JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 41 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature) Vol. 8 No. 1, February 2023 ISSN (print): 2502-7816; ISSN (online): 2503-524X Available online at https://ejournal.unib.ac.id/index.php/joall/article/view/22577 https://doi.org/10.33369/joall.v8i1.22577 Engaging students to write procedure texts through the culturally-relevant activity of bark painting 1Wigati Yektiningtyas , 2Ruth Naomi Nancy Wompere , 3Niko Kobepa , 4Tri Apniani Sunarsih 1,2,3Department of Language and Art, Universitas Cenderawasih, INDONESIA 1,2,3Jalan Raya Sentani-Abepura 4State Senior High School 1 Jayapura (SMAN 1 Jayapura), INDONESIA 4Jalan Serui, No. 38, Abepura ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received: Jul 4, 2022 Revised: Oct 19, 2022 Accepted: Nov 16, 2022 For most EFL students, writing in English is a boring and challenging skill; therefore, creative and attractive media such as bark painting is needed. Bark painting is one of the cultural heritages that has not been valued and recognized by Papuan young people as a culturally important medium. This study aimed at exploring the ways of engaging students to write procedure texts using bark painting and finding the importance of infusing bark painting in teaching procedure text. This descriptive-qualitative study took place in Jayapura, Papua, Indonesia, between January and March 2021. There were students of the Social Science program, 5 Senior High School teachers, 3 tribal chiefs, 3 elders, 3 bark painters, and 2 cultural practitioners involved as the participants. The data were collected by using observation, interview, and FGD (Focus Group Discussion). From the data analysis, the study found that by engaging the students in learning writing procedure text using bark painting, they could effectively and enthusiastically learn the social functions, generic structure, and linguistic features of writing procedure text with a media which is culturally close to them, and they could learn and indirectly disseminate cultural heritage as well as learn the good character of the elders. Keywords: Procedure text Writing Bark painting Teaching media Cultural heritage Conflict of interest: None Funding information: None Correspondence: Wigati Yektiningtyas, Department of Language and Art, Universitas Cenderawasih, INDONESIA wigati_y@yahoo.com ©Authors This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA 4.0 international license. How to cite (APA Style): Yektiningtyas, W., Wompere, R.N.N., Kobepa, N., Sunarsih, T.A. (2023). Engaging students to write procedure texts through the culturally-relevant activity of bark painting. JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 41-58. https://doi.org/10.33369/joall.v8i1.22577 Writing is one of the skills that is believed to have an essential relevance for a learner of a second language because it serves not only as a tool for communication but also as a means of learning, thinking, and organizing information or ideas. According to Murcia (1991), writing is a form of https://ejournal.unib.ac.id/index.php/joall/article/view/22577 https://doi.org/10.33369/joall.v8i1.22577 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.33369/joall.v8i1.22577&domain=pdf https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.33369/joall.v8i1.22577 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5160-837X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4338-4748 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1007-1841 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7112-7445 Wigati Yektiningtyas, Ruth Naomi Nancy Wompere, Niko Kobepa, Tri Apniani Sunarsih 42 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 communication that involves an interactive process between the writer and the reader. It means that during the writing process, the writer can connect his or her ideas or viewpoints with two or more others. Additionally, writing, according to Nunan (2003), is both a process and a product. Thus, it is about more than making our thoughts and ideas visible and concrete (Ghaith, 2002) as cited in Widayanti, Rustyana, and Haryudin (2019). Based on the senior high school syllabus, there are several types of text genres which students need to learn and one of which is the procedure text. Procedure text is a text that provides instructions on how to carry out certain activities (Anderson, 2003). The text frequently employs imperative sentences in the simple present tense. It also frequently uses temporal conjunctions such as first, second, then, next, and so on. The structure of the text consists of aim/goal, materials, and steps. As a result, the objective of writing a procedure text for students is for them to be able to write different procedure texts in sequences as well as recognize the generic structure and the language features. Many students, according to Rivers (2018) as cited in Krishnapatria, et.al. (2019), are bored and uninterested in the intricacy of English writing activities because their teachers in the classroom frequently repeat the same pattern utilizing old-fashioned materials such as whiteboards, books, and other normative learning tools. Empirically, according to the teacher informants Takayetouw, Nasir, Yoku, and Gandeguai, Senior High School students, particularly in the capital city of Papua Province do not like English very much, especially when learning procedure text. They always have some reasons