Review journal article 14

A REVIEW JOURNAL ENTITLED THE USE OF EDMODO 

IN TEACHING WRITING IN A BLENDED LEARNING SETTING 

By Pupung Purnawarman

Susilawati

Wachyu Sundayana

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia

Technology becomes very important in language learning especially writing skill. ). Technology is also trusted to provide language learners with a great number of possibilities to enhance language learning (Dudeney & Hockly, 2007). They specifically argue that technology, with its perpetual development, can give learners exposures, allow them to practice the knowledge, and bridge teachers to assess the learners’ language ability. Implementing technology in writing class is not paper-based only but it also uses larger more expand medie such as multimedia platform.

Regarding technology, blended learning also becomes very popular nowadays. Blended learning or also called hybridization (Jacob, 2011) combines face-to-face learning with online learning (Bonk & Graham, 2005; Friesen, 2012). Blended learning occurs when technology is utilized in the process of learning (Clark & Mayer, 2011; Bates, 2005) and intended to enhance knowledge and performance (Rosenberg, 2001).

One of the recent technologies implemented in language learning is Edmoddo, a blended learning platform designed by O’Hara and Borg in 2008. It designed almost similar to facebook but it is used specifically for educational purposes. Edmodo is used by many educational institutions all over the world for its attracting features (Delacruz, 2014). Therefore, edmoddo can be an alternative media for teachers to teach writing.

From the finding, we can conclude that the implementation of Edmodo in teaching writing shows that Edmodo facilitates the students’ engagement cognitively through Note menu. The Note menu which is used during the writing process apparently facilitates the students interactivity and meaningful writing tasks. To be more detail, Edmodo through Note menu facilitates the students’ cognitive engagement by: 1) allowing the students to work independently within groups; 2) allowing the students to be concerning on quality of their work; 3) enabling the students to take parts in learning situations; and 4) directing the students to see Edmodo as a part of learning.

Review Journal article 13

A REVIEW JOURNAL ENTITLED THE ENGLISH SCANNING SKILLS OF BILINGUAL AND

MONOLINGUAL INDONESIAN STUDENTS

by Anna Marietta da Silva

Nowadays, Indonesian young generations are having more ability in English language rather than their parents or grandparents. The primary schools in Indonesia especially in the big cities are now teach English at least once a week within around fifty to sixty minutes per session. Even in the playground, they are beginning to learn simple English vocabularies. In addition, most people belief that the younger a child learns a new language, the easier for her/him to understand and speak that language. Furthermore, it is now easier to found any written or spoken text in another language especially English. We can found it in the advertisements, billboards, television, newspapers, magazines, internets, smart phones, etc.

The rapid enhancement of technology makes a new language to develop faster. English is the prominent foreign language that learn in Indonesia. It happens because of the several reasons. For instance, economic and trade, ,‟ easy access to information mostly printed in English, or tourism (Baker 2001, pp.111-112), and Indonesian speakers‟ positive attitude towards English (Heaney 2005; Siregar 2010). Furthermore, English is more acceptable for advertisements, features of national TV programs, or titles of features in popular magazines. However, considering the job market in the future, many parents have their children joined an English course

The bilingual students may be classified into continually early bilingualism in which they gain the local language(s) which their parents speak. Yet, the monolinguals may be classified into consecutive childhood bilingualism as they were able to speak their first language dialect first before learning English.

Moreover, Indonesian young learners in general are more exposed to English through developing contact with foreigners from the English speaking countries that emerges some kinds of code mixing and switching, and the desire to learn English at school and courses now higher than in the past. Hence, the fact occur has not seemed to make English as a second language, it still becomes a third or maybe the fourth language learned, not acquired by most Indonesians. Up to now, English is still an optional subject, the teaching of which is dependent largely on the school’s funding. It  also stated that another crucial factor that should be taken into account in a learning process is the reading habit or culture, which is not highly appreciated in Indonesia. Moreover, English has produced important effect for the learning of English reading skills, particularly reading skills.

