English Language Teaching Educational Journal

Investigation into students’ performance in foreign language business writing and their attitudes toward it

2024-05-30T07:09:38+00:00

Anxiety can affect learners' performance in several ways. It can be a helpful motivational tool to assist students in learning a language. At the same time, anxiety can become a serious factor in hindering language acquisition. This study examines the relationship between students' writing performance and anxiety levels across three different proficiency groups of students. The participants were fifty EFL students enrolled in a Business English Writing course, and the target writing genre was inquiries and acknowledgments of inquiry letters. The two main instruments used to collect data were students' writing samples and closed-ended questionnaires. The data were analyzed utilizing descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson's coefficient correlation. This study showed a significant difference in writing anxiety between the high and the low-proficiency groups. In contrast, it was found that there were no statistically significant differences in anxiety between the high and the mid-proficiency groups. In addition, the study’s outcomes indicated that the students' level of anxiety varied across the three groups of students. It was found that the students with a high level of anxiety performed less well than those with lower writing anxiety. The findings provide insights into teaching and learning writing, particularly into ways to decrease learners' anxiety and improve their learning outcomes.

SQRAR: A model of coursebook evaluation

2024-05-30T07:11:40+00:00

Coursebooks have become the most prominent English learning materials, especially in formal education. Therefore, recursive evaluation should be conducted to adjust the coursebook based on the current needs and learning goals. Moreover, dynamic evaluation brings interaction or mediation with a genuine act of teaching to make the evaluation more meaningful and substantial. However, limited resources are available, especially the ones that could help the teacher evaluate vivid steps dynamically. This study fulfills the need for a coursebook, especially ELT, evaluation method by following the research and development design proposed initially by Dick and Carey that many experts have simplified. The design was constructed from a sequence of steps, namely ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation). Thirty participants conducted an evaluation phase based on the product trial design, followed by a Focus Group Discussion (FGD). The data were gathered using a questionnaire and the interview guidelines. The instruments were developed based on the ideal coursebook criteria. They are shaped in quantitative and qualitative forms and analyzed using Creswell’s data analysis technique. Thus, a set of evaluation methods was designed: SQRAR (Survey, Question, Read, Analyse, and Recommend). The design benefits the teachers by allowing them to evaluate the coursebook systematically and effectively. Survey results demonstrate strong consensus among English teachers, advocating for urgent development of such evaluation models. Implementation of the SQRAR model involves detailed stages emphasizing thorough evaluation and constructive feedback, with micro and macro evaluation options discussed. The model ensures comprehensive evaluation, consistency, and alignment with learning objectives and provides clear recommendations for coursebook improvement.

Developing sociolinguistic context-based English-speaking materials for Islamic senior high school students

2024-02-16T02:26:37+00:00

This research was conducted for two purposes: (1) to describe the process of the design and development of English materials for conversation practices based on the sociolinguistic contexts for Grade X students at Islamic Senior High School Students (ISHS), and (2) to analyze the usability level of the product of materials’ development for the students. It is a study using research and development method which applied the stages of ADD out of ADDIE from Aldoobie, (2015) and Branch, R. M. (2009). The materials development focused on English-speaking materials in the form of conversation practices, which included the conversations of interpersonal and transactional communication whereby the sociolinguistic contexts are embedded. Additionally, communicative tasks were also presented for engaging students with the practice of the real English use. They were packed in the form a textbook which consisted of six units. The presentation of the materials in the units was following the features of CLT approach. The feasibility and the usability of the product was tested through internal validation using the three criteria (psychological, pedagogical, and content) of validity by Rubdy (2014). The result shows that the English-speaking materials are valid meaning usable for Grade X students of ISHS.

Preparing EFL pre service teachers for inclusive teaching: The students' perception on the outcome-based evaluation of the introduction to inclusive education course

2024-06-22T22:49:26+00:00

Inclusive Education has been an emerging initiative in Indonesia, yet, the implementation of it in English Language Teaching is less explored. English Language Education Department, Faculty of Cultural Studies, Universitas Brawijaya has initiated a course called Introduction to Inclusive Education to prepare students with inclusive teaching competencies. This course has been implemented for 2 years, a course evaluation needs to be carried out to evaluate and improve the course quality. This present study reports the evaluation of the aforementioned course with the Framework of Outcome Based Education from the students’ perspective. Inviting 129 students enrolled in the course, this research revealed that most of students agreed that this course has met their expectation toward the offered competencies (M=3,25), positive perception toward course activities (M=3,12), positive perception toward the benefits of course materials (M=3,19), and positive perception toward tutor performance (M=3.2). Surprisingly, despite the students' agreement on the usefulness of the courses, they also acknowledged that the course materials are pretty difficult (M=3,15). The result of this course evaluation shed a light on the importance of adjusting the materials to be more achievable by the students so they have confidence in implementing inclusive teaching practices.