Proceedings - Universitas Sanata Dharma

i

Proceedings

The Third Undergraduate Conference on

ELT, Linguistics, and Literature 2015

Published by

English Language Education Study Program

Sanata Dharma University

ii

Proceedings

The Third Undergraduate Conference on

ELT, Linguistics, and Literature 2015

“Language: Emerging Unity in Diversity”

Copyright ©2015

Editors:

Adityo Prawinanto

Gaiety Fricillia Suthami

Faradita Shabrina

Euphemia Irene Herlinda

Theresia Dian Triutami

Marlin Evi Priantini

Titus Angga Restuaji

Anita Yusticia Sari

Published by

English Language Education Study Program


Yogyakarta 55002

Phone: (62 274) 513301 ext 1220

Fax: (62 274) 562384

Website: www.usd.ac.id/fakultas/pendidikan/pbi

E-mail: [email protected]

ISBN 978-602-18681-8-8

http://www.usd.ac.id/fakultas/pendidikan/pbi

iii

PREFACE

The committee of Undergraduate Conference 2015 proudly present the proceedings

of The Third Undergraduate Conference on English Language Teaching, Linguistics

and Literature. The proceedings consist of research and paper compilation on

language development, culture disclosure, and teaching methods, for example.

Language is important as an information and communication tool. Some languages

are considered as international languages in this globalization era to bring information

and communication around the world. One of those international languages is

English. In Indonesia, English plays an important role. Regardless of age, social

status, religion, or gender, people learn English. For example, in a public area, we can

easily find banners, brochures, and announcements written in English.

Recently, the use of language is not limitted to direct communication only, but also in

indirect communication such as on the Internet. Related to that, the proceedings

provide some papers that discuss the use of language on the Internet like the use of

code switching in WhatsApp and netizen’s language. In addition, some papers also

focus on topics related to literature such as feminism in the novel and the benefits of

peer involvement in a thesis writing class which is related to education.

We the committee have done our best to make sure that this conference would be the

most fruitful and resourceful experience for all the participants. However, we do

realize that there are still many inconveniences during the conference. From the

bottom of our heart, we do apologize. The committee of The Third Undergraduate

Conference 2015 expect that the proceedings would be beneficial for the readers.

Editors

The Committee of The Third Undergraduate Conference 2015

iv

A Note on the Third UC USD PBI 2015

It is wonderful to write a note on the proceedings of the Third Undergraduate Conference

(UC) on English Language Teaching (ELT), Linguistics and Literature or UC 2015, for

short. The proceedings, consisting of 25 full papers written by undergraduate students and

two complete papers authored by two invited speakers, were compiled by the editor team of

the 2015 UC organizing committee of the English Language Education Study Programme of

Sanata Dharma University or Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris (PBI) Universitas

Sanata Dharma (USD), Yogyakarta.

Like the first two UC’s, the 2015 UC, which will take place on Saturday, 13 June 2015, is an

invaluable opportunity for undergraduate students to present their (mini) research findings,

share opinions and enrich knowledge of linguistics, literature and English language teaching.

In other words, here comes a golden moment for undergraduates to share and learn together.

The organizing committee members, who are mostly PBI-ers of batch 2011, have been

working hard to make this conference successful. So, let’s ensure to enjoy the fruitful

conference – the Third UC by sharing ideas and learning from one another!

Yogyakarta, 2 June 2015

Barli Bram

Undergraduate Conference Facilitator

English Language Education Study Programme


[email protected]

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover ........................................................................................................................................... i

Title Page ................................................................................................................................... ii

Preface ....................................................................................................................................... iii

A Note on the Third UC USD PBI 2015 ................................................................................. iv

Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... v

The Compilation of Papers

1. Codeswitching in a Triadic Situation among Bilingual Children and Their Mother

by Sharilyn Childers ...................................................................................................... 1

2. Translating Lives: Translator and Interpreter Profession in the 21st Century

by Laurentia Sumarni .................................................................................................. 15

3. Peer Involvement in Thesis Writing: The Benefits of Peer Involvement in Thesis

Writing Class

by Andreas Rahardjo Adi Baskoro .............................................................................. 22

4. The Comparison between Feminism in “The House on Mango Street” Novel and

Women’s Emancipation in Indonesia in the 21st Century

by Agata Nina Puspita, Gratia Hervina Stephanie and Anchieta Ave Avillanova ...... 31

5. How the Freshmen Overcome Their Vocabulary Difficulties

by Yandi Fajri Ariandy and Agung Rizki Sugito .......................................................... 37

6. Social Factors Correlated with the Use of Standard and Non-standard Language

Variation in Freedom Writer Movie

by Damiana Maria Resya N and Sylvester Indra Adhitya Hermono ........................... 44

vi

7. Critical Discourse Analysis: Feminism in Emma Watson’s Speech in

“HeforShe” Campaign 2014

by Feny Anggeria ......................................................................................................... 51

8. The Influence of Balinese Mother Tongue in English Pronunciation

by Hermina Prima and Margareta Wiwik Tri Wijayanti ............................................. 60

9. Developing RPG Application as English Learning Media

by Ibram Alif Fardani, I Nyoman Sumarno and Rafkhi Avviano ................................. 67

10. An Analysis on Regional Dialect Between “Andy and Papuan Yulex Sawaki” on Kick

Andy Talk Show

by Marcelino Geribka Nggebu ..................................................................................... 75

11. The Improvement of Grammar Teaching for Students of English

by Danin Christianto and Alfonsus Yudha Pratama .................................................... 78

12. Society’s Expectation and Its Effect on Women’s Mindset as Seen in Kate Chopin’s:

Study of Psychoanalytic Feminism Theory

by Anastasia R Mursanto and Rosa Vania Setowati .................................................... 87

13. Psychotherapy for Student with Selective Mutism as Seen in Torey Hayden’s Ghost

Girl: The True Story of a Child in Peril and the Teacher Who Saved Her

by Haniah Hamidah Sahid ........................................................................................... 93

14. Students’ Low Motivation to Read English Books and Its Effects on Their English

Proficiency

by Mia Rachmawati and Lisda Maulani .................................................................... 103

15. Raising Students’ Proactive Attitude by Implementing Scientific Approach as Used in

2013 Curriculum

by Anthonia Jessy Perwirasari .................................................................................. 110

16. A Study of Language Variety Seen in Pygmalion Movie

by Anastasia N Cendra and Wening P Pertiwi .......................................................... 118

vii

17. Improving Critical Speaking Ability through Impromptu Speech

by Marcelline Gratia Sephira Taum, Dionisia Stella Ayu Saputri, Yosephin Diva

Fabiola Nuralita and Emma Hadiana Cahyani......................................................... 124

18. An Analysis of Take Home Assignments for Students

by Yunda Anissa, Paula Tiara Yunitasari and Gabriela Maria Pangesti Wening. ... 131

19. Using Chants to Teach English for Young Learners

by Roosefine Shierly S, Ignatia Yole P W, Chezia Eufresia I and Kartika Eva R ...... 136

20. No Feast Last Forever by Madame Wellington Koo as an Example of the Role of

English Language towards Indonesian Literature

by Vina Octavia ......................................................................................................... 140

21. Sophomores’ Difficulties in Enhancing Their Speaking Skill

by Muhammad Izwan Furqon and Vivi Putriyantina ................................................. 144

22. Codeswitching Phenomenon in WhatsApp Group of English Language Education

Study Program Class E Batch 2012

by Benedictus Prabandanu and Aprilia Devitasari ................................................... 151

23. Language Variation in “Dangerous Mind” Movie

by Maria Alina Putri Rejeki and Thomas Wahyu Prabowo Mukti ............................ 157

24. The Importance of English in the Implementation of Curriculum 2013

by Siska Anggraeni .................................................................................................... 162

25. English Club as One Alternative to Learn English

by Yulius Gustav Ndolu W P, Martha Erika Diana and Bernadetha Wahyu W ........ 166

Language: Emerging Unity in Diversity

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CODESWITCHING IN A TRIADIC SITUATION AMONG BILINGUAL

CHILDREN AND THEIR MOTHER

Sharilyn Childers

[email protected]

St. Cloud State University

St. Cloud, Minnesota, United States

Abstract

Many studies have investigated why and how children codeswitch. Bilingual children

generally do not codeswitch because they are mixing and having difficulties in

differentiating languages. Instead, they make very marked choices in which language to

use at any one moment based on various interactive and strategic purposes. This study

uses a hybrid methodological approach focused on conversation analysis to investigate

the types of and reasons for codeswitching in a triadic conversation between Spanish-

English bilingual siblings and their mother. The siblings‘ relationship and familial

identities were found to have an effect on their codeswitching. Codeswitching sometimes

functioned as a resource to hold power over the other sibling and at other times was

employed as an interactive resource in organizing their communication.

Keywords: bilingualism, codeswitching, conversation analysis

INTRODUCTION

This short study on codeswitching aims to find out how and why codeswitching

is employed by two Spanish-English bilingual siblings, a brother aged 9 and a sister aged

8, and their mother. The three were taped in a triadic situation at the children‘s school.

Originally, the participants were only meant to be the girl and the mother, but the boy

joined the taping session and greatly influenced the direction of this study. The girl was

chosen as the initial subject because the researcher was interested in if her hearing

impairment would affect the nature of her bilingualism and codeswitching, but ultimately

no discernible affect was found as the mother and boy had no trouble understanding her

speech.

The main research question investigated in this study is the nature of

codeswitching among siblings and a parent. Specifically, this study aims to find out the

nature of language use – if language use is differentiated by interlocutor and/or topic –

and the specific situations in which codeswitching occurs. A play context was set up for

the videotaping because of the importance of play in children‘s language development

(Bauer, Hall, & Kruth, 2002). Grammatical codeswitching is not a focus of in the study,

but rather sociolinguistic and pragmatic motivations for codeswitching are the primary

focus. In addition, this study is also interested in creating a more holistic analysis of

codeswitching by incorporating the insights of several different theoretical frameworks.

The next section will investigate models and frameworks of codeswitching in

order to explore how codeswitching has been conceptualized and examined by others

before detailing methods and findings of this study.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Researchers over the past thirty years have proposed several different

codeswitching models based on sociolinguistic motivations that are frequently referred to

and used as an organizing framework in the scholarly literature. John Gumperz‘s (1982)

Discourse Strategies was a pioneering work in the emerging field of codeswitching at the


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time, and is still of relevance today. He argued that codeswitching was a discourse

strategy available to bilinguals functionally parallel to prosodic features or gestures

employed by monolinguals in interactions. He furthermore stressed that in analyzing why

codeswitching occurs in a conversation, researchers must study the contextualization

cues- in other words, ―constellations of surface features of message form are the means

by which speakers signal and listeners interpret what the activity is, how semantic content

is to be understood, and how each sentence relates to what precedes or follows‖

(Gumperz, 1982, p. 131). Therefore, Gumperz saw both the social context (and the in-

group of the speakers) as well as the specific situational context in each conversation as

relevant factors in motivations for codeswitching.

Models of codeswitching put forth since Gumperz first began publishing on

codeswitching have tended to be polarized, focusing on either global or local factors,

essentially dividing Gumperz‘s model of codeswitching composed of contextualization

cues derived from both social and situational contexts and falling victim to criticism by

proponents of the opposing model. In her Markedness Model (MM), Carol Myers-Scotton

(1993) proposed an innate model of codeswitching by which utterances are designated

either marked or unmarked; social group preferences and norms set the parameters for the

designations of marked and unmarked. An unmarked utterance is considered preferable

because it meets group expectations and norms by this logic. A marked utterance would

deviate from the established norm. Myers-Scotton and Bolonyai (2001) further

developed the MM by the addition of the Rational Choice (RC) approach, which states

that speakers make linguistic choices as individuals, based on perceived rights and

obligations, from several available options within societal patterns. In this model,

speakers try to maximize outcomes by using a cost-benefit analysis of several choices,

taking into account their own subjective motivations and their objective opportunities.

Rational choices are part of cognition, in keeping with the cognitively based MM.

Peter Auer took a different approach from Myers-Scotton in extending

Gumperz‘s interactional paradigm (see Auer 2001 for review). He developed the

Conversation Analysis (CA) approach based on sequential analysis of utterances in

congruence with Gumperz‘s assertion that sentences be analyzed in relationship to the

preceding and following sentences. Adopting Gumperz‘s idea of contextualization cues,

Auer argued that activities and language choices do not function in a direct relationship to

each other, but that the language chosen in one utterance must be seen in the background

of the preceding utterance. In other words, the question needs to be during which

activities do bilinguals tend to codeswitch. Auer proposed the two broad categories of

participant- and discourse-related codeswitching, arguing that an exhaustive list of

codeswitching functions is impossible to produce. Participant-related codeswitching is

oriented to participants‘ language preferences and competency while discourse-related

codeswitching is oriented to organizing the conversation in such procedures as turn-

taking, topical cohesion, sequencing of activities, sequencing of activities, and repair.

Both Myers-Scotton, Auer, and their respective proponents all criticize the

opposing models. Myers-Scotton and Bolonyai (2001) have criticized the CA approach

by arguing it does not adequately account for individual choice, while Shin and Milroy

(2000) and Chanseawrassamme and Shinn (2009) have criticized the MM and RC models

by arguing that determining marked and unmarked languages is difficult in a given

bilingual interaction. Myers-Scotton and Auer both claim their theories incorporate the

social and the situational, while accusing the other neglecting one of the factors. Li Wei

(2004) has offered a nice fusion of both Myers-Scotton and Auer‘s models. He argued

that the CA model agrees with the RC model that bilingual speakers are rational

individuals, but that they are oriented to conversational structures aiming primarily at

achieving coherence in the interactional task at hand instead of being oriented to rights

and obligations, or attitudes and identities. The MM model and RC model provide

valuable insights to how social identities play out in a conversation, but Li Wei argued


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that the CA model is also needed to fully explain conversational intricacies. Both models

used together may provide a fuller picture of conversational code-switching.

Moreover, Gafaranga (2000) and Gafaranga and Torras (2002) have

problematized the traditional definition of codeswitching and argued for a new definition

of the term. Gumperz (1982) defined conversational codeswitching as ―the juxtaposition

within the same speech exchange of passages of speech belonging to two different

grammatical systems or subsystems‖ (p. 59), but also clarified that bilingual speakers

have ―their own notion of code‖ that is different from a grammarian‘s view of language

(p. 99). Gumperz and Cook-Gumperz (2005) recognized that researchers have tended to

focus on explaining the alternating grammatical structures from the perspectives of the

languages themselves, but that bilingual speakers reject the idea of switching codes or

alternating languages as alien to their own experience, saying that they are just speaking

their own language. As such, Gafaranga (2000) claimed that establishing the base

language in codeswitching is difficult to do and that it is much better to speak of a

medium of interaction by which conversational goals are accomplished. Gafaranga and

Torras (2002) quoted Auer‘s contention that language need not be synonymous with code

and that language alternation itself may be a code. Therefore, they contended that

language alternation can be identified as ―language alternation itself as the medium,‖

―medium repair,‖ or functional deviance from the medium. The last possibility includes

medium switching and medium suspension, both cases of interactional otherness, and

therefore instances of traditional codeswitching. Thus, codeswitching was redefined as

any instance of deviance from the current medium which is not oriented to (by

participants themselves) as requiring any repair. Language alternation and codeswitching

function much more subtly than simply alternating between two different grammatical

structures.

One other useful notion relevant to this study is that of footing –

conversationalists‘ alignments toward people, topics, and actions – first discussed by

Goffman (Cromdal & Aronsson, 2000). Goffman saw bilingual codeswitching as one

method for accomplishing a shift in footing, similar to Gumperz‘s (1982) assertion that

bilinguals use codeswitching like monolinguals use prosodic features to indicate shifts in

the conversation. Cromdal and Aronsson (2000) argued that while Auer used Goffman‘s

work on footing, Auer did not fully develop the notion of footing in sequential analysis

and participant- and discourse-related codeswitching. Goffman‘s complex

conceptualization of conversational alignments and shifts in footing posited recipients‘

changes in footing in terms of participation frameworks that are generated within talk

while speakers‘ changes in footing were analyzed in terms of production formats, or the

speakers‘ involvement in the conversation and the role they take. Participation

frameworks concern whether a recipient is addressed or not and whether he or she is a

ratified or nonratified participant. Cromdal and Aronson‘s (2000) study showed that in

bilingual Swedish-English children‘s play, codeswitches were employed as important

rhetorical and dramaturgic play devices when contextualizing changes of addressee and

shifts of tone.

Several other studies using Auer‘s sequential analysis framework have shown

how language is contextualized in specific situations. Shin and Milroy (2000) studied

codeswitching among Korean-English bilingual schoolchildren and suggested that the

children employed language alternation as a contextualization strategy and that

codeswitching was used as an additional means to communicate discoursal meanings to

other participants in the conversation.

Chanseawrassamme and Shin (2009) studied two Thai-English bilingual brothers

and their dyadic and triadic conversations with their mother. The results were similar to

Shin and Milroy‘s (2000) study. The brothers used codeswitching as an additional

communicative resource to achieve particular conversational goals, which included

negotiating the language for interaction and accommodating language competences and

preferences of participants, as well as organizing conversational tasks.


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Rontu (2009) described another triadic situation between two siblings and their

mother bilingual in Finnish and (Finno-)Swedish. Conversational codeswitching was

argued to have a contextual meaning with most of the codeswitching occurring in

competition for the mother‘s attention. The non-context language was switched to in

order to gain the mother‘s attention and break of conversation between the other sibling

and the mother. Codeswitching also occurred to emphasize the child‘s own opinion or

will in situations of disagreement and conflict with either the mother or the other sibling.

Studies of codeswitching have long established that bilinguals may codeswitch to mark

an affective stance; speakers may codeswitch into L1 to express ‗we-ness‘ or their

emotions, into L2 to mark distance or an out-group attitude, or mix two or more

languages for strategic purposes (Pavlenko, 2004).

Cromdal (2004) studied children‘s disputes in more detail using the sequential

analysis framework and contended that codeswitching functions as a resource for

accomplishing several functions in a dispute; therefore, Cromdal argued bilingualism is

socially distributed, or an emergent and interactionally managed feature of discourse.

Specifically, Cromdal found that codeswitching displays the affective intensity in

oppositional stances. Codeswitching in this study of bilingual Swedish-English children

often escalated social opposition, often to the point of an argument, resulting in a

subsequent backdown or termination of the dispute. Also, in certain participant

frameworks, codeswitching was used to constrain opponents‘ opportunities to engage in

further conflict.

Affective stance is a salient feature of other conversations, not only disputes.

Pavlenko (2004) conducted a web questionnaire of bi- and multilingual parents and found

that while factors other than emotions often govern language choice in parent-child

communication, perceived language emotionality and affective repertoires offered by

particular languages also play a role. She found that in general parents perceived one

language (not always their L1) as easier to express their emotions to their children in and

one or more languages where expressing endearments sounded ‗false‘ or ‗wrong‘ to the

respondents. So, parents may codeswitch with their children to forge better emotional

connections with their children. Extending this argument, children also may find some

emotions easier to express in one language rather than another.

Returning to disputes in bilingual conversations, the use of language choice and

codeswitching as a means to solve controversies may also be a power resource in the

negotiations. Esdahl (2003) studied how social relations were negotiated and bilingual

identities formed among bilingual Turkish-Danish adolescents. She concluded that

bilinguals not only use their two languages to establish themselves in opposition to an

outer society, but also to establish themselves in a hierarchy within their group.

Finally, we come full circle back to Gumperz (1982) and Myer-Scotton‘s (1993)

idea of social identity being displayed in instances of codeswitching and fuse it with

Auer‘s (2001) sequential analysis framework and Cromdal and Aronsson‘s (2000)

conceptualization of codeswitching indexing shifts in alignment and footing. Kyratzis,

Tang and Koymen (2009) carried out a sequential analysis of conversations during free

play among predominantly Mexican-American children in a bilingual Head Start program

in California. Their results showed that the children used codeswitching to indicate

changes in footing to display their alignment or disalignment with social groups and their

peers, negotiate their bilingual identity in the context of the conversations, and rehearse

elaborate communicative strategies.

No one model or framework fully encompasses all aspects of codeswitching, so

an eclectic, hybrid approach using the research reviewed in this section will be taken in

analyzing the data in this study.


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METHODOLOGY

Participants

The participants in this study were a boy and girl who are bilingual in English

and Spanish, along with their mother. Originally, the participants were intended to be just

the girl and her mother in order to examine the girl‘s codeswitching in light of her hearing

impairment. When the videotaping occurred, the girl‘s brother also happened to be there

because his tutoring for the day had been cancelled. The inclusion of the brother into the

session actually made for richer data as the relationship of bilingualism and sibling

interactions could then be studied. The boy is nine and the girl is eight. Both children

were born in the Upper Midwestern United States. Their mother is from Mexico and their

father is from the Northeastern United States. Both parents are high-school educated.

The girl was born with some physical impairments. She has profound hearing

loss in the left ear and moderate hearing loss in the right ear, so she wears hearing aids in

both ears. She was born with a clubbed left foot and has had several corrective surgeries

on it. When she was six, the doctors amputated the leg from the knee down, so she wears

a prosthetic leg now. In addition, she was born with a cleft palate and has had surgery to

correct it. As such, her speech is mildly impaired. She has received speech therapy

services since birth. Her speech is somewhat difficult for people unused to her to

understand. She was held back one year and is now in the first grade. For the past two

years, since she started kindergarten, she has received ESL instruction at school.

The boy was born without any physical impairments and is now in the third

grade. He received ESL services for one year before being completely mainstreamed.

The mother reported that at home the three of them speak Spanish together. The

father does not speak Spanish, but the mother stated that he understands quite a bit – she

thought he understands around sixty percent of a conversation in Spanish. She

commented that her husband will respond in English to something said in Spanish.

Unfortunately, due to the limitations of the study, the mother‘s beliefs about the home

situation were not able to be verified. Parents‘ perceptions of language use often differ

from the actual use of language (Nicoladis & Genessee, 1996). When specifically asked

what language the children use to talk with each other, the mother replied that they

converse in both English and Spanish. At this point in the discussion of language use, the

boy interjected and countered his mother by saying that he speaks English with his sister

because ―she won‘t understand if I speak Spanish.‖ The data shows that the girl had a

functional command of Spanish, so clearly his assertion that his sister cannot understand

Spanish is unfounded. The boy‘s perception of his sister‘s language abilities will be an

important factor in interpreting the data.

Once a year, the mother takes her children to Mexico to visit her family. She

reported that the children speak only Spanish with her family because the family only

speaks Spanish. They last visited Mexico in 2009 for three weeks for a family wedding.

The father sometimes joins them, but not every year. The mother stated that after they

come back from a visit with her family, the children speak much better Spanish.

Data Collection Procedures

The videotaping session was conducted at the children‘s elementary school The

boy was also supposed to have tutoring the day of the session, so it was more convenient

for the girl and the mother to stay at school while he was being tutored. The school

setting did not seem affect their language production and alternation patterns, although

taping them at home would of course have been a more realistic and natural setting.

Taping took place in the special education room because it was a small, quiet location.

The researcher brought snacks for the children and asked several questions about the

bilingual situation before beginning taping. Board games and bilingual books were

provided as activities for the three to choose from. The taping lasted for twenty-six

minutes until the SD card in the camcorder was full. By that point the girl especially was


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getting tired, so extending the session further would not have likely yielded any richer

data. The researcher and the special education teacher stayed in the room, but did not

interact with the participants.

Data Analysis

Eleven minutes of the twenty-six minutes were transcribed with the assistance of

a university student who is a native Spanish speaker, making for a corpus of 191

utterances. During those eleven minutes, the participants were playing a game called

Candy Land where the players draw color cards and move ahead on the board either one

or two spaces as specified by the card drawn.

Both a quantitative and qualitative analysis will be used to provide a fuller picture

of the data. Quantitative analysis was conducted on the number of utterances each

participant produced in Spanish, English, and mixed Spanish-English spoken to the two

interlocutors in turn and as a general statement directed at both interlocutors. Utterances

considered not applicable were either unintelligible, noise words (such as oh, ooh, and

eh), and no and OK. No is a negation particle in both Spanish and English and OK is used

so prevalently in American slang that it is probably not a codeswitch. Qualitative analysis

using Auer‘s sequential analysis framework will be used in the following section on

findings to show how and why the children codeswitched in specific situations.

Tables 1, 2, and 3 display a breakdown of the mother‘s, boy‘s and girl‘s

utterances, respectively. Percentages were calculated horizontally across the table by

dividing the number of utterances in each language by the total number of utterances

spoken to each interlocutor, and also the total utterances in each language by the total

number of utterances spoken to all interlocutors. Then percentages were calculated

vertically down the table for the total utterances spoken to each interlocutor divided by

the total number of utterances.

One caveat about the data is that the number of utterances addressed to both

speakers or meant as a general statement was affected by discussion of the game. The

mother would announce in Spanish, for the most part, the number(s) and color she had

drawn, while both the boy and girl announced the results of their pick in English. The

children most likely chose English for this function because they associated colors and

numbers with a school activity. Bilinguals‘ language choice may change with the topic of

conversation (Baker, 2000, p. 34).

Table 1. Mother

Spanish English Mixed Total utterances

by interlocutor

To boy 12 (75%) 4 (25%) 0 (0%) 16 (27%)

To girl 18 (60%) 9 (30%) 3 (10%) 30 (51%)

To both/general

statement 11 (85%) 1 (7.5%) 1 (7.5%) 13 (22%)

Total utterances

by language 41 (69%) 14 (24%) 4 (7%) 59 (100%)

N/A (Not Applicable) = 13 utterances (18%) of 72 total utterances

The mother addressed the girl about half of the time, the boy roughly a quarter of

the time, and made general statements another quarter of the time. The amount of time

spent addressing the girl is due to the mother having to guide the girl in playing the game.

She spoke mostly Spanish to both the boy and the girl with only a few mixed utterances

thrown in. An argument may be made that Spanish is her ‗unmarked‘ (Myers-Scotton,

1993) or ‗preferred‘ (Auer, 2001) language with her children.


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Table 2. Boy


by interlocutor

To mother 7 (58%) 5 (42%) 0 (0%) 12 (22%)

To girl 5 (19%) 20 (77%) 1 (4%) 26 (46%)

To both/general

statement

0 (0%) 18 (100%) 0 (0%) 18 (32%)

Total utterances

by language

12 (21%) 43 (77%) 1 (2%) 56 (100%)


The boy addressed the girl almost half of the time, the mother a fifth of the time,

and made general statements a third of the time. The boy similarly addressed the girl

more for the same reason as the mother – he was guiding her in playing the game

(although in the sequential analysis it will become clear that he was acting out his

perceptions of power over her). The boy spoke English for three-quarters of his

utterances, although he used more Spanish than English in addressing his mother. English

is his unmarked or preferred language in triadic conversations with his mother and sister.