Review Journal article 12

A REVIEW JOURNAL ENTITLED STUDENTS’ ATTRIBUTIONS ON 

THEIR ENGLISH SPEAKING ENHANCEMENT

By Yustinus Calvin Gai Mali

Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga

The attribution on students’ learning process has been regarded as a crucial factor that affects students’ learning motivation and academic achievement. The attribution process becomes an essential determinant of learning and performance in a classroom (Weiner, 1972) and it could influence students’ motivation (Ellis, 2008). Similarly, Lei (2009) points out that attribution made toward the success or failure in studying will result in changes in expectations and emotions, which possibly affect motivation that individuals have for learning and subsequently for their academic achievement. Besides, students’ attribution on their success and failure can significantly have an impact on their future performance of academic tasks (Banks & Woolfson, 2008). 

There are several attributions on students’ English speaking enhancement. They are the students’ attribution for their ability in doing a monologue using English actively, ability in asking questions using English actively, and ability in answering questions using English actively.

As a conclusion, the main purpose of doing particular English speaking activities, the strategy, and the positive relationship between the students and the teachers as well as among the students were express as the primary students’ attributions on their English-speaking development.  Furthermore, there are some pedagogical suggestions in this study. First, the role of the teacher in the classroom should not merely focus on transferring knowledge to their students (Harmer, 2007) but should also maintain the positive relationships with their students and among the students themselves. Second, students have to be more active in enhancing the suitable learning strategy for their English speaking skill. In addition, the teachers also possible to share their knowledge and experience in doing English monologue, asking, and answering questions using English actively. Moreover, stimulating students to share their experience in learning English speaking also becomes another option to practice within the classroom. Third, students need to know and understand the aims and essences of practicing particular English speaking activities in their classroom. On a final note, teachers should be able to describe the reasons of why the students have to perform a particular speaking activity in their classroom.

Review Journal article 11

A REVIEW JOURNAL ENTITLED MAKING EXTENSIVE READING 

EVEN MORE STUDENT CENTERED

By George M. Jacobs and Willy A. Renandya

The use of Extensive Reading (ER) in education may play an important role in enhancing the language skills. Bamford & Day (2004) stated, Good things happen to students who read a great deal in the foreign language.  Research studies show they become better and more confident readers, they write better, their listening and speaking abilities improve, and their vocabularies get richer. Moreover, the students tend to have a good motivation to study a new language by the use of ER.

Talking about ER, we also have to consider about Intensive Reading (IR). In IR, students read the materials that may be quite difficult for them to understand. Hence, the IR materials seem to be short and an entire class may read the same material at the same time, with the teacher’s instruction to help the students to understand the material. There are some strategies which are implemented in IR, for instance, guessing word meaning from context, summarizing, and connecting what is being read on someone’s experience. These strategies can be compile with the ER. As a result, IR and ER can complement one another. 

ER can become more students centered. The first example is student control. The students can choose the books they like to read, or they can also select the other materials that make up the pool of materials from which students make their reading selections. Briefly, students can decide which books they are going to read in the library, classroom, home, or other places. Besides, students can also select, read, or discuss some books together with their friends. They tend to be more enjoying when gaining some friends with the same interest in reading materials

Teacher is the prominent aspects that can make ER become successful. Teachers are often seen as playing a central role in motivating the students to read a lot. Furthermore, teachers as model must have a good reading habits and behavior, make interesting and relevant ER materials, and organize appealing post-reading activities.

Review Journal article 10

A REVIEW JOURNAL ENTITILED READING ALOUD STRATEGIES

 IN READING ENGLISH TEXTS

 By Iyen Nurlaelawati and Shofa Dzulqodah

Literacy deals with reading and writing. Literacy skills are all the skills needed for reading and writing. They include such things as awareness of the sounds of language, awareness of print, and the relationship between letters and sounds.  Specifically, people must be able to decode (sound out) printed words and to comprehend what she/he reads to be able to comprehend the idea of the written text (Bainbridge, 2011).

Teaching and learning reading can be started from any level in every approach and starting point, yet transfer between languages is always there, it is stated by Cameron (2001). Orthographic knowledge is can be a crucial aspect in L2 word recognition and lexical processing, depending on the degree of similarities between L1 and L2. In terms of its depth, there are two kinds of orthography, deep and shallow. Pinter (2006) asserts that the first refers to the language whose letter-sound correspondence is not direct and consistent. Moreover, the language is now more consistent in the way it is

Regarding reading strategies, reading the texts silently tend to be more comfortable and preferable for the subject for the children because when she read the text aloud, the mispronunciations of certain words were highlighted. It could be inferred that there are several findings related to the strategies to read aloud English texts. Generally it Generally, it covered three things proposed by Littlewood (1984): overgeneralization, transfer, and simplification by omission. Besides showing the occurrences of those three strategies, it also showed that they were sometimes overlapping.