to avoid learning English, i.e., the teaching is boring, monotonous, not creative, not challenging, etc. On the other hand, teachers also have similar problems to engage students to be interested in learning writing. This is in line with Aminah (2015) and Halimah, et.al. (2021) in their research that portray teachers’ difficulties in finding suitable methods and materials to encourage students to learn writing. Related to the problems faced by the teachers, as Brumfit said (1987, p.23) that “none of us teaches anything worthwhile directly to students: we simply create conditions for successful learning”. It means that English teachers are responsible to attract students' attention and evoke good atmosphere in learning, they need to find creative and innovative strategies in their lessons, including teaching writing. This study limits the discussion on how to attract students in writing procedure text since it is taught in the curriculum for grades X, XI, and XII of Senior High School in Jayapura Indonesia. Yektiningtyas & Modouw (2017) found that students were enthusiastic in contextual learning, i.e., learning mathematics, environment, history, languages (English, Indonesian, and local languages) using cultural materials like folktales, dances, folksongs, and arts. Related to the research above, this study infused cultural medium of bark painting in teaching writing procedure Engaging students to write procedure texts through the culturally-relevant activity… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 43 text. As a part of the cultural heritages that is not acknowledged by the young generation, the uniqueness of its creation process, bark painting was chosen to be used in learning writing procedure text. The students could learn the traditional and unique steps of the bark painters in creating their paintings and they could have new experiences as well. The idea of infusing bark painting is also related to Government Regulation number 17/2010 about the management and process of education in adopting local excellence. Besides, Indonesian curriculum of 2013 also underlines about the importance of adapting local contexts, i.e., various natural and cultural resources as potential learning materials to help the students to have better character, critical thinking, knowledge, and skills (Modouw, 2021). Hopefully, by designing and using materials that are authentic but interesting and contextual like bark painting, does not only preserve the cultural products, but creates psychological tools that in turn accommodate learning as well. In other words, creating conducive learning environment that links prior knowledge or schema and new knowledge that is to be learned is not only formally mandatory but also an urgent need (Kim, 2020; Modouw, 2021). Writing is one of the language skills for EFL students in Indonesia to learn. According to Murcia (1991), writing is a form of communication that involves an interactive process between the writer and the reader. It means that during the writing process, the writer can connect his or her ideas or viewpoints with two or more others. Writing, according to Nunan (2003), is both a process and a product. Hence, students must go through some processes in order to get the final product. In order for students to be able to start writing, teachers need media that can help students’ writing ability. According to Garson (2012), visual media can increase classroom instruction and students’ understanding. Some studies have been done in teaching procedure text using various media. An action research study done by Prasetya & Komarudin (2017) showed that cooking video could help improve students’ procedure text writing skills. This finding indicates that the use of cooking recipe texts seems to be facilitative in learning and acquisition of procedure text construction skills. Besides the cooking recipes, games such as battleship that involve steps can also be used as media to teach procedural texts (Artyani, et.al., 2014). Students’ procedure text writing skills may be improved not only with the appropriate use of media, but also of teaching techniques. Zaki & Rosa (2014) offered an alternative way of teaching procedure text on steps in the applied project-based learning approach. Learning theories inform us that learning and or acquisition is most likely to take place when a learning material presented is, related to, among other things, either or both background knowledge of the students which is technically referred to schema or/and what is familiar or available to them as proposed in the here-and-now approach (Kobepa, 2016). What is available to the Wigati Yektiningtyas, Ruth Naomi Nancy Wompere, Niko Kobepa, Tri Apniani Sunarsih 44 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 learners, as the here-and-now approach argues, is anything that is either spatially visible, temporally current or mentally and cognitively attainable that the learners are easily accessible to it. What we can learn from the media used in the research referred to above, cooking recipes for example, are at least two things. The first is familiarity to the concept of procedure. Procedures or steps of doing things is cross-culturally universal. Also, the cooking activity was presented visually where the learners could see the process. Although the concept of procedure is a common theme cross-culturally and the activity is visually presented, there are two other things that