It would be interesting to record a dyadic conversation with his mother to determine if the

incidence of his Spanish speaking would increase. Several studies have shown that

children will use their parent‘s language choice (Nicoladis & Genessee, 1996).

Unfortunately, that must be left for another study.

Table 3. Girl


by interlocutor

To mother 5 (36%) 8 (57%) 1 (7%) 14 (36%)

To boy 1 (13%) 7 (87%) 0 (0%) 8 (20%)

To both/general

statement

2 (12%) 15 (88%) 0 (0%) 17 (44%)

Total utterances

by language

8 (20%) 30 (77%) 1 (3%) 39 (100%)


The girl‘s utterances consisted of about half general statements, most of which

were in English, although she did make two statements in Spanish, one of which was

aimed at breaking up an argument between her brother and mother. Her other utterances

consisted of a third directed to her mother and a fifth to her brother. She spoke English

three-quarters of the time, although she used more Spanish with her mother than with her

brother. However, she still addressed her mother mainly in English. English is her

unmarked or preferred language in triadic conversations with her mother and brother.

Again, it would be interesting to study a dyadic conversation between the mother and the

girl to see if the girl speaks more Spanish when she is alone with her mother.

The data shows very few mixed utterances. Most of the codeswitching is

language alternation between the speakers, or intersentential codeswitching.

Codeswitching among the mother, boy, and girl can be described in terms of Gafaranga &

Torras‘s (2002) concept of ―language alternation as the medium‖ of communication. In

other words, mixing English and Spanish in the same conversation is the norm, and

unremarkable, for them.

The following section will use sequential analysis to describe specifically how

Spanish and English were used by the boy and girl for interactive purposes.


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FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The two main frameworks used to interpret the codeswitching occurring in the

conversation are Auer‘s (2001) participant- and discourse-related codeswitching and

Cromdal and Aronsson‘s (2000) work on Goffman‘s idea of participation frameworks and

production formats in shifts of footing. Myers-Scotton and Bolonyai‘s (2001) Rational

Choice model is also relevant to the finding. As a brief recap, Auer defines participant-

related discourse is oriented to participants‘ assessment of the speaker‘s competence in,

and preference for, one language or the other. Discourse-related codeswitching is oriented

to contributing to the structural organization of the conversation and establishing a

contrast in language choice between two parts of the same conversation. Cromdal &

Aronsson cited Goffman‘s definition of footing as alignments toward people, topics, and

actions in the conversation. Production formats are the speakers‘ involvement in the

conversation and the role they take while participation frameworks concern whether the

recipient is addressed or not and is a ratified or non-ratified participant. Myers-Scotton

and Bolonyai‘s Rational Choice model states that speakers make linguistic choices as

individuals, based on perceived rights and obligations and taking into account their own

subjective motivations and their objective opportunities.

Participant-related codeswitching

The boy‘s predominant use of English with his sister can be analyzed as

participant-related codeswitching. Consider lines 12-16.

Mother: OK, y agarras una de estas yo creo.

OK, and you take one of these, I think.

Boy: Yeah. Should I go first?

Mother: OK.

(15) Boy: Wait, I think [girl‘s name] should grab one.

Girl: Yeah, I‘m first. Umm … two orange.

The mother is talking in Spanish about how to play the game. The boy agrees

with what the mother has said, but then asks his question about who should go first in

English, most likely because most of his play with his peer group in school is probably

conducted in English. But, after the mother agrees, the boy changes his mind and says in

English that his sister should go first. The utterance is not addressed to his sister,

however, but is made as a general statement about his sister. By using English to discuss

his sister, the boy establishes his footing with his sister. In other words, he is acting out

his perceived power over his sister as the older sibling, the socially constructed idea of an

older sibling being caught up in his own conceptions of his identity. In the discussion

before the taping session began, the boy proclaimed that he uses English with his sister

because ―she won‘t understand if I speak Spanish.‖ The utterance in line 15 is both a

production format, as the boy takes on the role of the author, and a participation

framework, as the boy‘s use of English here is meant assert power over his sister by not

addressing her. It does not keep the girl from chiming in that she should go first, though.

In the rest of the conversation, the boy continues to use mainly English with his sister to

assert his perceived identity as the more powerful older sibling. Indeed, he is acting out

an identity based on his perceived rights, obligations, motivations, and opportunities in

the socially constructed role of the older brother. However, in several instances of

marked, discourse-related switching to follow, he switches to Spanish, and indeed the girl

switches to Spanish as well, in order to organize the conversation and display shifts in

footing.


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Discourse-related codeswitching

Considering the boy just tried to establish his power over his sister by discussing

her in English in line 15, why then in line 21 does he address her in Spanish?

Boy: [to sister] Hasta aqui.

Right here.

The girl is looking at the board, trying to figure out where to place her game

piece. The boy points and tells her in Spanish that she is there. He is still trying to assert

his power over her by showing her where she needs to place her game piece, but he uses

Spanish because it is a conversational aside to his sister while his mother is reading the

game instructions.

Consider another instance of production format from lines 104-106 where the boy

speaks Spanish to his sister and produces his only intrasentential codeswitch of the

conversation.

Boy: Uy, como ganas!

Ugh, you‟re winning!

(105) Girl: One yellow.

Boy: You‘re not going to read a libro.

You‟re not going to read a book.

The girl has just drawn a card and the boy does not like what he sees. He makes a

disgusted noise and remarks to his sister in Spanish that she is winning, but does not

expect a reply. The girl announces that she has drawn one yellow and proceeds to make

her move. The boy then says in a singsong voice that she is not going to read a ―libro‖

(Spanish for book). The boy is making a conversational aside because he clearly is not

asking for or expecting a response. He is not attempting to assert power over his sister

here, and indeed realizes that his sister has more power in the situation with his statement

in Spanish that she is winning. He is also using language as a playful, rhetorical device

when he says in a singsong voice that she is not going to read a ―libro.‖ The boy most

likely used the word ―libro‖ because his mother had used the word earlier.

Other codeswitches in the conversation can be analyzed in terms of participation

framework, some of them also containing a production format element. The following

three extracts are all disputes, and in all three cases, the speaker interjects to either

escalate or deescalate the conflict, echoing Cromdal‘s (2004) study that bilingual

Swedish-English children use codeswitching as a strategy to manage disputes. In

addition, during disputes the children are acting out their own perceived rights and

obligations.

In lines 48-60, the mother accuses the boy of cheating in Spanish when he picks

up the stack of cards, claiming in English the cards are not shuffled.

Boy: Purple. Wait a minute. These aren‘t shuffled.

Mother: No, no, no, no, no. [Boy‘s name], no seas tramposo, eh?

No, no, no, no, no. [Boy‟s name], don‟t be a cheater, eh?

(50) Boy: No las veo.

I‟m not looking at them.

Mother: OK. Castigo para [boy‘s name]. Castigo para [boy‘s name].

OK. Punishment for [boy‟s name]. Punishment for [boy‟s name].

Boy: No.

Mother: Si. Porque estas haciendo trampa. Castigo para Jackie.

Yes. Because you‟re cheating. Punishment for [boy‟s name].

Boy: Yo no estoy viendo!

I‟m not looking!


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(55) Mother: XXX

Girl: Yeah, you can‘t play.

Mother: Dos rojos.

Two red.

Girl: Yeah. No puedes jugar.

Yeah. You can‟t play.

Boy: Si, puedo jugar.

Yes, I can play.

(60) Mother: Uno, y dos rojos. Puedes jugar, pero no hagas trampas. Va, mija!

One, and two red. You can play, but no cheating. Go, sweetie.

The boy denies cheating in Spanish, but the mother persists, saying in Spanish he

should be punished. The boy again claims in Spanish that he is not looking at the cards.

The mother says something unintelligible. At this point, the girl interjects and agrees with

the mother and says to the boy in English that he can‘t play. She does not receive a

response, and the mother goes on to take her turn. The girl then repeats in Spanish that the

boy cannot play and the boy responds in Spanish that he can play. Finally, the mother

ends the dispute by allowing the boy to play as long as he does not cheat and telling the

girl to take her turn. The girl first interjected an English codeswitch in the conversation to

simultaneously relay what her mother said (a production format) and use her proclaimed

affiliation with her mother to assert her will and opinion against her brother, casting him

as the non-ratified participant (and asserting her own rights and obligations) in the

decision over whether or not he is still allowed to play. When she does not receive a

response, she repeats her proclamation in Spanish to gain attention. Sufficiently

provoked, the boy responds to her in Spanish to include his mother in the conversation

(another instance of participation framework), and indeed the mother does respond and

end the argument.

Then in lines 77-80, a smaller argument breaks out on the topic of looking at the

cards, but this time the boy accuses the girl of looking.

Mother: Ay, wait!

Boy: Pero, sacamos este porque le [sic] vio.

But, I took this one out because you saw it.

Girl: No!

(80) Mother: XXX. Tu turno, mama. Tu turno.

XXX. Your turn, honey. Your turn.

The mother accidently picks up two cards, so she puts one back on top of the pile.

The boy then says in Spanish that he took that card out because the girl saw it, but he is

facing his mother when he says it. The girl denies that she saw the card. The mother

settles the dispute by telling the girl to take her turn. Here, the boy‘s use of Spanish

functions to include his mother in the conversation and thus give his sister less room to

argue with his action, casting her as the non-ratified participant.

Another argument between the mother and the boy breaks out concerning the

boy‘s cheating in lines 83-93.

Boy: [to mother] Why do you always get two?

Mother: You know why?

(85) Boy: Why?

Mother: Papito, que si hace trampa.

Honey, you cheat.

Boy: Yo no hice trampa.

I didn‟t cheat.

Mother: No, pero que si haces trampa no…


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No, but you did cheat, didn‟t you…

Girl: Hey dame, no importa.

Hey give me one. It‟s not important.

(90) Mother: Y, y, y eso le da, le da, le da mala suerte.

And, and, and this gives you, gives you, gives you bad luck.

Boy: Hasta antes.

That was before.

Girl: Go now?

Boy: Y no es trampa.

And it‟s not cheating.

The boy asks his mother in English why she always gets a card with two colors

and the mother responds in Spanish that it is because he cheats, implying that getting a

card with only one color is his punishment. The boy again denies cheating in Spanish and

the mother insists in Spanish that he did. At this point, the girl interjects in Spanish in an

annoyed tone and says to stop arguing because it is not important. However, the mother

and boy continue arguing in Spanish until the girl takes her turn and the other two turn

their attention to her move.

The boy starts out in English as a playful device, but the conversation continues

in Spanish. The girl interjects in Spanish to show her annoyance with the discussion when

quantitative analysis showed that she used English to make most general statements.

Rather than set up a contrast by using English, she instead chooses to use Spanish in

addressing a general comment to both in order to show that she is serious. By using the

language the mother and the boy are currently speaking in, her interjection carries more

weight. The girl addresses both, but in asserting her own will (and rights and obligations),

she casts them as non-ratified participants in her desire to have the argument ended.

However, the mother and the boy do not respond to her and continue arguing for a few

more utterances.

A final, long dispute breaks out when the girl receives a character card and must

move back on the board in lines 138-191. The boy and girl start off arguing in English

and accusing the other of cheating. The boy is again trying to assert his power as the older

sibling by addressing the girl in English, so the conversation starts out in a participant-

related framework. However, the conversation quickly shifts into a discourse- oriented

framework to organized talk about the girl‘s turn. She draws a character card that means

she has to move back on the board. She strongly says in English that she is not going to

move. The boy tells her in English that she has to and then tries to pick up her game piece

and move it for her. The girl protests and snatches her piece away. The mother tells the

girl in Spanish that she has to and the boy quickly codeswitches into Spanish and says she

has to in order to effect a shift in footing to align himself with his mother and not include

his sister. The mother says sympathetically in English that it is too bad in effort to align

her emotions with her daughter. The girl then pleads with both the boy and the mother,

but the boy insists in English that she move her game piece back or she will not be

allowed to play. The girl asserts in English that she can play. Then the boy shifts his

footing when addressing his mom in Spanish and asking if she is going to allow the girl to

break the rules. A shift in footing is undertaken by recasting himself as less argumentative

by using Spanish so that his mother becomes more amenable to his request. The mother

agrees with him and tells the girl in Spanish that she must follow the rules. The boy again

repeats in English for effect that if the girl does not move her piece she cannot play and

then points to the space and tells her she has to move there when she picks up her game

piece. The girl subsequently yells emotionally in English in a staccato fashion that she

does not want to move and punctuates her utterance by slamming her game piece against

the board in rhythm with the staccato words. The girl probably chose English because it

was the language she was best able to express her frustration in while simultaneously

positioning her brother as her main adversary. After the girl‘s outburst, the mother tries


Page | 12

to placate her in Spanish by saying she should try to catch up. The boy codeswitches into

Spanish and tells the girl that he moved her game piece. He accomplishes a shift in

footing by recasting himself as less adversarial by speaking Spanish in his attempt to

calm his sister down. The remainder of the conversation is mostly in English, initiated by

the mother affecting a playful attitude about the character card she drew.

CONCLUSION

This study examined the codeswitching occurring in a triadic conversation

between a mother, a boy, and a girl. Most of the codeswitching was intersentential with

very few intrasentential codeswitches. In this case, it is appropriate to speak of their use

of Spanish and English in the same conversation as ―language alternation as the medium‖

of communication (Gafaranga & Torras, 2002), rather than look how they chose between

two different grammatical systems (Gumperz, 1982). All three participants had clear,

marked preferences for one language or the other as the quantitative analysis revealed

(Myers-Scotton, 1993), but all three employed both languages for strategic, interactive

purposes. Using both languages in conversation among the three of them is not an

unusual phenomenon, and therefore, language alternation itself is their code (Gumperz &

Cook-Gumperz, 2005). However, instances when they deviated from their preferred

language were important in analyzing their motivations for codeswitching.

In carrying out the qualitative analysis on specific instances of codeswitching, a

hybrid framework was used in order to provide a more nuanced analysis because no one

framework can fully encompass the whole picture. Myers-Scotton‘s (1993) Markedness

Model was important in determining instances when codeswitching signaled a shift in the

conversation. Auer‘s (2001) sequential analysis framework was used to examine the

codeswitching situations in detail because his framework allows clear relationships to be

drawn among the specific interactions in the conversations. Frameworks used to discuss

the types of codeswitching occurring were Auer‘s (2001) participant- and discourse-

related framework and Cromdal and Aronsson‘s (2000) work on Goffman‘s notion of

shifts of footing in production formats and participation frameworks.

Using Auer‘s (2001) and Cromdal and Aronsson‘s (2000) frameworks, several

types of codeswitching emerged, but the common theme in this triadic conversation

emerged as power relationships playing out between the siblings. Myers-Scotton and

Bolonyai‘s (2001) Rational Choice model was useful here in further explaining how the

siblings acted out power relationships and engaged in disputes based on their perceived

social identities and the entailed rights, obligations, and motivations. The boy‘s telling

comment about how he speaks English with his sister because she won‘t understand if he

speaks Spanish to her sets up the site for many significant codeswitches in the

conversation. The boy is rehearsing his perceived identity as the older sibling, and indeed

Rontu (2007) found that sibling relations had a significant impact on codeswitching in a

triadic conversation with siblings and their mother, although codeswitching in that study

was mostly a competition for the mother‘s attention. Other studies have similarly shown

that negotiations over identity significantly influence codeswitching, as children,

adolescents, and adults use their bilingualism as one of their resources in forming,

negotiating, and acting out their identity (Esdahl, 2003; Gumperz, 1982; Kyratzis, Tang,

& Koymen, 2009).

However, in several instances the boy contradicts his claim that he speaks

English with his sister, and in two instances the girl also addresses the boy in Spanish. In

some cases, they are engaging in conversational asides not relevant to the main

discussion, so the boy has no need to try to display his power as the older, more

knowledgeable sibling over his sister. In other cases, the boy and girl codeswitch into

Spanish to shift their footing in order to align themselves with their mother so that she

will support their point of view over the other sibling‘s, thus effectively blocking the

other sibling from the discussion. Children use codeswitching for many different


Page | 13

interactive purposes as studies show (Chanseawrassamee & Shin, 2009; Cromdal, 2004;

Esdahl, 2003; Kyratzis, Yang, & Koymen, 2009; Rontu, 2007; Shin & Milroy, 2000).

All of the studies taken together show that bilingual children use codeswitching

as an additional interactive resource in multi-faceted and polyvalent communicative

situations. They are not simply mixing two languages because they cannot differentiate

the systems. Children can differentiate the systems (Nicoladis & Genesee, 1996), so their

use of codeswitching signals employment of two languages for strategic purposes.

Codeswitching functions as a tool for children to organize communication (especially in

play), imply elaborate meanings, and accomplish conversational goals. The ability to

codeswitch for effect provides children with an additional, interactive strategy in

communication unavailable to monolingual children.


Page | 14

REFERENCES

Auer, P. (2001). Code-switching: Discourse models. In R. Mesthrie & R. E. Asher

(Eds.), Concise encyclopedia of sociolinguistics (pp. 443-446). Amsterdam; New

York: Elsevier.

Baker, C. (2000). The care and education of young bilinguals: An introduction for

professionals. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Bauer, E. B., Hall, J. K., & Kruth, K. (2002). The pragmatic role of codeswitching in play

contexts. International Journal of Bilingualism, 6(1) 53-74.

Chanseawrassamee, S. & Shin, S. J. (2009). Participant- and discourse-related code-

switching by Thai-English bilingual adolescents. Multilingua, 28, 45-78.

Cromdal, J. (2004). Building bilingual oppositions: Code-switching in children‘s

disputes. Language in Society, 33(1), 33-58.

Cromdal, J. & Aronsson, K. (2000). Footing in bilingual play. Journal of Sociolinguistics,

4(3), 435-457.

Esdahl, T. (2003). Language choice as a power resource in bilingual adolescents‘

conversations in the Danish Folkeskole. Journal of Multilingual and

Multicultural Development, 24(1&2), 76-88.

Gafaranga, J. (2000). Medium repair vs. other-language repair: Telling the medium of a

bilingual conversation. International Journal of Bilingualism, 4(3), 327-350.

Gafaranga, J. & Torras, M. C. (2002). Interactional otherness: Towards a redefinition of

codeswitching. International Journal of Bilingualism, 6(1), 1-22.

Gumperz, J. J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gumperz, J. J. & Cook-Gumperz, J. (2005). Making space for communicative bilingual

practice. Intercultural Pragmatics, 2(1), 1-23.

Kyratzis, A., Tang, Y., & Koymen, S. B. (2009). Codes, code-switching, and context:

Style and footing in peer group bilingual play. Multilingual, 28, 265-290.

Li Wei. (2004). ―How can you tell?‖ Towards a common sense explanation of

conversational code-switching. Journal of Pragmatics, 37, 375-389.

Myers-Scotton, C. (1993). Common and uncommon ground: Social and structural factors

in codeswitching. Language and Society, 22(4), 475-503.

Myers-Scotton, C. & Bolonyai, A. (2001). Calculating speakers: Codeswitching in a

rational choice model. Language in Society, 30(1), 1-28.

Nicoladis, E. & Genesee, F. (1996). A longitudinal study of pragmatic differentiation in

young bilingual children. Language Learning, 46(3), 4439-464.

Pavlenko, A. (2004). ‗Stop doing that, ia komu skazala!‘: Language choice and emotions

in parent-child communication. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural

Development, 25(2&3), 179-203.

Rontu, H. (2007). Codeswitching in triadic conversational situations in early

bilingualism. International Journal of Bilingualism, 11(4), 337-358.

Shin, S. J. & Milroy, L. (2000). Conversational codeswitching among Korean-English

bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingualism, 4(3), 351-383.


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TRANSLATING LIVES: TRANSLATOR AND INTERPRETER PROFESSION

IN THE 21ST

CENTURY

Laurentia Sumarni, S.Pd., M.Trans. St.

[email protected]

Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta

Abstract

As the world is getting more globalized and unified, the regard of cultures is increasingly

bigger. Translation which used to be regarded only as a linguistic endeavor began to take

its cultural turn.The 21st century, with all its challenges and opportunities, have become

an unchartered territory for translators with the advance of information and technology.

The challenges faced by translators in the era of multimedia and internet are the new

modes of translation and interpreting. The challenges also serve as opportunities as the

internet and technology have proven helpful in assisting translators do their jobs.

Technology, the trademark of the 21st century, is translators‘ biggest allies. Therefore,

they must not be afraid of being replaced by machine as what happened with manual

labors during the Industrial Revolution. Instead, technology is used to optimize and aid

the human translators to do their best. However, in order to survive in this Internet era,

translators must possess some qualifications to be professional. They must also improve

themselves both in research and in professionalism. Thus, they will be competitive and

indispensable. Translation is no longer merely translating texts, because the translator is

translating lives.

Keywords: cultural turn, cross-cultural communication, computer-assisted translation

tools, translator‟s qualifications

INTRODUCTION

As the world becomes more globalized and unified, there is a strong need for

diverse cultures all over the world to cooperate with each other. Language barriers are

bridged by translators and interpreters whose roles as cross-cultural mediators have

gained importance. In all cross-cultural events and gatherings, translators and interpreters

play their role in bridging the communication. In addition, translation has facilitated the

dissemination of information, science, knowledge, and art in order to gain wider

international audience. Despite their invisibility, the roles of translators and interpreters in

the success of global encounter between cultures and the dissemination of science and

knowledge are simply hard to ignore.

The advent of technology has brought impetus to the new development in

translation and interpreting. Communication as the basis for translation was made easy

with the development of machine translation and computer-assisted translation tools.

These tools include electronic dictionaries, termbanks, terminology management systems,

term-extraction tools, corpora, corpus-processing tools, and translation memory tools to

conduct their daily business (Kenny, 2011:455-456) as quoted in Malmkjaer and Windle

(2011). Translators also make use of social networking sites, such as Proz.com and

TranslatorsCafe.com. These software and sites are helpful for translators to advertize

themselves and to seek supports from each other.

In addition to global world and the advance of technology as the current contexts,

the year 2015 marks the beginning of the ASEAN Economic Community where the

transfers of skilled labors, including translators and interpreters, will take place in

ASEAN countries. Gradually, every sector of life in Indonesia will be accessible for

skilled labors or experts from other ASEAN countries. Similarly, experts from other

ASEAN countries will access the Indonesian labor force. With its approximately 300


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million population, Indonesia has become a lucrative market. By then, skilled labors

compete not only with other skilled labors from Indonesia, but also those from other

ASEAN countries. This poses both opportunities and challenges to translators and

interpreters. These opportunities and challenges will be discussed in this short paper.

CULTURAL TURN IN TRANSLATION

Translation as a profession and discipline has been taken for granted for a long

time. It was always considered as a part of language teaching and learning. While the

practice of translation has been established for centuries, the development of the field into

an academic discipline only took place towards the end of the twentieth century. Before

that, translation had often been relegated to an element of language learning (Munday,

2008). In the late eighteenth century to the 1960s and beyond, language learning in

secondary schools in many countries had come to be dominated by what was known as

grammar-translation method (Cook 2010: 9-15) as cited in Munday (2008). Translation

was regarded as secondary to language learning and teaching. Translation method was

used to teach reading in a second or foreign language classes and would soon abandoned

as soon as the learners could read the original texts. With the rise of direct method and

communicative approach, the grammar-translation method lost its influence and the use

of mother tongue was discouraged. From then on, translation was abandoned from

language learning and it was restricted only to higher level and university language

courses and professional translator training (Munday, 2008).

The emerging of a new area of translation research called contrastive analysis,

which studied two languages in contrast in an attempt to identify general and specific

differences between them brought translation in a new spotlight. Some theoriests put

forward their ideas to assist translation research despite their ignorance for the

sociocultural and pragmatic factors and the important role of translation as a

communicative act. The more systematic, and mostly linguistic-oriented, approach to the

study of translation began to emerge in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Jean-Paul Vinay and

Jean Darbelnet with their stylistic comparison between English and French; Alfred

Malblanc with his comparison between English and German; George Mounin‘s

examination of linguistic issues of translation; and Eugene Nida‘s use of elements of

Chomsky‘s generative grammar as a theoretical basis for his books serving as the

manuals for Bible translators (Munday, 2008: 8-9). Still, translation was still regarded

inasmuch as a linguistic phenomenon.

However, translation is more than a linguistic study. The later development after

the 1970s showed that ―the linguistic-oriented science of translation and the concept of

equivalence associated with it was questioned and reconceived‖ (Munday, 2008: 13).

Translation theories emerged in Europe, Australia, and the United States of America,

such as Katherina Reiss‘ text types and text purpose (Reiss and Hans Vermeer), Michael

HaIIiday‘s influence of discourse analysis and systematic functional grammar, which

views language as a communicative act in a sociocutural context, and Itamar Even-

Zohar‘s and Gideon Toury‘s idea of literary polysystem in which different Iiteratures and

genres, including translated and non-translated works compete for dominance. Bassnett

and Lefevere (1990: 4) as cited in Munday (2008) go beyond language and focus on the

interaction between translation and culture, on the way in which culture impacts and

constrains translation and on ―the larger context, history and convention‘ (p.11). The

move from translation as text to translation as culture and politics is what Snell-Hornby

(1990) terms ―the cultural turn‘. Translation operates beyond linguistics, as Pym (2003)

argues that ―translation is thus operating not just on words, but on the ways cultures

perceive their relations.‖

At the end of 1980s, the massive global changes in the political, social and

economic systems caused people to move between countries for various reasons, such as

seeking refuge from persecution in one‘s own country or seeking a better life in the new


Page | 17

country. This was the time when the term ―cultural interpreter‖ emerged. This is the term

that highlights the importance of a translation process that involves more than spoken or

written language, and encompasses a recognition of cultural difference (Bassnett,

2011:101). Thus, translators and interpreters no longer merely play roles as language

experts, but also as cultural mediator. The expectation increases from producing

equivalent rendition of the original text to the promoter of world peace and cross-cultural

understanding. Translation has got out of its linguistic shell and embraced the expanding

role of cultural mediation.

Perhaps the concept of ―dynamic equivalence‖ proposed by Nida may best fit the

role of culture in translation. Instead of merely replacing the string of words in source text

with another string of words in target text, ―dynamic equivalence‖ seeks to accommodate

cultural adaptation. Dynamic, or functional, equivalence is based on what Nida calls ―the

principle of equivalent effect‖, where ―the relationship between receptor and message

should be substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and

the message‘ (Nida 1964a: 159) as cited in Munday (2008: 42). Thus, the message should

be tailored to the receptor‘s linguistic needs and cultural expectation and aims at complete

naturalness of expression. The text is adapted to the culture of the target text. In his Bible

Translation projects, some words are adapted to the target culture. The famous example is

the translation of The Lamb of God into the Seal of God in Eskimo language.

