompts descriptive write a 300-word essay describing the most beautiful place in thailand. classification write a 300-word essay classifying genres of music. cause and effect write a 300-word essay about causes and effects of global warming. comparison and contrast write a 300-word essay about living in a city vs. living in the country. argumentative write a 300-word essay about the benefits of social media. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 95 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) as a result, table 2 shows the data the researchers obtained. table 2. the overall data obtained from the two ai chatbots ai chatbots essays written by ai chatbots word count average word count by writing type chatgpt chatgpt descriptive 1 357 359.33 chatgpt descriptive 2 368 chatgpt descriptive 3 353 chatgpt classification 1 370 333.33 chatgpt classification 2 321 chatgpt classification 3 309 chatgpt cause and effect 1 314 320.67 chatgpt cause and effect 2 318 chatgpt cause and effect 3 330 chatgpt comparison and contrast 1 339 331 chatgpt comparison and contrast 2 412 chatgpt comparison and contrast 3 440 chatgpt argumentative 1 330 330.67 chatgpt argumentative 2 326 chatgpt argumentative 3 337 average word count by chatgpt 335 gemini gemini descriptive 1 416 398.67 gemini descriptive 2 367 gemini descriptive 3 413 gemini classification 1 426 399.33 gemini classification 2 382 gemini classification 3 390 gemini cause and effect 1 339 397 gemini cause and effect 2 412 gemini cause and effect 3 440 gemini comparison and contrast 1 383 385 gemini comparison and contrast 2 393 gemini comparison and contrast 3 379 gemini argumentative 1 428 435.33 gemini argumentative 2 481 gemini argumentative 3 397 average word count by gemini 403.07 2) t.e.r.a. (the text ease and readability assessor) program after gathering data from the ai chatbots, the researchers are applying the t.e.r.a. program (mcnamara et al., 2014) to assess the generated texts in terms of their easability and readability. to do so, the program analyzes text on five components and flesch-kincaid grade level. 1. narrativity: generally, more story-like texts have higher narrativity scores, making them easier to read, though exceptions exist. 2. syntactic simplicity: higher simplicity scores occur in texts with fewer clauses and words per sentence, and greater structural similarity within paragraphs. 3. word concreteness: texts with more concrete words are easier to read, while abstract words lower readability. 4. referential cohesion: overlapping words or concepts between sentences improve cohesion, though low cohesion may sometimes prompt deeper reader engagement. 5. deep cohesion: refers to the seamless connection of ideas through varied use of connecting words. 6. flesch-kincaid grade level: this formula estimates readability, providing valuable insights for educational purposes. each of these components is evaluated for a specific text by comparing it to a massive collection of other texts in a corpus (graesser, mcnamara, & kulikowich, 2011 as cited in mcnamara et al., 2014). also, in addition to providing a concise overview, t.e.r.a. also determines the grade level of the text employing the flesch-kincaid grade level readability formula (kincaid, fishburne, rogers, 96 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) & chissom, 1975 cited in mcnamara et al., 2014). therefore, by adopting the particular program, the researchers could obtain the data concerning the easability and readability of ai chatbots’ generated texts following each essay model type. 3) plagiarism checkers to examine the plagiarism percentage of the obtained data, the researchers applied the three plagiarism checkers: one is paid (turnitin) and the other two are free (check-plagiarism and smallseotools’ plagiarism detector). for turnitin, it is a paid plagiarism checker that compares submissions against over 47 billion web pages and premium academic content in multiple languages, providing detailed categorized matches for high-stakes writing (turnitin, n.d.). the two free tools, check-plagiarism (check-plagiarism.com) and smallseotools’ plagiarism detector (smallseotools.com), offer reliable detection services for students and writers. check-plagiarism conducts a deep search to identify potential plagiarism, while smallseotools scans text against billions of webpages for thorough analysis (small seo tools, n.d.; check plagiarism, 2024). 2.2. research procedures the researchers conducted a pilot study to determine whether the basic prompts yielded relevant data. the prompts were then refined and used with both openai chatgpt and google gemini, ensuring consistency by using identical prompts for each chatbot. the 30 essays generated were evaluated using the t.e.r.a. writing evaluation program, and plagiarism detection was performed using turnitin, check-plagiarism, and small seo tools. finally, qualitative document analysis was applied to address the two research questions. 2.3. data analysis to analyze the obtained data, the researchers adopted document analysis. document analysis entails a systematic examination and interpretation of data to extract meaning, enhance comprehension, and acquire empirical knowledge (corbin & strauss, 2008 as cited in bowen, 2009; rapley, 2007 as cited in bowen, 2009). this study adopted document analysis to examine data, specifically the assessed results from the t.e.r.a. program and plagiarism checker outputs. document analysis, as described by corbin and strauss (2008 as cited in bowen, 2009), involves a process of skimming, thorough reading, and interpretation. this method incorporates elements of content analysis, organizing data into categories that align with the research questions. (corbin & strauss, 2008 as cited in bowen, 2009; strauss & corbin, 1998 as cited in bowen, 2009). the documents include background papers, books, diaries, event programs, program proposals, scripts, reports, survey data, and public records (bowen, 2009), for example. therefore, the researchers were able to interpret and assess the quality of the texts generated by the ai chatbots, openai chatgpt and google gemini. additionally, the researchers were able to determine the percentage of plagiarized content produced by the ai chatbots. 3. findings and discussion the results of the present research are reported following the two research questions. 3.1. rq 1: what is the writing quality level of openai chatgpt and google gemini based on five essay models in terms of the easability and readability? to report the results concerning the writing quality of the two ai chatbots based on five essay models in terms of the easability and readability, the researchers divided them into three parts which are as follows: 1) overall analysis of essays generated by two ai chatbots from table 2, there were 30 writing essays – fifteen generated by chatgpt and the others generated by gemini. all essays were generated in march 2024. the overall word count in average is 369 words. comparing ones from chatgpt to gemini’s, the researchers found when given the prompt to write a 300-word essay about each writing type, the average word count of writing generated by chatgpt was closer to the specified number. this means that the average word count of the 15 essays by chatgpt is 335 words, with a minimum of 309 words and a maximum of 370 words. for the average word count of essays generated by gemini, it was 403 words, with a minimum of 339 words and a maximum of 481 words. these findings indicate that while both ai models were capable of issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 97 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) generating essays in response to the same prompts, chatgpt was more precise in meeting the specified word count, whereas gemini generated more verbose content. 2) easability and readability of essays generated by two ai chatbots the data obtained from the t.e.r.a. program (mcnamara et al., 2014), used to assess the easability and readability of 30 writing essays generated by the two ai chatbots, showed the following results. among the five components (narrativity, syntactic simplicity, word concreteness, referential cohesion, and deep cohesion), the essays generated by both chatgpt and gemini received the highest percentage for word concreteness and the lowest percentage for narrativity. on average, the 15 essays generated by chatgpt had a maximum of 75% for word concreteness and a minimum of 3% for narrativity. in contrast, the 15 essays generated by gemini had a maximum of 80% for word concreteness and a minimum of 4% for narrativity. higher scores indicate that the essays were easier to read. the findings provide valuable insights into the linguistic and structural characteristics of aigenerated content. both chatbots scored highest in word concreteness and lowest in narrativity, indicating that while the essays were generally easy to understand, they lacked storytelling or narrative elements. this suggests that both ai models prioritize clarity and straightforward language over engaging, narrative-driven writing. comparing these two ai chatbots, gemini reported higher scores in narrativity (4%), syntactic simplicity (69%), and word concreteness (80%). this indicates that gemini’s writing was slightly more narrative-driven, easier to understand syntactically, and used more concrete language. these qualities could make gemini’s content more suitable for users seeking direct and easily digestible information. in contrast, chatgpt achieved higher scores in referential cohesion (14%) and deep cohesion (51%), suggesting that its essays were better at linking ideas and maintaining logical consistency throughout the text. this means that chatgpt’s content might be more effective for complex topics that require a clear flow of ideas and a well-structured argument. for narrativity and deep cohesion, the two ai chatbots had very slight differences in scores—only a 1% difference. the minimal difference in scores suggests that while there were distinctions in their linguistic capabilities, the gap was not significant. therefore, both tools could be considered relatively close in terms of narrative and cohesive quality. table 3. means of text ease and readability scores coh-metrixx component scores ai chatbot word count narrativity syntactic simplicity