As a conclusion, To the curriculum developers, it is suggested to design the curriculums which pay more attention to oral cycle in early level of education. in addition, it is also suggest not to force them to read in L2 before they have their L1 literacy skills and sufficient L2 oral proficiency.

Review Journal article 9

A REVIEW JOURNAL ENTITLED TEACHING CHALLENGES IN INDONESIA: MOTIVATING

STUDENTS AND TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM LANGUAGE

 By Yuyun Yulia

RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

English language teaching becomes very marketable to students at all levels of education. Hence, the government implements some ways to develop the English language curriculum in order to fulfill the students and teachers needs. For instance, teachers have been trained through pre-service and in-service programs to achieve good quality teaching as well as developing materials in the form of textbooks or online access. Furthermore, it has been many efforts devoted by the government in developing English language teachers’ capacity and students’ knowledge,

Regarding the development of the curriculum to enhance the output of language teaching, it cannot be separated from the socioeconomic milieu of the students. It prominently influenced the students’ motivation towards their learning in second or foreign language contexts. In terms of English language, the motivation issue has been discussed by scholars in second/foreign language contexts. In second language contexts, for example, Gardner (1985) defined motivation as the combination of (1) effort, (2) desire to achieve the goal of language learning, and (3) favorable attitude towards language learning. In addition, the students having low motivation were due to various factors. They are inadequate family support, the local environment and the school context.

The other critical issue in language learning is the teacher’s proficiency in spoken language as the model for students. Nations (2003) stated that learning English in a well balanced foreign and second language contexts is through the four strands of (1) meaning focused input (listening and reading), (2) meaning focused output (speaking and writing), (3) language focused learning (attention to language features) and (4) fluency development (working with known material). He further argued that when learners speak in the same language in class, the use of the first language can be natural easier and more communicatively effective.

On a final note, teacher as the crucial aspect in education must be able to motivate students to learn English in an interesting way. The English language that should be targeted as the teachers’ classroom instruction needed by students is difficult to implement. In fact, ‘language mixture’ seems to dominate the class and the students tend to keep silent. In addition, teachers need to participate actively to develop their teaching professionalism through pre-service and in-service training.

Review Journal article 8

A REVIEW JOURNAL ENTITLED READINESS AND COMPETENCE OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHERS TO IMPLEMENT CURRICULUM 2013

Wachyu Sundayana

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia

The curriculum development is one of the prominent considerations of Indonesian government in education aspect. Hence, the curriculum change appears to overcome some problems face in educational aspect. Many factors due to the changes of curriculum as the expert state, there are four commonplaces of curriculum to be considered in designing and developing curriculum, namely teachers, learners, milieus, and subject matter. Teachers play important role in the implementation of changed curriculum. They have to obtain adequate knowledge and ability to implement those curriculum components. In addition, teachers’ readiness to implement the curriculum will be based on their knowledge and ability to choose, organize, and convey the curriculum contents. 

The 2013 curriculum is now implemented in Indonesia which has its own characteristics. Its goal is to cover the attitudes and learners’ need. It also suggests integrated and active learning processes in which the students are able to enhance their skills including thinking skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. As an addition, authentic assessment is used in this curriculum to gain the learning objectives.

Based on the Journal’s finding, the teachers generally have sufficient competence to enhance syllabus components into lesson plans. It also stated that, during the direct and indirect observation, the teacher performance in pre-activity, main-activity, and post-activity is showed a good result. The teachers intend to have adequate ability to implement the curriculum. Nevertheless, the teachers’ readiness to implement Curriculum 2013 has low correlation to their competence to implement the curriculum at school.

It can be concluded that, it is necessary to consider some factors before implementing a new curriculum. There are curriculum planning and deliberation, validation, and dissemination. Longer periods of teacher training and well-trained instructor also have to be considered. Having much time in the training will gives the teacher more opportunity to know it deeply. Well-trained instructors also become very crucial in order to convey the right information.