In a nutshell, translation process involves not only finding the equivalents of the

words in the source text, but also to consider the cultural influence and cultural contexts

that underlie the source texts and how they will be transferred in terms of the culture of

the target text. This dynamic, culturally oriented approach gained influence for decades.

Translation research continued to evolve in a rapid pace and involved more disciplines.

Even, a notable characteristic has been the interdisciplinarity of recent research in

translation, involving various disciplines such as linguistics, comparative literature,

cultural studies, philosophy, sociology and history.

THE ROLE OF “IT” AND “CAT” IN CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Technology has brought a tremendous impact on translation profession. Not only

have the modes expanded, but the resources have also been enriched. The development of

media also changes the way traditional translation operates. Multi media and information

technology has evolved and the translation modes evolve with it. Translation is no longer

limited to written mode. Interpreting, or oral translation, is widely known and practiced

alongside with written translation. The increasingly global distribution of audiovisual

products led to the need for dubbing, subtitling, and voice-over. Despite their technical

issues, translation of dubbing, subtitles and voice-over remain the enduring methods of

translation. All over the world, translators are involved in spreading information, news,

films, documentaries, etc through various media.

Information technology and Internet have widened the scope and modes of cross-

cultural communication. Manufacturers of products market their products worldwide and

they want to make sure that their products can be accepted across cultures. Anthony Pym

states that ―cross-cultural communication via websites, and of the elements that constitute

the individual screen for each site, is one of the fastest growing areas opened up by the

era of electronic communications (in Malmkjaer and Windle, 2011: 210). The translation

and localization of websites has thus become a lucrative, dynamic, and inter-professional

field, often invoIving marketing, design, software engineering, as well as linguistic

processes (Pym, 2009: 410). Although it invoIves a compIex process, website localization

is quite inevitabIe in this Internet era.

To conduct their daiIy business, transIators are assisted by various tooIs and

softwares. Machine transIation, which was deveIoped after the Second WorId War during

which the earIiest computers had been used for code-breaking (Somers, 2011: 428).

TransIation is actuaIIy hard for computers due to lexicaI ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity,


Page | 18

and subtleties of transIation. Machine transIation works based on two main approaches:

ruIe-based and statistics-based. Rule-based MT programs work on a sentence-by-sentence

basis, while statistics-based MT programs depend on massive amounts of data in the form

of ‗aligned‘ parallel text, usually referred to as ‗bilingual corpora‘ or ‗bitexts‘ (Harris

1988); alignment is mainly sentence-by-sentence, though word and phrase alignments are

also extracted semi-automatically (in Malmkjaer and Windle, 2011: 434). Some examples

of machine translation are Alta Vista‘s Babelfish, FreeTranslation, Gist-in-Time, ProMT,

PARS, and many others. The development of technology keeps improving every day.

In addition, electronic dictionaries, termbanks, terminology management systems,

term-extraction tools, corpora, corpus-processing tools, and translation memory tools are

translator‘s best helpers to conduct their daily business which mostly operate off-line,

Internet has made translators‘ job easier as it works online. Machine translation and

online search engines have improved in such unimaginable way that they provide quick

and easy assistance to translators. There are also various translation tools that translators

use as resources. Kenny (2011: 456) argues that since most of the time translators work

with written text, the electronic form of texts may come in some proprietary format (e.g.

Microsoft Word, FrameMaker) and may be created using a standardized mark-up

language (e.g. HTML or XML). Further, she explains that the normal mode of input of a

translation is through keyboarding. In addition, translators can also use dictation device or

voice recognition software to create more or less polished drafts of their translations.

The common lexical resources that provide supports for translators are electronic

dictionaries which are available as hand-held portable devices, on CD-ROM, or as on-line

dictionaries, accessibe via the Internet. The other lexical resources are termbanks which

provide data either over the Internet or, less frequenty, on CD-ROM. They differ from

electronic dictionaries in that they focus almost exclusively on the vocabulary of

specialized areas (e.g. science, technology, law, etc) and they are usually created by

national and international (non-commercial) bodies, often in response to their own

documentation and/or translation needs. Some examples mentioned by Kenny (2011:458)

as stated in Malmkjaer and Windle (2011) are IATE (Interactive Terminology for

Europe), the multilingual termbanks of the European Union; Termium, the trilingual

termbank of the Canadian Federal Government; and the International Electrotechnical

Vocabulary (IEV), maintained by the International Electrotechnical Commission.

Termium may be accessible through www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca and the International

Electrotechnical Vocabulary is accessible through dom2.iec.ch/iev.

In addition to software and translation tools, the social networking sites are also

helpful in assisting translators doing their work. Websites such as googletranslate, Project

Lingua, ProZ.com, Pootle, TranslatorCafe.com, etc help translators in doing their tasks,

communicate and share ideas with other translators across the globe.

TRANSLATOR QUALIFICATIONS

With the contexts already outlined above, what are the roles of translators in this

global world? Does the world still need human translators? What qualifications do they

require from the 21st century translators? As discussed earlier that translation has taken its

cultural turn, translators must not only bilingual, but also bicultural (Katan, 2006: 71).

Their roles are more as cultural mediators in addition to being language consultants /

experts. As far as face-to-face communication still prevails in this world, human

translators will always be needed. Translators must always keep abreast with the latest

development and technology to survive the 21st century.

Here are some of the requirements to be translators (summarized from various

sources).

1. Native fluency in a target language and a source language

2. Professional experience in their field of expertise

http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/


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3. First-hand experience with the same culture as the target audience

4. A higher education degree

5. Native fluency in the target language

6. Fluency in both verbal and written English

7. Excellent computer skills

8. High level of communication and interpersonal skills (especially for

interpreters)

9. Understanding of cross-cultural communications

10. And many other specific requirements.

With the implementation of ASEAN Economic Community, the competition is

getting tighter. Indonesian translators must work hard and always improve their quality,

because these challenges that translators face may at the same time serve as opportunities.

It depends on the translators how to prepare for it.

RESEARCH AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN TRANSLATION

Research and professional development in translation are based on Holmes‘ map

of translation studies (Figures 1 and 2). Translation studies have two branches, pure and

applied. The pure branch consists of theoretical and descriptive. The descriptive branch

has three possible foci: examination of (1) the product, (2) the function, and (3) the

process (Munday, 2008:10-11). The applied branch of Holmes‘ framework concerns:

a. Translator‘s training, which incudes teaching methods, testing

techniques, curriculum design;

b. Translator‘s aids: dictionaries, grammars and information technology;

c. Translator‘s criticism: the evaluations of translations, the revision and

reviews.

Figure 1: Holmes‘ map (based on Holmes 1988)


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Figure 2. The applied branch of translation studies

There are still plenty of rooms for improvement in terms of research and

professional development. Students can conduct research in translation by following the

map. The map can be employed as the point of departure which students and translators

can begin their research and professional journeys.

CONCLUSION

As the world is getting more globalized and unified, the regard of cultures is

increasingly bigger. Translation which used to be regarded only as a linguistic endeavor

began to take its cultural turn.The 21st century, with all its challenges and opportunities,

have become an unchartered territory for translators with the advance of information and

technology. The challenges faced by translators in the era of multimedia and internet are

the new modes of translation and interpreting. The challenges also serve as opportunities

as the internet and technology have proven helpful in assisting translators do their jobs.

Technology, the trademark of the 21st century, is translators‘ biggest allies. Therefore,

they must not be afraid of being replaced by machine as what happened with manual

labors during the Industrial Revolution. Instead, technology is used to optimize and aid

the human translators to do their best. However, in order to survive in this Internet era,

translators must possess some qualifications to be professional. They must also improve

themselves both in research and in professionalism. Thus, they will be competitive and

indispensable. Translation is no longer merely translating texts, because the translator is

translating lives.

REFERENCES

Bassnett, S. (1991). Translation studies. London: Routledge.

Katan, D. (1999). Translating cultures: An introduction for translators, interpreters and

mediators. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.

Malmkjaer, K. (2005). Linguistics and the language of translation. London: Edinburgh

University Press.

Malmkjaer, K. & Windle, K. (2011). The Oxford handbook of translation studies.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.


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Munday, J. (2008). Introducing translations studies: Theories and applications (2nd

ed.).

London: Routledge.

Nida, E. (1964 [2004]). Principles of correspondence. In Venuti (ed), pp. 153-67.

Nida, E. A. (1964). Toward a science of translating: With special reference to principles

and procedures involved in Bible translating. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Pym, A. (2003). What Localization Models can Learn from Translation Theory.

Globalization Insider, 12(2.4). Retrieved June 3, 2015 from

www.translationdirectory.com.

Suryawinata, Z. & Hariyanto, S. (2000). Translation: Bahasan teori dan penuntun praktis

menerjemahkan. Yogyakarta: Penerbit Kanisius.

Venutti, L. (2004). The translation studies reader. (2nd

ed). New York: Routledge.

http://www.babylon.com

http://www.mabercom.com

http://www.itu.int/ITU-Database/Termite/index.html

http://www.sederet.com

http://aquarius.net/

http://www.translation-services.com/

http://www.proz.com/

http://www.translation.net/

http://www.translatorguide.com/

http://translator.search-in.net/

http://www.bilingua.com

http://come.to/CAT-ex

http://www.languagepartners.com/

http://www.egroups.com/group/djoglo

[email protected]

http://www.accurapid.com/journal/

http://www.bgsu.edu/midamericanreview/

http://www.paintbrush.org/

http://www.twolines.com/

http://www.geocities.com/sghariyanto

http://www.translationdirectory.com/article449.htm

http://www.babylon.com/

http://www.mabercom.com/

http://www.itu.int/ITU-Database/Termite/index.html

http://www.sederet.com/

http://aquarius.net/

http://www.translation-services.com/

http://www.proz.com/

http://www.translation.net/

http://www.translatorguide.com/

http://translator.search-in.net/

http://www.bilingua.com/

http://come.to/CAT-ex

http://www.languagepartners.com/

http://www.egroups.com/group/djoglo

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.bgsu.edu/midamericanreview/

http://www.paintbrush.org/

http://www.twolines.com/

http://www.geocities.com/sghariyanto


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PEER INVOLVEMENT IN THESIS WRITING:

THE BENEFITS OF PEER INVOLVEMENT IN THESIS WRITING CLASS

Andreas Rahardjo Adi Baskoro

[email protected]


Abstract

Thesis writing is often found burdening by many students of the English Language

Education Study Program (ELESP) of Sanata Dharma University. This research aimed to

answer this problem by offering peer involvement as a learning strategy in thesis writing.

This study used normative-survey method and questionnaire as the instrument. Involving

twenty students of ELESP batch 2010, it is found that peer involvement is beneficial and

helpful in thesis writing. It helps ELESP students write their thesis more easily and more

effectively with its benefits: sharing responsibilities, contribution to literature review,

assistance in data analysis, more perspectives in revising the thesis, friends‘ feedback,

critical thinking, and increasing motivation in writing their thesis.

Keywords: peer involvement, constructivism, collaborative learning strategy, thesis

writing

INTRODUCTION

ELESP is one of the study programs in Sanata Dharma University. It involves its

students in a long process of study on English Education, including a lot of aspects which

are classified into three major strands: education, linguistic, and literature. Students learn

a lot of knowledge related to those three branches in order to prepare themselves as a

professional English teacher in the future. In the end of their study, they are supposed to

conduct a research on a specific strand from those three major branches and write a report

in thesis writing as an accountability of their study.

Thesis writing is often found burdening by most ELESP students. It is often seen

as the most challenging and difficult subject to learn; it takes a lot of time and tough

effort from the students, especially because of its individual responsibility. As an

accountability of their study, thesis writing becomes an individual work and

responsibility for the students which makes it obligatory for themselves. However, they

are allowed to consult their thesis writing to their thesis advisor in revising their writing.

They are also encouraged to consult it with their friends, as long as they keep their

writing genuine by not copying their friends‘ ideas. It is a matter of how they finish their

thesis writing independently as a student and in collaboration with their peers.

Researcher is a five semester student of ELESP of Sanata Dharma University. In

the long process of study experienced by the researcher so far, the researcher find a very

effective method used there by several lecturers: peer involvement. It helps students

undergo their learning process and finish their projects more effectively rather than doing

those things alone by themselves. It could be used in any subjects, gives a lot of

advantages, and solves a lot of problems found in the class since it involves students to

work in groups and give peer feedback. With a lot of advantages appear here, the

researcher find a question related to thesis writing: what if the lecturers use it as a

learning strategy in thesis writing?

This research is conducted in ELESP of Sanata Dharma University. There are two

research problems:

1. What are the benefits of peer involvement in the thesis writing class?

2. To what extent does peer involvement support students in writing their thesis?


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This section explains the underlying theories of the research. There are three parts

in this section: constructivism (including constructivism, collaborative learning,

Vygotsky‘s socio-cultural theory, and peer involvement), writing (including English

writing and thesis writing), and peer collaboration (the implementation of peer

involvement in thesis writing). Further explanations of each part are listed as follows:

1. Constructivism

Constructivism is a psychological and philosophical perspective contending that

individuals form or construct much of what they learn and understand (Bruning, Schraw,

Norby & Ronning, 2004, as cited in Schunk, 2008, p. 235). It is a learning theory which

states that a person constructs most of his knowledge by himself. Cobb and Bowers

(1999) stated that constructivist theory highlights the interaction of persons and situations

in the acquisition and refinement of skills and knowledge (as cited in Schunk, 2008, p.

237).

According to constructivism theory, knowledge is constructed by people based on

their interactions with environment or situation. Therefore, human becomes an active

learner who constructs their knowledge through the interaction between a situation and

their own being, which is very close to Vygotsky‘s socio-cultural theory of human

development, which becomes the cornerstone of constructivist movements.

1.1 Vygotsky‘s Socio-cultural Theory

Vygotsky‘s socio-cultural theory has become the cornerstone of constructivist

movements. According to Tudge and Scrimsher (2003), Vygotsky‘s theory is a

constructivist theory that emphasizes the social environment as a facilitator of

development and learning (as cited in Schunk, 2008, p. 242). It also emphasizes the

importance of socially meaningful activities which influence human consciousness in the

learning process.

As a constructivist, Vygotsky focuses his theory on human development and

learning. There are three different factors which are interacting one to each other as the

key of human development in this theory: interpersonal (social), cultural-historical, and

individual factors. Schunk (2008) explains the three factors in their relationships with

human development and learning:

Interactions with persons in the environment (e.g., apprenticeships,

collaborations) stimulate developmental processes and foster cognitive

growth... the cultural historical aspects of Vygotsky‘s theory illuminate the

point that learning and development cannot be dissociated from their

context. The way that learners interact with their world – with the persons,

objects, and institutions in it – transforms their thinking... finally, there are

the individual, or inherited factors that affect development. Vygotsky was

interested in children with mental and physical disabilities. He believed that

their inherited characteristics produced different learning trajectories than

those of children without such challenges (p. 243)

Among those factors, the most influential factor is the interpersonal. Social

environment is deeply considered in Vygotsky‘s theory; it helps learners to be critical in

their learning process. Social interactions in social environment help learners to

coordinate those three factors to build a critical learning process and achieve higher

knowledge together with their partners (Schunk, 2008). Vygotsky (1978) called it as Zone

of Proximal Development. It is defined as ―the distance between the actual developmental

level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential


Page | 24

development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in

collaboration with more capable peers‖ (p. 86) (as cited in Schunk, 2008, p. 245). This

theory has a big impact towards constructivism and stimulates a lot of findings in learning

methods and strategies. One of those findings is collaborative learning.

1.1.1 Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning is an approach to teaching and learning that requires

learners to work together to deliberate, discuss, and create meaning (Wisconsin‘s Guiding

Principles for Teaching and Learning, nd). The basis is constructivism; knowledge is

constructed, and transformed by students (Dooly, 2008). Vygotsky‘s socio-cultural

theory is the cornerstone of it, with Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) as the main

core.

Collaborative learning gives a lot of benefits in learning process. There have

been a lot of researches on collaborative learning. One of those researches is a meta-

analysis from the Cooperative Learning Centre at the University of Minnesota. The

researchers Johnson, Maruyama, Johnson, Nelson, and Skon (1981) concluded that

―having students work collaboratively has more impact on learning than having students

work alone‖; more students are motivated to learn the material, more positive about the

subject, learn more material, and have more positive attitudes when they work together

than when students compete with one another or work alone individualistically (as cited

in Wisconsin‘s Guiding Principles for Teaching and Learning, nd). The elements of

collaborative learning itself also reflect the benefits of it, as explained by Doolittle

(1995):

- Positive interdependence. The cooperative learning construct of positive

interdependence to each group member being dependent upon every other

group member in their quest for achieving individual and group goals.

- Face to face interaction. Face to face interaction, within cooperative learningi

refers to group members supporting, assisting, influencing, motivating,

trusting, and challenging other group members in an attempt to facilitate the

achievement of the group‘s goal.

- Individual accountability. Individual accountability within cooperative learning

involves holding each group member accountable for mastering the relevant

material. Within the framework of Vygostky‘s theory, individual

accountability would be reflected in each group member being responsible for

developing within their own unique zone of proximal development.

- Small group & interpersonal skills (social skills). The social skills that are

necessary for effective cooperative learning groups are directly taught in

cooperative learning environments. The acquisition of social skills in

cooperative learning is what Vygotsky refers to when he states that human use

socio-cultural signs and tools to mediate and navigate their interactions with

others.

- Group self-evaluation. Group self-evaluation in cooperative learning refers to a

group‘s efforts aimed at evaluating and monitoring their own group progress

and the processes that are or are not being effective in the pursuit of the

group‘s and the individual goals. For Vygotsky, part of instruction involves the

constant monitoring of each student‘s growth within their zone of proximal

development (Doolittle, 1995, pp. 12-18).

1.1.1.1 Peer Involvement

Peer involvement is a learning strategy in collaborative language learning. It is,

according to Gaies (1985), ―...the use of learners as models, sources of information, and

interactants for each other in such a way that learners assume roles and responsibilities

normally taken by a formally trained teacher.‖ In peer involvement, students play their

role as peer tutors to one another. They do discussions and give feedback to one another


Page | 25

in their learning process. Here, the teacher plays his role only as an instructor and a

supervisor; he gives general instructions to the students about what they have to do and

let the students engaged in their learning process by doing peer involvement, while the

teacher is supervising their learning process.

There are several patterns of peer involvement in language learning. They are

mainly classified into two different categories: same level and cross level. Same level

pattern includes intra class tutoring, where learners come from the same class; they are in

the same level of learning. Cross level pattern includes same age tutoring (with different

level of learning, e.g. native speakers and non-native speakers), inter grade tutoring (e.g.

primary grades and upper grades of elementary students), inter school tutoring (learners

come from two different schools), reciprocal (two groups with different level of

proficiency, one group with high proficiency and another with limited proficiency), and

informal tutoring (could be same level or cross level, happens informally outside the

class) (Gaies, 1985). Those patterns are applied then inside or outside the class, usually in

pair work or small group work. Learners are working in pair or in a small group, doing

some discussion or work together, having some practices together, and give feedback one

another.

2. Writing

Writing is a process of meaning making. According to Forster‘s statement (1927)

―how can I tell what I think till I see what I say?‖ (as cited in ―Internet‖, nd). Writing is a

mean of communicating ideas in visual mode of language. For a comparison, speaking

produces speech as its product of meaning making, while writing produces text (in a

narrow scope or meaning as a written text, not in a wider scope as any stretch of language

which is meaningful) as its product. ―Writing has particular affordances as a means of

representation and as a language or mode of communication‖ (―Internet‖, nd).

Writing in English is a logical process of meaning making into written text.

―English alphabet, shared with other European languages, is predicated on a linear logic

which suggests that strings of letters in particular sequences made into words, and then

strings of words in particular sequences, constitute meaning‖ (―Internet‖, nd). Writing in

English is also a process of pulling out ideas from experiences or thinking and make it

stand at an abstracted level away from perceived experience or thinking; as a written text,

the ideas from the experience or particular thinking stands away from the experience or

thinking itself. It is very beneficial for human development and communication; ―new

ideas can be imported; combinations of thought and experience can be made; new

configurations explored; and all this can be preserved for future reference‖ (―Internet‖,

nd).

2.1 Thesis Writing

According to Oxford Advanced Learner‘s Dictionary, thesis is ―a long written

essay submitted by a candidate for a higher university degree‖ (―Thesis‖). It is written

based on a personal research using scientific methodology, supported by certain

theoretical basis and particular data either quantitative, qualitative, or even both of them.

Thesis writing has been a qualification for university students to graduate from

their universities. Watson (1970) stated, ―It is widely believed that a first-class degree and

a postgraduate qualification, especially doctorate, are both required for admission into the

academic profession‖ (p. 5). It becomes an important thing in academic life, especially as

a qualification for admission into the academic profession.

There is no exact standard form of thesis writing. Campbell (1954) stated, ―There

is not at the present time absolute agreement among authorities regarding details of form

in thesis writing‖ (p. 2). Every college and university in every country has a different

standard of their own, and it creates various styles of thesis writing. However, there was

also an attempt to make a general and conventional standard of thesis writing. Hadi


Page | 26

(1984) stated his opinion about the need of general and conventional standard of thesis

writing:

Bersama-sama dengan perkembangan lembaga-lembaga perguruan

tinggi di negeri ini, berkembang pula suatu tradisi dalam bidang

penulisan ilmiah. Sejalan dengan tradisi itu, makin lama semakin

dirasakan perlunya prinsip-prinsip serta aturan-aturan umum yang dapat

mengatur „lalu-lintas‟ komunikasi ilmiah antara para ahli, para sarjana,

dan para calon sarjana yang bergerak dalam bidang yang sejenis

maupun yang berbeda-beda (p. 1).

This general and conventional standard will help students as a guideline in

writing their thesis. However, students have to pay attention for the thesis writing

guideline provided by their university and strictly follow the guideline.

3. Peer Collaboration: the implementation of peer involvement in thesis writing

Thesis writing is generally considered as ―a not simple thing to do‖. Many

students find it difficult; it takes a lot of time and effort to write a thesis, especially

because of its individual responsibility as an accountability of their study. Thus, working

together with peers would be very helpful and beneficial in writing a thesis.

Peer collaboration is the application of collaborative learning and peer

involvement in thesis writing. Peers could contribute a lot of things in the process of

writing a thesis, for example is sharing tasks and different perspective for an objective

assessment. Glatthorn and Joyner (2005) mentioned several things which can be done by

peers, they are providing editorial feedback, assisting with and contributing to literature

review, data collection and data analysis, and providing emotional support. However, it is

important to consult it with the advisers and get the advisers‘ written approval, since

―collaborative structures challenge many academic norms‖ (Glatthorn & Joyner, 2005, p.

66).

METHODOLOGY

The researcher used normative-survey method as the methodology of the

research. This method is basically quantitative method, which is directed to seek the data

from the existing conditions and gives quantitative description of the general

characteristics of a group of people or society (Good, Barr, & Scates, 1935, p. 286-287).

This methodology was chosen mainly because the objects of this research is a group of

people, particularly students of ELESP Sanata Dharma University, which may vary

among themselves as a group of people with each different conditions and tendencies.

The instrument of the research was questionnaire, ―a form which is prepared and

distributed for the purpose of securing response to certain questions; generally these

questions are factual, designed to secure information about conditions or practices of

which the recipient is presumed to have knowledge‖ (Good, Barr, & Scates, 1935, p.

324). Check list form is used in the questionnaire as close ended inquiries with ten

inquiries listed in the questionnaire. This instrument is used because the researcher cannot

readily see personally all of the people who become the object of this research. The

questionnaires are given to twenty students from ELESP of Sanata Dharma University

batch 2010 who are taking their thesis in the end of their study.


The researcher gathered the data from twenty respondents through questionnaires.

The questionnaire‘s inquiries were set based on the theories of constructivism,

collaborative learning, peer involvement, and the application of peer involvement in


Page | 27

thesis writing. As the result, the researcher found positive results and benefits from the

application of peer involvement in thesis writing by the respondents.

The first three statements in the inquiries were related to constructivism,

Vygotsky‘s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), collaborative learning, and peer

involvement in thesis writing; they were ―I learn English better together with my friends‖,

―My friends help me to go beyond my own limitation in learning English‖, and ―Sharing

my works and ideas with my friends helps me in writing my thesis‖. Fifty five percent of

the respondents stated that they agree with the first statement, while forty five percent of

the respondents stated that they strongly agree with the first statement. It obviously shows

the important role of constructivism in English learning.

Table 1. Data percentage from 20 respondents

No. Statements 1 2 3 4 5 Sample error

1 I learn English better together

with my friends. 55% 45%

2

My friends help me to go beyond

my own limitation in learning

English.

25% 50% 25%

3

Sharing my works and ideas with

my friends helps me in writing

my thesis.

5% 40% 55%

4

My friends help me write my

thesis by contributing to my

literature review.

40% 50% 10%

5 My friends help me analyze the

data in my thesis. 20% 20% 55% 5%

6

My friends give me more

perspectives in revising my

thesis.

10% 15% 45% 25% 5%

7 My friends‘ feedback helps me in

revising my thesis. 5% 5% 55% 35%

8

Working with my friends helps

me to think critically in writing

my thesis.

5% 10% 70% 15%

9

Working with my friends

increases my motivation in

writing my thesis.

5% 5% 65% 25%

10

Working with my friends makes

my thesis writing easier than

working alone by myself.

5% 5% 25% 40% 25%

1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = undecided, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree

Statement two was closely related to Vygotsky‘s ZPD. Fifty percent of the

respondents stated that they agree and twenty five percent of the respondents stated that

they strongly agree with statement two; twenty five percent of the respondents stated

undecided, while none of them stated that they disagree with statement two. It

strengthened the first statement on constructivism and proved that collaborative learning

is an appropriate and suitable approach in English learning. Those two statements became

the foundation of statement three, which implicated the application of peer involvement

in thesis writing. Forty percent of the respondents stated that they agree and fifty five

percent of the respondents stated that they strongly agree with statement three; only five


Page | 28

percent of the respondents stated undecided, while none of them stated that they disagree

with the statement. It obviously shows that peer involvement is actually beneficial for the

respondents and really helpful in writing their thesis.

Statements four up to nine enlist the benefits of peer involvement in thesis

writing; they are contribution to literature review, assistance in data analysis, more

perspectives in revising the thesis, friends‘ feedback, critical thinking, and increasing

motivation.

1. Contribution to literature review. Fifty percent of the respondents agree that their

friends help them write their thesis by contributing to their literature review.

