J-SHMIC : Journal of English for Academic

Initial Activities Encouraging Students’ Autonomous Learning: Faculty Teacher Training and Education Program

2023-02-17T00:23:59+00:00

Initial activities become important as the stepstone to raise students’ autonomous level. The study aims to explore lecturers’ initial activities to encourage students’ autonomous learning. Autonomous learning is a process to be apprehensive of taking control of literacy. This study used a case study and a content analysis in the qualitative exploration. The English teacher educators at the English language education department, the faculty of teacher training and education in Pekanbaru became the research samples. A qualitative approach is chosen as exploration design with the help of Nvivo 12 Apps since interviews come as the main instrument. Some interview points questioned how lecturers help learners comprehend the material, determine their particular pretensions, chancing out supporting coffers. The study reveals that the lecturer's exertion as the initial activities were giving the material explanation, giving information about the course figure, giving assignments, giving what students need, giving provocation or motivation, sharing experiences, making personal approach, exercising, being a Model, making agreement letter, warning, having a concession, having references of material, participating gests, checking students’ appreciation by reviewing, giving question and test. Yet, giving assignments collectively or in collaboration, systems or incidental test becomes a proposed exertion in the initial process to enhance learners’ autonomous.

The Implementation of Digital Technology in Online Project-Based Learning during Pandemic: EFL Students’ Perspectives

2023-02-25T09:29:23+00:00

Integrating technology and digital media into project-based learning (PBL) is the best strategy for addressing the challenges of the English classroom in the digital age as well as providing an online learning alternative during the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a case study that investigates the utilization of technology in PBL and the benefits and drawbacks experienced by students. To conduct the case study, open-ended questionnaires were distributed to 118 students to get a wide range of perspectives on the implementation. The findings indicated that a numerous digital technology and tools were used to succeed in PBL learning ranging from LMS, video conferencing platforms, virtual whiteboard apps, chat and messaging, messaging and collaboration apps, Web 2.0, word processing, presentation software, graphic design or drawing tools, and photo editors. They concurred that the technology-mediated PBL was beneficial because it facilitated remote learning, offered online discussion/collaboration and feedback, was accessible and flexible, encourage creativity and allowed students to explore new knowledge as well as knowledge to produce a digital product, and also enhanced technological literacy. However, there were still significant obstacles existed especially the issues of internet connectivity and technology operation. In addition, they also had difficulties in articulating ideas using the technology and managing their time to complete the project.

The Effectiveness of SOLE on EFL Learning for Vocational Students in Indonesia

2023-02-26T00:22:41+00:00

Improving education in the 4.0 era needs to be adjusted to the teaching and learning in higher education. Thus, it is necessary to have a learning strategy that prioritizes student independence in learning by using facilities in the digital era such as the internet. Therefore, SOLE can be one of the strategies that are in accordance with this 4.0 education. The purpose of this study was to find out the effectiveness of SOLE for apprentices in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. In this study, we used quasi-experimental studies conducted through pre-test and post-test on study subjects as primary data for the study. The analysis showed a significant difference between students taught using SOLE and conventional methods in English proficiency. The Wilcoxon test results prove that the two-sided asymptotic significance of the Wilcoxon test is 0.000 for experimental class, and 0.000 for control class which the Asymptotic significance 2-tailed below Alpha (0.05). It means that SOLE can be more effective than lecturing.

Envisioning Critical Literacy through Literary Work for EFL Pre-Service Teachers

2023-02-27T02:25:07+00:00

Teaching English seems to discredit literary works status as learning media, even though it has the inherent vigor to increase critical literacy. This is the fundamental case this research envisages to explore how literature as a bridge for critical literacy in the perspective of EFL pre-service teachers. Theoretically, this research is based on the concepts of literature, literacy, critical thinking, and EFL pre-service teachers. This research is a qualitative research. The approach used is a case study. The data in this study are responses or statements taken from several English education students who are EFL pre-service teachers. Data were taken from a discussion forum with 3 pre-service teachers as subjects. They are 7^th semester students of English Language Education study program from 3 private universities in Surabaya. The technique of data is forum group discussion. The technique of data analysis is content analysis. From the analysis of the data, it results that the EFL pre-service teachers think that literary works are crucial to take portion because it can enhance the level of critical literacy through critical thinking, creativity, and open-mindedness.