Review Journal article 7

A REVIEW JOURNAL ENTITLED HOW ENGLISH STUDENT TEACHERS DEAL WITH TEACHINGDIFFICULTIES IN THEIR TEACHING PRACTICUM

Riesky

Indonesia University of Education

email: riesky81@yahoo.com

Student teachers will gain with the teaching practicum as one of the requirement for fulfilling all the learning process in undergraduate study. It is the essential stages which they have the opportunity to apply the teaching theory, methodologies, and strategies which they have learned in the previous semesters.  According to Richard & Crookes (1988, as cited in Gebhard, 2009), they will have a chance to experience many valuable things, such as getting practical classroom experience, putting theories into practices, gaining insight from observing experienced teachers, improving lesson planning ability, improving ability in designing and developing materials, sharpening their teaching ability, strengthening their understanding of teaching in terms of theory and practice, and improving decision-making ability in teaching by looking and exploring  into themselves and other’s teaching practices.

Being student teachers are not as simple as receiving materials in the classroom. Applying theories into practice is one of the complex areas which are faced by many educators especially in the context of second language teacher education. Some of the difficulties which are gained by the student teachers are student-related difficulties, self-related difficulties, and supervising-teacher-related difficulties. Dealing with those problems, student teachers find several efforts to overcome the difficulties. For the student-related difficulties; they apply specific strategies, make an interpersonal approach, consult to the supervising teacher and fellow student teachers, remind student about the final mark, and give rewards. In the other hand, they try to improve knowledge on methodology and make some modification in the practice of teaching, and also consult to the supervising teacher to overcome self-related difficulties. In order to deal with the supervising-teacher-related difficulties, they consult with the other available teacher at school and become more independent in making certain decision.

As its conclusion, student teachers have to establish a great preparation before practicum teaching. They have to apply various kinds of teaching strategies and methodologies. One of the innovative solutions in evaluating the teaching process is doing a reflection. It can be done by discussions, journal writing, and analyzing critical incidents. The supervising teachers also play an important role in developing the students teachers’ teaching skill. They have to be more active in discussing and sharing knowledge, methodologies, strategies, and also experiences with the student teachers, so that they can enrich their knowledge and teaching skills.   

Review Journal article 6

A REVIEW JOURNAL ENTITLED STUDENTS’ READING PRACTICES AND ENVIRONMENTS BY AIZA JOHARI, AMELIA ALFRED TOM, AFFIDAH MORNI, AND SITI HUZAIMAH SAHARI

The main purpose of reading is to gain knowledge and it describes as reading for utilitarian or specific purpose. Moreover, another reason of reading is to gain pleasure, where Hedge (2006) stated that once a reader finds pleasure in reading, the ‘love’ towards reading will also be increasing. As an output, the ‘love’ of reading has stimulated many learners to a successful acquisition of reading skills and strategies.

The literacy awareness begins at home before children go to school as stated in Cook (1980), Morrow (1985) and Gove and Cvelich (2010). The attitudes of parents’ reading habit and other family members will affect the students’ motivation to read. For additional, Reading is fundamental (2007) also indicated that children who see their parent reading daily; both for function and for pleasure will more likely become avid readers themselves and if they see parents visiting libraries and checking out books, giving and receiving books as gifts, and borrowing and loaning books to friends, they will know their parents place high value on reading. Notably, the development of literacy in children is qualitatively and quantitatively affected by adults, who live and interact regularly with children (Snow et al, 2005)

As the result of the finding, students especially in teen ages, tend to read the non academic materials, such as comics, storybooks, and magazines.  Those kind of enjoying reading materials become popular among teen ages students because they are aye-catching and easier to read. The reader can understand and interpret the information without any struggle. Another reason for students to have a good reading habit is reading environment at home. Nevertheless, most of the students indicated that they are not practicing ‘reading culture’ at home as their family members were not avid readers.

As the conclusion, home is the beginning of the students reading habit before they go to school. Parents have to be a model for their children. They have to nurture a good reading habit at home. Various reading sources have to be provided for the children to develop their interest in reading; hence they will take reading as a habit and lifestyle. They will do the activity with pleasure, without any pressure and become avid readers.