Students of ELESP often find difficulties in finding appropriate theories or

literature for the theoretical basis of their research. Moreover, most students fail

in their thesis examination just because they do not have strong theoretical basis

on their research. Peer involvement helps them solve this problem by giving

possibilities to their friends to contribute to their literature review, so that they

can find appropriate theories or literature and make strong theoretical basis on

their research.

2. Assistance in data analysis. Fifty five percent of the respondents agree that their

friends help them in analyzing the data. Data analysis is often found difficult by

ELESP students after literature review. They find it difficult in interpreting and

analyzing the data based on their theoretical basis. Peer involvement helps them

solve this problem by giving possibilities to their friends to help them analyzing

the data based on their theoretical basis.

3. More perspectives. Forty five percent of the respondents agree that their friends

give them more perspectives in revising their thesis. Thesis writer cannot

objectively revise their thesis alone; they need other people to give them more

perspective to revise their thesis. Peer involvement helps them by giving more

perspectives, so that they can objectively revise their thesis.

4. Friends‘ feedback. Fifty five percent of the respondents agree that their friends‘

feedback help them in revising their thesis. Peer revising has become a very

popular and effective strategy in revising students writing. Conventionally, thesis

writers only get feedback from their thesis advisors in revising their thesis. Peer

involvement helps them to revise their thesis more effectively and more

efficiently by giving their friends‘ feedback about their thesis to them.

5. Critical thinking. Seventy percent of the respondents agree that working with

their friends help them to think critically in writing their thesis. Critical thinking

skills are considered as important thing in higher education; in this context,

university. Writing thesis demands critical thinking, and peer involvement helps

students to think critically together with their friends in writing their thesis.

6. Increasing motivation. Sixty percent of the respondents agree that working with

their friends increases their motivation in writing their thesis. Writing thesis takes

a lot of efforts and energy, and it often makes students unmotivated in writing

their thesis. Peer involvement helps them to get motivated by working together

with their friends, so that they would not feel lonely and unmotivated.

Only few respondents disagree with the statements and state undecided, even

some of them strongly agree with the benefits stated in the statements. Last but not least,

forty percent of the respondents agree that working with their friends makes their thesis

writing easier than working alone by themselves. In conclusion, peer involvement gives a

lot of benefits and helps the respondents in writing their thesis; it helps them in their

literature review and data analysis, gives them positive feedbacks and more perspectives

in revising their thesis, fosters critical thinking, and increases their motivation in writing

their thesis.


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CONCLUSION

Thesis writing is often found burdening by most ELESP students. It is often seen

as the most challenging and difficult subject to be done; it takes a lot of time and tough

effort from the students, especially because of its individual responsibility. Peer

involvement helps ELESP students to solve this problem. It helps ELESP students write

their thesis easier and more effectively with its benefits: sharing responsibilities,

contribution to literature review, assistance in data analysis, more perspectives in revising

the thesis, friends‘ feedback, critical thinking, and increasing motivation in writing their

thesis.

Peer involvement has been a very popular strategy in classroom teaching and

learning activities. This collaborative learning strategy helps students undergo their

learning process and finish their projects more effectively rather than doing those things

alone by themselves. It could be used in any subjects, gives a lot of advantages, and

solves a lot of problems found in the class since it involves students to work in groups

and give peer feedback one another. Through this research, peer involvement has been

proved as an effective strategy in writing thesis; it is beneficial and really helpful for

ELESP students in writing their thesis.

REFERENCES

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Educational Researcher, 25 (4), 5–11.

Bruning, R. H., Schraw, G. J., Norby, M .M., & Ronning, R. R. (2004). Cognitive

psychology and instruction (4th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Campbell, W. G. (1954). Form and style in thesis writing. Cambridge, MA: The

Riverside Press.

Cobb, P., & Bowers, J. (1999). Cognitive and situated learning perspectives in theory and

practice. Educational Researcher, 28 (2), 4–15.

Doolittle, P. E. (1995). Understanding cooperative learning through Vygotsky‘s zone of

proximal development. Lily national conference on excellence in college

teaching. Columbia, SC.

Dooly, M. (2008). Telecollaborative language learning: a guidebook to moderating

intercultural collaboration online. Bern: Peter Lang.

Gaies, S. J. (1985). Peer involvement in language learning. Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Prentice Hall.

Glatthorn, A. A., Joyner, R. L. (2005). Writing the winning thesis or dissertation.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Gokhale, A. A. (1995). Collaborative learning enhances critical thinking. Journal of

Technology Education (7).

Good, C. V., Barr, A. S., & Scates, D. E., (1935). The methodology of educational

research. New York: Appleton Century Crafts.

Greeno, J. G. (1998). The situativity of knowing, learning, and research. American

Psychologist, 53, 5–26.

Hadi, S. (1984). Bimbingan menulis skripsi thesis. Yogyakarta: Yayasan Penerbitan

Fakultas Psikologi UGM.

Schunk, D. H. (2008). Learning theories: An educational perspective. Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Slavin, R. E. (1989). Research on cooperative learning: An international perspective.

Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 33(4), 231-243.

Slavin, R. E. (1991). Synthesis of research on cooperative learning. Educational

Leadership, pp. 71-77, 79-82.

Tudge, J. R. H., & Schrimsher, S. (2003). Lev S. Vygotsky on education: A cultural-

historical, interpersonal, and individual approach to development. In B .J.


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Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Educational psychology: A century of

contributions (pp. 207–228). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Unknown. (nd). Theories of writing and development. Retrieved October 15th, from

http://www.mheducation.co.uk/openup/chapters/9780335241798.pdf. Unknown. (nd). Wisconsin‟s guiding principles for teaching and learning. Retrieved

September 30th, from http://standards.dpi.wi.gov/files/cal/pdf/principle4.pdf.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological

processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Watson, G. (1970). The literary thesis: A guide to research. London: The Camelot Press.

Webb, N. (1985). Student interaction and learning in small groups: A research summary.

Learning to Cooperate, Cooperating to Learn, 148-172.

http://www.mheducation.co.uk/openup/chapters/9780335241798.pdf

http://standards.dpi.wi.gov/files/cal/pdf/principle4.pdf


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THE COMPARISON BETWEEN FEMINISM IN THE HOUSE ON MANGO

STREET NOVEL AND WOMEN‟S EMANCIPATION IN INDONESIA

IN THE 21ST

CENTURY

Agata Nina Puspita, Gratia Hervina Stephanie and Anchieta Ave Avillanova

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]


Abstract

―The House on Mango Street‖ novel by Sandra Cisneros was investigated in this study.

This study aimed to show the feminism phenomena that happened between women‘s life

in the novel and in the 21st century which was affected by socio-cultural background.

Three problems were discussed in this study: the social-cultural background of

Esperanza‘s neighborhood, the events in the novel related to feminism which affect

Esperanza‘s way of thinking and the correlation between feminism phenomena in the

novel and the women‘s life in the 21st century. The researchers used library study which

belongs to the qualitative method by analyzing the feminism phenomena that happened in

the novel ―The House on Mango Street‖ and women‘s life in Indonesia in the 21st

century. The approach of the study was feminist approach. As the results of the study, the

researchers concluded that the feminism phenomena that happened in Esperanza‘s

neighborhood affected Esperanza‘s way of thinking to achieve freedom for women‘s life,

especially in Esperanza‘s neighborhood. Moreover, the feminism phenomena in the novel

showed that the feminism in the past and in the 21st century had already been different

and the phenomena happened because of women‘s emancipation.

Keywords: feminism, The House on Mango Street novel, 21st century, women‟s

emancipation, socio-cultural background

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

As one genre of literary works, novel imitates reality, nature, or life. Novel refers

to a reality outside the text because it reveals new ideas, opinion, criticism and

perspective of life from different angles which is given by the author. It is not just a non-

fiction story because it reflects human life. The authors may gather inspiration from their

personal life, the condition of their places, the phenomena in the society, or real life story

from others. Therefore, it is believed that novel is the media that carry meaning because it

contains messages that can be useful for readers in real life.

Since it is believed that novels reflect the point of view in life, it also carries

issues that are related to moral in society and human life. One of the current issues that

mostly appear in novel is feminism which is dealt with women‘s emancipation. Feminism

is about gaining equal rights and opportunities for women and allowing women to have

control over their own lives. Besides, emancipation should make it possible for woman to

be in the truest sense.

In some society life, women do not have some power as men because the men are

the subject of domination in life. As time goes by, women‘s emancipation has changed in

many society. It is because nowadays women are equal with men in some cases such as

social, economy, and political. The changes are begun in the late of 19th century by

younger women who perceive that they have not directly experience discrimination.

Besides, in order for men and women to be equal, some women fight to offer special

privileges to make them equal with men.


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Women emancipation in Indonesia was led by Raden Ajeng Kartini, who fought

for women‘s right of getting proper education. Since women in Indonesia just ended up

giving birth and taking care their husband and children, Kartini rebelled against this

injustice and inspired other women to achieve more than what the society allowed them.

This injustice was also affected by socio-cultural background, especially Javanese

culture. According to Javanese culture at the time, a noble girl was not allowed to have

high education. She had to be secluded at home, to prepare her for her marriage. She was

not allowed to go out until she was married, when the authority over her was transferred

to her husband. However, the role of women in this era has changed because of Kartini‘s

struggle against the injustice.

Nowadays, though there are still some cases of feminism issue in Indonesia,

women already have better position in society. This can be seen from women‘s position

in chair of state; women already have control in organizing this country. It is different

from women‘s position in the past. In the novel The House on Mango Street, Esperanza

experienced some cases of feminism which affect her point of view about women‘s

position in life. From the treatments and events experienced by her friends in her

neighborhood, Esperanza decided to change the fate of her life by moving out from her

neighborhood.

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954, to a Mexican father and a Chicana

mother; she has six brothers and is the only daughter in the family. She moved frequently

during her childhood and visited Mexico often, to visit her paternal grandmother. The

House on Mango Street was published by Arte Publico Press of Houston in 1984 and won

the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award in in 1985. During this time,

she wrote her first well received book of poetry, My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1987).

In brief, the novel The House on Mango Street is about Esperanza‘s life in a

neighborhood in which women‘s position was still low. Esperanza realized the treatment

of discrimination was not only from the neighbors, but also from her brothers, who

treated her and her sister differently ‗outside their house‘. This shows that men in her age

did not appreciate women; they did not like their women to be strong. This made her have

desire to move to another place, a better place than the neighborhood in Mango Street. All

the experiences she had with her family, friends and neighbors made her have different

point of view about all situations and that helped her to grow differently from other

women in her neighborhood.

The researchers used library study which belongs to qualitative research in

analyzing the feminism in the novel and its correlation with the women‘s life in the 21st

century. This library study was used because the researchers only using the novel as the

main source. The approach used in this study was feminist approach. There were some

theories implemented in this study, namely feminism theory, women emancipation

theory, and socio-cultural theory.

Research Objective

This study is meant to compare feminism in ―The House on Mango Street‖ Novel

and Women‘s Emancipation in the 21st century, especially in Indonesia.

Problem Formulation

Based on the background of the study above, the researchers formulate three

problems that will be discussed in the study, as follows:

(1) How is the socio-cultural background of Esperanza‘s neighborhood?

(2) What are the events in the novel that related to feminism?

(3) What is the correlation between feminism phenomena in the novel and the

women‘s life in the 21st Century?


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Research Benefits

The benefits of this study are to show the feminism phenomena and get better

understanding about feminism that happens between women‘s life in the novel and in

Indonesia in the 21st century which is affected by socio-cultural background.

Definition of Terms

According to Cambridge Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, feminism is ―the belief

that women should be allowed the same rights, power and opportunities as meant and be

treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this state.‖

Women‘s Emancipation based on Cambridge Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary is

―the process of giving people social or political freedom and rights. According to

Paletscheck (2005), women‘s emancipation is ―the fight for self-determination and

improvements in the legal, social, cultural, and political positions of women.‖

Socio-cultural background is a background ―related to the different groups of

people in society and their habits, traditions, and beliefs‖ (Cambridge Dictionaries

Online).


Review of Related Theories

Theories are needed as the tool to analyze the study or to become the basic

thought of the analysis. There are two theories used in this study. The first is theory of

feminism and the second is theory of socio-cultural background.

Review of Related Studies

The House on Mango Street has been used in a previous study. The previous

study is Esperanza‟s transcendence: Sense of Community in Cisneros „The House on

Mango Street‟. The writer of this study finds that Esperanza‘s personality is so strong,

that she does not want to belong to a community constantly stopping her from reaching

her goal, which are having a house and having her own personality. However, seeing

Esperanza‘s transcendence as a positive attitude is not completely correct. It is not correct

because she condemns a society she wants to escape from without giving any solution to

the problems she perceives.

Nevertheless, this study is different from the previous study. This study is about

the comparison between feminism in The House on Mango Street novel and women‘s

emancipation in Indonesia in the 21st century.

Theoretical Framework

To answer the first research question, the researchers use the theory of socio-

cultural background from some experts, namely Azumi (1968), Cortese(2004),

Lebra(1978), and Vygotsky (1986). Then, to answer the second question, the researchers

use the theory of socio-cultural background and the theory of feminism from Rosemarie

Tong and Flax (year unknown). The last research question is analyzed by using the theory

of feminism by Humm (1990).

METHODOLOGY

Object of the Study

The object of the study is a novel entitled The House on Mango Street, written by

a Mexican-American writer named Sandra Cisneros. The novel tells about the life and

experience of young Latina girl, named Esperanza Cordero in Chicago with Chicanos and

Puerto Ricans. It also represents the lives of Mexican-American women who are alienated

from their instincts as women.


Page | 34

The House on Mango Street is a novel that shows a strong idea about feminism

struggles that are conducted by the women through the characters in this novel. As an

example, the strong ideas shown when Esperanza, the major character, wants to get her

rights as women. As a young girl, she has a sense of responsibility to change the women‘s

rights in her society. Her only dream is that she wants to escape Mango Street and leave

them all behind. The women struggle in her society makes Esperanza wants to try to help

them even though she realizes that helping them will be a lifelong effort.

Since the character of Esperanza shows an interesting idea about women‘s

emancipation, this study tries to reveal the ideas of feminism that reflected through the

major character.

Approach of the Study

According to Tong (nd), feminist approach ―attempts to describe women‘s

oppressionto explain its causes and consequences, and to prescribe strategies for

women‘sliberation. According to Flax, there are three purposes of feminist theory, such

as to understand the power differential between men and women, to understand women‘s

oppression—how it evolved, how it changes over time, how it is related to other forms of

oppression, and how to overcome oppression.‖

Method of the Study

In analyzing this novel, the researchers use some methods. First, the researchers

read and re-read the novel as many as possible. Second, the researchers try to formulate

the research questions. Third, the researchers find the appropriate approach that can be

used. Fourth, the researchers try to find the theories that can support the study. Then, the

researchers analyze the research problems by making the correlation between the research

problems and the theories.


In this section, the researchers will discuss the three formulated problems in this

study. It will consist of three sub-sections. The first is about the socio-cultural

background of Esperanza‘s neighborhood. Vygotsky (1986) states ―development depends

on interaction with people and the tools that the culture provides to help form their own

view of the world.‖

In chapter four about My Name (p. 10), the writer shows explicitly the Mexican

socio-cultural background related to feminism issue. Even though in English the name of

main character, Esperanza, means hope (positive meaning), in Spanish it means sadness

or waiting (negative meaning). The name ‗Esperanza‘ is given to the main character

because she was born in the Chinese year of the horse, like her great-grandmother. In

chapter 23 about Born Bad (p. 58), it is said that Esperanza‘s mother said that Esperanza

was born on an evil day, which is related to Esperanza‘s birth day on the Chinese year of

horse. According to Chinese socio-cultural background, women who are born in the

Chinese year of the horse are believed to be bad luck because the Chinese year of the

horse symbolizes strength, while Chinese people, like the Mexicans, do not like their

women strong. They believe that the strong one must be men, and women cannot be

strong. Fire horse women are said to be stubborn, independent, to have troubled

marriages, to mistreat men, and to cause their husbands and fathers early deaths (Azumi,

1968; Cortese, 2004; Lebra, 1978), while this stigma does not apply to fire horse men. In

the novel The House on Mango Street, Esperanza‘s great-grandmother used to be an

independent woman. She had a lot of things she wanted to be, but she could not achieve

it. On the contrary, she just spent her lives by looking out her window and longing from

escape.

The second is the events in the novel which show feminism. Most of the

characters in ―The House on Mango Street‖ novel are women. Since they live in the


Page | 35

neighborhood which still keeps the socio-cultural background of Mexican, they have their

way of life. There are some events in the novel that show feminism. The women cannot

feel the freedom as women.

The first is Mamacita. She lives in an apartment with her baby boy. She never

leaves her apartment and she also never learns English. Every day, she only sits near the

window and listens to the Spanish radio.

The second is Rosa Vargas. She has many kids. Her husband leaves her without

even leaving a dollar.

The third is Rafaela. She is a very beautiful woman. She has already got married,

but her husband locks her in the apartment because he is afraid Rafaela will run away.

Every day, she only sits near the window and sees the activities outside of the apartment.

She wishes she can go out and go to the bar to dance.

The fourth is Minerva. She has two children and she has to raise her children

alone. It is because she is left by her husband for long periods.

The fifth is Sally. She is Esperanza‘s friend. She is married in the early age. Her

husband never lets her see her friends or leaves the house.

The sixth is Alicia. She is of one Esperanza‘s friends and she is the only one in

the neighborhood who attends university. Her father forces her to take over the family‘s

domestic chores.

The seventh is Marin. She is from Puerto Rico. She never leaves the apartment

and just sits near the window because her aunt won‘t let her go out of the apartment. She

dreams that someday there will be an American man taking her away from Mango Street.

From the events above, the first purpose of feminism theory which is to

understand the power differential between men and women according to Flax (year

unknown), it is known that men and women are very different in the level of equality. It is

because men tend to have more power than the women. They also take the control over

the women. It makes the women have to obey the men‘s order. The second purpose,

which is to understand women‘s oppression—how it evolved, how it changes over time,

and how it is related to other forms of oppression can be seen in how men treat the

women. The women cannot feel free to do whatever they want because the men forbid

them to do so. The women‘s oppression that exists in the novel actually does not change

over time, because in the past, Esperanza‘s great-grandmother also underwent the same

situation like most of the women in the Mango Street neighborhood. The third purpose is

how to overcome oppression. There is no solution to overcome the women‘s oppression

in the novel. It is because the women still do not have the courage to fight for their

dreams.

In House on Mango Street Novel, the position of women and men is captured

through the experiences of the characters. Women and men members in the Mexican-

American family have the different position. The domination position is taken by men

because men have more power to control in the society. Through the novel, the author

represents the lives of Mexican-American women who are alienated from their instincts

as women. Thus, Esperanza, as the main character of this novel has a desire as a woman

to get her rights in her society. It is happened because in the novel, men control the basic

social needs of women to communicate. Therefore, it shows that the position of women

and men are unequal because men can control women‘s life and it makes them become

dominant in the society.

According to Humm (1990), feminism is the ideology of women‘s since intrinsic

in all approaches is the belief that women suffer injustice because of their sex. In The

House on Mango Street Novel, it is known that women still suffer injustice because of

their sex because women does not have power in their society and it is taken by men.

Women cannot do what they want to do. Indeed, feminism is an idea that women and

men are the same in terms of their position. On the other hand, it is different with the

society nowadays. Women‘s action in the novel and in the 21st Century, especially in

Indonesia, are different and it happen because of women‘s struggles against suppressive


Page | 36

gender relationship. For that reason, the importance of feminism has been understood in

the 21st Century as the expectations of a generation of women.

Nowadays, women are treated more fair because most of women have much

freedom. Women‘s in the 21st Century live in a system that is equal and most of them can

do anything to change the situation. They have freedom to decide what they want and

they do not have to ask permission first to men. In 21st Century, it is rarely found gender

discrimination towards women as a second priority in the society and this situation is the

most important thing to be known. Therefore, it clearly shows that the gender inequality

does not happen in many aspects nowadays, including women discrimination in social

practice and women have the same position and rights as men have in the society.

CONCLUSION

The House on Mango Street is about Esperanza‘s life in a neighborhood in which

women‘s position was still low. This feminism issue is also affected by the Mexican and

Chinese socio-cultural backgrounds in that place at that time. Both socio-cultural

backgrounds do not like their women strong, which means that the women have to obey

the men. Besides, it is known that men and women are very different in the level of

equality. This can be seen through the events in the novel, which tell about women in

Mango Street who do not have the rights to do whatever they want. In the novel of The

House on Mango Street, the women are still controlled by the men because the men have

power to control them. However, in the 21st Century, especially in Indonesia, the women

have already had better position in the society. They are also treated better because of the

women‘s emancipation.

REFERENCES

Bramann, J. (nd). Educating Rita and another philosophical movie Marx: Capitalism and

alienation. Retrieved May 17, 2015 from http://faculty.frostburg.edu/phil/forum/Marx.htm.

Cortese, J. (2004). “Onna no hinoeuma: What it means to be a fire horse woman.‖

Retrieved May 17, 2015 from http://www.io.com/~cortese/hinoeuma/index.html.

Cox, J. (1998). An introduction to Marx's theory of Alienation. Retrieved May 17, 2015

from http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj79/cox.htm.

Gallagher, C. (1999). Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky. Retrieved May 17, 2015 from

http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/vygotsky.htm#Theory.

Humm, M. (1990). The dictionary of feminist theory. Columbus: Ohio State University

Press.

Juffer, J. (1991). Sandra Cisneros: Biographical note. Chicago: University of Illinois.

Weiss, D. M. (nd). Theory, feminism, and feminist theory. Retrieved May 18, 2015 from http://faculty.ycp.edu/~dweiss/phl380_feminist_thought/what%20is%20feminist%20theory.pdf.

Yamada, H. (2012). Superstition effects versus cohort effects: Is it bad luck to be born in

the year of the fire horse in Japan? Review of Economics of the Household, 11,

259-283.


Page | 37

HOW THE FRESHMEN OVERCOME THEIR VOCABULARY DIFFICULTIES

Yandi Fajri Ariandy and Agung Rizki Sugito

[email protected]

English Education Program, Galuh University

Abstract

Vocabulary is assumed as a very essential course for freshmen in university level. This

study aimed to report the freshmen‘s difficulties during learning vocabulary. To gain the

data, the writers employed a cross-sectional survey design as the method at which they

administered questionnaire to 10 of 17 freshmen at 1A which were selected randomly as

the respondents. In the present study, the writers proposed two research questions: (1)

what difficulties do the freshmen experience in learning vocabulary? (2) how do the

freshmen overcome their vocabulary difficulties? The findings showed that 50% of the

respondents stated that they got the difficulties in writing phonetics, spelling, learning

new words as well, and 30% of them gained difficulties in understanding the meaning of

words, and differentiating word classes; 10% of them obtained the difficulties in

unsupported facilities during learning vocabulary while the rest of respondents did not

gain difficulties during learning vocabulary. In conclusion, the freshmen‘s difficulties in

learning vocabulary covered learning new words, understanding meaning of new words,

and differentiating word classes.

Keywords: freshmen, difficulties, vocabulary, strategy

INTRODUCTION

Vocabulary is one of the essential courses in English learning particularly for

freshmen in university level. Concerning the vocabulary theory, vocabulary covers

words‘ meaning, lexical grammatical forms, verb-forms such infinitive, past, past

participles, and present participles with collaborated with the grammar rules (Harmer,

2007, p. 200). Based on Harmer‘s (2007) statement aforementioned, learning vocabulary

cannot be apart from learning words‘ meaning, lexical form, verb-forms, and grammar

rules. These phenomena are assumed as multi-faceted thing for language learners

especially for freshmen. In the meantime, without mastering vocabulary, the freshmen are

going to face a significant difficulty in mastering English skill such as listening, speaking,

reading, and writing (Harmer, 2007, p. 200).

In line with the multi-faceted thing above, therefore, the freshmen need the

strategies to overcome their vocabulary difficulties. An appropriate strategy is hoped to

minimize their vocabulary difficulties. One of strategies which can be applied is

discussion. Through carrying out discussion, both lecturer and freshmen can describe the

new vocabulary from its words classes, pronunciation, meaning, diction, and how to

apply it in the real sentences. Then, make a list for the new vocabulary items to explain its

concepts. For example, if the freshmen understand the idea of the caring profession

(perhaps because the phrase comes up in a text), the lecturer can list a number of jobs

such as doctor, nurse, social worker and counsellor to explain the phrase (Harmer, 2007,

p. 204). From Harmer‘s (2007) statement above, it can be inferred that in learning

vocabulary, the lecturer should have a good teaching style as the strategy in teaching

vocabulary mastery, likewise, the freshmen should have a good learning style during

learning every new vocabulary.

The present study is also underpinned by some previous studies that have the

similar focus on vocabulary difficulties. The first previous study was conducted by

Nemati (2009), entitled ―Memory Vocabulary Learning Strategies and Long-term

Retention‖. The second previous study was carried out by Furqon (2013), entitled


Page | 38

―Correlation between Students‘ Vocabulary Mastery and Their Reading Comprehension‖.

Meanwhile, the third previous study was undertaken by Saengpakdeejit (2014), entitled

―Strategies for Dealing with Vocabulary Learning Problems by Thai University

Students‖.

Regarding to the three previous studies above, the first and the second studies are

dissimilar to the present study because the first study focused on comparing the impact of

the use of vocabulary learning and long-term retention strategies toward students at

seven-year in learning vocabulary. The second study focused on comparing relationship

between reading comprehension and vocabulary mastery. Meanwhile, the third previous

study is similar to the present study at which concentrated on investigating vocabulary

difficulties particularly for freshmen in university level. Meanwhile, the third previous

studies are similar to the present study at which concentrated on investigating vocabulary

difficulties particularly for freshmen in university level. Nevertheless, the whole previous

studies are used as the references for the present study.

After discussing the previous studies, the writers intend to address the research

questions. Those are: (1) what difficulties do the freshmen experience in learning

vocabulary? (2) how do the freshmen overcome their vocabulary difficulties? To find out

the answers for those research questions, the writers are going to explain them in the

forthcoming part of this study.


The present study is also supported by its literature review as its theoretical

foundation. The review of related literature deals with defining freshman, the nature of

vocabulary, defining difficulty, and the proper strategy to learn vocabulary.

Defining freshman

To begin this section, the writers point out the term ‗freshman‘. Bruce (2001, p.

689) defines that freshman as students who have completed high school and are entering

college for the first time. In addition, Clark (2005, p. 296) explains that freshman is often

defined in terms of making the transition to the college student role.

Regarding to two definitions aforementioned, the writers elaborate each

definition that the term ‗freshman‘ can be understood as a new student who has

accomplished learning from senior high school then continue to begin learning at college

or university level. In relation to the present study, the freshman here is the students who

learn in university level particularly learning at English education program.