word concretenes s referentia l cohesion deep cohesio n fleschkincaid grade level chatgpt 335 3% 55% 75% 14% 51% 14 gemini 403 4% 69% 80% 5% 50% 13 besides analyzing the easability and readability of the texts, the t.e.r.a. program also reported the flesch-kincaid grade level to indicate the reading levels (basic, average, and advanced) of the analyzed texts. these levels were aligned with school levels (kindergarten, elementary, middle school, high school, college, and post-grad) and the corresponding age ranges of the readers (5-8, 8-11, 1114, 14-17, 17-20, and 20). the essays generated by chatgpt had flesch-kincaid grade level scores ranging from 12 (minimum) to 17 (maximum), with an average score of 14. this means that these essays were at an advanced reading level, corresponding to college to post-grad school levels, and targeted readers aged 17-20. on the other hand, the essays generated by gemini showed a slightly wider range of scores, with grade level scores ranging from 10 (minimum) to 16 (maximum) and an average of 13. this means that these essays were at average to advanced reading levels, corresponding to high school to post-grad school levels, and targeted readers aged 14-20. the analysis shows that both chatgpt and gemini generated essays aimed at readers with advanced reading abilities, but with some differences. chatgpt’s content was more complex, suited for readers with high literacy skills, making it ideal for advanced learners. in contrast, gemini produced content accessible to a broader audience, ranging from high school to college students, making it suitable for a wider range of educational settings. these differences highlight chatgpt’s focus on higher-level language and gemini’s flexibility in accommodating various reading levels. 98 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) 3) easability and readability of essays generated by two ai chatbots based on five essay models the analysis of the easability, readability, and reading level of texts generated by chatgpt and gemini for each essay model is shown in tables 4 and 5. the results of the texts generated by chatgpt are shown in table 4 as follows. firstly, in narrativity, the chatgpt argumentative essays achieved the highest percentage (5%) while the lowest percentages were found in two essay models: classification (2%) and cause and effect (2%). secondly, in syntactic simplicity, the highest percentage was achieved by chatgpt’s comparison and contrast essays (74%) whereas the descriptive essays had the lowest percentage at 26%. thirdly, in word concreteness, the descriptive essays obtained the highest percentage at 99% while the cause and effect ones had the lowest at 59%. fourthly, in referential cohesion, the highest percentage was achieved by the classification model (31%) while the comparison and contrast essays had the lowest at only 4%. for the last component, deep cohesion, the highest percentage was found in the argumentative writing (86%) while the lowest percentage was found in the comparison and contrast essays (19%). the analysis of flesch-kincaid grade level shows that “chatgpt classification” and “chatgpt argumentative” essays achieved the highest score of 16 while “chatgpt descriptive” had the lowest score of 12. table 4. mean values of each essay model generated by chatgpt comparison of five essay models narrativit y syntactic simplicity word concretenes s referentia l cohesion deep cohesio n fleschkincaid grade level descriptive 4% 26% 99% 15% 41% 12 classification 2% 50% 91% 31% 58% 16 cause and effect 2% 59% 59% 11% 54% 15 comparison and contrast 3% 74% 64% 4% 19% 13 argumentative 5% 67% 61% 8% 86% 16 the results of the texts generated by gemini are shown in table 5 as follows. for the first component, narrativity, “gemini argumentative” essays had the highest percentage at 10% while the lowest percentage (3%) was found in three essay models: “gemini descriptive”, “gemini cause and effect”, and “gemini comparison and contrast”. secondly, in syntactic simplicity, both “gemini classification” and “gemini cause and effect” had the highest percentage at 76% while “gemini descriptive” and “gemini argumentative” had the lowest percentage at 61%. thirdly, in word concreteness, the highest percentage was found in “gemini descriptive” (97%) whereas “gemini argumentative” had the lowest at 64%. fourthly, in referential cohesion, the essay model with the highest percentage was “gemini argumentative” (16%) while “gemini comparison and contrast” had the lowest at only 1%. for the last component, deep cohesion, the highest percentage was shown by “gemini argumentative” (87%) while “gemini descriptive” had the lowest at 25%. the analysis of flesch-kincaid grade level shows that “gemini argumentative” achieved the highest score of 15 while the lowest score of 11 was found in “gemini descriptive”. table 5. mean values of each essay model generated by gemini comparison of five essay models narrativit y syntactic simplicity word concretenes s referentia l cohesion deep cohesio n fleschkincaid grade level descriptive 3% 61% 97% 2% 25% 11 classification 4% 76% 93% 3% 36% 12 cause and effect 3% 76% 66% 2% 54% 14 comparison and contrast 3% 72% 80% 1% 51% 12 argumentative 10% 61% 64% 16% 87% 15 issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 99 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) these findings suggest that ai-generated content from chatgpt and gemini can significantly contribute to enhancing educational practices. however, understanding the specific capabilities and limitations of each ai tool is crucial for maximizing their effectiveness in learning and teaching contexts. chatgpt is more precise in meeting specified word counts, making it ideal for tasks requiring strict adherence to length, such as academic assignments. in contrast, gemini produces more detailed and verbose content, which is useful for creative writing or content creation where elaboration is valued. the findings also revealed that both chatgpt and gemini similarly and well performed regarding word concreteness. this means both ai chatbots are effective for generating easy-tounderstand educational content, useful for creating study materials. however, their low scores in narrativity suggest they are less ideal for storytelling tasks. furthermore, the findings of this current study suggest that chatgpt and gemini have their strengths in a particular way. chatgpt has a positive tendency to outperform gemini in terms of referential cohesion and deep cohesion domains. meanwhile, gemini tends to perform better than chatgpt regarding narrativity, syntactic simplicity, and word concreteness. this means chatgpt is better for assignments involving complex ideas and structured arguments, while gemini is more suitable for tasks requiring clarity and simplicity. in addition, the two ai tools differ in the reading levels of the texts they produce. chatgpt tends to create content suitable for college to post-graduate readers, making it ideal for higher education. it’s a useful tool for generating challenging materials for advanced learners or as study aids for university students. in comparison, gemini can generate texts ranging from high school to post-graduate levels, making it a more adaptable tool that fits a wider variety of educational settings. although the two chatbots differently outperform from one another, both of these openai tools are recognized for their usefulness in assisting language learning. the outcomes of this study accord with the previous studies relevant to the effective use of chatbot in english writing learning (fitria, 2023; barrot, 2023; zhang et al., 2023; seyyedrezaei et al., 2022; yan, 2023). lee and lee (2022) conducted a meta-analysis exploring the effect size of using chatbot assisted language learning. the outcomes of the study indicated a positive effect on language learning across all language skills. the differences in linguistic features and performance between chatgpt and gemini suggest that educators and students can benefit from selecting ai tools that match their specific needs. by understanding the strengths and limitations of each tool, they can make better informed decisions for their writing objectives. 3.2. rq 2: what is the percentage of plagiarized content in the generated texts from openai chatgpt and google gemini as detected by plagiarism checkers? to report the results concerning the plagiarized-content percentage of the generated writing texts from the two ai chatbots by plagiarism checkers, the researchers divided them into three parts which are as follows: 1) free plagiarism checkers: smallseotools and check-plagiarism using the two free plagiarism checkers, smallseotools and check-plagiarism, identified 12 out of the 30 essays as containing plagiarized content as shown in table 6. the former checker found that 10 essays (five generated by chatgpt and the others by gemini) containing plagiarism while the latter found 11 essays (five generated by chatgpt and the other six by gemini) containing it. in terms of the writing model, the average percentage showed that cause and effect essays from the two ai chatbots contained the highest percentage of plagiarized content. the analysis revealed that both free plagiarism checkers similarly identified two essays — “chatgpt cause and effect 2” and “gemini cause and effect 3”— as containing the highest percentages of plagiarized content. according to the smallseotools checker, “chatgpt cause and effect 2” had 17% plagiarism while “gemini cause and effect 3” had 12%. for the check-plagiarism checker, the data showed “chatgpt cause and effect 2” contained 18% plagiarism, followed by “gemini cause and effect 3” with 13%. the analyzed data revealed that among the five writing models, cause-and-effect essays contained the highest percentage of plagiarism while the classification essays generated by chatgpt and the argumentative essays by gemini had the lowest percentage (0%). the cause-and-effect essays produced by both ai chatbots were most frequently found to contain plagiarized content. specifically, two out of the three essays generated by chatgpt were reported to have plagiarism, which was similar to gemini. two out of three essays generated by gemini also contained plagiarized content. in contrast, the analysis identified two writing models with no detected plagiarism (0%). the first was 100 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) the classification essays generated by chatgpt. when checked using smallseotools and checkplagiarism, all three classification essays were found to have 0% plagiarism. the second was the argumentative essays generated by gemini. all argumentative essays, when tested with both free plagiarism checkers, also showed no plagiarized content (0%). table 6. the percentage of plagiarized content found in ai chatbots’ writing by free plagiarism checkers essays written by ai chatbots free plagiarism checkers percentage of plagiarized content of each writing model smallseotools .com checkplagiarism.com chatgpt descriptive 1 5% 6% 1.83% chatgpt descriptive 2 0% 0% chatgpt descriptive 3 0% 0% chatgpt classification 1 0% 0% 0.00% chatgpt classification 2 0% 0% chatgpt classification 3 0% 0% chatgpt cause and effect 1 0% 0% 7.67% chatgpt cause and effect 2 17% 18% chatgpt cause and effect 3 5% 6% chatgpt comparison and contrast 1 5% 6% 1.83% chatgpt comparison and contrast 2 0% 0% chatgpt comparison and contrast 3 0% 0% chatgpt argumentative 1 0% 0% 2.83% chatgpt argumentative 2 0% 0% chatgpt argumentative 3 11% 6% average percentage 0.03% 0.03% 3% gemini descriptive 1 4% 0% 1.50% gemini descriptive 2 0% 5% gemini descriptive 3 0% 0% gemini classification 1 0% 0% 1.33% gemini classification 2 4% 4% gemini classification 3 0% 0% gemini cause and effect 1 0% 0% 6.33% gemini cause and effect 2 4% 9% gemini cause and effect 3 12% 13% gemini comparison and contrast 1 0% 0% 2.50% gemini comparison and contrast 2 0% 4% gemini comparison and contrast 3 5% 6% gemini argumentative 1 0% 0% 0% gemini argumentative 2 0% 0% gemini argumentative 3 0% 0% average percentage 0.02% 0.03% 2% 2) paid plagiarism checker: turnitin the analysis of data from the paid plagiarism checker on essays generated by ai chatbots revealed that 21 out of 30 essays contained plagiarized content. in terms of the percentage of plagiarism, three essays generated by chatgpt were found to have over 50% plagiarism: "chatgpt cause and effect 2" (55%), "chatgpt cause and effect 3" (54%), and "chatgpt cause and effect 1" (50%). for issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 101 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) gemini, the three essays with the highest plagiarism percentages were "gemini cause and effect 2" (37%), "gemini cause and effect 3" (26%), and "gemini argumentative 2" (10%) as shown in table 7. table 7. the percentage of plagiarized content found in ai chatbots’ writing by a paid plagiarism checker essays written by ai chatbots turnitin percentage of plagiarized content of each writing model chatgpt descriptive 1 8% chatgpt descriptive 2 7% 5.67% chatgpt descriptive 3 2% chatgpt classification 1 0% 1.33% chatgpt classification 2 0% chatgpt classification 3 4% chatgpt cause and effect 1 50% 53.00% chatgpt cause and effect 2 55% chatgpt cause and effect 3 54% chatgpt comparison and contrast 1 13% chatgpt comparison and contrast 2 9% 9.33% chatgpt comparison and contrast 3 6% chatgpt argumentative 1 17% 30.00% chatgpt argumentative 2 33% chatgpt argumentative 3 40% average percentage 19.87% gemini descriptive 1 0% 0.67% gemini descriptive 2 2% gemini descriptive 3 0% gemini classification 1 0% 0.00% gemini classification 2 0% gemini classification 3 0% gemini cause and effect 1 8% 23.67% gemini cause and effect 2 37% gemini cause and effect 3 26% gemini comparison and contrast 1 0% 2.33% gemini comparison and contrast 2 3% gemini comparison and contrast 3 4% gemini argumentative 1 0% 6.00% gemini argumentative 2 10% gemini argumentative 3 8% average percentage 6.53% 102 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) for chatgpt, 13 out of 15 essays were reported to contain plagiarism, with the exceptions of "chatgpt classification 1" and "chatgpt classification 2." in contrast, eight out of 15 essays generated by gemini were found to have plagiarism. additionally, across the writing models, the data showed that essays generated by chatgpt contained a higher average percentage of plagiarism than those generated by gemini. based on the five writing models, the highest average percentage of plagiarized content was found in the cause-and-effect essays from both chatgpt (x̄ = 53%) and gemini (x̄ = 23.67%). the highest percentage was 55% ("chatgpt cause and effect 2") while the lowest was 8% ("gemini cause and effect 1"). in contrast, the classification writing model had the lowest average percentage of plagiarized content (x̄ = 1.33% for chatgpt and x̄ = 0% for gemini) compared to the other models. five out of the six classification essays had no plagiarism, except for "chatgpt classifying 3," which contained 4%. for the argumentative writing model, five essays contained plagiarism. the highest percentage was 40% ("chatgpt argumentative 3"), followed by 33% ("chatgpt argumentative 2"), with the lowest being 0% ("gemini argumentative 1"). in the comparison-and-contrast writing model, five out of six essays were also found to contain plagiarism. the highest percentage was in "chatgpt comparison and contrast 1" (13%), while "gemini comparison and contrast 1" showed no plagiarism. 3) both free and paid plagiarism checkers: smallseotools, check-plagiarism, and turnitin when both free and paid plagiarism checkers were used to detect the content plagiarism in all 30 essays generated by the two ai chatbots, the analysis identified a significant portion (23 out of 30) containing plagiarized content. in average, the essay with the highest percentage of plagiarism was “chatgpt cause and effect 2” (30%), followed by “chatgpt cause and effect 3” (21.67%) and “chatgpt argumentative 3” (19%). this means the essays contained the highest percentage were generated by chatgpt. in addition, the analysis showed that the average percentage of the fifteen essays generated by chatgpt was higher than ones by gemini as shown in table 8. among the 23 essays containing plagiarism, the analysis found that some plagiarized content was detected only by the free plagiarism checkers while some was detected only by the paid software. for plagiarized content detected only by the free software, "gemini descriptive 1" showed 4% plagiarism using smallseotools, and "gemini classifying 2" showed 4% plagiarism using both free tools. regarding plagiarism detected only by the paid software, there were 11 essays, as shown in table 8. among these, the highest percentages of plagiarism were found in "chatgpt cause and effect 1" (50%), followed by "chatgpt argumentative 2" (33%) and "chatgpt argumentative 1" (17%). furthermore, table 8 showed that the average percentage of plagiarism across the 15 essays generated by chatgpt was higher than those generated by gemini. specifically, the average plagiarism percentage for chatgpt essays was 6.64% while for gemini, it was 2.19%. in terms of writing models, chatgpt's essays had a higher mean percentage of plagiarism in four out of five models as shown in table 9. for descriptive writing, chatgpt’s essays had an average of 3.11% plagiarism, compared to 1.22% for gemini. in cause-and-effect writing, chatgpt's essays averaged 22.78%, while gemini's averaged 12.11%. chatgpt’s comparison and contrast essays had an average of 4.33%, compared to 2.44% for gemini. in argumentative writing, chatgpt's essays had an average of 11.89%, whereas gemini's averaged 2%. the only writing model where gemini had a higher average than chatgpt was classification, with 0.89% for gemini and 0.44% for chatgpt. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 103 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) table 8. the percentage of plagiarized content found in ai chatbots’ writingby both free and paid plagiarism checkers essays written by ai chatbots plagiarism checkers x̄ smallseo tools.com check-plagiarism .com turnitin chatgpt descriptive 1 5% 6% 8% 6.33% chatgpt descriptive 2 0% 0% 7% 2.33% chatgpt descriptive 3 0% 0% 2% 0.67% chatgpt classification 1 0% 0% 0% 0.00% chatgpt classification 2 0% 0% 0% 0.00% chatgpt classification 3 0% 0% 4% 1.33% chatgpt cause and effect 1 0% 0% 50% 16.67% chatgpt cause and effect 2 17% 18% 55% 30.00% chatgpt cause and effect 3 5% 6% 54% 21.67% chatgpt comparison and contrast 1 5% 6% 13% 8.00% chatgpt comparison and contrast 2 0% 0% 9% 3.00% chatgpt comparison and contrast 3 0% 0% 6% 2.00% chatgpt argumentative 1 0% 0% 17% 5.67% chatgpt argumentative 2 0% 0% 33% 11.00% chatgpt argumentative 3 11% 6% 40% 19.00% average percentage 0.03% 0.03% 19.87% 6.64% gemini descriptive 1 4% 0% 0% 1.33% gemini descriptive 2 0% 5% 2% 2.33% gemini descriptive 3 0% 0% 0% 0.00% gemini classification 1 0% 0% 0% 0.00% gemini classification 2 4% 4% 0% 2.67% gemini classification 3 0% 0% 0% 0.00% gemini cause and effect 1 0% 0% 8% 2.67% gemini cause and effect 2 4% 9% 37% 16.67% gemini cause and effect 3 12% 13% 26% 17.00% gemini comparison and contrast 1 0% 0% 0% 0.00% gemini comparison and contrast 2 0% 4% 3% 2.33% gemini comparison and contrast 3 5% 6% 4% 5.00% gemini argumentative 1 0% 0% 0% 0.00% gemini argumentative 2 0% 0% 10% 3.33% gemini argumentative 3 0% 0% 8% 2.67% average percentage 0.02% 0.03% 6.53% 2.19% 104 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) table 9. the average percentage of plagiarized content found by both free and paid checkers in each writing model five essay models ai chatbots x̄ chatgpt gemini descriptive 3.11% 1.22% 2.17% classification 0.44% 0.89% 0.67% cause and effect 22.78% 12.11% 17.44% comparison and contrast 4.33% 2.44% 3.39% argumentative 11.89% 2.00% 6.94% with a significant portion (23 out of 30) containing plagiarized, the analysis sheds light on the potential of ai-generated content while also highlights critical concerns regarding plagiarism. the study’s findings indicated that some written texts generated by chatgpt were more prone to plagiarism detection than those produced by gemini. of the five writing models, the causes and effect essays were mostly plagiarized for both ai tools specially composed by the chatgpt. the outcomes of this current study differ from those of khalil and er (2023) in that essay writing, particularly scientific essays produced by chatgpt, tended to be recognized for their high originality. in contrast, this current study found that turnitin detected the cause-and-effect essays