EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students of vocational high schools are requested to have skillful reading strategies to comprehend specific texts in English. To have a good comprehension, they utilize not only their strategies but also interesting and suitable texts. Therefore, this current study investigated the correlation between students’ perception of the authentic materials and cooperative learning strategy towards students’ reading comprehension. The data of the reading comprehension tests and the students’ perception were analyzed using the multiple regression. The result revealed that (1) there was positive correlation between students’ perception of the authentic materials and students reading comprehension, (2) there was significant positive effect of cooperative learning strategy towards reading comprehension, and (3) there was significant positive effect of reading materials towards cooperative learning strategy. These findings suggested that the choice of authentic materials could motivate students to comprehend ESP texts. Besides this, by doing cooperative learning strategy, the scaffolding could happen so that they could share their comprehension. In spite of its limitation, this study could have certain pedagogical implications to reading classroom activities.
PEMBELAJARAN LINGUISTIK BERBASIS PENDEKATAN HOLISTIK
Pendekatan pembelajaran holistic didasarkan pada filsafat pendidikan yang mengasumsikan bahwa peserta didik akan mendapatkan hasil pembelajaran yang bermakna untuk diri dan hidupnya bila proses pembelajaran dilakukan melalui hubungan antara dirinyadengan masyarakat, lingkungan alam, dan nilai-nilai spiritual (agama).
DI BALIK WAJAH “ANGKER” PAK ANTON
Prof. Anton Moeliono itu sosok dosen yang idealis, disiplin, perfeksionis dan “angker” inilah yang sering dikesankan oleh hamper semua mahasiswa yang pernah menjadi didikan beliau, tidak terkecuali penulis sendiri yang pernah menjadi mahasiswanya di program S-2 LTBI dan S-3 LTBI Unika Atma Jaya Jakarta. Kenpa Pak Anton itu idealis, disiplin, dan perfeksionis? Tidak perlu dijabarkan ditulisan pendek ini, karena hamper seluruh orang mengenal beliau tahu jawabannya bahkan diyakini lebih tahu dari penulis. Yang perlu disampaikan di sini adalah sisi “angker” –nya yang ternyata di balik itu adalah wujud sangat perhatian beliau terhadap mahasiswanya
CONTROLLING AGGRESSIVE INSTINCT FOR PEACE
At present, the escalation of violence has been intense nationally and globally due to variety of reasons such as religions, human rights, culture, and politics. The violence has threatened the peace, harmony, and plurality in the community. One of the main sources of the violence is the uncontrolled aggressive instinct of the human being. In line with this issue, this article attempts to reintroduce religious, cultural, and social values that the people can use to control their provocative aggressive instinct and transform it into good deeds for the sake of the peace and harmony among the pluralistic society.
VOCABULARY STRATEGIES
Before presenting the notion of vocabulary strategies, it is necessary to know what language learning strategies mean. The term of language learning strategies has been associated with the four basic skills such as, listening, speaking, reading, and writing.lt also deals with other skill areas as well. For example, there are strategies associated with vocabulary and translation. But what are actually language learning strategies?
The Impact of the Student-Student versus Teacher-Student Interactions on Students’ Speaking Skills
The study attempts to investigate the effect of the treatments of student-student interactions versus teacher-student interactions to the students’ speaking skills in Conversation in English Programs. The number of the students in. each of the three classes (namely student-student interactions class, teacher-student interactions class and control class is not more than 12 students; an ideal number for student-centered class. Each class teacher of the experiment group (student-student interaction group and teacher-student interaction group) is provided with lesson plan and discussions on the lesson plans were conducted prior to the treatments; while the control group teacher has no interfere at all (from the researcher). The students were given situational dialog test before being treated. After being treated for ten consecutive sessions, the same test was administered again. To meet the prerequisite for normal distribution, the data of pre test and post test were analyzed. After normal distribution test was conducted, to determine the progress from the pretest andposttest, paired samples t-test is used; while comparing the progress of the students’ speaking skills in those three groups, one way anova is implemented. The results of the gain of the students ‘ achievement was again processed using LSD (Least significant difference) test to further analyze and find out the most significant improvement among the three group. The LSD test showed that the average of students’ achievement in the Student- Student Interactions Group far excelled the achievement of the students in the Teacher-Student Interaction Group and the Control Group. It is clearly seen that the progress of students’ achievement in the Teacher-Student Group did not have a significant difference with the progress of the students in the Control Group. To conclude, student-student interactions, in which students are given exposure to use the language in class around 75%, enhance students speaking skills.
TEACHING WRITING : THE EFFECT OF MIND MAPPING TECHNIQUE ON THE STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL
The stud}’ investigates the use of mind mapping technique in teaching writing. This study was conducted based on the two main problems: 1) is the mind mapping technique applied in the students’ writing skill? 2) Does mind mapping technique affect on the students’ writing skill? The aim of the study was to find out the students’ writing skill after learning using mind mapping. The study applied free experimental designs, using paired simple t-test with the sample of 30 students from the population of 120 students. The result revealed that the mapping technique affected on improving the students’ writing skill.
TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS : OPTIMIZING EFL CHILDREN’S LINGUISTICS INTELLIGENCE THROUGH TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING
The study investigates the use of Task-based Language Teaching in optimizing children’s language acquisition of EFL in speaking skill. The aim of study is to search the TBLT in foreign language learning, and proof that this approach is one of good way in language learning . The study applied descriptive explorative and pre-experimental research which allow the writer to collect the data in three ways: library, observation, and field research. The result of the study shows that TBLT is affective to boost children’s ability in oral communication in simple utterances: instructing, requesting, and warning. Thus they composed simple utterances to express need, it is encouraged the child himself has inner motivation to learn by themselves in the way at their time playing by learning.
Students’ Recognition of Learning English Reading Mediated by Computer
Despite of Indonesian government’s initiative for enhancing technology in educational practices,
the use of computer to mediate teaching/learning seems to be hesitant. This paper is to expose students’ recognition of learning English reading mediated by computer. Case study was used as research design. Results of the research expose no evidence that students with better English background would be successful in this mode of learning reading. However, students who participate more in learning sessions tend to have better achievement in English reading. Furthermore, students recognize that computer mediated learning reading is interesting and brings benefits from the view point of learning flexibility, interactivity, variety of contents, and performance by which motivate them to complete their own learning. The absence of teacher falls into two: 1) teacher’s absence would lower students’ psychological burden, and 2) explanations from teacher remains needed in face-to-face interaction.
TEACHING COHESIVE TIES TO EFL STUDENTS
This paper presents how to teach cohesion to EFL students who take English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses at the faculty of economics. The teaching is based on the assumption that the direct involvement of students in selecting course materials and intensive exposure to discourse of economic texts in reading practices can raise students’ awareness and knowledge of the way which the content of connected texts hangs together. This acquaintance can in turn make them have better comprehension of the text.