In conclusion, the term ‗freshmen‘ is specialized to mention the first-year

students who learn in college or university level. Then, they just begin their study at the

first or second semester.

The nature of vocabulary After discussing the definition of ‗freshman‘, then the writers explain the nature

of vocabulary. According to Harmer (2007, p. 200), ―Vocabulary, including the meaning

of words, their lexical grammar.‖ Furthermore, Furqon (2013, p.71) explains,

―Vocabulary is more complex, vocabulary mastery is not only knowing the words and its

meaning, but also knowing about how the words sound and how the words are used in the

context.‖

Dealing with Harmer‘s (2007) and Furqon‘s (2013) statements aforementioned,

the writers elaborate them that vocabulary is the scientific study of language aspect which

concerns on words meaning, lexical grammar, sounds, and its diction when the words are

used in everyday function. In relation to the present study, the vocabulary is learned by

the freshman which is regarded as pre-intermediate level which covers 1500 words as

suggested by syllabus of Vocabulary 1, English education program, Galuh University,


Page | 39

revised edition (2012). Those 1500 words cover synonym, antonym, preposition, filling

the gap, and derivatives.

In conclusion, vocabulary can be drawn as the scientific study which functions to

explore words from its meanings, lexicons, sounds, and dictions.

Defining difficulty

Sue and Vicky (2010, p. 35) define ‗difficulties‘ is concerns about access,

attendance and success in learning, skills and employment which may arise from, impact

or relate directly to well-being, rather than ‗difficulties‘ describing people‘s mental health

problems. Moreover, Hidayat (2014, p. 80) concludes that difficulty or difficulties are a

condition where the students face a trouble fact when they do or learn a thing without

being able to do perfectly in order to get maximum results.

Dealing with definitions aforementioned, the writers elaborate them that

difficulty is condition generally can be experienced by people at which they face a

significant mental health problems caused by their expectation which against the reality

on their learning and employment impacts directly or indirectly. Specifically, difficulty is

also experienced by students who learn a certain course to get maximum results. In

relation to the present study, the difficulty is effort in solving a problem with relative

levels done by the freshman as new students at college or university level during learning

the courses.

In conclusion, difficulty can be understood as the detention to achieve a success

to gain maximum results in learning a certain thing both in the learning and employment

aspects.

The proper strategy to learn vocabulary

In this session, the writers explain the suitable strategy used to learn vocabulary

particularly for freshman in university level. Schmitt (1997) as quoted by Asgari and

Ghazali (2011, p. 85) underline that there are two main groups strategies in learning

vocabulary. Those are:

1) discovery strategies:

This strategy focuses on discovering words and phrases through learning. This

strategy is applied at which students learn to search the necessary words or phrases

according to the topic discussed. The process of searching words or phrases should be

guided by the teacher.

2) consolidation strategies:

This strategy focuses on consolidating or reinforcing words and phrases at which it

has been searched previously by the teacher. Through using the consolidation strategy,

it is hoped that the freshman‘s vocabulary would be increased sharply.

Meanwhile, Hatch and Brown (1995, p. 383) as cited by Kim and Gilman (2008, p. 114)

have identified five steps to have vocabulary acquisition. The identification covers:

a) having sources for encountering new words;

This strategy concentrates on discovery new words at which the freshman have to find

out sources of new words. To get to know the valid sources, the student requires the

teacher‘s guidance.

b) getting a clear image, either visual or auditory or both, of the forms of the new words;

This strategy concentrates on describing the form of the new words as visualization

neither auditory.

c) learning the meaning of the words;

This strategy concentrates on learning the meaning of the words. To understand the

meaning of the words, then the student should employ the words particularly in

vocabulary course.

d) making a strong memory connection between the forms and the meanings of the

words;


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This strategy concentrates on making a strong memory between the forms and the

meaning of the words. This strategy is employed by the freshman in understanding the

forms and the words‘ meaning.

e) using the words.

The last strategy is concerning on diction of the words. After studying the sources, the

forms, and the words‘ meaning, furthermore the diction of vocabularies should be

explored and used by the freshman in everyday function.

Regarding to the strategies suggested aforementioned, then the writers determine

to select only strategies which are regarded as the proper ones to be applied in learning

vocabulary. Those strategies cover: (1) discovery strategies, (2) learning the meaning of

words, (3) and the diction of words.

In conclusion, the selected strategies are used to minimize the freshman‘s

difficulties during learning vocabulary. Even though, the other strategies are needed to

complete each other in minimizing students‘ difficulties in different cases and different

courses.

METHODOLOGY

In this session, the writers explain the essential points in method. The related

points cover research design, participants and research site, data collection procedure, and

data analysis.

Research design

In this present study, the writers applied survey design, particularly a cross-

sectional survey design. A cross-sectional survey design was selected by the writers

because it can be conducted in a short amount of time during collecting the information as

suggested by Creswell (2012, p. 377). In addition, the instrument employed in the survey

design is only single one, it is questionnaire which is administered by the writers to the

respondents (Creswell, 2012, p. 377).

Respondents and research site

In this present study, the writers selected 10 from 17 freshmen from 1A which

were selected randomly. Freshmen are the English students who learn English in English

education program, faculty of teachers training and educational sciences specifically from

a particular private university in Ciamis regency. Freshmen were selected as respondents

because they were being at the first year-students in university level at which they have

newly recognize and learn the subject of vocabulary 1 which covers synonym, antonym,

preposition, filling the gap, and derivatives. Furthermore, the writers selected English

education program as the research site because English education program provides

vocabulary 1 course for freshmen level. Besides, the writers are still the sophomore at the

English education program. Thus, this condition eased the writer to get access to conduct

the study and accomplish the research on time.

Data collection procedure

In this present study, the data were obtained by administering questionnaires to

10 freshmen as the respondents. The questionnaire consisted of five questions at which it

administered when the respondents had a break time at campus. To answer the

questionnaires, the writers allocated the time for 25 minutes to the respondents. Then, the

answered questionnaires were submitted to the writers.


Page | 41

Data analysis

After collecting the data, the writers analyzed the answers to the questions taken

from the questionnaires qualitatively. The writers analyzed the data dealing with the

freshmen‘s difficulties in learning vocabulary which covers; words classes,

pronunciation, and the meaning of words. Furthermore, quantification was also employed

to describe the data in percentage.

FINDINGS

In interpreting the data, the writers analyzed all the answers written by the

respondents. Further, the data are described as follow:

Question number 1 is: “Do you learn vocabulary class?” Based on the answers,

100% answered, ‗yes, I do‘. The answers mean that they learn vocabulary class.

Question number 2 is: “During learning vocabulary, do you find it out

difficulties?” Based on their answers, 10% of respondents claimed that they do not find

the difficulties during learning vocabulary. Meanwhile, 90% of respondents stated that

they still find out the difficulties in learning vocabulary.

Question number 3 is: “If you answer „yes, I do‟ for question number 2, please

mention your difficulties during learning vocabulary class.” Dealing with the

aforementioned question, 50% of respondents have a problem during learning

vocabulary. They felt the difficulties such as writing the phonetics, spelling the

vocabulary, and learning the new words at which they find in pronunciation area.

Meanwhile, 30% of respondents gained the difficulties in learning vocabulary particularly

in understanding the meaning of words, and differentiating words classes. Moreover, 10%

of respondents obtained the difficulties because the facilities are not supported by campus

management during learning vocabulary.

Question number 4 is: “To overcome your vocabulary difficulties, how do you

solve them?” Regarding to the answers, 20% of respondents applied ‗discussing‘ method

to overcome their vocabulary difficulties. Meanwhile, 10% of respondents employed

‗memorizing the phonetics‘ and ‗spelling the words‘. Then, 10% of respondents

employed ‗memorizing the vocabulary from Oxford dictionary‘ and ‗discussing‘. Later

on, 10% of respondents employed ‗learning word of classes‘ and ‗the meaning of words‘.

After that, 10% of respondents applied ‗memorizing five of words everyday‘. Next, 10%

of respondents applied ‗repeating the material of vocabulary at dormitory‘. Moreover,

10% of respondents applied ‗remembering the new words‘. Finally, 10% of respondents

employed ‗re-write the new words‘ method to overcome their vocabulary difficulties

during learning vocabulary.

Question number 5 is: “If you apply a technique, approach or method in

answering question number 5, is it effective to solve your vocabulary difficulties?”

Based on the answers, 100% of respondents stated that their techniques were effective to

solve vocabulary difficulties.

DISCUSSION

Dealing with the findings as mentioned in the preceding section, those could be

revealed that all of the respondents learned vocabulary course in the first semester. Then,

the freshmen gained the difficulties during learning vocabulary course.

Dealing with the present study, the writers compared between the results gained

in the study and the results gained in the previous studies. The first and the second

previous studies carried out by Nameti (2009), and Furqon (2013) were dissimilar to the

present study which focused on comparing the impact of the use of vocabulary learning

and long-term retention strategies toward students at seven-year in learning vocabulary.

Meanwhile, the previous study was similar to the present study conducted by


Page | 42

Saengpakdeejit (2014) which focused on the difficulties in learning vocabulary course

particularly for freshmen in university level.

After discussing the results of the present study and comparing them to the

previous studies, the writers then continued to answer the research questions as set forth

in the preceding paragraph. The answers were explained as follow:

Research question 1: What difficulties do the freshmen experience in learning

vocabulary?

The evidences were taken from the answers written in the questionnaire. Those

evidences particularly referred to the third question written in the questionnaire. The

answers from the third question revealed that 50% of respondents had a problem during

learning vocabulary. They felt the difficulties such as writing the phonetics, spelling the

vocabulary, and learning the new words at which they find in pronunciation area.

Meanwhile, 30% of respondents gained the difficulties in learning vocabulary particularly

in understanding the meaning of words, and differentiating word classes. Moreover, 10%

of respondents obtained the difficulties because the facilities are not supported by campus

management during learning vocabulary. Based on the evidences gained from the

answers of question number three above, those lead the writers to answer the first

research question that the difficulties experienced by the freshmen during learning

vocabulary covers; (1) problems in vocabulary itself, (2) problems in writing the

phonetics, spelling the vocabulary, and pronouncing the new words, (3) understanding the

words‘ meaning, differentiating word classes, (4) problem because of inadequate facilities

in campus to support vocabulary learning.

Research question 2: How do the freshmen overcome their vocabulary difficulties?

To answer the research question number two, the writers took the evidences from

the answers written in the questionnaire. Those evidences especially referred to the fourth

question written in the questionnaire. The answer from the fourth question showed that

20% of respondents applied ‗discussing‘ method to overcome their vocabulary

difficulties. Meanwhile, 10% of respondents employed ‗memorizing the phonetics‘ and

‗spelling the words‘. Then, 10% of respondents employed ‗memorizing the vocabulary

from Oxford dictionary‘ and ‗discussing‘. Later on, 10% of respondents employed

‗learning word of classes‘ and ‗the meaning of words‘. After that, 10% of respondents

applied ‗memorizing five of words everyday‘. Next, 10% of respondents applied

‗repeating the material of vocabulary at dormitory‘. Moreover, 10% of respondents

applied ‗remembering the new words‘. Finally, 10% of respondents employed ‗re-write

the new words‘ method to overcome their vocabulary difficulties during learning

vocabulary. Based on the evidences obtained from the answers of question number four

aforementioned, those evidences lead the writers to answer the second research question

that the strategies applied by the freshmen to overcome their difficulties during learning

vocabulary covers; (1) discussing, (2) memorizing the phonetics and spelling the words,

(3) memorizing the vocabulary from Oxford dictionary, (4) learning the word classes, and

those meaning, (5) memorizing five of words every day, (6) repeating the material of

vocabulary at dormitory, (7) remembering the new words, (8) re-write the new words.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

Dealing with the answers of the research questions written in discussion session,

the results of the present study can be concluded that the freshmen‘s difficulties in

learning vocabulary cover writing the phonetics, spelling the vocabulary, learning the

new words at which they find in pronunciation area, understanding the meaning of words,

and the facilities were not supported during learning vocabulary course. Moreover, to

overcome the difficulties in learning vocabulary experienced by the freshmen, they apply

strategies such as discussing, memorizing the phonetics and spelling the words,


Page | 43

memorizing the vocabulary from Oxford dictionary, learning the word classes and those

meanings, memorizing five of words everyday, repeating the material of vocabulary at

dormitory, remembering the new words, and re-writing the new words.

Finally, the writers suggest that the freshmen as the respondents to have a good

learning style during learning language skills and language areas such as vocabulary.

Furthermore, having a good learning style, the freshmen should also have a consistency in

learning, besides applying the proper strategy during learning language skills and

language areas such as vocabulary. Through elaborating the third aspects aforementioned

(a good learning style, a consistency in learning, and applying the proper strategy), the

freshmen would be able to minimize their difficulties in learning every language skill and

area such as vocabulary. On the other hand, their ability in mastering vocabulary will

improve.

REFERENCES

Asgari, A. & Ghazali. (2011). The type of vocabulary learning strategies used by ESL

student in University Putra Malaysia. English Language Teaching, 4(2), 84-90.

Retrieved February 4, 2015 from http://webcache.googleusercontent.com. Bruce, M. G. (2001). Risk factor meningococcal disease in college students. The Journal

of American Medically Association, 286(6). Retrieved February 3, 2015 from

http://jamanetwork.com.

Clark, M. R. (2005). Negotiating the freshman year: Challenges and strategies among

first-year college students. Journal of College Student Development, 46(3), 296-

316. Retrieved on February 3, 2015 from www.rose-hulman.edu. Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating

quantitative and qualitative research, (4th ed). Boston: Pearson Education.

Dornyei, Z. & Taguchi, T. (2010). Questionnaires in second language research

construction, administration, and processing, (2nd

ed). New York: Routledge.

Furqon, F. (2013). Correlation between students‘ vocabulary mastery and their reading

comprehension. Journal of English and Education, 1(1), 68-80. Retrieved

January 10, 2015 from http://download.portalgaruda.org. Harmer, J. (2007). The practice of English language teaching, (4

th ed). Essex: Pearson

Education.

Hidayat, Y. (2014). Some sophomores‘ difficulties in mastering English listening

comprehension. Journal of English Applied Linguistics (JEAL), 1(1), 79-86.

Ciamis: English Education Program, Faculty of Teachers and Educational

Sciences, Galuh University.

Kim, D. & Gilman, D. A. (2008). Effect of text, audio, and graphic aids in multimedia for

vocabulary learning. Educational Technology & Society, 11(3), 114-126.

Retrieved February 4, 2015 from http://coursedesign.smwc.edu.

Nemati, A. (2009). Memory vocabulary learning strategies and long-term retention.

International Journal of Vocational and Teaching Education, 1(2), 014-024.

Retrieved January 10, 2015 from www.academicjournals.org. Saengpakdeejit, R. (2014). Strategies for dealing with vocabulary learning problem by

Thai University students. Silpakorn University Journal of Social Sciences,

Humanities, and Arts, 14(1), 147-167. Retrieved January 10, 2015 from

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com.

Sue, A. & Vicky, R. (2010). Aspect of learning in a mental health setting. Mental Health

and Social Inclusion, 14(2), 35-42. Retrieved February 5, 2015 from

http://beta.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk.


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SOCIAL FACTORS CORRELATED WITH THE USE OF STANDARD AND

NON-STANDARD LANGUAGE VARIATION IN FREEDOM WRITER MOVIE

Damiana Maria Resya Nugrawidhanti and Sylvester Indra Adhitya Hermono

[email protected], [email protected]


Abstract

The way people utilize language is affected by many factors, such as social factors and

social dimensions. People from different social status or educational backgrounds use

language differently. This phenomenon can be found in Freedom Writers movie. This

study attempted to analyze the differences between Non-Standard English and Standard

English shown in Freedom Writers movie and to present the social factors influencing the

characters‘ use of languages in Freedom Writers movie. The researchers used document

analysis method to gather and analyze the data. The main source of the data was Freedom

Writers movie and the secondary source was the script of the movie. The findings showed

that the most common differences between Standard and Non-Standard English found in

the movie are grammatical variation, words choice, and the use of slang. The social

factors which are correlated with the variation are social mobility, identity, power and

social network relation.

Keywords: social factors, standard language, non-standard language

INTRODUCTION

Human communicates through language which is delivered in interaction in a

society. Language is an individual and a social possession since humans are individuals

as well as beings in the society (Wardhaugh, 2006). However, language also reflects

social and cultural phenomena that occur in the society. Language can involve many

issues that are usually popular at some situations. It is undeniable that different languages

are used in different occasions too.

The way a person utilizes language is affected by many factors, such as social

factors and social dimensions. Those factors will also influence the conversation whether

the speakers discuss one or more topics. Language can also be varied according to the

people using it. This phenomenon also appears for those who have different treatment

which usually happens in some speech communities. Some factors that influence

someone‘s language may also reflect something that occurs in the society, such as racism

issue which is found in Freedom Writers movie.

Freedom Writers is a 2007 drama film based on the book The Freedom Writers

Diary written by teacher Erin Gruwell. She wrote the story based on her own experience

in Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in Eastside, Long Beach, California in 1993-

1996. Her class was composed of students from different races who were living harsh

lives as gang members. They were overlooked by the society because of their situation.

Gruwell tried to help her students by asking them to write their own stories so they can

proved that they could do something valuable. Then she compiled the stories in a book

titled The Freedom Writers Diary.

Considering the background of the study, the problems can be formulated into

two following questions:

1. What are the differences between Non-Standard English and Standard English which

are shown in Freedom Writers movie?

2. What are social factors influencing the characters‘ use of languages in Freedom

Writers movie?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freedom_Writers_Diary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freedom_Writers_Diary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Gruwell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_Classical_High_School

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastside,_Long_Beach,_California

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Beach,_California

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California


Page | 45

The objectives of the study are as follows:

1. To describe the differences between Non-Standard English and Standard English

shown in Freedom Writers movie.

2. To present the social factors influencing the characters‘ use of languages in Freedom

Writers movie.

REVIEW TO RELATED LITERATURE

Dialectical Variation

There is no satisfactory definition of what a dialect is. This term has been used in

many ways throughout the time. The classic definition of dialect refers to regional dialect

which defined as ―the distinct form of a language spoken in a certain geographical area.‖

(Akmaijan, Demers & Harnish, 1984: 286). The term dialect can also refer to social

dialect, the language that is spoken by members of a specific socioeconomic class.

Furthermore, we can also notice ethnic dialect which is spoken by members of certain

ethnic group (Akmaijan, et al., 1984). In popular usage, dialect refers to ―a form of

language that is regarded as ‗substandard‘, ‗incorrect‘, or ‗corrupt‘, as opposed to the

‗standard‘, ‗correct‘, ‗pure‘ form of language.‖ (Akmaijan, et al., 1984, p.287). People

usually use this term quite often to refer to a non-prestigious and powerless variety of a

language (Wardaugh, 2006). In this point of view, dialect is perceived as ―non-standard‖

language which is spoken by uneducated and ignorant people. However, this point of

view is strongly rejected by linguists. Radford, Atkinson, Britain, Clahsen and Spencer

(1999) point out that the study of language use has shown that non-standard varieties

present regular grammatical patterns and consistent pronunciation in the same way as the

standard language does. Therefore, dialects or ―non-standard‖ varieties are not better or

worse than the ―standard‖ varieties. (Akmaijan, et al., 1984; Radford, et al., 1999).

Standard versus Non-standard Language

Akmaijan, et al. (1984) state that one phenomenon which is commonly occurs in

the modern societies is a selection of one dialect of a language as the ―standard‖

language. In the other word, it is a process called standardization. Wardaugh (2006)

mentions that standardization refers to the process of codifying a language in some ways

which involves the development of grammars, spelling books, and dictionaries. In the

United States, Standard American English, or SAE, is a form of language which is used

in the national media, governmental institution and schools as means for education. This

form of language has been accepted as the standard form of English in the United States.

However, as mentioned earlier, in linguistic term there is no dialect of a language which

is better than other dialects of the language. The designation of SAE as the standard form

of English is merely social judgment, not linguistic judgment. The form of language

called standard language in America is closely related with the educated white middle

class. It reflects the prejudice that the white educated system is the best system among

others sub cultural systems.

Social Factors Correlated with Language Variation

According to Llamas and Stockwell (2002), there are some social factors

correlated with language variation. These factors can occur simultaneously in a society.

1. Geographical and social mobility

Language forms or dialects within a language are often divided geographically. The

geographical boundaries differentiate the dialects of a language. However, sometimes the

geographical mobility such as migration brings changes in the local dialects. This

geographical mobility also creates social stratification within a society. When members of

a certain social group want to be more prestigious, they will use the upper class language.


Page | 46

2. Gender and power

There has been a concern about the differences between the way men and women use

language. It is proposed that there is such a thing called ‗genderlect‘ which describes the

differences in the way men and women use language. The asymmetries in power

distribution also contribute in the use of language within a community.

3. Age

Older people and younger people use different form of language. By comparing the

differences of present usage of language across the age ranges, we can find the evidence

of language changes over time.

4. Audience

Most people usually adjust their speech according to the audience or the addressee. This

factor is called accommodation, where the speakers adjust their language in order to make

it suitable for the addressee.

5. Identity

This factor is very important because when people become consciously aware that they

are part of a certain groups, they will identify themselves by using the language in the

group.

6. Social network relations

It is important to recognize whether the people in a society have strong or weak

relationship and what kind of relationship that they have because it will affect their use of

language.

METHODOLOGY

The data in this study are gathered through content or document analysis method.

Content or document analysis is described as ―a research method applied to written or

visual materials for the purpose of identifying specified characteristics of the material‖

(Ary, Jacobs, Sorensen & Walker, 2010: p. 457).

The main subject of the study is utterances of the characters in Freedom Writer

movie. The secondary source is the written script of Freedom Writer movie. The

researchers observe the Freedom Writers movie and read the script of the movie to collect

the data. The data are presented in the written form of the characters‘ utterances in the

movie.


The Differences between Standard English and Non-Standard English Found in the

Movie

The characters of the movie use different variation of English. The well-educated

white people such as the department chairman of a Long Beach school Margaret

Campbell, the junior class teacher Brian Gelford, the head of The Education Board,

Erin‘s father, Erin‘s husband and Erin Gruwell herself use Standard American English.

However, the students who are come from different races such as African-American,

Latin and Asian speak the ―Non-Standard‖ form of English known as ghetto language.

Akmaijan, et al. (1984) define this form of language as informal style of language

commonly spoken by black people in low-income areas called ghettos in urban area in the

United States. This variety is also used by other races such as Latino and Asian who live

in the same ghetto areas.

The most noticeable differences between Standard English and Non-Standard

English are related to grammatical variation, words choice and the use of slang.

1. Grammatical Variation

Ghetto language or Black English has been proven to be as rule governed and

logical as Standard English. It also has grammatical regularity shown by

grammatical features in this variety. The first grammatical feature that often


Page | 47

considered indicates non-standard language is the use shortened to be, ain‘t.

Cambridge Advanced Learner‘s Dictionary defines ain‘t as the short form of am not,

is not, has not and have not. This feature can be found a lot in the students‘ speech.

Marcus: It ain't nothing else.

Andre: It ain't this. I know that much.

Andre: I made it to high school. Ain't nobody stopped me.

Marcus: We're graduating every day we live, because we ain't afraid to die

protecting our own.

Eva: That ain't supposed to happen in the story! That ain't right!

Eva: I ain't talking to you!

Marcus: See, to me, she ain't dead at all.

The shortened form is also found in the words ―going to‖ which becomes ―gonna‖.

However, Erin Gruwell also uses this form when she speaks with the students in

order to suit her language style with them.

Andre: I'm not just gonna give you my respect because you're called a teacher.

Erin: You know what's gonna happen when you die? You're gonna rot in the

ground. And people are gonna go on living,and they're gonna forget all

about you. And when you rot, do you think it's gonna matter whether you

were an original gangster? You're dead. And nobody, nobody is gonna

wanna remember you, because all you left behind in this world is this.

Another shortened form is found in the words ―want to‖ which becomes ―wanna‖

Jamal: Hey, girl, you wanna give me some fries with that shake?

Jamal: You don't wanna be our teacher next year?

Another common grammatical feature of non-standard English is the constraint of

negative concord. It means that every element of a negated sentence must be negated

(Holmes, 2001). This feature is also called double negation. Negative concord can be

found many times in the students‘ utterances.

Jamal: You ain't taking nothing from me, homeboy!

Jamal: Ain't nobody touched your damn bag.

Jamal: I didn't do nothing anyway!

Jamal: You don't know nothing, homegirl.

Jamal: You don't know nothing!

Marcus: Ain't nobody stopped me.

2. Words Choice

There is a big difference between the students‘ words choice and the white

characters in the movie. The students often use impolite words while the other

characters never use this kind of words. Examples of the impolite words are as

follow.

A student: I give this bitch a week.

Jamal: Yeah, and that's some bullshit. It's the dumb class, coz.

Jamal: Sit your punk ass down, homeboy!

Gloria: Ms. G, he just took my damn bag!

The students who use the language considered as non-standard English also often

use informal way to address other people while those who use the standard form use

more formal way.

Ben: Yeah, you can do that, right, Ms. G?

Mr. Banning: Ms. Gruwell, apparently one of your students, Eva Benitez has

identified him as the shooter.

These two utterances show the difference between the formal and informal way

of addressing other people. One of the students calls Erin Gruwell Ms. G, which is an

informal way, while Mr. Banning, the school principal, addresses Erin Gruwell as Ms.

Gruwell.


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3. The Use of Slang

Cambridge Advanced Learner‘s Dictionary defines slang as ―very informal

language that is usually spoken rather than written, used especially by particular

groups of people.‖ Akmaijan, et al. (1984) describe the features of slang as follows:

a. slang is an element of informal, styles of language use. It usually brings

negative connotation as it is often considered as vulgar or low language.

b. slang changes rapidly in a language.

c. slang are often associated with a specific group. Its use marks a membership

and solidarity within the group.

The students often use slangs and special expression in their speech. These slangs

do not always represent negative meaning. The first example of this is shown in the

following sentence.

Jamal: Look, homey, I'll beat that ass, homeboy.

Cambridge Advanced Learners‘ Dictionary refers ―homeboy‖ of ―homey‖ to a

boy or man from your own town, or someone who is a close friend or a member of

your gang. In this case, Jamal use the word ―homeboy‖ to address another student

who is also an African-American. It indicates close relationship between Jamal and

the other boy. They belong to the same race and also the same gang. Another

example of the use of slang is shown in the following dialog.

Marcus: No! That don't fly, Ma!

Erin: Look, first of all, I'm not anyone's mother in here, okay?

Andre: No, it doesn't mean mother.

Eva: It's a sign of respect for you.

