LLT Journal: A Journal on Language and Language Teaching

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Authors: Deron Walker

Process-oriented writing instruction has been advocated for both L1 and L2 writing classrooms since the 1960s. Empowering learner autonomy may best occur through non-direct instruction (Rogers & Freiberg, 1994), engaging students in social learning (Vygotsky, 1978) and creating workshop-like classrooms (Murray, 2004). Any number of techniques can be used, preferably in-sync with each other, to accomplish such an approach. This study will examine the results of some recent action research in the classroom to attempt to ascertain among various process-techniques, designed to accomplish the aforementioned aspects of process-oriented instruction, which techniques (CODA paradigm / rubrics, journals, peer reviews, teacher conferences, etc.) were most useful to developmental students, especially from their own points of view. Student voices were collected through oral presentations, instructor evaluations, and classroom observations in an American classroom where native English speaking and non-native English speaking writers wrestled with freshman level developmental writing side-by-side.

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Authors: Widdy Wijanti

In Indonesia, English is still considered as a foreign language and has become a crucial subject of study especially in the university level. For this reason, English for Academic Purposes has been conducted in the first year of college level for many years. Unfortunately, although many Asian countries including Indonesia have run the EAP course, the output is that there are still many Indonesian students who do not meet the vocabulary size and syntactic complexity that are expected while their learning process in the university. This results lower grades that they have in their assignments. Therefore, the recent study is aimed at evaluating the reading materials of EAP, especially in measuring the syntactic complexity containing in the texts as it is strongly believed in English learning that a good language output comes from a good language input. The data is taken from the collections of reading materials taken from EAP course Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 which are compulsory subjects for students at Sampoerna University in their first 2 years of study. The data then is processed using the Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (Ai & Lu, 2013). The findings showed that the reading materials of EAP course Level 3 text is mainly suggested to be reviewed and revised in order to fulfill the five categories of syntactic complexity, i.e. the length of production unit, the sentence complexity, the subordination, the coordination, and the particular structure.

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Authors: Dwi Agustina

Learner autonomy has become one of the main topics in the current research and conferences in Indonesia. This suggests that learner autonomy has received more attention in Indonesian contexts. However, there has been no space for discussions about the meaning of learner autonomy from high school teachers’ points of view. A multi-case study conducted by Agustina (2017) has found diverse understanding of autonomy as reported by Junior High School English teachers in Magelang Regency, Central Java, Indonesia. This paper discusses those teachers’ understanding in a more detailed way along with the implications when the concept is understood differently. This paper supports Agustina’s argument that the diversity in understanding and developing autonomy should be anticipated since teachers have different beliefs about autonomy. Referring to Agustina’s findings this paper proposes the need to consider the consequences of allowing the presence of various understanding of learner autonomy particularly when it is set as an educational goal.

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Authors: Elizabeth Wulan Wahyuningtyas, Fransiska Selvy Wulandari

Through frequent test, students have higher self-motivation to understand every material in order to make them prepared in attending frequent test. This paper aims to see the teachers’ and students’ perceptions on frequent test. In addition, as the further finding, the writers will focus on the benefits of frequent test. The paper is an observation paper that focused on students ‘and teachers’ perception through frequent test, and its benefits. The finding shows that both of the teachers and students show the positive perspective toward frequent test. Thus, frequent test is beneficial to both, the teachers and the students in learning process, even though there are also the negative effects.

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Authors: Maria Corazon Saturnina A. Castro

Error correction is one of the most contentious and misunderstood issues in both foreign and second language teaching. Despite varying positions on the effectiveness of error correction or the lack of it, corrective feedback remains an institution in the writing classes. Given this context, this action research endeavors to survey prevalent attitudes of teachers and students toward corrective feedback and examine their implications to classroom practices. This paper poses the major problem: How do teachers’ perspectives on corrective feedback match the students’ views and expectations about error treatment in their writing? Professors of the University of the Philippines who teach composition classes and over a hundred students enrolled in their classes were surveyed. Results showed that there are differing perceptions of teachers and students regarding corrective feedback. These oppositions must be addressed as they have implications to current pedagogical practices which include constructing and establishing appropriate lesson goals, using alternative corrective strategies, teaching grammar points in class even in the tertiary level, and further understanding the learning process.