remain culturally specific. The first is language or the linguistic features in our case. The linguistic elements of procedure texts must be taught. The second one is rhetorical organization of the text. The way English-speaking peoples organize their ideas in texts may be different from those of other cultures, including Indonesian learners of English. These two things, among others, would make learning and or acquisition more difficult. They are difficult does not mean they cannot be learned. It is that the learners need what has been termed in learning theory as mediation in order for learning to take place. Vygotsky, the founding father of sociocultural theory of learning, divides mediation into three major classes: “material tools, psychological tools and other human beings” (Kozulin, 1998, pp.62-66). Human mediator refers to caregivers for infants or teachers in our case here. Wood bark painting we use here is an example of material tool. The theory states that these mediators can facilitate learning. It is in this context that the learners are in need of help in order for them to learn the linguistic features and rhetorical organization of the text. Bark painting is unique even though anything may be used as media, as have been shown in the research referred to above. This painting is likely to be more facilitative because it is culturally closer to Sentani speaking learners of English than any other items. The students are acquainted with this very culturally specific activity. In short, it has become part of their “schema” (Bartlett, 1995; Marshall, 1995). Schema is generally defined as preexisting knowledge that mediates acquisition of new knowledge. With the support of wood bark painting, a material tool, used as media and mediated activities, teaching learning in our case, the learners’ psychological tools may be built for their own psychological processes. Bark painting is one of Papuan cultural heritages which has a long history. Various original motifs, in the forms of flora and fauna are depicted on the canvas of kombouw, matoa, or breadfruit barks but the canvas of kombouw bark (ficus variagata) is more favourable for painters and buyers since the color is more beautiful. In Sentani, place where it comes from, this bark painting is known as malo/maro which was originally “clothes” of the adults of Sentani people, i.e. skirts for women and loinclothes for men (Yektiningtyas & Modouw, 2017). Bark painting is only found in Asei Island, the easternmost Engaging students to write procedure texts through the culturally-relevant activity… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 45 island on Lake Sentani, Jayapura, Papua. There, these paintings are done by both men and women with various motifs. Pepuho and Nere, the Sentani elders (2021) explained that the men are responsible in providing the barks from the kombouw tree (ficus variagata) by using a machete to extract the bark (Yektiningtyas-Modouw, 2011). Interestingly, the informants also added that the men never cut the trees down. They only peeled the bark and let the trees live to have new bark. This is related to Sentani people’s traditional ecological knowledge about conserving nature and the unique fact that kombouw trees cannot be cultivated easily -- they naturally grow in the jungle (Yektiningtyas & Silalahi, 2020). At that time, the tribal chiefs added that bark painting was only made exclusively by men in private places that could not be seen by anyone. There are several motifs of bark painting, namely flora (sago leaves, lake weeds, etc.), fauna (crocodiles, lizards, fish, birds, bird of paradise, kangaroos, cassowaries, snakes, etc.), as well as various folktales like myths and legends (Hermkens, 2007). Interestingly, each motif is a transformation of fouw (a circle motif resembling water circles) (see pictures 1, 2, and 3) (doc. Yektiningtyas, Ongge, and Suroto, 2020). Colors used in bark paintings come from plant pigments, soil, kitchen charcoal, and whiting mixed with sap so that the colors can adhere to the painting media. The colors that dominate the carvings are brown, yellow, red (mele), black (kleumam), and white (au). Ongge and Ohee added that the red color with brown and yellow gradations symbolized the spirit of life and the burning dynamics of the Sentani people’s life. The white color symbolized security and harmony in life (yoyo mama). The black color symbolized the evil that always accompany human life. This fact is closely related to the belief of the Sentani people in the existence of onomi (white magic) and pelo (black magic). This also shows, as it was figured out by all tribal chiefs (March, 2021) that Sentani people believe in the supernatural powers, even until now. As language and culture cannot be separated (Khan, 2014; Kim, 2020), by infusing bark painting in teaching writing, hopefully the students can learn Pic. 1 Fouw Pic. 3 Transformation of fouw in bark paintings Pic. 2 Transformation of fouw in bark paintings Wigati Yektiningtyas, Ruth Naomi Nancy Wompere, Niko Kobepa, Tri Apniani Sunarsih 46 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 the social function, the generic structures and the linguistic features of writing procedure text as well as recognize one of Papuan cultural heritages along with the socio-cultural values. There are some studies on bark paintings by Howard (1998 and 2000) and Hermkens (2007) but using bark painting to teach writing procedure text has