In this part, Marcus, who is an African-American student, use the slang word

―Ma‖ to address Erin Gruwell as his teacher and show his respect. However, Erin

does not understand the meaning and misinterpret it as ―mother‖ just like what the

word usually means in Standard English. It is because Erin does not belong to the

student‘s racial group and she never uses that word in this context.

The Social Factors Correlated with Language Variation

1. Geographical Mobility

The characters within the film belong to a segregated community and each race is

divided into separate tribes or gangs, or can we call as ethnic groups. There are African-

Americans, Latino or Hispanic, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Caucasian people. These

groups consist of people who come from different countries, sharing the same descent

and heritage as distinctive culture passed on through generation within the groups.

Most of the colored people in this movie are immigrants. In their own countries,

they speak their own native languages. When they move from their countries to the

United States, they have to learn English. The first generation of the immigrants

experienced how their native language affected their acquisition of English. The next

generations experienced how their native language which was spoken by their parents

collaborated with English which they got from their surroundings. It results in the accent

and the language form that these generations have.

2. Identity

―In Long Beach, it all comes down to what you like; it‘s all about color.‖ This

opening quote from the film shows how the students in Ms. Gruwell‘s class have been

living in strict moral codes of protecting their own race and territory since they are in

their early age. It develops their awareness of their identity. Moreover, it gives them

strong sense of belonging towards their ethnic or racial groups. They show their identity

in the society by using the language form which is spoken by their groups‘ members.

Membership of certain social groups is commonly shown by the use of certain dialect.

Sometimes those groups are even distinguished by the language that they use. They

identified themselves by the dialect that they use. Llamas and Stockwell point out that


Page | 49

―not only do linguistic patterns signal social and individual identity, but people‘s

conscious awareness of their personal, ethnic, geographical, political, and family identity

is often a factor in their language use.‖ That is why those who identify themselves as the

educated white people use SAE while the students who identify themselves as part of the

ghetto society use ghetto language.

3. Social Network Relation

The use of language in Freedom Writers is also affected by the social network

relations. People in Long Beach are divided into different racial and ethnic groups which

have different culture. The cultural difference makes gap between the dominating and

dominated group that later on may lead to stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination

even a cultural hatred such as racism. It can also lead to conflicts from disagreements that

appear in the society. This feeling will also make them unwilling to use the language that

is used by the group that they hate or considered inferior. The white educated people in

the movie do not speak the ghetto language because they consider it as lower class‘

language. On the contrary, the colored people usually do not speak in the sophisticated

language as the white educated people do. It is because most of colored people in Long

Beach hate white people as a result of being discriminated.

4. Power

The movie portrays the social stratification in the society of the United States in

1990s. During that period, the group which is considered having the highest social status

is the white educated people. This fact can be seen from statements in the movie. This

group have the biggest power in the country‘s economic sector, education and politic.

They are considered superior and thus their language form is also considered as the most

appropriate language. That is why the language form that they use becomes the Standard

American English.


From the findings we can find that the language form used by the students in Ms.

Gruwell‘s class is different from the one that the white people use. The most noticeable

differences are shown in the grammatical variations, words choice and the use of slang.

The non-standard form is marked by the shortened form of to be and phrases ―want to‖

and ―going to‖, double negation, the use of impolite and informal words as well as

specific terms know as slangs. The findings also imply that the influence of the social life

towards the characters‘ language is reflected clearly on Freedom Writers. The social

factors contribute to their language is the geographical mobility, identity, and social

networks.

Considering the results of this study, it will be beneficial for teacher candidates to

realize the correlation between social factors and the form of language used by certain

group of people in order to be respectful of any dialects that their future students may

have. It is also important for teacher candidates to be able to analyze the students‘ needs

and characteristic by examining their language form.

REFERENCES

Akmaijan, A., Demers, R. A. & Harnish, R. M. (1984). Linguistics: An introduction to

language and communication. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of

Technology Press.

Ary, D., Jacobs, L. C, Sorensen, C. & Walker, D. A. (2010). Introduction to research in

education. (9th ed). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Holmes, J. (2001). An introduction to sociolinguistics. (2nd

ed). London: Longman


Page | 50

Llamas, C. & Stockwell, P. (2002). An introduction to applied linguistics. London:

Arnold.

Radford, A., Atkinson, M., Britain, D., Clahsen, H. & Spencer, A. (1999). Linguistics: An

introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Walter. S. (Ed). (2008). Cambridge advanced learner‟s dictionary. (3rd

ed). Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Wardaugh, R. (2006). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell

Publishing.


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CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: FEMINISM IN EMMA WATSON‟S

SPEECH IN “HEFORSHE” CAMPAIGN IN UNITED NATION 2014

Feny Anggeria

[email protected]

English Department, Jember University

Abstract

This paper aims to find out the feminism theory that constructs the speech derived by

Watson who directly takes an action through the campaign called HeforShe. The

campaign released since Watson was chosen as Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women.

Feminism is the belief that men and women should have equal rights, and opportunities.

This research will discuss the dominant process that dominantly used by, also focus on

type of feminist which labeled Watson in her speech. The writer will implement

Halliday‘s Systemic Functional Linguistics to support the verb process combining with

the theory of feminism which is one of the evidence in Watson‘s campaign. The findings

of the study are conducted by using library research as the method of data collection.

Since the quality of analyzing the data is searchable, the library research supports the

understanding of the material competence which is applicable and accurate to obtain the

source of title.

Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, feminism, feminist, process

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

Nowadays, feminism is such uncommon word in everyday communication. If

someone talks about feminism, she is sometimes labeled as a person whose way of

thinking about ‗rights‘ is radically extreme among society. The concept always exists as

long as women still assume themselves as creatures that need to be avowed in man

consideration. This situation probably makes feminism in the position of being one of an

existential topic until now.

If the writer goes back to the situation where feminism in America in 1930‘s had

a Great Depression, all working women were seen as a low level in taking jobs, and they

were away from men who were the rightful breadwinners. Prior to 1942, women were not

allowed to serve in the military except as nurses. In that year, patriotism kept women

away from feminist meeting halls. However, American‘s involvement in World War II

marked a sea change in women‘s roles. In Post War Feminism, there was a young activist

of feminism namely Eleanor Roosevelt. First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, was an inspiration

to women, not only in the U.S but also in the world. Beside Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton is

the most powerful activist in the modern era. She gains many supports from her followers

to fight against ‗women and inequality‘. Continually, she is invited in many world

discussions about feminism. These two women become unchanged figure, and it makes a

broad knowledge that feminism is still happening.

In campaign called HeforShe, United Nation chose Emma Watson as A Godwill

Ambassador to fight gender inequality. UN officially announced her in last September

2014. This organization was held because there is no certain community to care and

preserve women in legal commitment. Its reason can be one step ahead of women

accomplishment in gaining same rights as men.

In this research, the writer got interested by the speech that uttered by Watson and

the way she delivered her clear idea about women in such community. Nonetheless, the


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writer is also interested in seeking what types of feminist that labeled Watson in her

speech.

Research Questions

1. What is the dominant process of Emma Watson‘s speech?

2. What type of feminist does Emma Watson identify as?

The Goals of the Study

There are two goals of this research as follows:

1. To find out which process strongly used by Emma Watson.

2. To identify what type of feminist in Emma Watson‘s speech.


Previous Studies

There are some researchers attempting to analyze about feminism in the form of

journal and article by using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Lazar (2010), an

Associate Professor in National University of Singapore, comes with his research entitled

‗Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Articulating a Feminist Discourse Praxis‘. In this

project, the writer offers a rationale for highlighting a feminist perspective in CDA, and

proposes some principles for feminist discourse praxis. To strengthen the knowledge of

feminist, researcher follows the gender ideology‘s theory and power asymmetries as the

basic understanding of the study. A feminist CDA perspective is obviously

interdisciplinary in nature. On the one hand, it contributes to a critical language and

discourse studies a perspective informed by feminist studies. On the other hand, it

suggests the usefulness of language and discourse studies for the investigation of feminist

issues in gender and women‘s studies. The discussion, in this article, tries to articulate

feminist discourse praxis, and interrelated principles of feminist critical discourse studies

as theory and practice. To speak from the position of a ‗woman‘ is not the same as

speaking from the perspective of a feminist. To know as a ‗woman‘ means to know from

the perspective of the structure of gender, whereas a feminist perspective means that one

has critical distance on gender and on oneself (Grant, 1993).

Next, Wang (2010) conducted his project by using Halliday‘s Systemic

Functional Linguistics, in terms of the three meta functions: ideational function,

interpersonal function, and textual function. His purpose is to find out the formal features

of Barack Obama‘s speeches, and to explore the relationship among language, ideology

and power. Additionally, Wang is also eager to figure out the use of power of speeches to

persuade the public to accept and support his policies.

These two researches give the writer some broad views of CDA and its solution

in case of understanding the concept in the previous research. While the first research

supports writer‘s argument about feminist and its perspective, while the second one

answers the implementation of Halliday‘s Systemic Functional Linguistic. Coming from

those two analytical descriptions, it will be discussed in this recent research.

Critical Discourse Analysis

In linguistics field, discourse is traditionally understood to mean language as

‗text‘ or a stretch of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive (Nunan,

1993: 6). Discourse plays an important role. It is because discourse handles knowledge

through word and expression. On the other hand, discourse is also understood as


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production of social practice drawn upon a situational condition. CDA is divided into two

categories: written and spoken discourse. The situation of spoken and written discourse

can be divided into two contexts. They are context of culture and context of situation

(Wodak, 1997: 6). These two contexts under the term ‗feminism‘ will bring other

situations in spoken and written text called social power, inequality, and dominance. It

supports the statement of Dijk (1985: 352) that ‗Critical Discourse Analysis is a type of

discourse analytic research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance,

and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by talk and talk in the social and

political context‘. With such dissident research, CDA analysts take explicit position, and,

thus, want to understand, expose, and ultimately resist social in equality.

Considering the CDA compilation above, this study focuses in social inequalities

of women that notes previously are feminism (gender in equality, and domination). It is

also true that discourse is a place where relations of power are exercised and enacted

(Fairclough, 1989: 43).

In relation to this research, the writer is going to employ CDA as a tool to

represent a sketch of power that leads to the spoken discourse based on Watson‘s speech.

Furthermore (1998: 358) devote their thought upon relation between feminism and

discourse as follows: ―In many ways, feminist work has become paradigmatic for much

discourse analysis, especially since much of this work explicitly deals with social

inequality and domination‖.

At the present time, feminism, for CDA is seen as important thing to establish the

understanding of feminism. The issue is wide because it directly takes every woman‘s

experience in the world that ever cares about others. The issue is also strongly

recommended because it fulfills the further research by developing other issue of CDA.

Systemic Functional Linguistics

Systemic Functional Linguistics is a theory of language focuses on the notion of

language function. Since SFL accounts for the syntactic structure of language, it places

the function of language as central as what language does, and how it does it, in

preference to be more structural approaches, which place the elements of language and

their combinations as central. As the basis of CDA, SFL analyzes a variety of text,

whether it is written text or spoken text, by looking at how the grammar is used (Arindo,

2013: 12). SFL is compulsory for CDA because SFL interprets language as making

meaning. The meaning includes ideational meaning, interpersonal meaning, and textual

meaning. Ideational meaning is to express language through the perception of people

towards the world. Interpersonal meaning is to express and understand feelings, attitude,

and judgments, while textual meaning is to relate the situational contexts through aspect

of communication (Mayr, 2008: 17).

In brief, CDA and SFL can examine the system of linguistic choice in Watson‘s

speech. The use of SFL is the main solution to do a research in the field of CDA. It is

because both CDA and SFL enable the researcher to unfold social problem, which is

feminism, through the use of language.

The Transitivity as Experiential Meaning

In everyday communication, people use language to express their outer and inner

experience about their surroundings. They also use transitivity as a property of verbs to

communicate with others. In functional grammar, transitivity is considered to be

continuum rather than a binary category. The ‗continuum explicitly takes a more semantic

approach.

Experiential Meaning is classified as one of the three meta functions. This part of

meta function uses grammatical system of transitivity. Although sharing the traditional


Page | 54

view of transitivity, the focus is on the verb group. Systemic Functional Grammar refers

to the system that describes the whole clause (Thompson, 2004).

Experiential meaning is particularly expressed through the system transitivity or

process type. The transitivity system involves verb processes, participants, and

circumstances. These are called as ideational meta function. In transitivity, language

operates some systems of types of process: process of doing and happening, sensing and

saying, being and having.

There are six types of process (Halliday: 1994: 109). They will be elaborated below:

a. Material Process

Material process is the process of doing and happening.

My mother cleans The floor

Actor Pro; Material Goal

b. Mental process

Mental process is the process of seeing

He feels Tired

Senser Pro; Mental Phenomenon

c. Relational process

Relational process is the process of being.

My mother is Unskilled

Carrier Pro; Relational

Attibutive/

Identifying

Attributive

d. Verbal process

Verbal process is the process of saying

Ratna tells Me the truth

Sayer Pro; Verbal Receiver

e. Behavioural process

Behavioural process is the process of physiological behaviour like breathing and

laughing (Halliday, 1994: 139).

She Observes The result of the

research

Actor Pro; Material Goal

f. Existential process

Existential process represents something has existed and happened

There Is a book

Pro; Existential Existent


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Feminism

In the 20th century, there were at least three identifiable mass women

movements, or waves. First wave feminism grew from women activists‘ involvement in

nineteenth century movements such as the anti-slavery movement. After passage of the

15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawed discrimination in voting on the basis

of race, women movement activists coalesced around campaigns to secure women

suffrage. In 1923, three years after the passage of the universal suffrage 19th

Amendment, Party leader, Alice Paul, began pushing for an Equal Rights Amendment to

outlaw all forms of discrimination based on sex, an ultimately unsuccessful campaign that

lasted until 1983.

Feminism refers to a diverse variety of beliefs, ideas, movements, and agendas

for action. Feminism consists of ideas and beliefs about the importance and value of

moving. The assumption in feminism is that women are not treated equally to men, and

that women are disadvantaged compared to men.

Feminist theory has developed in three waves. The first wave focused on suffrage

and political rights. The second wave focused on social inequality between the genders.

The current, third wave emphasized the concepts of globalization. Jane Flax, in Thinking

Fragments, states that a fundamental goal of feminist theory is to analyze gender: how

gender is constituted and experienced, how we think or equally important Feminist theory

recover and explore the aspects of societies that have been suppressed, unarticulated, or

denied within male-dominant viewpoints.

According to Feminism: Basic Principles in 2005 (www.sociology.org.uk), there

are four major varieties of Feminism, they are:

Liberal Feminism

The main view of liberal feminists is that all people are created equal by God and

deserve equal rights. These types of feminists believe that oppression exists because of

the way in which men and women are socialized, which supports patriarchy and keeps

men in power positions. Liberal feminists believe that women have the same mental

capacity as their male counterparts and should be given the same opportunities in

political, economic and social spheres. Women should have the right to choose, not

have their life chosen for them because of their sex. Essentially, women must be like

men.

Liberal feminists create and support acts of legislation that remove the barriers

for women. These acts of legislation demand equal opportunities and rights for

women, including equal access to jobs and equal fee. Liberal feminists believe that

removing these barriers directly challenges the ideologies of patriarchy, as well as

liberates women.

Liberal feminists are responsible for many important acts of legislation that have

greatly increased the status of women, including reforms in welfare, education and

health.

Marxist Feminism

Marxist feminism is a branch of feminism focuses on investigating and

explaining the ways in which women are oppressed through systems of capitalism and

private property. According to Marxist feminists, women's liberation can only be

achieved through a radical restructuring of the current capitalist economy, in which

most of women's labor is uncompensated. Marxist feminist sees men as the ‗enemy‘ of

women to create a communist and have to cooperate with capitalist system.

Socialist Feminism

Socialist feminists believe that there is a direct link between class structure and

the oppression of women. Western society rewards working men because they

produce tangible and tradable goods. On the other hand, women's work in the

domestic sphere is not valued by western society because women do not produce a

http://www.sociology.org.uk/


Page | 56

tangible and tradable good. This ideology gives men power and control over women.

Socialist feminists reject the idea that biology predetermines ones gender. Social roles

are not inherent and women's status must change in both public and private spheres.

Socialist feminists believe that the way to end this oppression is by putting an end

to class and gender. Women and men must work side by side in the political sphere. In

order to get anything accomplished, women must work with men, instead of opposed

ostracizing them.

Radical Feminism

Radical feminism promotes the basis for many of the ideas of feminism. It

believes that the domination of women is the oldest and the worst kind of oppression

in the world. Radical feminists believe this ideology because it spins across the world

oppressing women of different races, ethnicities, classes, and cultures. They want to

free both men and women from the rigid gender roles that society has imposed upon

them. Sometimes radical feminists believe that they must rage a war against men,

patriarchy, and the gender system which confines them to rigid social roles.

Radical feminists emphasize their difference from men. Men are the enemy of

women. One solution to the problem of patriarchal exploitation is seen to be lesbian

relationships and female support groups.

Feminism, after all, has a long history, going back at least to the 18th century and

the work of early liberal feminist thinkers. On the other hand, feminism is also a

response to women‘s lives and experiences, and varieties of feminism reflect the

changing and vary nature of women‘s experience.

METHODOLOGY

In this research, the writer uses the quantitative and qualitative research to gain

the proof inside the speech. Quantitative research is the systematic empirical investigation

of observable phenomena via statistical. It explains phenomena by collecting numerical

data that are analyzed using mathematically based methods (in particular statistics). The

objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ mathematical models, theories

or hypothesis pertaining to phenomena. The process of measurement is the central of

quantitative research because it provides the fundamental connection between empirical

observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships. By using this

method, the distinguish ability of each process that occur in speech will answer question

number 1, and the dominant process can be found accurately.

Qualitative research is a non-systematic empirical observation. It means that in

order to get the exact completion inside the research, the writer needs an actual source

from library as guidance instead of using statistical method. This observation can answer

question 2, feminist categories of Watson. When the writer develops the idea of this

research, journals, books, and articles from other researchers or authors will be absolutely

helpful, especially in selecting and absorbing the same idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotheses

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observation


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RESULT

DIAGRAM 1

DIAGRAM 2

The result shows that the dominant process is dominantly ruled by two process,

material and relational process. The speech consists of 171 clauses; 67 of material

processes as well as relational processes, 27 mental processes, 9 behavioral processes,

and small amount of one existential process. At the beginning of Watson‘s speech,

material process is used continually with many of her aggressive statements. For

example, Watson uses two types of material process which called happening and doing: ―

I am reaching out to you”. This sentence indicates as the presence of goal. The goal is to

you, while the actor is I. In material process, the actor and goal are very important to be

involved each other. On the other hand, the statement that does not have a goal or absence

of goal is also related with the rule of material process, for example, „No country in the

world can yet say‟. It still can be identified as material process, as long as the actor and

process appear. Another dominant process is relational process. Relational process sends

a process of giving attribute and value to a thing. It appears with appearance, phase, and

measure, be, equality, signification, indication, and role. For example: „Feminism by

definition is the belief‟, „I was a feminist‟, and „It is the theory of political, economic and

social equality of the sexes‟. The statements are slightly categorized as relational process

because the quality of words tends to describe and identify her personality, her thinking,

Material= 67 clauses

Relational= 67 clauses

Mental = 27 clauses

Behavioral= 9 clauses


Page | 58

and her knowledge. The appearance of „be‟ such as is or was, plays a big role in this

process.

To strengthen the explanation about what types of feminist that labeled Watson,

the writer has found some facts that may indicate her speech as one of the four major

types. In line with her speech, Watson measures her power through the audience by using

the same actor.

1. Today we are launching a campaign called for HeForShe.

2. I am reaching out to you because we need your help

3. We want to end gender inequality, and to do this, we need everyone involved.

4. This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN.

5. We want to try to mobilize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for

change.

6. And, we don‘t just want to talk about it.

7. We want to try and make sure that it‘s tangible.

Those sentences (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7) unfold that Watson wants to communicate with

audience by gaining audience‘s attention about her mission and UN. She describes it

through the use of actor „we‟.

Besides, she also shows her problem about feminism which strongly assumed as

her opinion like what is uttered from these sentences:

8. I was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women six months ago.

9. And, the more I spoke about feminism, the more I realized that fighting for

women‘s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating.

10. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.

Interestingly, Watson puts her assumption into the perception of feminism as the

belief, not ideology. In this following statement, she states:

11. For the record, feminism by definition is the belief that men and women should

have equal rights and opportunities.

12. It is the theory of political, economic and social equality of the sexes.

The sentences number 11 and 12 hold the truth that her speech changes the

previous sight of feminism from ideology to belief.

13. I started questioning gender-based assumptions a long time ago.

14. When I was 8, I was confused for being called bossy because I wanted to direct

the plays that we would put on for our parents, but the boys were not.

15. When at 14, I started to be sexualized by certain elements of the media.

16. When at 15, my girlfriends started dropping out of sports teams because they

didn‟t want to appear mostly.

17. When at 18, my male friends were unable to express their feelings.

The sentences number 13-17 have shown the writer that Watson‘s speech is

completely based on her experience.

18. I decided that I was a feminist, and this seemed uncomplicated to me.

19. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular

word.

20. Women are choosing not to identify as feminists.

21. Why has the word become such an uncomfortable one? I am from Britain, and I

think it is right I am paid the same as my male counterparts.

22. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body.

http://sociology.about.com/od/F_Index/g/Feminism.htm


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23. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and

decisions that will affect my life.

24. I think it is right that socially, I am afforded the same respect as men.

25. But sadly, I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women

can expect to see these rights.

26. No country in the world can yet say that they achieved gender equality.

27. These rights, I consider to be human rights but I am one of the lucky ones.

28. My life is a sheer privilege because my parents didn‘t love me less because I was

born a daughter.

29. My school did not limit me because I was a girl.

30. My mentors didn't assume that I would go less far because I might give birth to a

child one day.

31. These influences were the gender equality ambassadors that made me who I am

today.

32. They may not know it, but they are the inadvertent feminists that are changing the

world today.

33. We need more of those.

34. And if you still hate the word, it is not the word that is important.

35. It‘s the idea and the ambition behind it, because not all women have received the

same rights I have.

Even in all her statements, Watson‘s speech tries to deliver her ambition based on

her opinion. The writer, at first, concluded that she is one of the supporters of radical

feminist. The word ‗man hating‘ is deeply like one of the idea of radical feminist. On the

other hand, Watson in the middle of her speech tries to gain man power to participate

through the campaign. She wants men as the first symbol of women‘s existence. Based on

the explanation above, Watson is one of the liberal feminist who still needs men‘s

supports.

CONCLUSION

After doing the investigation of Feminism in Emma Watson, finally, it is time to

grab the conclusion. Those questions have function to elaborate the investigation and

avoid a wide discussion. In the previous section, the first finding has shown that the

dominant process in Watson‘s speech is material process, while in the second finding, it

answers that she is a liberal feminist.

Finally, this research is expected to be useful for the research mainly in the scope

of CDA study in analyzing feminism in a discourse. The writer hopes that this

investigation can be one of the readers‘ references in the next research.

REFERENCES

Arindo, Y. (2013). Racism in Lincoln-Douglas Debate in Ottawa in 1858: A Critical

Discourse Analysis. Jember.

Brown, G. & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Halliday, M. (2004). Introduction to fuctional grammar. Sydney: Macquaire University

Press.

Halliday, M. & Webster, J. (2009). Continuum companion to systemic functional

linguistics. New York: Continuum International Publishing.

Mayr, Andrea. (2008). Language and power: An introduction to institutional discourse.

London: Continuum.

https://www1.cuny.edu/portal_ur/content/womens_leadership/feminism.html

http://www.uah.edu/woolf/feminism_kinds.htm

www.sociology.org.uk

http://sociology.about.com/od/Sound-Bites-Research-In-the-News/fl/Study-Finds-Racial-and-Gender-Bias-in-Professor-Response-to-Students.htm

https://www1.cuny.edu/portal_ur/content/womens_leadership/feminism.html

http://www.uah.edu/woolf/feminism_kinds.htm


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THE INFLUENCE OF BALINESE MOTHER TONGUE

IN ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION

Hermina Prima and Margareta Wiwik Tri Wijayanti



Abstract

Bali is one of many popular islands in Indonesia which is mostly visited by the tourists

from around the world. Due to the fact of that situation, English is often used by the local

people to communicate with the tourist. However, Bali has its own local language that

has a unique characteristic which is not found in English. Thus, the paper was aimed to

find out the answers of the research problems: (1) What is the specific difference of

language features between Balinese and English by distinguishing the phonemes of those

languages? (2) Does the Balinese mother tongue affect their English pronunciation? The

library study is used in this research to find the supporting theory. Meanwhile, to collect

the reliable data, the researchers observed five (5) respondents who are Balinese and

asked them to read the English words and sentences to check their English pronunciation.

The researchers found that Balinese has typical sound which is different from English.

This theory was proven by the result of the observation. When the respondents

pronounced English, their English pronunciations were affected by Balinese

pronunciation.

Keywords: mother tongue, pronunciation, Balinese language, English

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, English becomes the standard language of the world since English is

admitted as an International language. Some countries regard English as their second

language, such as in Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore. In contrast, Indonesia regards

English as a foreign language. Ena (2013) stated in the study done in Indonesia, English

has fewer roles in the social functions compared to the national language or local

languages. Notwithstanding, it cannot be denied that English has an important role in

particular situation, for example the situation when local people should interact with

foreign people.

That situation causes people in this country want to acquire English more,

especially for people who live in the tourist area. As we know that one of the most

popular tourist areas in Indonesia is Bali. There are many people around the world come

to Bali. Since they have different languages, they use English as a media to interact

whether with other tourists or the local people. That is the reason why English is

commonly used in Bali. However, in fact, speaking language is not always easy,

especially, when the language is not the speaker‘s mother tongue. Most people who live

there speak Balinese because it is their mother tongue and the language that they

regularly use to interact with other local people. Since they have their own mother

tongue, the researchers argue that they have their own style in pronouncing English.

Yet, pronunciation is important. It has a big important role in communicating

with other people. Pronunciation refers to the production of sounds that we use to make

meaning (Yates, 2002:1). By using the right pronunciation, there will not be any

misunderstanding and misconception between speakers.

Yates also added that there are two (2) features of pronunciation, namely supra-

segmental and segmental feature. Segmental feature refers to the particular sounds of the

language and supra-segmental feature refers to the speech beyond the level of the

individual sound, such as intonation, phrasing, stress, timing, and rhythm. Even though


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they have different concepts, it is crucial to remember that they all work in combination

when the speaker speaks a language. Moreover, the traditional approaches to

pronunciation have focused on segmental feature because this feature relates in some

ways to write the phonetic transcription, and are therefore the easiest way to notice and

work on someone‘s pronunciation. In short, the segmental feature will give a clear way to

identify how the language is pronounced.