as plagiarism at the highest level, similar to the free software plagiarism detector, which also showed that cause and effect writing produced by chatgpt and gemini exhibited the highest degree of plagiarism. at this point, cause and effect essays commonly address mostly debated topics, for instance, climate change or the effects of technology. these issues have been widely discussed, resulting in the unintended employment of identical ideas and language features from previous work. this is in line with aydın and karaarslan (2022), arguing that chatgpt seemed to underperform in generating original work after paraphrasing compared to other chatbots. in comparing free versus paid checkers, this study highlights the differences between the free plagiarism tools and the paid program. as mentioned, turnitin performed better in detecting plagiarism. these findings align with those reported by suaverdez and suaverdez (2023), though there are some differences. in their study, the paid tool identified a higher amount of plagiarized content compared to the free checkers. similarly, the present study found that the paid tool outperformed the two free programs, particularly in detecting plagiarism in the cause-and-effect essays. however, the findings also indicated that the free checkers performed better in certain writing models generated by google gemini, including descriptive, classification, and comparison and contrast essays. while smallseotools and check-plagiarism identified a lower percentage of plagiarism compared to turnitin, they still proved reliable to some extent in detecting plagiarized content. the findings shed light on the importance of caution when relying on ai tools and encourage users to be cautious when using ai tools for academic or professional writing. furthermore, this analysis provides valuable insights into the reliability of ai tools in generating original content and the effectiveness of different plagiarism detection systems. it highlights the need for caution and vigilance when using ai-generated texts, particularly in educational contexts where originality and academic integrity are critical. 4. conclusion and implications the present study has explored and compared the writing quality of openai chatgpt and google gemini based on five essay models in terms of the easability and readability using the t.e.r.a program. moreover, it has revealed the plagiarized content percentage of the texts generated by the two ai chatbots using three plagiarism checkers. the results revealed that both chatgpt and gemini similarly and well performed regarding word concreteness; however, they showed limitations in narrativity. chatgpt was likely to excel over gemini in areas like referential cohesion and deep cohesion. on the other hand, gemini outperformed chatgpt in aspects such as narrativity, syntactic simplicity, and word concreteness. some essays written by chatgpt and gemini were detected for issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 105 vol. 7, no. 2, august 2024, pp. 90-108 kotmungkun, s., et al (openai chatgpt vs google gemini: a study of ai.....) their plagiarism. some written texts generated by chatgpt were more likely to be detected for plagiarism compared to those created by gemini. ai has been increasingly used across disciplines. in an educational setting, chatbot has a great impact on how educators and teachers design courses, create teaching and learning materials, and assess students’ learning. it is worth noting that chatbot should be incorporated into teaching and learning with good care. as seen in this study, one ai tool performs differently from one another. as a matter of fact that ai tool has its unique ability, it is good for a teacher to select an appropriate tool for a particular teaching and learning objective. take a material design, for example, where a teacher should take a special care for the levels of the students, choosing the most appropriate ai tool is a key to success. some ai tools, like gemini might involve a variety of age ranges more than others. in this case, in a high school context, gemini could produce some model texts that are appropriate for high school students. in addition, one major concern that should be mentioned regarding the degree of plagiarism found in texts generated by ai tools. based on the outcomes of this study, a percentage of plagiarism could be found in both chatgpt and gemini. this means that teachers and students should not heavily rely on ai tools. to raise students’ awareness of plagiarism, they should be encouraged to use ai as language learning assistants to avoid producing writing tasks containing plagiarism which is a violation of ethics. also, they should practice necessary english skills and be trained how to use ai properly and efficiently in language learning. additionally, plagiarism-detection software should be incorporated into classroom. acknowledgment the researchers would like to express sincere gratitude to the division of research administration and academic services, kasetsart university chalermphrakiat sakon nakhon province campus, thailand, for providing the necessary resources and financial support. the researchers also extend appreciation to the head of the languages department, asst. prof. dr. dentisak dokchandra, as well as departmental colleagues and all administrative officers in the faculty of liberal arts and management science, for their invaluable guidance, moral support, and encouragement. their assistance and suggestions greatly contributed to the successful completion of this research. declarations author contribution : all authors, siraprapa kotmungkun, wichuta chompurach, and piriya thaksanan contributed equally to this research, participating in all stages, including conceptualization, data collection, analysis, and writing. wichuta chompurach, the corresponding author, led the manuscript writing and coordinated the collaboration with siraprapa kotmungkun and piriya thaksanan. all authors reviewed and revised the manuscript and approved the final version. funding statement : the research is funded under the division of research administration and academic services, kasetsart university chalermphrakiat sakon nakhon province campus, thailand. conflict of interest : the authors declare no conflict of interest. ethics declaration : this research was conducted using ai-generated written data from openai chatgpt and google gemini. no human participants were involved in the study, and as such, the research does not raise ethical concerns regarding human subjects. the ai-generated texts were used solely for the purpose of 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(2023). effect of chatbot-assisted language learning: a meta-analysis. education and information technologies, 28, 15223–15243. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11805-6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2023.102700 https://www.gbis.ch/index.php/gbis/article/view/150 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-023-00237-x https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-023-00237-x https://www.turnitin.com/ https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11742-4 https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4312418 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11805-6 1. introduction 1.1. large language models: openai chatgpt and google gemini 1.2. ai large language models use in education settings 1.3. use of large language model in l2 writing 2. methods 2.1. data collection tools 1) basic prompts to gather data from ai chatbots 2) t.e.r.a. (the text ease and readability assessor) program 3) plagiarism checkers 2.2. research procedures 2.3. data analysis 3. findings and discussion 3.1. rq 1: what is the writing quality level of openai chatgpt and google gemini based on five essay models in terms of the easability and readability? 1) overall analysis of essays generated by two ai chatbots 2) easability and readability of essays generated by two ai chatbots 3) easability and readability of essays generated by two ai chatbots based on five essay models 3.2. rq 2: what is the percentage of plagiarized content in the generated texts from openai chatgpt and google gemini as detected by plagiarism checkers? 1) free plagiarism checkers: smallseotools and check-plagiarism 2) paid plagiarism checker: turnitin 3) both free and paid plagiarism checkers: smallseotools, check-plagiarism, and turnitin 4. conclusion and implications acknowledgment declarations english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 92-104 https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14037 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id a critical eap perspective on “glory to hong kong”: language, identity, and resistance ka hang wong phd candidate, school of communication, faculty of arts and social sciences, university of technology sydney, australia kahang.a.wong@student.uts.edu.au a r t i c l e i n f o abst ract article history received 12 june 2025 revised 12 july 2025 accepted 4 august 2025 this paper examines hong kong’s protest anthem “glory to hong kong” as a site of linguistic and ideological resistance. it adopts a three-pronged approach: first, it uses critical discourse analysis (cda) to uncover how the lyrics construct themes of resistance, perseverance, struggle, and liberation; second, it situates this analysis within political discourse constructed by leading politicians from the people’s republic of china and the united kingdom; and third, it explores the pedagogical potential of applying a critical english for academic purposes (ceap) framework to the anthem. the paper argues that analysing protest discourse in this way offers possibilities for english language classrooms, particularly for exiled learners and migrant communities, equipping them to critically engage with language, power, and identity. by linking textual analysis to classroom practice, it positions the anthem not only as a cultural artifact but also as a resource with the potential to empower learners to interrogate dominant narratives. this study is particularly timely in the wake of china’s imposition of the national security law in hong kong and the global repression of exiled hongkongers. © the authors 2025. published by universitas ahmad dahlan. this is an open access article under the cc–by-sa license. keywords critical english for academic purposes critical discourse analysis counter-discourse language of resistance political displacement how to cite: wong, k. h. (2025). a critical eap perspective on “glory to hong kong”: language, identity, and resistance. english language teaching educational journal, 8(2), 92-104. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14037 1. introduction in 2024, the hong kong government succeeded in asking the courts to issue an injunction against performance of hong kong’s anthem “glory to hong kong”. the anthem originated from the 2019 hong kong protests but has since been played as hong kong’s national anthem during sports matches. although the high court initially rejected the government’s request, citing concerns for freedom of expression, the court of appeal overturned this ruling and sided with the government. the injunction criminalises any performance of the song with illegal intentions. despite a ban on the song, the anthem has continued to be sung by the hong kong diaspora as an act of resistance against a totalitarian-party state’s assault on hong kong’s freedoms. the recent exile from hong kong has been facilitated largely by the british national (overseas) (bn(o)) scheme. bn(o) status was granted to the people of hong kong to maintain a limited form of legal connection with the united kingdom beyond hong kong’s transfer of sovereignty from the united kingdom to china on july 1, 1997. for instance, hongkongers could travel with the bn(o) passport and receive british consulate protection while abroad. due to china’s violation of the sinobritish joint declaration, the united kingdom has now expanded the rights of hongkongers to allow them to live, work, and study in the united kingdom (gov.uk, 2021). it is estimated that 5.4 million people of hong kong are potentially eligible to settle in the united kingdom (house of commons https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14037 http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index mailto:eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id mailto:kahang.a.wong@student.uts.edu.au http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14037 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14037&domain=pdf 93 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 92-104 wong, k. h. (a critical eap perspective on “glory to hong kong”…..) library, 2021). other commonwealth countries such as australia and canada have also offered lifeboats to the people of hong kong escaping china’s political repression. this article explores “glory to hong kong” as a text of linguistic and ideological contestation. the paper serves a threefold purpose. it first applies critical discourse analysis (cda) to examine the implicit meanings and identity-building functions of hong kong’s anthem “glory to hong kong”. second, it grounds that analysis in a reading of political discourse articulated by leading political figures from the people’s republic of china and the united kingdom. building on this analysis and drawing on the framework of critical english for academic purposes (ceap), the paper explores the pedagogical potential of teaching the song in non-academic english classes for exiled learners, illustrating how it could empower students to critically engage with discourse, ideology, and historical memory. this paper argues that “glory to hong kong” functions as a text of resistance that engages critically with dominant narratives of power and control. this is a timely study particularly in the context of the chinese-imposed national security law and, more recently, transnational repression by the totalitarian party-state, as evidenced by the extraterritorial application of the security law against exiles. 1.1. sociopolitical context the 2019 hong kong protests were triggered by an extradition bill that raised fears of returning political dissidents to mainland china. although initially framed as a legal amendment following a murder case in taiwan, the bill sparked mass protests that escalated into broader concerns over china’s influence and hong kong’s autonomy. “glory to hong kong” was composed during the protests and released online on august 31, 2019. originally written in cantonese and later translated into english and other languages, the anthem incorporates the slogan “liberate hong kong, revolution of our times” (光復香港，時代革命) in its chorus. the hong kong government claims the slogan violates the national security law; tong ying-kit became the first political prisoner jailed under the law for carrying a flag with it. since then, the anthem has become a symbol of resistance among hong kong exiles, from st pancras railway station to concerts such as “the people united” in toronto on november 2, 2024. since the imposition of the national security law in 2020, political repression has extended into education and electoral systems. state narratives now emphasise loyalty to beijing, and opposition politicians have been jailed, creating the conditions under which “glory to hong kong” continues to function as a counter-hegemonic discourse articulating alternative histories, identities, and forms of resistance. 1.2. brief review of literature a number of scholars in applied linguistics have examined hong kong’s political discourses and their role in shaping the city’s identity of resistance and democracy. a key figure in the field of eap, john flowerdew has conducted multiple studies on hong kong’s political rhetoric since the transfer of sovereignty. his research covers the ways in which the last british governor, chris patten, framed hong kong’s bedrock principles (flowerdew, 1997, 2016), as well as how tung chee-hwa, the city’s first chief executive, discursively constructed a chinese identity (flowerdew, 2004b). flowerdew and leong (2007) examine the metaphorical representation of patriotism in hong kong. flowerdew (2017) contends that opposition to authoritarianism has played a defining role in the formation of hong kong’s identity. he identifies metaphors of war and conflict within the discourse of the 2014 umbrella movement. his book critical discourse analysis in historiography: the case of hong kong’s evolving political identity compiles research that illustrates the transformation of political discourse from colonial rule to the post-handover government (flowerdew, 2011). other scholars have also contributed to this discussion since the 1997 handover. following the sovereignty transfer, jackson (2002) explores how english major students conceptualised their postcolonial identity. jackson’s study reveals that the students employed familial metaphors to express their sentiments about hong kong’s transfer to china. j. wang (2017) analyses twenty-two policy addresses to examine how both colonial and post-handover administrations have discursively shaped hong kong’s identity over time. w. tang (2014) investigates the discourses of the hong kong diaspora, focusing on how they construct and reconstruct narratives of both colonial and post-colonial hong kong. ng (2020) investigates how chief executive c. y. leung and pro-democracy politicians differently recontextualised beijing’s rhetoric. in another article, i analyse the 2019 hong kong issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 94 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 92-104 wong, k. h. (a critical eap perspective on “glory to hong kong”…..) protests and the political responses of chief executive carrie lam, which preceded china’s imposition of the national security law (wong, k. h., 2024). more recent studies have begun to examine the linguistic and ideological significance of the key protest slogan from the 2019 movement. leung (2024) conducts a linguistic analysis of “liberate hong kong, revolution of our times”. leung’s findings indicate that the slogan conveys a call to rectify a perceived issue and restore hong kong to a preferable state, though it does not explicitly define the problem or the envisioned ideal. a. tang (2022) examines how protesters’ appeals to president trump to “liberate hong kong” function as infelicitous speech acts, reflecting their democratic aspirations, desire for freedom, and resistance to control by the people’s republic of china. tang suggests that these calls contribute to the emergence of an anti-globalist activist subculture that resonates with movements elsewhere in the world. while many of these studies provide valuable linguistic analyses of hong kong texts, their engagement with power, ideology, and hegemony through a cda lens varies. flowerdew, in particular, has been a major contributor to cda studies of hong kong political discourse. cda is a qualitative approach that seeks to understand power relations in the social context of discourse and challenge inequalities (grant, 2018). according to grant (2018), cda typically involves three steps: (1) identifying themes from initial coding; (2) considering power relations in the data; and (3) drawing inferences and presenting findings. for example, historical documents such as the joint declaration or british declassified files can reveal how power was exercised and ideologies maintained. cda thus uncovers “hidden ideologies and power in texts and discourse practices” (ng, 2020, p. 542) and can be understood as a combination of “critique of discourse and explanation of how it figures within and contributes to the existing social reality” (fairclough, 2015, p. 6). power in cda can be conceptualised in two dimensions. the first is domination, where power is enacted from above through institutions such as the law (statham, 2022). for instance, states can secure compliance through legal or punitive measures. the second dimension is hegemony, where discourse persuades subordinate groups that state values are legitimate. in this way, discourse can legitimise authority by framing resistance as illegitimate. cda seeks to deconstruct these processes to “expose and demystify those guiding ideologies” (statham, 2022, p. 7). while critical discourse analysis (cda) provides tools for examining power and ideology in texts, critical english for academic purposes (ceap) extends these insights into pedagogical contexts, enabling learners to engage critically with social and political discourses (chun, 2015). ceap emphasises how uncovering