not been done yet. The aims of this study are to explore (1) the ways of engaging students in writing procedure text using bark painting and (2) the importance of infusing bark painting in teaching procedure text. METHOD Research Design This is a descriptive-qualitative study that was conducted in Jayapura, the capital city of Papua between January-March 2021. The subjects of the study are expected to be all students of high schools surrounding Lake Sentani whose elders are still practicing bark painting and wood carving. However, for the present study 15 grade XII students from 5 different high schools were selected. Taking the small number of subjects was intentional for two reasons. First, it was thought that 15 students can make up one class. An ideal class size is normally 15 up to 25 students even though we may find classes larger than that number. Second, this was a pilot study aiming not only at using the bark paining for educational purposes but also raising cultural awareness of the whole community. If the pilot study had good response, then bark painting could be officially infused in teaching English in High Schools. Therefore, besides the students, 5 teachers, 3 tribal chiefs, 3 community elders, 3 bark painters and 2 cultural activists were also involved in the study. The five high schools, namely SMAN I, SMAN II, SMAN III, SMAN IV, and SMAN V were also deliberately chosen because these schools were the ones that actually infused culture into their learning process. Grade XII was, too, chosen because it was in accordance with the demands of basic competencies required (KD 3.6.) in the syllabus of Curriculum 2013 for the students at this grade is to learn to produce procedural texts both oral and written forms. For that, bark painting would be both suitable learning media and great with respect to cultural heritage preservation. Instruments and Procedures The instruments used to obtain the qualitative data needed in this study were (1) interview and (2) Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Interview was conducted in an open-ended form in two places. First interview with students and teachers was conducted to get their behaviour after learning process. Second interview was conducted in Asei island with tribal chiefs, bark painters, Sentani elders, and cultural practitioners to have their opinions of infusing bark painting in writing class. Bark painting used to be sacred heritage of Sentani people that could be publicly circulated but seeing the fact that some bark paintings have Engaging students to write procedure texts through the culturally-relevant activity… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 47 been sold in Asei island and some art centres, this study considered to infuse it in English language teaching. The local people’s opinion and comments were needed to be considered. FGD with representative students, teachers, tribal chief, bark painters, and cultural practitioners was done to gain their consensus of using bark painting in teaching-learning process. Following the interviews and FGD, the researchers made a lesson about procedure text using bark painting as a try out that was conducted online to find out students’ responses. Data Analysis Procedures After the data from interviews and FGD were collected, the researchers utilized Miles and Huberman’s model (2014) namely data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. FINDINGS Engaging Students to write Procedure Text Using Bark Painting As referred to above, mastery of procedure text related to the use of manuals for technology which is numbered KD (basic competence) 3.6 in the 2013 curriculum is one of the competencies that Indonesian grade XII Social Sciences students are required of. As stated above, in this study we used bark painting and its tools and materials for teaching this competence. The processes of making bark painting include the following: creating bark painting, i.e., selecting the bark of kombouw tree, peeling the bark, soaking the bark in the water, pounding the bark, drying the bark under the sun, painting on the bark with various motifs and colouring the motifs by using simple tools and materials. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the try-out of teaching procedural text was given in two different strategies, namely synchronous and asynchronous learning activities. Synchronous learning activities provided opportunities to the students to learn using the Google Meet link provided in the Google Classroom account; whereas, the asynchronous activities provided the students with some written materials and videos, completed with some tasks to do. All questions and discussions were done in the synchronous learning activities. In engaging the students to learn writing procedure texts, there were four ways used, i.e. (1) bringing some real bark paintings with various motifs to the online class, (2) playing videos of the process of creating bark paintings, (3) inviting bark painters to class, and (4) having a field trip to Asei Island where the bark paintings are made. In all classes the students were given opportunities to observe, ask questions, gather information, associate, and communicate before practicing writing procedure text. All these steps were designed in as a way to raise their awareness and to attract their attentions to focus on learning. After that frequency, quantity and quality of questions on text structure, language features, and language function of procedure text increased throughout the process of learning after the try out. Their Wigati Yektiningtyas, Ruth Naomi Nancy Wompere, Niko Kobepa, Tri Apniani Sunarsih 48 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 enthusiasms were evident throughout the process of writing procedure text as revealed in their semi-formal interview responses such as the following: “I am bored already with procedure text material such as how to operate computer, etc.”