Based on the pronunciation phenomenon which has been explained above, the

researchers are interested in conducting a research about English pronunciation of people

who speak Balinese as their mother tongue. The research aims to find out the answer of

these research questions, as follows:

1.) What is the specific difference of language features between Balinese and

English by distinguishing the phonemes of those languages?

2.) Does the Balinese mother tongue affect their English pronunciation?

This study involves five (5) respondents whose mother tongue is Balinese.


What is mother tongue?

Skutnabb-Kangas (1981:18) explained mother tongue by classifying it into four

(4) criteria which are shown in the table below.

Table 1. Definitions of mother tongue

Criterion Definition

Origin the language one learns first

Competence the language one knows best

Function the language one uses most

Attitudes the language one identifies with

the language one is identified as a native speaker of by other

people

English Phonemes

Phoneme is a speech sound. It is also defined as a sound unit that distinguishes

words from each other (Delahunty & Garvey, 2010: 108). The sound which is produced

by the speaker is identified and written in an appropriate symbol. The process and ―the

methods of writing down speech sounds in a systematic and consistent way‖ (Crystal,

2008: 490) are called transcription. There are two kinds of transcription: phonemic and

phonetic transcription. Phonemic transcription gives only a basic idea of the sounds. It

does not show any phonetic details of the sounds. Meanwhile, phonetic transcription

represents actual speech sounds in the narrowest sense and uses additional diacritics

(Balčytytė-Kurtinienė, 2014: 27). The individual sound symbols are the same as those we

use for phonetics, but to distinguish phonology from phonetics, people enclose phonemes

in slanted brackets / / and use square brackets [ ] for phonetic notation (Delahunty &

Garvey, 2010: 111).

There are 44 phonemes in English (Balčytytė-Kurtinienė, 2014: 28). Underhill

(1994) explained clear sets of vowels (monophthongs and diphthongs), consonants, and

sonorants. Roach (2009) gave more explanation of those classifications of the English

sounds. Vowels are the class of sounds that are associated with the least obstruction to the

flow of air during their production. English has 20 vowel phonemes as shown in

the table 2.


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Table 2.Vowel phonemes

/ɪ/ as in sit /eɪ/ as in may

/iː/ as in speak /aɪ/ as in kite

/ʊ/ as in book /ɔɪ/ as in toy

/uː/ as in tool /ɪə/ as in near

/ʌ/ as in cup /eə/ as in dare

/ɑː/ as in heart /ʊə/ as in cure

/ɒ/ as in box /əʊ/ as in cold

/ɔː/ as in door /aʊ/ as in mouth

/e/ as in bed /ɜː/ as in bird

/æ/ as in cat /ə/ as in ago

Consonants are the class of sounds that are associated with obstructed airflow

through the vocal tract during their production. There are 17 phonemes in English

as presented in the following table.

Table 3. Consonants phonemes

/p/ as in pipe /z/ as in zoo

/b/ as in be /θ/ as in think

/t/ as in time /ð/ as in that

/d/ as in do /ʃ/ as in sure

/k/ as in car /ʒ/ as in casual

/ɡ/ as in go /tʃ/ as in church

/f/ as in fine /dʒ/ as in gin

/v/ as in vet /h/ as in hat

/s/ as in sad

Sonorants are sounds that are voiced and do not cause sufficient obstruction to

the airflow to prevent normal voicing from continuing. In English, this

classification consists of 7 phonemes (Roach, 2009).

Table 4. Sonorants phonemes

/m/ as in map

/n/ as in nose

/ŋ/ as in king

/l/ as in love

/r/ as in red

/j/ as in yacht

/w/ as in wet

Balinese Phonemes

Balinese has fewer phonemes than English. Balinese has 6 vowel phonemes and

18 consonant phonemes. The list of the phonemes, the allophones, and its examples

showed in Tables 5 and 6.

Table 5. Balinese vocal phonemes

Phonemes Allophones Examples

/i/ [i] [batis] /batis/

/e/ [e] [ered] /ered/

/ə/ [ə] [əmbot] /embot/

/a/ [a] [alih] /alih/

[ə] [abə] /aba/


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/o/ [o] [bocor] /bocor/

/u/ [u] [ujan] /ujan/

Table 6. Balinese consonant phonemes

Phonemes Allophones Examples

/b/ [b] [baʈu] /batu/

/c/ [c] [carə] /cara/

/d/ [d] [bədu] /bedu/

/g/ [g] [gadiŋ] /gading/

/h/ [h] [lintah] /lintah/

/j/ [j] [jajə] /jaja/

/k/ [k] [bukak] /bukak/

/l/ [l] [legu] /legu/

/m/ [m] [mokoh] /mokoh/

/n/ [n] [nolih] /tolih/

/p/ [p] [panes] /panes/

/r/ [r] [rasə] /rasa/

/s/ [s] [sareŋ]/sareng/

/t/ [t] [alit] /alit/

[ʈ] [paʈung] /patung/

/w/ [w] [wayah] /wayah/

/ŋ/ [ŋ] [paliŋ] /paling

/y/ [y] [uyah] /uyah/

/ń/ [ń] [ńeluk] /nyeluk/ Source: Dewantara, I.P.M. (2011)

METHODOLOGY

This research was aimed to answer the influence of mother tongue towards

Balinese English pronunciation. Due to that matter, researchers chose the respondents

who are Balinese students in Yogyakarta. We chose five Balinese male students who live

in a Balinese dormitory because of some considerations. First, they are newcomers to

Yogyakarta and they have not been living in the city for a long time. Second, the

environment where they are living in enables them to keep regularly speaking Balinese.

Third, their mother tongue is Balinese.

The method of this study is a descriptive qualitative research. There were two

types of the data which were gathered by the researchers. The first data was the phonetic

theory of the Balinese and English. The data was used in order to find out the different

phonemes between Balinese and English. Another data were collected by interviewing

and observing the respondents so that the researchers got the reliable data. The

researchers asked the respondents to read twelve (12) English words and six (6) English

sentences that had been provided by the researchers. Before starting to read the words and

sentences, the researchers gave the example for the respondents on how to pronounce

those words and sentences so that they knew how to pronounce it correctly. After

collecting the data, the researchers analyzed the phonetic theory of the languages to know

the difference of its phonemes and also the results of the observation. Then, the

researchers described the finding by relating the theory with the results of the

observation. The last step was the researchers made a conclusion and suggestion of the

study.


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The differences between Balinese and English phonemes

After analyzing the related theories, the researchers found that there are some

differences in some phonemes of Balinese and English. As mentioned in the review

related to literature, there are 44 phonemes in English and Balinese has 24 phonemes.

There are some phonemes of English which do not occur in Balinese, they are:

Vowel phonemes:/ɪ/, /iː/, /ʊ/, /uː/, /ɑː/, /ɒ/, /ɔː/, /æ/, /eɪ/, /aɪ/, /ɔɪ/, /ɪə/, /eə/, /ʊə/,

/əʊ/, /aʊ/, and /ɜː/

Consonants phonemes: /f/, /v/, /z/, /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/

Meanwhile, Balinese also has phonemes which do not occur in English, namely /ń/ and

/ʈ/.

The influence of Balinese mother tongue in pronouncing English

In this part we are going to discuss the result of the observation that researchers

have got. The result is presented in the table 7 below. The researchers described the errors

which were done by the respondents when reading the words and sentences. The

researchers had changed it into the phonetic transcription in order to make it easier to

analyze.

Table 7.Result of the observation

Words Phonetic

Transcription

Respondents

A B C D E

Think /θɪŋk/ /stɪŋk/ /tɪŋk/ /tɪŋk/

Appetite /ˈæp.ɪ.taɪt/ /ˈæv.ɪ.taɪt/

Earth /ɜːθ/ /ɜːt/

Birth /bɜːθ/ /bɜːt/ /bɜːd/ /bɜːt/

Faith /feɪθ/ /feɪt/

Afraid /əˈfreɪd/ /əˈfreɪt/ /əˈfreɪt/ /əˈfreɪt/

Proof /pruːf/ /pruːb/

Innovation /ˌɪn.əʊˈveɪ.ʃən/ /ˌɪn.əʊˈpeɪ.ʃən/

Attractive /əˈtræk.tɪv/ /əˈtræk.tɪp/

Tick /tɪk/ /θɪk/

Have /hæv/ /hæp/ /hæp/

Shelter /ˈʃel.tər/ /ˈsel.tər/ /ˈsel.tər/ /ˈsel.tər/ /ˈsel.tər/ /ˈsel.tər/

Of /ɒv/ /ɒp/ /ɒp/

Whenever /wenˈev.ər/ /wenˈep.ər/

From the table, the researchers could sum up the words which were

mispronounced by the respondents. They had difficulty to pronounce /θ/, /t/, /d/, /f/, /v/,

/p/, /ʃ/. When they pronounced /θ/, they tended to replace it with /t/. In contrast, the

interesting phenomenon happened that was when a respondent were supposed to

pronounce /t/ they pronounced /θ/. They did not only replace /θ/ with /t/, but some

respondents replaced it with /d/. The major problem of their English pronunciation is that

they had difficulty in pronouncing /v/. They usually changed it with /p/, which is easier to

pronounce. However, they used /v/ when they wanted to pronounce /p/, for example in

the word appetite. They also had difficulty in pronouncing /f/. In other words, a

respondent use /b/ and /p/ to pronounce /f/. The last finding is that they could not

pronounce /ʃ/ because all of the respondents changed it into /s/. From those errors, the

researchers conclude that most of the respondents had difficulty in pronouncing /v/ and

/f/.


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According to the theories which are collected, the researchers found that this

phenomenon occurs because of the influence of their mother tongue. As what is written in

the previous explanation, there are some sounds or phonemes of English which do not

occur in Balinese. Some of those phonemes are /v/, /f/, /θ/and /ʃ/. Because of it, the

respondents tended to replace those phonemes into the other phonemes which have

sounds alike, such as /p/, /b/, /t/, and /s/.

The researchers also found that there are many vowels which do not occur in

Balinese, but it did not influence the respondents in pronouncing English. This condition

happened because those English vowels are the combination of the vowel that they have.

So, it did not really affect their pronunciation. In contrast, the condition was different

from the consonant phonemes. Even though the differences between the phonemes are

less than the vowels, but it really influences the pronunciation because they are not

familiar with those phonemes.


From the study of the influence of Balinese mother tongue in pronouncing

English, the researchers have proven that mother tongue can affect people in pronouncing

other language, especially foreign language. As seen in the finding of the theory, this

phenomenon can happen as the influence of the differences of the language feature

between the languages. Based on the result of this study the researchers found that the

factor that influences Balinese people in pronouncing English is the sounds or phonemes

of the language. The differences of some phonemes that they have make the Balinese

difficult to pronounce it. In short, their English pronunciation is influenced by their

mother tongue. The pronunciation which they produce creates the style of English

language that will become their identity.

The researchers suggest another researcher conducts similar research in order to

get a deeper and further explanation about factors that influence Balinese in pronouncing

English. For the teacher candidates, the researchers expect that they will design a new

method especially to help Balinese to learn English pronunciation better. For all of us, as

Indonesian, we are supposed to always remember that we live in a multicultural and

multilingual country. Although we have differences in pronouncing the language, we

should respect each other.

REFERENCES

Balčytytė-Kurtinienė, G. (2014). A course in English phonetics for EFL university

students. Segmental phonetics, syllable, stress. Vilnius: Vilnius University.

Retrieved May 16, 2015 from www.flf.vu.lt/

Crystal, D. (2008). A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics. (6th ed). Oxford: Blackwell

Publishers.

Delahunty, G. P. & Garvey, J. J. (2010). The English language: From sound to sense.

Colorado: The WAC Clearing house and Parlor Press. Retrieved May 16, 2015

from http://wac.colostate.edu/books/sound/sound.pdf.

Dewantara, I. P. M. (2011). Analisis konstraktif fonologi bahasa Bali-Indonesia.

Singaraja: Undiksha University. Retrieved May 16, 2015, from

http://www.academia.edu.

Ena, O. T. (2013). Visual analysis of e-textbooks for senior high school in Indonesia

(Doctoral dissertation, Loyola University Chicago, 2013). Retrieved May 15,

2015 from http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/513.

Roach, P. (2009). English phonetics and phonology. (4th ed). Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.


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Roach, P. (2009a). Glossary (a little encyclopaedia of phonetics). Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. Retrieved May 16, 2015, from www.cambridge.org.

Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1981). Bilingualism or not: The education of minorities. England:

Multilingual Matters Ltd. Retrieved May 15, 2015, from

https://books.google.co.id/books?id.

Yates, L. (2002). Fact sheet- what is pronunciation? Adult Migrant English Program

Research Centre. Retrieved May 15, 2015, from www.ameprc.mq.edu.au.


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DEVELOPING RPG APPLICATION AS ENGLISH

LEARNING MEDIA

Ibram Alif Fardani, I Nyoman Sumarno and Rafkhi Avviano


Muhammadiyah University of Metro, Lampung

Abstract

Nowadays, teachers are trying to find ways to teach in an entertaining way like gaming

experience. However, most games applied in educational process are not entertaining.

Thus, the researcher do this research, which try to solve the problem by developing

entertaining and educating game. This research tries to discover how RPG application

facilitates students to learn vocabulary and grammar. RPG application provides

vocabulary and grammar learning materials in interesting way to create a new learning

atmosphere where the students do not feel bored when they are learning those aspects. In

other hand, RPG application can facilitate students to learn vocabulary and grammar

interactively. The steps of this developmental research (RnD) are analyzing that revealed

the problems of learning, Designing is creating the product blueprint, Developing is

developing the product based on the design result, Implementing is collecting field data,

evaluating is the process in order to get data to revise the product. The research subjects

are the students of Universitas Muhammadiyah Metro. In conclusion, the result of the

research is Role Play Game (RPG) application as a media to learn and do English

Vocabulary and Grammar test successfully and it can be applied in university students.

Keywords: role-playing games, vocabulary, grammar

INTRODUCTION

In Indonesia, English is very important language for Indonesian students even it is

only a foreign language, not a first language or second language. English is counted as an

obligated subject in school, as written in the PP RI No 32 (2013) "... Ujian Nasional

mencakup pelajaran Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Inggris, Matematika dan Ilmu

Pengetahuan Alam (IPA)." in the same source, article 771 verse 1: letter C said, "Bahasa

asing terutama Bahasa Inggris merupakan bahasa international yang sangat penting

kegunaannya dalam pergaulan global." It is a must, in Indonesia, to teach and learn

English for the people which are connected to education because it is included in the

major lessons in Indonesian curriculum. It is why English is very important for

Indonesian students.

English is very important for Indonesian students since they are obligated to pass

it as determining subject. They take English since the first grade, some in the fourth

grade, of elementary school. In the end of every level; elementary school, junior high

school, and senior high school, they will meet English as a determining subject to the next

level. Even though Indonesian curriculum does so, English in Indonesia is used as a

foreign language. Those are not enough to support students to master English well

because students only practice English in the school, while English is language and

language is habit, they should practice often as they. As a result, they are poor in English

knowledge and English use.

The students level up in poor skills of English, while their poor knowledge they

have got in the school is only focus on English materials, at worse they are not able to

interact communicatively using English when they come to the next level, university. It is

a must for university students to be more skillful than elementary, junior and senior high



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school, because they study not to raise their grade anymore, but to be teachers, the

facilitator of the students. First, they have to be more skillful in basic components

material of English, vocabulary and grammar.

The students of university must be skillful at two basic components material of

language, vocabulary and grammar. According to Harmer (1993: 153) if language

structures make up the skeleton of language, then it is vocabulary that provides the vital

organs and the flesh. Thus, vocabulary and grammar are extremely needed in every case

of using language, particularly English. The proficiency of understanding and using

English skills; speaking, listening, writing, and reading, basically depends on vocabulary

and grammar mastery. If a person is lacking of vocabulary in any language, he or she will

never know what to listen, what to speak, what to read, and what to write. When a person

is lacking of grammar mastery in any language, he or she will never know how to speak

and write correctly. Therefore, vocabulary and grammar are very important.

The necessities of vocabulary and grammar to be mastered by university students

have been clearly seen, but reversely happen in fact. The university students are lacking

of those basic skills. It is proven in the table of vocabulary and grammar test below.

Range of Score Sum of Students

≥0 - ≤20 2

≥21 - ≤41 4

≥42 - ≤62 17

≥63 - ≤83 13

≥84 - ≤100 0

Total Student 36

Figure 1.1. Score Table

The table above shows that the university freshmen lack basic vocabulary and

grammar skills. The average score is only 54, the highest is 76, and the lowest is 12. It is

far from the standard that the university students should be more skillful than regular

students.

Besides those two basic components material of English, vocabulary and

grammar, the university students are also demanded to be skillful in using English

communicatively. They should be able to use English as a language, not only as a subject

of study. The condition of the communication is needed to train university students to

learn English. They should be able to use the right word and the right grammar in many

different conditions. Thus, the teaching of English is not able to be separated to other

components material like giving kinds of specific expression or writing specific text.

The use of expressions and text is ineffective to be learned in the school. The

students often feel ashamed when they should practice them in front of the class. Even

though they can, it is meaningless because they express it perforce. Since English is a

foreign language in Indonesia, the students are still unable to find such expressions in real

life condition. They only find it through some media like school, television, social

network, movie, and music. But all of those media are not enough to make them skillful

in English, whether materials or communication. Thus, they are still not able to optimize

their skill in university level.

The use of media is really important to facilitate students to learn English. The

students of university are not too late to optimize their English skills through media. The

media like school, television, social network, movie, and music are not enough to make

them skillful and communicative in English, because those media give the students a

small portion of involvement. In other words, they become relatively passive participants.

Thus, those media do not give a great impact for their English skills development.

Since kind of media give a great impact to the students‘ learning motivation, and

also the result of achievement, the media should make the students learn happily.


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According to Cremin (2009: 1-2), creativity emerges as children become absorbed in

actively exploring ideas, initiating their own learning and making choices and decisions

about how to express themselves using different media and language modes. In

responding to what they read, view, hear and experience, children make use of their

literacy skills and transform their knowledge and understanding in the process. From the

expert overview above, the media to learn English should give a great role to the students,

so they can actively participate.

Role-play is one of old technique in language teaching and learning which gives a

big portion of role to the students. According to Patel and Jain (2008: 99), the students

should be provided real life situations. The creativity of role play, simulation and project

should be produced in students so that they could connect these all with real life situation.

It proves that role-play is able to give an impact for the students‘ participation. Besides,

the students are not able to practice role-play in their daily life. Thus, role-play should be

wrapped in a media where the students can easily practice.

Game is one of an easy interacted media, for the students, which is able to be

played everywhere. Game is able to give a big portion of participation to the students.

According to Davis (2009: 229), board games and computer games have been developed

to teach students about subjects as diverse as congressional redistricting and options for

reform, life in a Darfur refugee camp, and the challenges of distributing food and

resources to civilians caught in a war zone. Virtual worlds lend themselves to role playing

and scenario building that allow learners to assume responsibilities without incurring real-

world consequences. Students can give presentations, organize exhibits, build structures,

talk with historical figures, practice crisis management, take field trips to museums and

weather stations, view simulcast lectures, and connect with students, faculty, and experts

around the world. This statement explained that game can be an effective media for

English teaching. Even though many people think that game is only an enjoyment media,

but role-play game can be the effective media for language teaching, particularly English.

The researcher takes a conclusion from the explanation of the necessity the basic

components material of English like vocabulary and grammar, the portion of students‘

participation, the habitation of using English, and the use of effective media to learn

English, English materials should be learned in an active situation. The effect of role-play

technique which gives a big portion of participation and the conspicuousness and the

interactivity of game can be a great impact for students‘ learning achievements in

English. In conclusion, the researcher will develop a Role-Play Game (RPG) application

as a media to learn English.


In this part, the researcher will explain theories from various experts related to the

research. This needs to be done in order to strengthen the research. The interrelated

statements, principles, and prepositions that support and specify the relations among

variables include the concept of role-play game (RPG) application, media, learning

media, evaluating media, English vocabulary, and English grammar. Those concepts are

explained below.

1. The Concept of Role-Play Game (RPG) Application

Role-Play game (RPG) application is not a kind of technique in teaching like role

play and game. It is kind of media which is used in electronic application like computer

and/or laptop. Davis (2009: 229) stated that in role playing, students are given a situation

and a cast of characters, and they improvise dialogue and actions. Gibson, Aldrich and

Prensky (2007: 4) described game as a competitive activity that is creative and enjoyable

in its essence, which is bounded by certain rules and requires certain skills. In the same

book (2007: 3), Heinich, Molenda, Russell and Smaldino (2002) define a game as an


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activity, in which participants follow prescribed rules that differ from those of real life

[while] striving to attain a challenging goal. Furthermore, Davis (2009: 229) stated that

virtual worlds lend themselves to role playing and scenario building that allow learners to

assume responsibilities without incurring real-world consequences. In conclusion, RPG

application is a computer game application which gives student real interactive

experience learning through role-playing virtual world creatively and enjoyably.

2. The Concept of Media

In Smaldino, Lowther and Russell (2007: 6), media, the plural form of the word

medium, are means of communication. Derived from Latin medium (―between‖), the term

refers to anything that carries information between a source and receiver. In conclusion,

media is a tool between the source and receiver to conduct the information from the

source to the receiver.

3. The Concept of Learning Media

Harmer (2007: 176) stated that yet we should not see them (learning

resource/media) as methodologies for learning, but rather as tools to help us in whatever

approaches and techniques we have chosen to use. Since media is a tool to help teacher

facilitates students to get their learning process, teacher should maximize the potential of

learning resource to be an optimal tool to facilitate students to learn.

4. The Concept of Evaluating Media

Evaluation is a systematic determination of a subject's merit, worth and

significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards. It can assist an organization,

program, project or any other intervention or initiative to assess any aim, realizable

concept/proposal, or any alternative, to help in decision-making; or to ascertain the

degree of achievement or value in regard to the aim and objectives and results of any such

action that has been completed.

Based on Angelo and Cross (1993: 427) evaluation and assessment are different,

they have their own definition, Assessment focuses on learning, teaching and outcomes. It

provides information for improving learning and teaching. Assessment is an interactive

process between students and faculty that informs faculty how well their students are

learning what they are teaching. The information is used by faculty to make changes in

the learning environment, and is shared with students to assist them in improving their

learning and study habits. This information is learner-centered, course based, frequently

anonymous, and not graded.

Meanwhile Evaluation focuses on grades and may reflect classroom components

other than course content and mastery level. These could include discussion, cooperation,

attendance, and verbal ability. Although assessment and evaluation have different

definitions, those can be used for measure students‘ achievement in studying. Evaluation

can be found in every learning process, not only in the school or book, but also in another

learning media, such as education game, textbook, or internet because the purpose of

evaluation is to evaluate students learning.

5. The concept of English Vocabulary

Hiebert and Kamil (2005: 3) stated that vocabulary is the knowledge of meanings

of words. From Penny (1991: 60) Vocabulary can be defined, roughly, as the words we

teach in the foreign language. In Thorbury (2002: 15), we have been talking about the

importance of having an extensive vocabulary - that is knowing a lot of words. According

to Vygotsky in Thornbury (2002: 1) a word is a microcosm of human consciousness. In


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conclusion, vocabulary is the knowledge of meaning of words which is taught for another

language.

6. The Concept of English Grammar

Grammar is a rule of structure that arranges vocabulary to be a good combination

for a language. Coghill and Magendanz (2003:16) define grammar as a language is the set

of rules that govern its structure. Grammar determines how words are arranged to form

meaningful units.

Grammar is the sound, structure, and meaning system of language. All languages

have grammar, and each language has its own grammar. Grammar is one of knowledge

that informs the students to construct a sentence becomes a paragraph. Hornby (1990:

107) defines that sentence is the largest unit of grammar. All of sentence will be perfect if

sentence arrange based on grammar. Grammar will guide the students to create

communication. Cahyono (1997: 75) proposes that communicative competence is

composed of grammatical competence a communication strategy. People who speak the

same language are able to communicate because they intuitively know the grammar

system of that language—that is, the rules of making meaning. Students who are native

speakers of English already know English grammar. They recognize the sounds of

English words, the meanings of those words, and the different ways of putting words

together to make meaningful sentences.

METHODOLOGY

The researcher conducts a developmental research as the type for the research. It

means that the researcher does not have to look for theory to support the research, to

compare the media‘s effect, or search for the relation of the media. This research is

carried out to develop role-play game application as a media to learn and evaluate English

vocabulary and grammar.

The steps of this research are adapting from Research and Development (R&D)

steps by Gustafson and Branch (2002: 3) which are well known as ADDIE model. There

are five steps in ADDIE model; analyzing, designing, developing, implementing and

evaluating.

Design of R&D

Figure 3.1. ADDIE Model by Gustafson and Branch (2002, 3)


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The steps below are the summary of the research procedures that the researcher

will take. Those are:

1. Analyzing

In this part, the researcher will identify aspects of the subjects. The aspects consist

of some points like learning environment, and subjects‘ knowledge and skills. This step

covers the analysis of the needs from students in learning process, the problems in

learning process, and the problem solving for the students. After this step, the researcher

will progress to the next step which is designing phase.

2. Designing

Designing is the phase of planning on a solution from the problem which is

analyzed before. In this phase, the researcher will try to pull out a solution which is in

product form. The product will be an application game which is adapted from the

subjects‘ needs, problems, and weakness. The next phase will be developing the design.

3. Developing

Developing phase is the phase where the researcher builds the plan to become a

program from the previous step. The researcher develops the design by the guidance from

experts‘ review process. The experts give some recommendation to make the developed

product become a better product. When it is done, the research will move on to the next

phase, implementing.

4. Implementing

In this phase, the product from the developing phase will be implemented to the

subjects to get data. The researcher will get the data once the product is implemented to

the subjects. This process of collecting data will cover some processes such as one-to-one

and small group. After this phase is done, the last phase will be proceeded.

5. Evaluating

The phase of evaluating is possible to be done by doing test of the product in the

field test. The researcher does the final update of the product from the data taken in the

field test. This phase will be the outcome of the product update from this research.


This part explains the result of the readability questionnaire and implementability

questionnaire in small group and field test. Based on the result of the readability in small

group the respondents gave good responses. Based on the graph, the result average of the

readability questionnaire of small group in the second semester of English department

showed that the score of the product is 60%, 66,7% for appearance of the questions, and

66,7% for the punctuation of the evaluation text, and the result of the implemtability

questionnaire showed the user manual of the product got 60%, the attractiveness of the

media is 60% and 60% for utilizing of the media. Some students get difficulties to answer

the questions and the appearance of the media was not interesting enough. By the result

obtained in the questionnaire, the researcher revised the punctuation of evaluation text

and changed some appearance of the media to make it more interesting.