Review Journal article 5

A REVIEW JOURNAL ENTITLED READING HABITS AND PREFERENCES OF EFL POST GRADUATES: A CASE STUDY BY NOORIZAH MOHD. NOOR 

Reading is very important for all learners since it becomes an essential tool for lifelong learning.  For gaining any information, learners have to adapt into social and technological changes which are influenced many aspects of life include education. Reading also becomes a tool to obtain particular knowledge and experiences. Reading frequency can expand students’ vocabulary and world knowledge. Students who have good reading habit will enhance their reading skills and strategies.

Text books are the materials which are expected to be the primary reading material for students. Nevertheless, the evidences show that the first type of reading material is the internet material. It becomes the most popular reading material among students because students are able to access it more flexible, freely, and easily. Considering this phenomena, educators have to redirect their focus on media and online materials as the important aspects of literacy aspects. The second materials which are chosen by the students as reading materials are story books and novels. Students intend to have an enjoying reading material. They spend some of their time to read fiction type materials. This type of recreational reading or reading of fiction is an indicator of reading achievement (Ogle et al, 2003) and can be seen as a motivating factor toward building their love for books and reading in general (Dent & Yanotta, 2005). Reading these types of materials can benefit the readers in many ways: learn about other places or times, stimulate their imagination, and gain insights into human nature, able to follow their specific hobby or interests as well as acts as a form of escapism from ‘unpleasant’ realities (Tella & Akande, 2007). Furthermore, reading these kinds of enjoying material can enhance reading skills and strategies.

The most important thing for students nowadays is building a good reading habit. They can start by reading any enjoying reading materials such as online sources, story books, or novels. By reading these kinds of materials, they can read without any pressure and begin to enhance their reading skills and strategies. Starting from some enjoying reading materials, students will be able to read another kind of material especially an academic source. Thus, reading is about building a habit to take this kind of activity become an important need and lifestye. 

English Language Franca (ELF) and the possible future of English by Jennifer Jenkins, Director of the centre for Global Englishes, University of Southampton (Presented in IATEFL/TESOL Web Conference)

1. What I have learnt from the topic presented

English as a Multilingual Franca (EMF) is multilingual communication in which English is available as a contact language of choice, but it is not necessarily chosen. In other words, EMF refers to multilingual communication settings in which English is known to everyone present, so it is always potentially in the ‘language mix’, but in which people may choose to use a different language from English (partly or entirely), or a combination of other different languages.

Early influences on ELF Research:

1.       Language attitudes/ mutual (noun) intelligibility (Wolf 1959)

It seems to be very interested to understand the language attitudes. Phonological/phonetic accommodation skills are equally important for the ELF students.

2.       Speech/communication accommodation theory (giles a all)

Accommodation involves the way people adjust their language. People have a conversation to make their partner understand about what they say and intend to get an attention.

3.       World Englishes: legitimizing non –native English (es)

The EFL students particularly have the different languages and they are trying to adapt English as their own language, for example the pronunciation. Many native English pronunciation features found in the data not to contribute to intelligibility in ELF communication.

Some ideological positions about non-native English, for example fallacies “that in the outer and expanding Circle, English is essentially learned to interact with native speakers. In a major conceptual difference, in contrast to the national, geographically definable WE varieties, ELF by definition transcends language boundaries, so cannot be geographically definable and its resulting fluidity means we cannot talk to ELF ‘varieties’.

In our age of actual/virtual mobility and the resulting super diversity, there is too much emphasizes on English and not enough emphasis on the role of the other language spoken by the majority of English users.

There are some potential implications of EMF:

1.       The crucial distinction for competence

2.       There is a need to test skills in multilingualism for English Language Assessment.

3.       ELT needs to incorporate into teaching methodology

2. What is the relationship of the conference topic and today’s classroom?

This conference helps to develop our knowledge in presenting a topic in a conference and how to organize it.  It also gives some contributions in writing a good manuscript.  

4.       What are things we learn from the presenter?

 From the presentation, the speaker had prepared all the things well. It showed from the presentation slide, she organized the topic from the main to the specific idea. She also put some bolds in words or sentences which are important to help the audience got the main idea easily. The presenter also has a good ethic in delivering her speech; she conveyed her apology if in the middle of the presentation will be some technical distractions occurred.