(LK) “I am interested in motifs on the wood bark, even though they only look like circles, ... (they are) beautiful” (BH) “Because of interested in crafts brought by the teacher and explanations about the wood bark, I followed the lessons from the beginning to the end well” (MP) The teachers were satisfied seeing the enthusiasms of the students from the start to the end. The teachers created learning mood that was attractive and the students in turn were motivated to study seriously. One of the teachers (YG) commented (comparing with the classes done before infusing bark painting in writing): “Thus far teachers most of the time were text-bookish, depended much on the textbooks”. Before try-out, the researchers had made videos of bark painting facilitated and performed by bark painters, elders, dan tribal chiefs. After watching videos in both synchronous and asynchronous classes, not only the students’ textual generic structure of procedure text become more well- organized, but also the quality of their contents gradually improved. Their language structure and writing mechanics were increasingly better and better. The followings are a few of the students’ responses. “When I saw wood bark painting in the videos, I did not imagine that making bark painting would require such a long time and such difficult”. (PM) “After looking at the steps of making bark painting, it turned out that writing procedure text is not difficult”.(MP) Meanwhile, one of teachers (AK) stated that, “The students were more motivated in learning as shown by more creative, longer with appropriate use of language in their works”. (AY) Seeing the students’ enthusiasm in learning writing procedure text after watching the video, three bark painters were invited to the virtual class. These Engaging students to write procedure texts through the culturally-relevant activity… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 49 three painters then demonstrated how to draw and paint motifs of the paintings. They also explained about the kinds and meaning of the motifs, and the natural colours they used. In this process, the students showed their excitement in attending the class. They paid full attention to what the painters did and explained. They asked everything they wanted to know about the process of making the bark painting. At that time the students also had opportunity to practice drawing the motifs of on their drawing books. When the students were given reflection time about the teaching-learning process, they said that they were happy to have an interactive class since they could directly asked the teacher and the painter. LM and HY said that it was the first time for them to have a painter came to their class. They could even express their own idea without being afraid of making mistakes. For them, it was the first time to learn English using cultural media. This made them more motivated to learn both the language and the cultural heritages as these two are intertwined each other as Sapir Whorf Hypotesis predicts (Mukheimer, 2011; Kim, 2020). Students’ learning to draw various motifs (Doc. Suroto, 2020) In the last meeting, the students and the teacher had a fieldtrip. They went to Asei Island. Since it was pandemic, everyone went there should follow the health protocol of Covid-19 such as wearing mask and bringing their own hand sanitizer. This fieldtrip aimed to give the experience for the students to directly interact with the local people and the painters and sellers of bark paintings. In this time, they could interview the local people and some bark painters to get more information about the Sentani’s culture especially about the painting. This is also related to Curriculum 13 that encourages students to be autonomous learners who always search and explore various sources to complete knowledge they get from their teachers because teachers are not the Wigati Yektiningtyas, Ruth Naomi Nancy Wompere, Niko Kobepa, Tri Apniani Sunarsih 50 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 only sources in learning process. There are some responses from the student and teacher as follows. “Finally, after seeing the bark painting in the video, here in Asei I can see the real bark painting, touch it ... wow very beautiful. I can talk to the painters too”. (BH) “Their writings on procedure text are getting better ... it is tiring to go to Asei Island but seeing their enthusiasm and their learning achievement, we are motivated to provide more interesting materials and strategies to teach other components of language skills”. (AY) The Importance of Infusing Bark Painting in Teaching Procedure Text Data obtained from the interview and FGD with the students, tribal chiefs, bark painters, Sentani elders, and cultural practitioners showed the importance of bark painting in learning writing procedure text. Besides learning the social functions, generic structure, and linguistic features of writing procedure text, the students could also (1) learn one