power relations and ideological mechanisms can enhance students’ critical awareness and foster engagement with social issues. previous studies have applied ceap to classroom interventions addressing politically sensitive topics, including tuition fee protests (benesch, 1996), identity, power, and social belonging (morgan & ahmed, 2023), critical citizenship education (fleming & morgan, 2011), and social issues projects (morgan, 2009). ceap has also been used to examine the discursive dynamics of international political debates, such as the ways in which chinese students in australia countered the free tibet movement (fenton-smith, 2014). however, its potential application in non-academic english teaching contexts, such as english classes for exiled hongkongers under conditions of political repression, remains largely unexplored. despite its global circulation and rich counter-hegemonic content, “glory to hong kong” has not been studied from a ceap perspective, likely because the anthem emerged in a rapidly evolving sociopolitical crisis and is primarily circulated online rather than in formal classroom settings. as a result, its pedagogical potential in english language teaching remains unexplored. a useful precedent can be found in the tibetan anthem, “rise up (long shog)”, which, as yeh (2007) observes, enables tibetans to sustain their resistance in exile. while this precedent does not come from a tesol setting, it illustrates how protest anthems function as vehicles of identity and opposition. building on this insight, the present article examines “glory to hong kong” not only as a genre within hong kong’s broader discourse of resistance, but also through the lens of ceap, highlighting its potential to foster critical language awareness and political engagement in tesol contexts. conceptually, the study positions the anthem as a pedagogical tool that complements cda, offering exiled hongkongers and other learners opportunities to critically explore power, identity, and resistance through english language education. 95 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 92-104 wong, k. h. (a critical eap perspective on “glory to hong kong”…..) 2. method 2.1. research design the study of hong kong’s anthem “glory to hong kong” is derived from a larger doctoral study on how bn(o) status evolved from being a token of british nationality to a tool of resistance against china’s assault on hong kong. the overarching research method is documentary research. rather than relying on traditional data collection methods, documentary research utilises existing sources, including official records, youtube videos, news articles, and physical materials. such documents provide valuable insights for understanding society (grant, 2018). 2.2. data collection for this study, i obtained both the cantonese and english versions of the anthem “glory to hong kong” through publicly available online sources. as the lyrics are widely circulated and consistent across platforms, the precise website of retrieval is not material to the analysis. english translations, while unofficial, generally follow a common rendering of the lyrics. for the purposes of analysis, i referred only to the most widely shared versions, while excluding parody or altered adaptations. 2.3. data analysis the lyrics were read iteratively in both cantonese and english to identify recurring themes of resistance, perseverance, struggle, and liberation, drawing on my lived experience as a hongkonger. these themes were then analysed using flowerdew’s model of critical discourse historiography (cdh), a historiographical approach to cda. developed by flowerdew in the early 1990s alongside wodak’s discourse-historical approach (dha), cdh emphasises the role of discourse analysis in the writing of history and the importance of historical context (flowerdew, 2017). the analysis focused on four discursive strategies described by flowerdew—foregrounding, presupposition, othering, and framing (flowerdew, 2004b; flowerdew & leong, 2007). to strengthen the interpretation, the reading of the lyrics was triangulated with supplementary materials, including news articles, youtube videos of performances, and official documents, as well as insights from interdisciplinary scholarship. in this way, the study traces how “glory to hong kong” articulates narratives of resistance, identity, and struggle against china’s encroachments, and contributes to the historiography of hongkongers-in-exile. a conceptual illustration of the relationship between lyrics, cda, and ceap-informed interpretation is as follows: “glory to hong kong” lyrics → cdh (identifying discursive strategies and power relations) → ceap-informed pedagogical/civic potential (highlighting critical language awareness, counterdiscourse, and learner engagement) 3. finding and discussion the anthem employs emotionally charged lexis to construct themes of suffering, anger, perseverance, and hope (see appendix 1). lexical choices signalling suffering include “tears”, “slaves”, “deep”, and “dread”. those conveying anger include “wrath”, “arms”, and “fight”. vocabulary associated with hope includes “pledge”, “reign”, “faith”, “grow”, “wisdom”, “break”, and “liberate”. finally, terms denoting perseverance include “stride”, “tread”, and “valour”. “glory to hong kong” also draws on metaphoric imagery of a battlefield, symbolising resistance against invading forces. this is evident in the line “a solitary trumpet flares”. these metaphors employ imperatives to convey urgency (“let blood rage afield!”, “now, to arms!”, “break now the dawn, liberate our hong kong”), alongside modal expressions that articulate hope and aspiration (“yet still, with our faith, on we tread”, “may people reign, proud and free, now and evermore”, “for hong kong, may glory reign!”). the consistent use of plural pronouns constructs a collective identity of hongkongers, while positioning the government as the other. expressions such as “our hong kong” and “our times” invoke a shared sense of democratic freedoms experienced before the 1997 handover. together, these linguistic choices foreground recurring motifs of resistance, perseverance, struggle, and liberation, which will be explored further in the following thematic analysis. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 96 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 92-104 wong, k. h. (a critical eap perspective on “glory to hong kong”…..) 3.1. themes of the anthem by examining the lyrics of “glory to hong kong”, themes related to hongkongers’ struggle against aggression from a totalitarian party-state can be found. this present article has identified four major themes of the anthem: resistance, perseverance, struggle, and liberation. the selection of these themes was guided by their central significance in the lyrics. 1) resistance the phrase “arise! ye who would not be slaves again” employs both presupposition and othering strategies. it presupposes that hongkongers are being subjugated by an external power, implying a loss of prior freedoms. it constructs china as the other that must be resisted. this phrase mirrors a line from china’s national anthem: “arise! ye who refuse to be slaves!” (起來！不願做奴隸的 人們！). this is an instance of intertextuality, where the meaning of one text is shaped by another (flowerdew, 2004a). while china’s anthem originally framed western imperialists as oppressors, hong kong’s own anthem has reframed the narrative to position china itself as the oppressor. this reframing serves as a powerful example of counter-discourse in the spirit of ceap. by 2019, hong kong had been brought under chinese rule for twenty-two years, and china’s anthem had been legally enforced in the region. rather than embracing china’s call to resist foreign domination, hongkongers redirect the same rhetorical structure to resist oppression under chinese rule. in doing so, they signal a rejection of beijing’s authority and its encroachments on hong kong’s freedoms. furthermore, the phrase bears resemblance to “rule, britannia!”, particularly the line “britons never, never, never shall be slaves”. the invocation of british patriotic rhetoric suggests a lingering ideological connection to the freedoms once experienced under british protection. this cultural and historical affinity with britain likely influenced the choice to adapt a phrase from “rule, britannia! ” rather than directly translating the original cantonese lyrics, 昂首 拒默沉 吶喊聲 響透, which more literally express perseverance and vocal resistance. the waving of the british colonial flag during the 2019 protests, as well as in exile, suggests the plausibility of this interpretation. “let blood rage afield” is a powerful expression of resistance. hong kong’s sovereignty was transferred from britain to china under the joint declaration, with beijing pledging to uphold hong kong’s freedoms. however, china’s violations of these obligations have sparked widespread anger. the phrase frames china as the betrayer. it can be interpreted as a call for britain to recognise this betrayal and push back against china’s undue influence. in the context of hong kong exiles, it adds another layer to the meaning. the phrase can be interpreted as a desire to persevere in the face of transnational repression and continue the fight for hong kong’s identity and autonomy from abroad. 2) perserverance the lyrics “though deep is the dread that lies ahead, yet still, with our faith, on we tread” convey the perseverance of hongkongers in the face of uncertainty. during the 2019 protests, hongkongers made five key demands, including full withdrawal of the extradition bill, an inquiry into police brutality, and dual universal suffrage. at the time the anthem was released online, none of these demands had been met. the phrase foregrounds not only the looming hardship but also the determination to press ahead. the word “faith” reflects a collective belief in the necessity of perseverance. it draws on past experiences in protests that pressured the government into making concessions. for the hong kong diaspora, the phrase takes on a different meaning. rather than referring to immediate demands on the hong kong government, it can be interpreted as a call to continue advocating for international support through political recognition and humanitarian policies. for instance, former governor chris patten has supported the expansion of the bn(o) scheme (hong kong watch, 2022). following such advocacy, the united kingdom government now allows the posthandover generation to apply for the scheme independently of their bn(o) parents, provided they can demonstrate a parental connection to a bn(o) status holder. 