  

Review Jurnal article 4

Review journal entitled Classroom and Formative assessment in Second/Foreign Language Teaching and Learning by Somaye Ketabi and Saeed Ketabi. Department of English. Faculty of Foreign Language. University of Iran. Februari 2014

Assessment as a process of collecting information about something that we are interested in, according to procedure that are systemic and substantially grounded (Bachman. 2004). Formal assessment are used to evaluate the students’ achievement in a periodical time. Test are taken to consider:

1    1. A students has got the idea of the topic and ready to the the next level.

2    2.  The difficult parts of a topic or subtopic.

3    3.  What students have known and have to know more

4    4.  Classify the students.

However a formal assessment is just to test the students’ knowledge without considering the process.

Informal assessment is an unplanned assessment. It’s usually conducted by giving some comments or feedback to the students’ work. It’s to motivate and compliment the students’ effort. On the other words, informal assessment means to assess the students’ knowledge and performance without any time limit and exact time.

Summative assessment is to evaluate the learning process and it is usuallly done in the end of the semester. Final exam is one of the summative assessment. On the other hand, formative assessment is takes place during the learning process. It’s to control the learning process by giving some positive feedback to the students.

Implicit assessment is an accidental assessment. Sometimes both teachers and students don’t realize the existence of it. Explicit assessment is a planned and designed assessment which has announced before.

Classroom assessment can be implicit or explicit, formative or summative, but mostly used formative assessment. Formative assessment can improve the learning and teaching process. Students and teacher can work together to create a good learning environment. This formative assessment also can avoid the students for being stressed because of the planned assessment such as final exam.

Both Summative and formative assessment are important to apply in the learning and teaching process. The aim of Summative assessment is to know the understanding of the students for the whole topics given. Whereas the formative assessment is to evaluate the teaching and learning process. Teachers have to consider all this assessments in giving marks to the students. The teachers should not only evaluate the end process, but all the process from the beginning till the end.

Review Jurnal article 3

Review journal entitled Educational reform and development of information literacy of college English Teachers by Mighe Guo and Yuan Wang, October 2014

The technology develops rapidly and vigorously. All fields in the social life have to fit into the changes made by the technology such as production, life style, and thinking. Education aspect also influenced by the technology development. It gives various teaching methods, educational content and changes the instructional concept, accelerating the educational reform. In this era, students have to know how to study by themselves. So, the teachers should be more creative and innovative in using modern technology. By using multimedia and internet as the learning tools, there will be many advantages, for example, students can submit their assignment by email, find as many as resources on the internet, etc.

The roles of the technology in education is very important. It can make the learning process more attractive and enjoyable. The students who used to be subordinat, will become more active and creative by the use of multimedia in the classroom. The teachers also can improve the students motivation and their skill in using technology for education. Internet is an open environmet, students can get any information easily and influenced by the internet itself. The role of the teachers toward the internet is become the facilitator in motivating, make the students do the assigments according to the topics, and giving positive and constructive suggestions to controll the learning process.

However, teachers also have to pay attention to the use of the technology as the learning tool because the devices can’t solve all the problems. The internet can’t differentiate between the positive or negative, the bad or good, and the right or wrong one. So, the teachers should be the facilitator and have to control the use of the technology in the learning process.

As what Vigotzky stated in the constructive theory, students have to find out the information actively and build their own knowledge and teacher as the facilitator give opportunities to the students to find their own strategies in learning and get their own idea.

The use of technology in my classroom will be so interesting for my students, but it can be apply effectively because no language laboratory, no free internet access for the students, and the limitation of supported materials and electricity. The way to solve this problem is prepare the materials taken from the internet as the learning materials, use the available tools ini the school, and move to the rooms which provide the electricity.  

Review Jurnal article 2

Review journal entitled Factors affecting quality of English language teaching and learning in secondary schools in Nigeria by Dr. S.E. Aduwa-Ogiegbaen & Dr. E.OS. Iyamu

Teachers must have various technique and methods in teaching English. Some basic skills that can be apply to the students for their writing skills are speling, punctuation, linguistic skills, and convention of style. Many teachers teach in a traditional way. They use textbooks, dictionaries, chalkboard, workbooks, and posters in English language teaching. Modern media such as audio and video tapes, language laboratories, programmed texts, flash cards, computers, magazines, and newspaper are rarely used.