of ancestral heritages and social values embedded in it, (2) indirectly preserve and disseminate of bark painting, and (3) learn good character of the ancestors. Bark painting, as it was previously said is not fully appreciated by people anymore. MO, IP, NO, as the tribal chiefs (March 2021) expressed their worries about the existence and appreciation of young people about bark painting. They eager to have bark painting preserved but they do not know what and how to do. JI, as a cultural practitioner added that bark painting should be revitalized, introduced and disseminated via various strategies to, especially, young generation to avoid its extinction. When they were asked about the possibilities of bark painting to be infused in teaching-learning process, the tribal chiefs, the bark painters, and the elders were enthusiastic. In the FGD, it was strongly reminded that only bark painting with common motifs can be used in teaching-learning process. Sacred motifs cannot be consumed by public. A tribal chiefs underlined the point as follows. “But please remember ... I have previously told you all as well that not all bark painting can be used in school ... before using it, please consult one of us first. Based on out myth if people mistreat bark paintings with sacred motifs, they will get pelo (curse). They can be sick or maybe something worse may happen”. (MO) Engaging students to write procedure texts through the culturally-relevant activity… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 51 It is also believed that learning writing procedure text using bark painting is a kind of strategy of indirect preservation and dissemination. This was proved by some students who shared what they learned about bark painting and the values to their parents and friends. “I posted some pictures of bark painting on my Facebook, then my friends asked me ... then there were long talks about bark painting. It would seem they were interested too” (MP) In our visit to Asei island to see some tribal chiefs, the elders, and bark painters in April 2021, there were some interesting responses. “I see some students posted some bark paintings on their Facebook ... I see it on my son’s Facebook ... wow, that is great!” (MO – tribal chief) “Two days ago, there were some people came here to buy bark paintings. They said their children told them”. (CO – bark painter) Character building is important for young generation. Tribal chiefs and some elders complained about the weak character of young generation, i.e., ignorant, self-centred, undisciplined, not persistent and like something instant. Related to the pedagogical functions of folklore stated by Bascom in Dundes (1984), Darong, et. al. (2021), conveyed that culture can be used to educate the whole person as media of character building. To Lickona (1991), character education is a deliberate and persistent effort to help someone so s/he is able to understand and do various main ethics. There are seven essential characters that should be owned by students, namely honesty, compassion, courage, kindness, self-control, cooperation and diligence or hard work. In line with Lickona’s idea, Curriculum 2013 also echoes the importance of character of social sensibility, honesty, responsibility, tolerance, productivity, and creativity for students (Yektiningtyas & Silalahi, 2020). Adopting bark paintings to teach procedure texts can be used to develop students’ character. To create a bark painting, a painter needs hardworking and cooperation with other people. Even though s/he wants to have his/her best paintings but s/he always develops respect and tolerance to others (Yektiningtyas & Modouw, 2017; Kim, 2020). Even though nowadays it is found fake bark paintings in an art market in Jayapura done by irresponsible people, the students still can learn about bad character that they have to avoid Wigati Yektiningtyas, Ruth Naomi Nancy Wompere, Niko Kobepa, Tri Apniani Sunarsih 52 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 DISCUSSION Students’ activities in observing, asking questions, gathering information, associating, and communicating with instructors and bark painters before practicing writing procedure text showed their enthusiasms in learning and good emotional ties between the students and the materials they were learning. This can also be seen in their response during the interviews: most students were happy to have bark painting as their teaching materials and they were getting easier in writing procedure texts by watching video and having discussions with the painters. This enriched their knowledge on procedure text formula. This study confirmed the previous study done in 2017 which found that students were enthusiastic in Papuan contextual learning. Using bark painting as learning media is new. Different from infusing folklore in learning English, using bark painting in learning English took a long process since bark painting used to be sacred heritage that could not be publicly circulated. But after the discussion with the Sentani tribal chiefs and elders as well as seeing the enthusiasm of the young generation, the bark painting with common motifs is allowed to be infused in learning process. This of course even pushed the researchers to use cultural heritages -- by having good communication with the elders -- in language learning since it has two ends: language learning and cultural preservation. It is also noteworthy that teachers are now faced with