Autonomous Learning Strategies for Academic Speaking by English Education Department Students

2023-02-28T04:53:18+00:00

Autonomous is the individual capacity to take responsibility for their own learning activities. Autonomous learning adapted learning method that learners use to obtain their own learning needs and goals, determine the most current learning method, and assess learning activity. This research aims at identifying students’ autonomous learning strategies in academic speaking class. There were 20 students from the English Education Department were involved to gather the data. This study employed a quantitative approach in order to get the data. The data were taken by using a questionnaire. The result shows that the general description of the students of the English Education Department at Universitas Muhammadiyah Sorong was not included a specific description of how the students employed the autonomous learning strategy for learning particularly in academic speaking. The researcher found two kinds of autonomous learning strategies which were metacognitive strategy and social mediation strategy.

Point-Counterpoint Strategy for Better Reading Comprehension on EFL Junior High School Students

2023-02-28T07:17:22+00:00

Point-Counterpoint is one of the strategies that can be used to stimulate students and make them free in reading. This study is conducted to reveal the significant difference in reading ability under Point-Counterpoint strategy and conventional technique in class seven students at SMP Negeri 1 Batauga, South Buton regency. The design of this study was a quasi-experimental method. The sample was taken using cluster sampling, in which took class VII-F was selected as an experimental group and class VII-E was a control group. The instruments used were a pretest and a posttest. The results revealed that the average score for the pretest in the experimental group was 47.83, while the average score in the control group was 34.77. The average score for the posttest in the experimental group was 71.13, while it was 58.62 in the control group. Those scores indicated that the students had good reading ability in the experimental group, while the students in the control group had moderate comprehension in reading. The requirement testing outcome informed that the data had a normal distribution and were homogeneous. The hypothesis testing indicated that the t_count was 4.489 and the significant score was 0.000. Both results meant that the Point-Counterpoint strategy was significantly different from a conventional method toward students’ reading comprehension.

Collaborative Learning and Summarizing Strategy in Teaching Writing during COVID-19 Pandemic

2023-02-28T07:40:38+00:00

The teaching and learning procedure was stated to be online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.It is necessary to change from face-to-face instruction to online learning. In accordance with this, teachers must modify their online teaching and learning practices. This study concentrated on the methods teachers used to implement teaching writing throughout the epidemic COVID-19. The study's goals are to outline the teacher's approach to teaching writing and how to use it in widespread online learning. The study adopted a qualitative descriptive method. The participants of this research are two English teachers. The data were collected by using observation, interviews, and documents. Respondents were observed during the teaching learning process and interviewed to support observation data. The data collected were analyzed by using Creswell’s procedures which were organizing, preparing, looking, reading, coding, and interpreting data. The findings of this research concluded that from various strategies of teaching writing, the English teacher only implemented a collaborative learning strategy and summarizing strategy. Following the pandemic situation, the two strategies were done online through the zoom platform. By doing this research, it suggested that teachers adopt and practice more strategies in teaching, not only teaching writing but also teaching all skills in English.

An Investigation into the Impact of Digital Social Media on the Writing and Speaking Skills of Tertiary Level Students in one Institution in Lesotho

2023-02-28T14:58:15+00:00

This study set out to explore the impact of digital social media on the writing and speaking skills of English as second language tertiary level students in one institution in Lesotho. Current research stipulates that digital social media can have a negative impact on students’ grammatical competence if not used properly. However, digital social media has also been found to have a positive impact on students’ productive skills. In order to find out the impact of digital social media on students’ written and oral skills, the study adopted a qualitative approach confined in a case study. Face-to-face interviews with five (n=5) lecturers and focus group discussions with sixty (n=60) students were used as tools for data collection. Findings from face-to-face interviews with lecturers reveal that digital social media has a negative impact on students’ grammatical competence because they employ short forms in formal writings. Furthermore, findings from group discussions with students reveal two things; firstly, they point to digital social media as having a positive impact on their speaking skills, and secondly as having an adverse impact on their writing skills because of the informal language used in the social media platforms. These findings suggest that students should be taught how to properly use the platforms in order to balance the two skills. The study consequently concludes by recommending that lecturers should constantly encourage their students to chat using formal language all the times especially amongst themselves as this will help them to improve their writing skills.