English language teaching faced many problems such as inadequate period of teaching, teaching methods, and the limitation of useful resources. Nowadays, teacher’s role is as facilitator of learning when technology is integrated into the school curriculum. As the use of technology in the classroom, the learning process can be more student-centered and individualized. Teachers also should be accustomed with the various teaching methods, not only teach in a traditional way.

Public school should be provided with adequate and various instructional media. Teachers should be familiar with the use of new technology-supported instructional tools and various instructional delivery methods.

The most important thing that improve the learning process is the learning environment. It should be the first priority by the state and federal government, so the students can learn well.

According to Chomsky in the transformational generatif grammar theory, language is something that produce without any relationship with its own language elements. He stated that language is a part of human component and a product of human intellegence. So, the students with many distractions in their environment still have a competence to learn other languages.

If I use modern media such as audio and video tapes, language laboratories, programmed texts, flash cards, computers, magazines, and newspaper, also use various teching methods, and create a good environment at school, the students will enjoy the class and the learning process will be better. But the important thing is every students have their own capability in learning other languages, so the result of the learning process may vary.

Review Journal article 1

Review journal entitled An investigation of motivation in Childern’s Foreign Language Learning Process by Na Wei, July 2016

Students will study more actively and initiatively if they have a positive learning motivation. If they don’t have any, they only study because of some external factors.

Research for students’ motivation in language learning must be done to make decisions about instructional plans and teaching methods in English. Language teaching process in order to encourage students’ motivation to learn. The investigation of child students got five needs, there are safety need, belongingness and love need, esteem need, apprehension need and the need for self-actualization in child language learning which have not been satisfied enough. So, to get students more motivated to involve in their classroom language learning, praise and encouragement from the teachers are required and designs of question and classroom tasks need more careful consideration.

There are three main causes of lack of motivation in children’s English Language Learning: lack of awareness of the value of English, Lack of interaction, lack of creative use of teaching materials.

Both teachers and parents have an important rule to develop awareness of language learning. Language especially English is used in our daily life. A lot of interesting books are written in English. The other thing that has to be considered is a pleasant and enjoyable environment that should be apply in the class. The last is teachers have to pay attention to the development of professional teaching. They need to concern about new teaching theories and teaching methodologies.

According to Vigotzky in constructive theory, students have their own resposibility to build their motivation to study. So, even the teachers have considered a pleasant and enjoyable environment in the class, but the students can’t build their own motivation to study English, the learning process will not run well.

If I apply the result of this research in my class to build the students motivation in learning English, such as make a pleasant and enjoyable environmet, learning new theories and methodologies, etc. I believe that there will be a development in students’ motivation to learn English. But the important thing that we have to consider is the students have to build their own motivation in study.

Latar Belakang menjadi awardee LPDP

Assalamu Alaikum,

Selamat Malam teman-teman,

Ini adalah tulisan pertama saya di Blog ini. Pada kesempatan pertama ini, saya akan menceritakan perjalanan panjang saya menjadi seorang awardee BPI LPDP dan akhirnya bisa kuliah di Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Sebelas Maret Surakarta yang merupakan Perguruan Tinggi peringkat ketiga di Indonesia.

Semuanya berawal dari pengalaman pahit saya ketika gagal memiliki anak kedua. Tepatnya 14 September 2015, Bayi perempuan seberat 3,2 kg dan panjang 51 cm terlahir dengan tidak bernyawa melalui proses operasi caesar pada usia kandungan yang ke sembilan bulan. Usia kandungan yang sangat ideal untuk melahirkan, tidak lebih ataupun kurang tapi takdir berkata lain, saya dan keluarga harus menelan pil pahit karena peristiwa ini. Sayapun sempat berada pada masa-masa yang labil, sedih yang sangat dalam dan berkepanjangan. Kemudian datanglah putri saya yang pertama, wajahnya yang polos dan sorot matanya yang berbinar-binar seakan berkata, "Bunda harus bangkit, Bunda tidak boleh sedih lagi!!!!" Seketika kekuatan besar muncul dari dalam, saya harus melanjutkan hidup, ini adalah jalan dari Allah SWT dan Insya Allah yang terbaik untuk umatnya.