two facts. First, they do their teaching job on daily bases including teaching materials such as procedure text as required by the curriculum. Second, teachers always try to search innovative, inspiring, and engaging materials beyond the curriculum to help their students. This study was done as an attempt to engage our students in learning. In this whole process, engagement activities were carried out in four steps. In the first step, some bark paintings with various motifs were shown to the students. In this step, the students were expected to raise some initial curiosities about the material. The students would have rough ideas about the material and they would have learned some basic information about for example names and origin and may be of functions of the materials and tools used. Some students might have enjoyed various colorful motifs. In the second step, the students were then shown to the actual making of the bark painting video-recorded earlier. In this step, the students could see how the painters went through the whole process of making the bark painting. As revealed from the students’ responses in the step one, they seemed to be bored with having monotonous classes. So, after they were shown actual making of bark painting videos, they started to gain desires and show their interests in learning the bark painting itself and how to write a procedure text. What made even the bark painting more fascinating, more revealing and even attracted the students’ desires and interest seem to be activities done in the step 3 where the three painters were invited to the virtual class. A student Engaging students to write procedure texts through the culturally-relevant activity… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 53 was surprised to see the process of making the bark painting that was difficult and time consuming. That response seems to indicate that patience and hard- working of the painters are key values to success. As a result, the students wished to emulate the previous generations’ good examples (Lickona, 1991; Kim, 2020). Finally in the step 4, the students were taken to Asei Island where they could face-to-face engage conversations with the painters, elders and tribal chiefs. This visit really increased their passion when the students such as MP, YK, RM developed their writing about the process of bark paintings based on their interviews with local people of Asei. These students then posted the photos and their writing in their social media. This trip was tiring, as one teacher commented as shown above, but was worth making, as the teacher continued to say that it caused the students enthusiastic, disciplined, hard- working improved immensely. Consequently, the students made surprising progress in writing their procedure texts. A few things may be noted here. The first is the teacher’s commitment, creativity and hardworking resulted in raising such amazing student engagement level especially in steps three and four. Disengaged students to be actively engaged is not a trivial business. It requires fully-committed individuals to make it happen. In this process, the first key stepping stone that must happen to the students is building a sense of curiosity. In our research project, the teachers expressed that the students were curious about learning the bark painting and procedure text writing. Quate & McDermott (2009) reminds us of a common knowledge about the relationship between curiosity and motivation were curiosity influences motivation. In other words, when we as teachers see some students become curious about learning what we teach, that reminds us of our students being motivated to learn as happened to our research subject students. As some of the students and teachers acknowledged, activities done in the first two steps were boring because there were no some kind of innovative activities. Once the teacher moved further with more engaging activities in the steps 3 and 4, the students’ motivation and passion to the bark painting and educational activities such as writing procedure texts gradually increased. The second is the students’ reaction and action. The students reacted positively the way the teachers designed the class increased the students’ curiosity and engagement. Activities in the steps 1 and 2, especially pictures show of bark painting in the first step and video play in the second step allowed the students to have some factual knowledge about the bark painting and the process of making it. Two eventual outcomes with the factual knowledge gained in the first two steps would be to lose or to retain that knowledge. It might be lost if the teacher continued with the similar activities because such activities seemed to be unattractive as shown in the students’ comments. The Wigati Yektiningtyas, Ruth Naomi Nancy Wompere, Niko Kobepa, Tri Apniani Sunarsih 54 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 students reacted more positively with the activities in third and fourth steps. The activities in the last two steps were not only involving the students actively but were also built on previously established knowledge or “schema” (Bartlett, 1995, p. 201; Marshall, 1995, p. 52). More importantly, this helps create scientific attitudes in students as it is also strengthened in Curriculum 2013 as well, i.e., observing, questioning, associating, and communicating (concluding and presenting). Third thing worthy to be noted here is building social