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Authors: Christine Permata Sari

This study aims to analyze the types of speech acts in the text and to analyze different perspectives on the meaning “very sorry” between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China. The object of the study is a letter of saying sorry from the U.S. Ambassador for China Joseph Prueher to the Foreign Minister of the PRC Tang Jiaxuan on the incident in Hainan Island which caused the death of the Chinese’s pilot and the custody of the aircraft crew and the surveillance aircraft relating the emergency landing without any prior permission. The researcher employed the speech acts theory proposed by Searle (1979) as cited by Wardhaugh (2006) to analyze speech acts types and to obtain the dominant type and the implication used in the text. The strategies of apology by Cohen and Olshtain (1986) as cited by Zhang (2001) were also employed. This study is descriptive qualitative research. The result showed the biggest percentages of the types were expressive and assertive. The researcher also found the different perspectives on the meaning of “very sorry” between the US and the PRC which led into misunderstanding influenced by the culture. This research benefits the English language learners to understand the meaning of locutions which they hear and to acknowledge the culture influences society perspectives in understanding the meaning especially for non-English speakers.

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Authors: Marselina Karina Purnomo

Simulation is a part of Experiential Learning which represents certain real-life events. In this study, simulation is used as a learning activity in Approaches, Methods, and Techniques (AMT) course which is one of the courses in English Language Education Study Program (ELESP) of Sanata Dharma University. Since simulation represents the real-life events, it encourages students to apply the approaches, methods, and techniques being studied based on the real-life classroom. Several experts state that students are able to involve their personal experiences through simulation which additionally is believed to create a meaningful learning in the class. This study aimed to discover ELESP students’ perceptions toward simulation as a part of Experiential Learning in AMT course. From the findings, it could be inferred that students agreed that simulation in class was important for students’ learning for it formed a meaningful learning in class.

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Authors: Monica Ella Harendita

Pre-service teachers undergo an important phase, called teaching practice, before plunging in the ‘real’ teaching. Thus, the experiences and what they do during the practice can be an interesting subject to study. In this light, this case study attempts to gain more understanding on the beliefs of some pre-service teachers with regard to learning and teaching, as well as to see the influence of their beliefs on their practices. The data were gathered from reflective journals and observations. The findings show that the participants held some beliefs in regard to teaching and learning. First, they believed that mutual respect should be maintained in classroom. Second, interrelated with the previous belief, for the participants, meaningful learning requires active participation. Third, the participants believed that learning should be motivating. Fourth, the participants held a belief that as a teacher they have flexible roles. Hopefully, the results of this study will be beneficial in informing teacher training education in order to prepare and assist their students better as future teachers.

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Authors: Patricia Angelina Lasut

Most of the staff of Bank Mandiri in Yogyakarta have some difficulties to communicate with the foreign customers, which hinder the process of the service. Therefore, this study attempted to develop English speaking materials for the staff of Bank Mandiri in Yogyakarta using the principles of task-based learning. The writer adapted Kemp’s instructional design model (1977) comprising eight flexible, interdependent steps. Those steps, subsequently, were put under the umbrella of Borg & Gall’s (1986) Research and Development (R&D) method. Due to time and resource limitations, only three out of ten steps of the R&D model were employed, which were: (1) Research and information collecting, (2) Planning and (3) Developing preliminary form of product. To acquire required information for developing the materials, the writer distributed needs analysis questionnaire to twenty staff of Bank Mandiri, Yogyakarta. The designed materials covered eight units. Each unit consisted of five sections, namely “Do You Remember?”, “Prepare Yourself!”, “Can You Do These?”, “Let’s Learn!”, and “It’s Time to Write”. It was expected that the materials could improve the speaking skill of the staff of Bank Mandiri Yogyakarta.