Pada saat itu keinginan saya untuk melanjutkan studi ke jenjang yang lebih tinggi sangat kuat, mulailah saya mencari informasi tentang beasiswa dan membekali diri untuk tes TOEFL dengan membeli buku preparation of TOEFL. Pada awal tahun 2016, saya mengikuti tes TOEFL di UPT Pusat Bahasa Universitas Negeri Makassar dan Alhamdulillah mendapatkan nilai yang lebih dari cukup untuk mendaftarkan diri sebagai calon penerima beasiswa dan pilihan saya jatuh kepada Beasiswa Pendidikan Indonesia Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan (BPI LPDP). Di sela-sela kesibukan saya mengikuti beberapa pelatihan yang panjang dan padat, saya mempersiapkan dokumen-dokumen yang dipersyaratkan oleh LPDP. Sebelum kembali mengikuti pelatihan, saya telah berhasil  mendaftar pada beasiswa tersebut. Pada tanggal 27 April 2016, pukul 23.17 WITA saya menerima surat elektronik dari LPDP bahwa saya lulus seleksi administratif dan di undang untuk mengikuti seleksi selanjutnya yaitu seleksi substantif pada bulan Mei 2016, tidak banyak persiapan sebelum mengikuti tes tersebut dikarenakan pelatihan yang padat dan panjang. Tanggal 25 dan 26 Mei adalah hari dimana tes substantif tersebut dilaksanakan, pada hari pertama saya berhadapan dengan tiga proses seleksi yaitu On the spot essay writing, Leaderless Group Discussion, dan Verifikasi berkas. Keesokan harinya, tepatnya di pagi hari saya kembali datang di Gedung Kementerian Keuangan RI Makassar untuk menjalani proses seleksi wawancara dan sampai saat tulisan ini dipublilkasikan di blog, wawancara tersebut adalah wawancara yang paling mendebarkan seumur hidup saya dan setelah selesai dari wawancara tersebut, hasilnya sempat membuat saya tidak yakin dan pesimis akan lulus.

Tanggal 10 Juni 2016 adalah tanggal yang dinanti-nanti oleh calon awardee periode II 2016 di seluruh Indonesia. Hari itu adalah penentuan nasib kami, masa depan kami selanjutnya. Kami menunggu pengumuman sejak pagi tapi tidak kunjung ada kabar. Kebetulan saat itu adalah bulan Ramadhan dan pada saat Adzan magrib berkumandang.....sambil memegang segelas Es Cendol, HP saya terus berbunyi. Ternyata di grup calon awardee sudah banyak yang mendapatkan kabar kelulusan. Sayapun dengan segera membuka email dan akun saya tapi statusnya belum berubah, masih tertera "Lulus seleksi administratif", seketika badan lemas dan berpikir mungkin LPDP bukan rejeki saya. Saya yang kemudian ingin meletakkan HP yang pada saat itu layarnya masih standby dan masih dalam kondisi login di portal LPDP, tiba-tiba terkejut dan lompat kegirangan karena statusnya tiba-tiba berubah dari "Lulus Seleksi administratif" menjadi "Lulus seleksi Wawancara". Saya sangat bahagia, keluargapun ikut berbahagia dan untung saja segelas es cendol yang ada ditangan saya tidak tumpah....he....he....he....

Sejak saat itu, saya mulai disibukkan dengan tugas-tugas Pra-PK, telegram, berkenalan dengan awardee lain yang ada di seluruh Indonesia dan setelah itu menjalani Persiapan Keberangkatan (PK) angkatan 75 tanggal 22 - 27 Agustus 2016 di Wisma Hijau, Cimanggis, Depok, Jawa Barat. PK LPDP adalah salah satu acara yang paling keren, luar biasa, menakjubkan yang pernah saya ikuti. Setelah mengikuti PK, tanggal 29 Agustus saya mulai mengikuti perkuliahan di UNS. 

Sungguh pengalaman yang luar biasa. Saya yang dulu hanya bisa membaca blog orang lain tentang proses penerimaan BPI LPDP, saya yang biasanya sangat terharu ketika menonton video-video PK LPDP di youtube, saya yang biasanya hanya mendengar cerita tentang LPDP, kini.....saya adalah AWARDEE BPI LPDP angkatan 75.... dan andapun bisa...:)