3) struggle the imagery of the “solitary trumpet flares” amid darkness evokes the atmosphere of battle. metaphors are not confined to literature and poetry; they serve as “means of representing one aspect of experience with another” (fairclough, 2015, p. 136). just as a bugle call in war signals soldiers to 97 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 92-104 wong, k. h. (a critical eap perspective on “glory to hong kong”…..) advance, the phrase “now, to arms” is a direct call to fight “with all might”, demanding both valour and wisdom. during the 2019 protests, many clashes took place at night, with police deploying tear gas grenades against protesters. the command “to arms” is issued “through the mists”, symbolising the disorienting effect of tear gas and the chaotic conditions of street battles. it is a call to break through the fog, not only in defiance, but in physical confrontation against totalitarian forces. however, in exile, the imagery of war shifts from an immediate call “to arms” to a call to remember those who fought for hong kong’s freedoms. just as remembrance day honours soldiers who died in the line of duty, the lyrics serve as a commemoration in exile, paying respect to those who struggled on the frontlines in 2019. furthermore, hongkongers have revived their democracy movement in exile, with many grassroots organisations established in the united kingdom and beyond (chen, 2023). in this new context, the call “to arms” can be reinterpreted as a struggle for resistance and advocacy through discourse and identity. 4) liberation liberation is the most salient theme of the anthem. hong kong’s slogan “liberate hong kong, revolution of our times” is repeated in its chorus, presupposing that the homeland is under totalitarian oppression and must be freed through a revolution. just as “the last post” is played at dawn to signify the fallen soldiers’ liberation from suffering, “break now the dawn” can represent the end of darkness and the emergence of new hope for hong kong. similarly, just as the silence following the performance of “the last post” is a collective act of honouring the fallen, “in common breath” symbolises the shared resilience and unity of hongkongers. the final line, “may people reign, proud and free, now and evermore”, expresses an aspiration for a hong kong free from chinese totalitarian rule and a return to its former glory under the british. 3.2. opposing views the findings suggest that “glory to hong kong” embodies four key themes: resistance, perseverance, struggle, and liberation. the anthem calls for united kingdom’s intervention, given its status as a signatory to the treaty. it expresses a desire for liberation through perseverance and struggle. however, perhaps the most debated issue that has led to the confrontation between china and hong kong is the interpretation of hong kong’s political status. the chinese government asserts that hong kong is an inherent part of china and enforces legal measures against any perceived separatist threats. this view of hong kong has led to the imposition of the national security law, and later, the ban on the performance of hong kong’s anthem. states exert power through dominance and control to ensure its subjects comply with its laws (statham, 2022). the national security law is an illustration of this form of power. despite the law’s extraterritorial power, many hongkongers-in-exile continue to advocate for alternative visions of hong kong’s status, as reflected in the use of the british colonial flag, alongside the slogan “liberate hong kong, revolution of our times”. in this section, i examine the reasoning behind these opposing narratives and propose strategies for teaching the anthem. 1) deng xiaoping’s “legal fiction” and historical revisionism the chinese government’s assertion is rooted in a “legal fiction” created by deng xiaoping (lim, 2022). during the sino-british negotiations, deng maintained that hong kong had always been a part of china, but that it was merely “occupied” by britain. however, this claim has never been tested by any international court. he dismissed the treaties under which britain acquired hong kong as “unequal” and refused to recognise them. this interpretation disregards historical treaties such as the treaty of nanking, which ceded hong kong to britain in perpetuity. nevertheless, deng recognised the different sociopolitical realities of hong kong and assured prime minister margaret thatcher that hong kong could maintain its way of life for fifty years after the handover. this arrangement, later formalised as “one country, two systems”, was framed under the principle of “hong kong people ruling hong kong”. this principle embodied an implicit recognition of hongkongers’ distinct british-influenced identity and right to self-government. deng’s promise of autonomy reinforced hong kong’s separate political and legal identity that aligns with its british heritage, even as he claimed hong kong to be under chinese sovereignty. despite deng’s goodwill, his flawed understanding of sovereignty has led the chinese government to assert a hegemonic claim over hongkongers’ chinese nationality. this claim is central to issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 98 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 92-104 wong, k. h. (a critical eap perspective on “glory to hong kong”…..) understanding how the chinese government has justified disregarding its agreements with the united kingdom, as will be discussed in the next section. during the negotiations that resulted in the joint declaration, china claimed all hongkongers of chinese descent are chinese nationals irrespective of their british dependent territories citizenship (bdtc) or bn(o) status at the time. despite being british nationals, hongkongers only had a limited legal relationship with the united kingdom, leaving their futures tied to china. however, following the british offer of a citizenship pathway to bn(o) hongkongers, china again violated its agreement with the united kingdom by derecognising the bn(o) passport as a valid proof of identity in hong kong beyond january 31, 2021. the erasure of inconvenient historical events has long been a tactic employed by the ccp to foster nationalism within the chinese mainland. as statham (2022) explains, states enforce their power and control by persuading the public of their legitimacy. for instance, in the years following the tiananmen square massacre, the ccp successfully convinced the public that the 1989 student movement was counterrevolutionary and shifted its focus to demonstrating legitimacy through economic growth. similarly, the hong kong government, under the communist regime, began to rewrite hong kong’s status. this effort has intensified in the post-national security law era. the school curriculum has been revised to indoctrinate hong kong children with a revisionist version of hong kong’s status, erasing its history as a british crown colony (see citizenship and social development web-based resource platform, 2021). as flowerdew (2004b) notes, politicians naturalise myths by constantly repeating their narrative. in this case, the continuous repetition of revisionist history gradually becomes naturalised. 2) deconstructing the distortion cda offers tools to deconstruct distortions in discourse. flowerdew (2004b), for instance, has pointed out that chris patten’s framing of hong kong’s four bedrock principles as defining its way of life was itself a misrepresentation, as these concepts were subject to debate. in the context of the bn(o) offer, china’s then ambassador to the united kingdom, liu xiaoming (刘晓明), asserted hong kong should be regarded “as a part of china, not as a part of the uk” (“hong kong protests: uk should not interfere, says chinese ambassador”, 2019, para. 11). the ambassador’s statement can similarly be deconstructed. by asserting that hong kong is a part of china, liu frames hongkongers as chinese, despite their bn(o) status and british heritage. this framing disregards hongkongers’ legal relationship with the united kingdom and negates hong kong’s values established under british sovereignty, which deng xiaoping had promised to maintain for fifty years under the “one country, two systems” framework. liu’s argument that the united kingdom has no right to “interfere” with china’s treatment of its “own people” rests on a presupposition—that hongkongers universally accept their identity as chinese nationals, despite historical and legal counterarguments. this links to my earlier argument that the chinese government’s assertion of sovereignty over hongkongers’ nationality, without consulting those affected, has been instrumental in its disregard for the sino-british joint declaration. the assumption that all hongkongers are chinese enables beijing to claim that british intervention is unwarranted. if the chinese government had recognised hongkongers as british living under its claimed territory, it might have been more compelled to respect their democratic freedoms under the treaty. the ambassador’s assertion is a clear example of manipulation, which occurs “if speakers wilfully make assumptions about their hearers which they know not to be the case” (flowerdew, 2004b, p.1561). in this case, liu assumes that british politicians accept hong kong’s exclusive belonging to china while knowing that his audience does not necessarily share this view. the bn(o) passport’s inside cover contains a presupposition trigger: the reference to a “right of abode in hong kong” presupposes that hong kong is territorially administered under the united kingdom, parallel to other british overseas territories. by issuing bn(o) passports that highlight permanent residency in hong kong, the united kingdom created a document whose wording continues to imply a british connection to the territory, even after the sovereignty transfer. thus, given the united kingdom’s jurisdiction over its nationals, particularly those with bn(o) status, this instance exemplifies how presupposition