connections. Teacher’s creativity is not only seen in designing materials but also in building social connections in which the painters were invited to the virtual class and had focused group discussion with the painters, elders, and chiefs. This is in line with the current day trend in education. Education “must be able to use human, financial, social, cultural and informational resources from the whole of society to stimulate and develop young people’s ability to learn and understand for themselves” (Bentley 1998, p.1). The last but not the least thing to be mentioned here is investing the values of respect for their cultural heritage. Researchers intentionally chose bark painting process as a topic for procedure text writing tasks for two reasons. First, the bark painting process involves traditional but familiar tools, materials including oral manuals for how to make it. In other words, the students are acquainted with this very culturally specific activity and once we use it in teaching learning, it is preserved (Yektiningtyas & Modouw, 2017). Second, as indicated above, bark painting is Sentani people’s cultural heritage and it is reintroduced by the teachers in initial stage of this project. These have become what have been termed above as schemata. Cultural heritages including bark painting need to be preserved because of their significance for its people (Bascom in Dundes, 1984); however, it still remains a challenge for us in this changing world. While elders wish this heritage to be preserved, it seems to be unattractive to the young people. The young people see what is offered by the globalizing world more attractive; and therefore, they look to it as a mirror for their lives. We may need to find ways that are more accommodative for both today’s young people’s needs and the need of preserving our culture including the bark painting. One possible way to do it would be hybridity (Jamshidian & Pourgiv, 2019) in order for cultural products brought forth by global forces to be appreciated while local heritages to be preserved. CONCLUSION The current study explored strategies to engaging students to write procedure text using bark painting, one of the Sentani’s cultural heritages. The results showed that teachers’ selection of media could affect students’ interest in writing a piece of text. When introduced to local-based media such as bark painting in writing procedure text lesson, students expressed positive attitudes. Engaging students to write procedure texts through the culturally-relevant activity… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 55 They could effectively and enthusiastically learn the social functions, generic structure, and linguistic features of writing procedure and produced better texts. They could also learn their ancestral heritage and the social values embedded in it. In turn, the use of the media may have resulted in raising their awareness on the importance of their cultural heritage. In addition to the effect of the media use, teachers’ creativity in designing media and their commitment to the teaching seemed to play a crucial role in reinforcing students’ appreciation to their culture and improvement in their writing procedure texts. A teaching media that is culturally close to the students, as shown in this study, can play a dual function. Pedagogically, the familiarity of media can facilitate better learning compared to new ones and culturally, their heritage is preserved. Therefore, this study recommends that the use of such media as bark painting in teaching other language skills and components still need to be done. This research left some gaps awaiting to be filled by further research and keeping this heritage alive, useful, and beneficial is a task that remains to be done. For that purpose, educational institutions can only use the cultural heritages as teaching media. It is the job of government, its people, and other related and interested parties to put this task into practically preservable ways so that these unique artifacts may be preserved, become meaningful, useful and beneficial in any possible manner. More importantly building collaborations among these parties for the sake of education and culture would make a big difference. REFERENCES Aminah, S. (2018). 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March 2014, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.24036/jelt.v2i2.3699 https://doi.org/10.3968/J.CCC.1923670020110701.004 https://repository.unja.ac.id/id/eprint/14675 http://dx.doi.org/10.22460/project.v2i5.p687-691 https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.2017.200105 https://doi.org/10.24167/celt.v20i2.2867 https://doi.org/10.24036/jelt.v2i2.3699 Wigati Yektiningtyas, Ruth Naomi Nancy Wompere, Niko Kobepa, Tri Apniani Sunarsih 58 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 THE AUTHORS Wigati Yektiningtyas is an associate professor at Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Cenderawasih, Jayapura, Papua who is interested in literature and culture, especially Papuan folklore. Ruth Naomi Nancy Wompere is a junior lecturer of TEFL at Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Cenderawasih, Jayapura, Papua. Niko Kobepa is a lecturer of linguistics at English Language Department, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Cenderawasih, Jayapura, Papua. Tri Apniani Sunarsih is a senior English teacher in State Senior High School 1 in Abepura, Jayapura, Papua.