can function as a tool of rhetorical control. the ambassador’s distortion of historical realities is revealed through the words of chris patten. the term “primary definers” refers to official voices that possess the power to shape discourse and establish dominant interpretations of particular situations (flowerdew & leong, 2007). as the last 99 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 92-104 wong, k. h. (a critical eap perspective on “glory to hong kong”…..) governor of hong kong who oversaw the handover and a member of the house of lords, chris patten serves as a key authoritative voice in framing hong kong’s struggle for freedom. flowerdew and leong (2007, p. 279) describe such figures as those who “take the lead in framing a debate”, which is evident in patten’s remarks: here is an example of freedom, and the sort of freedom we take for granted in most western societies, being under assault. if we allow it to go under, if we allow it to be buried in hong kong, then sooner or later it’ll threaten everyone (bbc news, 2023, 48:51). patten characterises freedom in hong kong as “the sort of freedom we take for granted in most western societies”. when he was the governor of hong kong, patten argued that hong kong’s political and legal institutions had developed under british rule that fostered a free market economy, the rule of law, democratic principles, and freedom of the individual (flowerdew, 1997, 2016). the process of democratisation, which included a fully elected legislature prior to the handover, was swiftly reversed by beijing after 1997 (wang, 2017). these foundational institutions, rooted in british governance, reinforce hong kong’s alignment with liberal democratic traditions. patten’s rhetoric employs an othering strategy that aligns the plural indexical “we” with democratic societies, implicitly contrasting them against china’s totalitarian model. by situating hong kong within the broader ideological framework of western democracy, patten constructs an urgent moral appeal: hong kong’s erosion of freedoms is not merely a localised issue but a direct challenge to the democratic world. through this framing, patten positions hong kong as ideologically and historically linked to britain and its democratic values, reinforcing its distinctiveness from china’s governance system. the united kingdom and hong kong thus share deeply rooted values of freedom and autonomy (yu, 2022, 2023). hong kong’s national identity, shaped by its historical ties to britain, situates its cultural and political principles with those of the united kingdom (gov.uk, 2021). the ambassador’s statement disregards this historical connection and ignores the united kingdom’s obligation toward some 2.9 million british nationals and their dependents currently facing political persecution under a totalitarian regime. in total, the united kingdom could be seen as having responsibility for up to 5.4 million hongkongers (ullah & azizuddin, 2022; wong et al., 2023). while liu xiaoming may lay claim to hong kong’s physical territory as of july 1, 1997, the cultural identity and legal nationality status of its people remain tied to britain under the “two systems” promised by deng. hong kong is therefore still a part of the united kingdom in terms of its national and cultural character, despite its physical territory now being under chinese subjugation. by deconstructing the ambassador’s narrative using cda tools, it becomes clear that liu’s distortion of reality stands in stark contrast to the actual situation. 3.3. pedagogical applications the analysis above aligns with how hongkongers have identified themselves. bn(o) emigrants often refer to themselves as “british hongkongers” (yu, 2023, p. 25), a label not formally recognised in official documents. despite this, they embrace the term to preserve their hong kong identity while integrating into the united kingdom. “glory to hong kong” therefore offers a rich text for english classes designed for bn(o) learners. its lyrics serve as a counter-discourse to beijing’s narratives and provide opportunities to explore principles such as governance, human rights, civil liberties, and resistance to oppression. intermediatelevel learners can engage with the english text while referring to the cantonese version for comprehension, allowing them to negotiate meaning across languages and cultural contexts. specific classroom applications could include: • lexical focus: highlight emotionally charged words (e.g., “liberate”, “faith”, “fight”) and their cantonese equivalents. learners match words with meanings, images, or short examples from their own experience. • guided questioning: ask students questions such as, “who is “we” in this line?” or “what feeling does this line express?”. this form of questioning encourages attention to pronouns, perspective, and power relations. issn 2621-6485 english language teaching educational journal 100 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 92-104 wong, k. h. (a critical eap perspective on “glory to hong kong”…..) • sentence frames and reflection: provide simple prompts like, “this line makes me feel ___ because ___”, or “i would like hong kong to ___”, supporting learners to express ideas without complex grammar. • discussion and comparison: learners work in pairs or small groups to compare english and cantonese interpretations, exploring how meaning, tone, and ideological positioning shift between languages. through these activities, students indirectly engage with discursive strategies identified by cdh. while terms such as foregrounding, presupposition, framing, and othering are used in academic analysis, teachers can translate them into accessible classroom practices, such as noticing repeated words, identifying hidden assumptions, comparing alternative wordings, and reflecting on pronoun choices. the principles illustrated here can extend beyond the british context. for example, similar approaches could be applied in australia or canada, where exiled hongkongers and other displaced communities encounter similar challenges related to identity, history, and civic participation. 4. conclusion this study has pursued three goals: to analyse the implicit meanings of hong kong’s protest anthem “glory to hong kong”; to situate these meanings within the political rhetoric of china and the united kingdom; and to consider their pedagogical potential in english language programmes for hongkongers resettling abroad. the anthem embodies themes of resistance, perserverence, struggle, and liberation, countering beijing’s distortion of “one country, two systems”. by drawing on english and cantonese, as well as symbols of british heritage, hongkongers articulate an alternative vision rooted in liberal democracy and collective struggle. beyond the hong kong case, the framework developed here could be adapted to other protest texts, such as tibet’s “rise up (long shog)”, also sung in exile, and potentially to other contexts where english is taught as a medium for exploring protest and resistance texts. such comparative studies would allow us to trace how resistance discourses are locally rooted yet globally resonant. nevertheless, the study has clear limitations. it focuses on a single anthem, and its interpretation may not capture the full diversity of hong kong voices. political sensitivities may also limit the willingness of classroom participants. however, given the specific context of bn(o) english classes for hong kong exiles, the risks of presenting politically sensitive content are minimal, as students already share the lived experience and perspective reflected in the anthem. future research should extend the framework to a wider corpus of protest texts, explore audience reception across different diaspora communities, and pilot the proposed pedagogical applications in bn(o) and other settlementfocused english classes. such work would deepen our understanding of how language, protest, and pedagogy intersect in contexts of displacement and resistance. acknowledgment the authors thank all the participants who have shared their voices so that this study could be accomplished. the authors’ gratitude also goes to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and substantial feedback so that this manuscript could be published and reach wider readers. 101 english language teaching educational journal issn 2621-6485 vol. 8, no. 2, august 2025, pp. 92-104 wong, k. h. (a critical eap perspective on “glory to hong kong”…..) declarations author contribution : the author is responsible for the entire research project, from initiating the ideas to revising the manuscript. funding statement : the research is supported by an australian government research training program scholarship. conflict of interest : there is no conflict of interest in this work. ethics declaration : as the author, i confirm that this work has been written based on ethical research principles in compliance with our university’s regulations and that the necessary permission was obtained from the relevant institution during data collection. i fully support eltej’s commitment to upholding high standards of professional conduct and practicing honesty in all academic and professional activities. additional information : no additional information is available for this paper. references bbc news. 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(a critical eap perspective on “glory to hong kong”…..) appendix 1 glory to hong kong 願榮光歸香港 we pledge: no more tears on our land. in wrath, doubts dispell’d we make our stand. arise! ye who would not be slaves again: for hong kong, may freedom reign! though deep is the dread that lies ahead, yet still, with our faith, on we tread. let blood rage afield! our voice grows evermore: for hong kong, may glory reign! stars may fade, as darkness fills the air. through the mist a solitary trumpet flares: now, to arms! for freedom we fight, with all might we strike! with valour, wisdom both, we stride! break now the dawn, liberate our hong kong. in common breath: revolution of our times! may people reign, proud and free, now and evermore. glory be to thee, hong kong! 何以 這土地 淚再流，何以 令眾人 亦憤恨，昂首 拒默沉 吶喊聲 響透，盼自由 歸於 這裡！ 何以 這恐懼 抹不走，何以 為信念 從沒退後，何解 血在流 但邁進聲 響透，建自由 光輝 香 港！ 在晚星 墜落 徬徨午夜， 迷霧裡 最遠處吹來 號角聲，捍自由 來齊集這裡，來全力抗對，勇 氣 智慧 也永不滅！ 黎明來到 要光復 這香港，同行兒女 為正義 時代革命，祈求 民主與自由 萬世都不朽，我願 榮光歸香港 ！ 