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Besides that the result of readability and implementability in field test got higher

score. The result from the questionnaire from the second semester of English department

got the average as followed: the high percentage score in readability is 87% and the

average of the result is 86%, while, for the high percentage score of implementability is

90% and the average of it is 87%. According to the result above, it can be concluded that

the product is acceptable without revision because the percentage of the questionnaire

result has reached the target.

Based on the statement, it can be concluded that the students show their interest

in the learning media, although the product has got many revisions in some steps in this

research. After getting some revisions, the students are excited to use the media for

learning and doing English vocabulary and grammar evaluation. Based on the

explanation, the result of the research is an Evaluation in Role Play Game (RPG)

application as a medium to learn and pass an English vocabulary and grammar test

successfully and it can be applied to university students.


1. Conclusion

After having finished doing the research in the Second semester of university

student at Muhammadiyah University of Metro, the researcher concludes the following:

a. RPG application can be developed as a medium to learn and pass an English

vocabulary and grammar evaluation at university; and

b. RPG application can be a useful learning medium in helping university

students to learn and pass an English vocabulary and grammar evaluation.

Based on the conclusions above, the product of this research can be applied for

learning and doing evaluation of vocabulary and grammar. This media can be used in

laptop and computer. Not only in the class, but also this medium can be used at home as

an interactive learning medium.

2. Recommendation

This research is significant for the attempt to develop evaluation in Role Play

Game (RPG) application as a medium to learn and do evaluation of English vocabulary

and grammar for university students of Metro Muhammadiyah University. Referring to

the findings of this study, the researcher recommends:

a. Using Role Play Game (RPG) application as a media to learn and do English

vocabulary and grammar test to the students by the lecturer, for students‘

learning media; and

b. Developing more interesting Role Play Game by next researchers as other

English learning media in order to make the students interested in learning

English, not only in vocabulary and grammar but also in other skills in

learning English.

3. Suggestion of Research

Based on the conclusion above, the researcher gives the following suggestions:


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1) For the students

The students should be active and creative when they follow the learning process,

especially in learning of vocabulary and grammar. The students should apply their ability

in acting, so sometime if the teacher use RPG application, students can be more active in

studying vocabulary and grammar.

2) For the Lecturer

The researcher would like to suggest that in teaching vocabulary and grammar

class, the lecturer can use this media for facilitating student about learning and evaluating

the vocabulary and grammar to make the students more interested.

REFERENCES

Angelo, T. A. & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for

college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ary, D., Jacobs, L. C., Sorensen, C. & Razavieh, A. (2010). Introduction to research in

education. (8th Ed). Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.

Cremin, T. (2009). Teaching English creatively. New York: Routledge.

Davis, B. G. (2009). Tools for teaching. ( 2nd

ed). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Gibson, D., Aldrich, C., & Prensky, M. (2007). Games and simulations in online

learning: Research and Development frameworks. Hershey: Infosci.

Gustafson, K. L. & Branch, R. M. (2002). Survey of instructional development models.

New York: Eric.

Harmer, J. (1993). The practice of English Language Teaching. Essex: Longman.

Harmer, J. (2007). The practice of English Language Teaching. (4th ed). Essex:

Longman.

Hiebert, E. H. (2005). Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice.

New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Patel, M. F. & Jain, P. M. (2008). English Language Teaching (methods, tool &

techniques). Jaipur: Sunrise.

Peraturan Pemerintah Republik Indonesia PP No. 32 Tahun 2013 ―Tentang Perubahan

Atas PP No. 19 Tahun 2005 Tentang Standar Nasional Pendidikan‖.

Thornbury, S. (2002). How to teach vocabulary. Edinburgh: Longman.

Weaver, C. (1996). Teaching grammar in context. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook


Page | 75

AN ANALYSIS OF REGIONAL DIALECT OF “ANDY AND A PAPUAN

YULLEX SAWAKI” ON KICK ANDY TALK SHOW

Marchellino Geribka

[email protected]


Abstract

Language has become essential in our life as social creature. Because of a language,

people can communicate with others and deliver message with clear meaning. With

language, everybody could understand others as well by knowing the meaning of

message. The language that is used by society itself has experienced changes. The

changes of the language themselves occur in every country. The changes cover

vocabularies, pronunciation, or even grammar. This thing has been existed for long time

and this term is called dialect. Dialect that would discuss in this paper is dialect that is

separated geographically and it is called regional dialect. This paper would elaborate how

people communicate to their interlocutor with different dialect in the same country.

Besides, this paper also would elaborate what obstacles are there that people face in

understanding each other and what strategies are used to deliver message clearly. To get

the evidence that proves this case, a video ―Kick Andy: Undiscover Papua episode‖ has

been chosen to find out the answers.

Keywords: regional dialect, vocabularies, pronunciation, grammar, interlocutor

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, language has become an essential part in this life. Language here

becomes the key of many things in this world for human being. In delivering messages,

human being needs some effective media so that they could interact well with others. This

era is the witness of the evolvement of languages that exist for long time.

As time goes by, a language always changes because of many factors. One of the

factors that affect the evolvement of a language is geographical location. Each location at

least created new variation. After a long time, each location creates different variation.

For instance, people in west Indonesia have different variation with people in east

Indonesia. If they meet and talk to each other, what will they do? Do they speak in

different variation or use a single variation? Dialect here holds an important role because

of that case. Dialect is formed by the geographical location and others factors that directly

affect the variation of a single language.

From the background above, the research questions are formulated as follows:

1. How do people communicate with their interlocutor(s) in different dialect?

2. What obstacles do hamper people in understanding others who have different

dialect?

3. What strategies do people use to understand others who have different

dialect?


In this part, this paper would elaborate theories that support this study in finding

out the answers of the problems.

a. Dialect

Human in this world exist for long time. The existence of human appears

changes. Anything has been changed as time goes by. One of the things is a language. A



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language itself has been experienced changes from time to time. Unique thing from this

case is the same language that has some varieties. This phenomenon is called dialect.

According to Van Herk (2012: 13) dialect is a term that tends to refer to sub varieties of a

single language. Furthermore, he adds that dialect itself covers pronunciation, sentence

structure, and meaning (Van Herk: 2012).

b. Regional Varieties

People in a country have different culture as long as they are separated

geographically. In this case, people could create sub varieties of a single language. This

occurs in many countries for long time ago. In Indonesia, this occurs clearly in eastern

area such as Papua. According to Wardhaugh (1992: 133), languages differentiate

internally as speakers distance themselves from one another over time and over space; the

changes result in the creation of dialects of the languages This case also shows that there

is innovation which creates sub varieties of a single language (Wardhaugh, 2010). It

proves that geographical location becomes one factor that affects language variation (Van

Herk, 2012).


This part displays the real data that has been changed into script. The real data

itself is taken from a talk show ―Kick Andy: Undiscover Papua‖.

These are the data related to sentence structure:

1. Andi: Kenapa orang Bandung?

Yulex Sawaki (a Papuan): Waktu Bandung lautan api, saya yang lambat diangkat,

akhirnya gosong. (Sentence structure)

2. Andy: Apa yang terjadi?

Yulex Sawaki: Dia punya kulit kena saya…. Bulu-bulu hilang ni… (Sentence

structure)

These parts are the data related to words and meaning:

1. Su

2. Tida

These parts are the data related to pronunciation:

1. Kena

2. Masjid

Findings

In this part, the data got from Yulex Sawaki (a Papuan) on ―Kick Andy:

Undiscover Papua‖ would be processed into standard variety. Beside, this section would

analyze some important parts, such as sentence structure, pronunciation, words, and

meaning as the main part of dialect (Van Herk, 2012: 13).

Sentence structure

1. ―Waktu Bandung lautan api, saya yang lambat diangkat, akhirnya gosong.‖ This is

the sentence that has been delivered. In standard variation, it should be ―Pada waktu

Bandung lautan api, saya terlambat mendapatkan pertolongan, akhirnya saya menjadi

gosong.‖

2. ―Dia punya kulit kena saya…. Bulu-bulu hilang ni.‖ This is the sentence that has been

delivered. In standard variation, it should be ―Kulitnya menyentuh kulit saya,

sehingga rambut pada kaki saya hilang.‖


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Words and meaning

1. ―Su‖ in standard variation, it should be ―sudah‖ which means ―telah jadi‖.

2. ―Tida‖ in standard variation, it should be ―tidak‖ which means ―penolakan‖.

Pronunciation

1. ―Kena‖ is pronounced /kena/ by the Papuan Yulex Sawaki. It should be /kəna/.

2. ―Masjid‖ is pronounced /məsjid/ by the Papuan Yulex Sawaki. It should be /masjid/.

Discussion

From the data and analysis result, we know that the Papuan Yulex Sawaki used

Papua Indonesia varieties in grammar, vocabularies, and pronunciation while Andy spoke

in standard variation (Indonesian standard). Even though Yulex Sawaki almost never

used standard Indonesia, Andy still knew and understood what Yelex Sawaki had said.

They still understand each other even though they used different varieties. This case that

has occurred called mutual intelligibility (Van Herk, 2012).

CONCLUSION

After gathering, analyzing, and discussing the data, the case of conversation

between two different dialects causes no problems in understanding each other. The three

research questions above also could be answered. First both them (Andy and Yulex

Sawaki) still used their different dialects. They still understand well each other and the

conversation could go on. Second it seems that there are no obstacles that make them

difficult to receive the message delivered. The last they have no special strategies in

handling two different dialects. At the end the conversation still goes on without any

difficulties.

REFERENCES

Holmes, J. (2001). An introduction to sociolinguistics. (2nd

Ed). London: Longman.

Schmitt, N. (Ed). (2002). An introduction to applied linguistics. London: Arnold.

Van Herk, G. (2012). What is sociolinguistics. Sussex: Willey Blackwell.

Wardhaugh, R. (1992). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Blackwell.

Wardhaugh, R. (2010). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Sussex: Willey Blackwell.


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THE IMPROVEMENT OF GRAMMAR TEACHING

FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH

Danin Christianto and Alfonsus Yudha Pratama



Abstract

Grammar teaching has always been one of the most controversial and least understood

aspects of language teaching. Grammar, the important subject which is viewed as the

foundation of any language skills, such as speaking, listening, pronunciation practice, and

writing. People know that grammar is always used in our daily lives. Unfortunately,

grammar is always viewed as the unimportant thing to be learned by students even the

English language learners. They often underestimate and mock any grammars. The

researchers recorded the ways to improve the English grammar teaching from many

sources and the researchers‘ opinions based on their view against grammar dislikers in

English Language Study class. This study aims to explain and describe the importance of

studying English Grammar in class, the reasons why the students dislike grammar instead

of underestimate it. Besides of that, the main purpose of this paper is to explain and give

the examples how to teach grammar in pleasing ways so the grammar dislikers students

will not feel bored and annoyed about this subject. Furthermore, the result of this research

paper shows that grammar dislikers will be easier to study and understand grammars.

Keywords: grammar, teaching, English language learners, dislikers

INTRODUCTION

Grammar, as many people know, is the structural foundation of people ability to

express themselves. The more they are aware of how it works, the more they can monitor

the meaning and effectiveness of the way they and others use language. It can help foster

precision, detect ambiguity, and exploit the richness of expression available in English. In

school or academic purposes, especially, grammar is very important because this subject

is the main foundation to other English skills such as speaking, writing, reading, and

listening.

Many people, including language teachers, hear the word "grammar" and think of

a fixed set of word forms and rules of usage. They associate "good" grammar with the

prestige forms of the language, such as those used in writing and in formal oral

presentations, and "bad" or "no" grammar with the language used in everyday

conversation or used by speakers of nonprestige forms.

Grammar teaching sometimes happens as a result of other work the students are

doing – for example, when they study language in a text which they have been reading or

listening to, or when a grammar problem presents itself unexpectedly in the middle of a

lesson and they feel they have to deal with it on the spot.

Grammar teaching may grow directly from the tasks students are performing or

have just performed as part of a focus-on-form approach. Most teachers have their own

favourite grammar presentation and practice and will often use them when they want to

study a particular piece of grammar.

Language teachers who adopt this definition focus on grammar as a set of forms

and rules. They teach grammar by explaining the forms and rules and then drilling

students on them. This results in bored, disaffected students who can produce correct

forms on exercises and tests, but consistently make errors when they try to use the

language in context.


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From the short explanations above, the research problems are formulated as

belows:

1. Why do students hate grammar? And what are (is) advices for them?

2. What are the methods which we can implement to increase the interests of learning

grammar?

3. How do the English Language Teachers teach grammar efficiently?

Based on the problems above, the objectives of this research are as follows:

1. To explain why there are many English Learner students hate grammar and to give

advices for each reasons.

2. To give the methods of increasing the interests of learning grammar.

3. To give the explanation about how to teach the English grammar efficiently.


Approach and Method

According to Edward Anthony (cited in Allen, 1965: 94), the American applied

linguist, an approach is a set of correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of

language and the nature of language teaching and learning. An approach is axiomatic,

which means describing the nature of the subject matter to be taught. It states a point a

view, a philosophy, an article of faith – something which one believes but cannot

necessarily prove. It is often unarguable except in terms of the effectiveness of the

methods which grow out of it.

The second term is methods. Anthony defines method as an overall plan for the

orderly presentation of language material, no part of which contradicts, and all which is

based upon the selected approach. A method is procedural which means a method is

treated at the level of design in which the roles of teachers, learners, and instructional

materials are specified.

Basic English Grammar Rules

It is important to know basic grammar rules because without them, people will be

unable to understand the upper rules of Grammar. They need to master the basic

grammar. English itself has basic rules that people need to follow for it to make sense to

hearers and readers. Here are some basic English Grammar Skills which are needed to be

understood and learned.

Only use capital letters for proper nouns and at the beginning of a sentence.

For every sentence there should be one noun and one verb. A sentence with more

than one noun or verb is confusing to understand.

When a sentence is complete use appropriate punctuation. There is no need to

have dual punctuation when ending a sentence.

If an apostrophe is needed make sure to use it to show ownership. An apostrophe

is also used when words are abbreviated.

Whenever writing multiple sentences about the same subject or line of thought,

use paragraphs to divide long segments of writing.

Should a line of thought require a list make sure to separate each article by a

comma.


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Make sure case and number of the subject and the verb match. It the noun is

singular the verb should be singular as well.

When connecting two lines of thought in a sentence, use a conjunction to make

things make better sense.

If you have two lines of thought that are similar feel free to use a semicolon to

combine them.

Make sure to use the correct tense when writing or speaking English.

Try not to end a sentence with a preposition.

A conjunction word should not be used to start a sentence.

Sentences should be complete thoughts and not fragments.

Try not to use double negatives. Such as no not never.

Make sure to use words correctly.

Avoid repeating lines of thought in sentences.

Make sure paragraphs are complete, having three to five sentences each.

Rules of English grammar can be hard to understand, but not impossible. By

following English grammar rules, we will be proficient in writing and speech. Just stick

to the basics, don‘t try to fake your way through things.

METHODOLOGY

There are some elaborations of this methodology which are used in this research.

This research was done by using the writers‘ experiences against grammar learners in

classes, English Language Teaching books sources, and some online sources. First step is,

the writers‘ gathered their experiences about the grammar dislikers and problems in

teaching grammar in the classroom. Second, the writers used some English Language

Teaching books and various online sources which could be used to improve the English

Grammar Teaching techniques. After the writers found the information, they chose

methods, techniques, and other things which could be used to support the analysis of the

three research questions. The last step is, the writers of this research wrote down the

conclusion and suggestion.


1. Students Hate Grammar

Grammar is a subject where it is a fundamental theory which is used in our lives.

For language learners, especially English learners, grammar becomes the critical subject

because it is always used in order to help us learning language skills such as speaking,

writing, reading, listening, and even linguistics. But, the confusing thing is, the writers

found that there are many students who dislike grammar and even underestimate this

critical subject.

The first thing is, the writers found the reasons why many students hate learning

grammar. The writers also stated the advice of the reasons, those are:


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a. They lack confidence in their ability to use grammar for communication

Advice: Too many learners are quick to criticize themselves and their English skills. A

common reason for not liking grammar is: ―I‟m not good at it.‖ It‘s our job to help build

the learner‘s confidence in his or her abilities. As stated above, we need to foster a

supportive atmosphere and make all tasks manageable.

b. They are overwhelmed by the volume of information

Advice: Grammar books can be intimidating…even for teachers. Some heavy reference

books with fine print tend to overload their brains after five minutes of reading. For

students, even the visually engaging textbooks can fail to disguise the amount of grammar

contained within. It‘s our job to present that grammar in digestible chunks.

c. They don‟t see the practicality of studying grammar

Advice: Some students have great fluency if not accuracy in their oral expression and feel

hampered when forced to think of grammar when speaking. Other students simply prefer

to learn grammar indirectly and not from a book or in a grammar class. In any case, you

can point out that grammar classes provide the opportunity to efficiently clarify

misunderstandings and learn structures that might otherwise go unnoticed. Knowledge is

good. Accurate knowledge is better. Accurate use of the knowledge is ideal; it‘s what

makes communication effective.

d. They don‟t like doing grammar homework

Advice: As you do with classroom activities, make homework assignments meaningful

and manageable. Emphasize the need to reinforce what is learned in the classroom

through independent practice; learning is a shared responsibility.

e. They equate having good grammar with mastering terminology

Advice: Remind grammar lovers and grammar haters alike that knowing terminology

isn‘t the same as being able to use grammatical structures. Knowing terminology places

more reference tools in the learner‘s hands, but discourage memorization for the sake of

memorization. The grammar lovers who focus too much on terminology will eventually

(and likely with great disillusion) understand that skills and not terms allow for

communication. The so-called grammar haters should rejoice over the fact that you won‘t

be quizzing them on memorized terms but rather assessing their ability to communicate

accurately.

f. Their frustration is directed toward grammar lessons, not grammar as a subject

Advice: Do you always approach grammar topics in the same manner? Does your basic

lesson format ever change? You may need to experiment more so that students sometimes

experience the format they are most comfortable with and other times are stretched (not

yanked) into a format that tests their flexibility as learners.

g. They aren‟t engaged by the material being used

Advice: Know your students. Do you need to supplement the assigned material to cater to

their interests? Can you modify textbook activities to make them relevant to your

students‘ purposes for learning English?

h. They aren‟t placed in the right level

Advice: Placement exams aren‘t always accurate especially if a student doesn‘t perform

well on standardized tests. Let a student‘s performance in class and in homework be the

true indicator.


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i. They had a negative experience in the past while trying to study grammar on

their own

Advice: The same as above. Also, encourage both cooperative learning and independent

study so they know the benefits of collaboration yet realize that independent effort is a

good and necessary component of language learning.

j. They had a negative experience in the past with another teacher

Advice: Foster a fun, supportive atmosphere that will help make unpleasant memories

fade.

2. The Methods to Increase the Interests of Learning Grammar

There are many different teaching methods which people today purport which do

not focus on solely teaching grammar. It is important to realize, however, that students

have different learning needs. Some will take a more logical approach, whereas others

will be more inclined to simply use the language as they receive it. An effective teaching

method is learning how to blend these two together. Sometimes the examinations which

students are preparing will focus solely on grammar and therefore it is essential to know

how to get these points across to the students. There are many different ways of making

grammar a little more interesting. A variety of different games can be designed in order to

help with this. The Internet is a brilliant resource when it comes to this, and is indeed a

blessing to many teachers. Another important thing to remember is repetition. Repetition

will often allow the words to sink into the students‘ minds easier.

a. Try to teach Basic grammar skills to the learners who are weak in grammar

It is crucial to teach the students who are weak in grammar because without doing

it, the students will be unable to understand or they will get many difficulties in learning

the higher level grammar. Take it easy in teaching grammar to the students. Help them

step by step by explaining the rules in basic grammar clearly. Also, use a simple grammar

book to teach them from the easiest one.

b. Using Songs

Music is often a great way of getting students to learn. By singing phrases, this

will become embedded into the mind a lot faster. This is particularly true if one is

teaching children or even teenagers. In order to do this, find a song that uses several

tenses or differing grammar points. Get the students to sing along, and then write up the

lyrics on the board. Get them then to sing it together, getting the tune into their head.

After this, one can then quiz them on what tenses or grammatical points are in the actual

text. Make this short and quick, and once they get the hang of it have them sing the song

again. After this, try and make a game out of it. Select individuals to say or sing a verse

or phrase from the song, but change the tense. This way they will be able to practise with

using the different tenses and verb forms, but in a much more light-hearted way.

c. Start Simple If you are preparing students for a college entrance examination or any other kind

of test, then simply knowing grammar structures may be the key to passing it. If the

learners have been doing grammar all along but still don‘t understand the mechanics, then

it is important to make sure that they receive a crash course in it. English grammar can be

relatively simple when it is all laid out. Start from the beginning, give them a few practice

exercises and let them work their way up. It is also a good idea to create a ―grammar

book‖ whereby the students can write down the various sentence structures and tenses,

class by class, so that they will always have a reference.


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In fact, having a comprehensive reference for grammar is probably one of the

best things to do. At the beginning of the course, it is a good idea to start simple and help

the students to work their way up to the more complex forms. A reference will allow

them to be more solidly grounded and can be good for doing exam revision with.

3. Teaching English Grammar Efficiently

Teaching from Rules

There are many pros and cons of a rule-driven approach hinge on the quality of

the actual rule explanation. This in turn depends on how user-friendly the rule is.

Then, what makes a rule become a good rule? Michael Swan, the author of ‗teachers and

students‘ grammars, offers the following criteria:

Truth: Rules should be true. While truthfulness may need to be compromised in

the interests of clarity and simplicity, the rule must beat some resemblance to the

reality it is describing.

Limitation: Rules should show clearly what the limits are on the use of a given

form.

Clarity : Rules should be clear. Lack of clarity is often caused by ambiguity or

obscure terminology.

Simplicity : Rules should be simple. Lack of simplicity is caused by

overburdening the rule with sub-categories and sub-sub-categories in order to

cover all possible instances and account for all possible exceptions.

Familiarity : An explanation should try to make use of concepts already familiar

to the learner. Few learners have specialised knowledge of grammar, although

they may well be familiar with some basic terminology used to describe the

grammar of their own language. Most learners have a concept of tense (past,

present, future), but will be less at home with concepts such as deontic and

epistemic modality, for example.

Relevance: A rule should answer only those questions that the student needs

answered. These questions may vary according to the mother tongue of the

learner.

A. Sample Lesson Lesson 1: Teaching used to using translation (Elementary)

In this lesson, the teacher has chosen to use translation to present used to do to a group of

Indonesian speakers.

Step 1

The teacher writes on the board:

The teacher asks for an English translation, and, if not forthcoming, supplies this one:

Tony used to smoke but he stopped two years ago/

Then, the teacher explains (in Indonesia): ‗Untuk mengatakan kamu melakukan sesuatu

secara teratur, gunakan used to. Itu artinya dulu biasa. Sebagai contoh, Tony used to

smoke, atau Tony dulu biasa merokok, which means that he doesn‘t smoke any more, it‘s

finished, he quit.‘

Tony dulu biasa merokok namun ia berhenti dua tahun yang lalu.


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The teacher then asks students how they would translate into Indonesian a

number of English sentences, provided orally, such as I used to eat meat; She used to go

out with Alex; We didn‟t use to play tennis; etc.

The teacher then elicits English translations for Indonesian sentences that the

teacher provided orally. For example: Saya dulu biasa minum anggur merah (I used to

drink red wine); Jose dulu tidak merokok (Jose didn‟t use to smoke).

Step 2

The teacher writes:

The teacher elicits a translation, and then erases key words, leaving:

The teacher asks students to write the true sentences of their own using this model, to

compare them in groups of three, and to ask and answer questions about the topics they

have chosen.

Discussion

Although the teacher has chosen a relatively teacher-directed and board focused

means of presentation, he attempts to involve the learners at each stage, thereby reducing

the danger of ‗chalk-and-talkiness‘. Moreover, explanations are kept short, and the

presentation is illustrated with clear examples.

Evaluation

The E-Factor: In terms of efficiency, translation is probably the most economical means

of conveying meaning – at least in terms of orienting learners towards a rough idea of the

meaning – bearing in mind that translation is always only an approximation.

Perhaps the main drawback is in terms of efficacy. There is a widely held belief

in the ‗no-pain-no-gain‘ princple of language learning. Translation requires minimal

mental processing, and hence loses in efficacy what it makes up for in ease and economy.

As Berlitz put it, as long ago as 1911: ‗In all translation methods, most of the time is

taken up by explanations in the student‘s mother tongue, while few words are spoken in

the language to be learned. It is evident that such a procedure is contrary to common

sense.‘

The A-Factor: Translation is of course only really possible in monolingual classes and

where the teacher has a good command of the students‘ language. In these cases it often

seems inappropriate not to use translation, given its speed and efficiency, and especially

at elementary level where explanations in the target language may be over the heads of

the students.

I used to ski when I was young, but I stopped because it was too expensive.

I used to ________ when I was _________ , but I stopped

because ________ .


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B. Sample Lesson Lesson 2: Teaching word order using a self-study grammar

(intermediate)

Many students have access to self-study grammars – that is, grammar reference books

which also include exercises and key answers. These grammars are potential sources of

learner-directed grammar teaching, both in the classroom and out of the classroom.

Step 1

The teacher has identified a common problem in the class – the tendency to put adverbials

between subject and object, as in I like very much jazz music. (The adverbial in this case

is very much). So, the teacher directs learners to the English Grammar in Use Unit 108 by

Raymond Murphy. The teacher tells them to study the grammar rules for homework, to

do the exercise on the facing page.

The teacher reminds that the sentences should be designed to test their classmates‘ grasp

of the word order rules they are to study.

Step 2

In the next lesson, the teacher puts the students in pairs, and they each exchange the

exercises they have prepared. Each does the exercises they have been given. That is, they

read their partner‘s sentences and decide which are grammatically correct. They also

correct the ones that are incorrect. The teacher is available for consultation and will

attempt to resolve any problems that arise – where, for example, there are two possible

correct answers.

Step 3

The teacher then rounds off this part of the lesson by eliciting the word order rules from

the class.

Discussion

This is another example of helping the learners to help themselves. By encouraging them

to take advantage of self-study resources, the teacher is instilling habits of self-directed

learning. Moreover, by setting the grammar study to do as a homework activity the

teacher frees up valuable class time that might be put to more productive use, such as

practice.

UNIT 108

EXERCISES

108.1 Is the word order right or wrong? Correct the ones that are wrong.

1. Everybody enjoyed the party very much. RIGHT

2. Tom walks every morning to work. WRONG: to work every morning

3. Jim doesn‘t like very much football. ........................................................

4. I drink three or four cups of coffee every morning. .................................

5. I ate quickly my dinner and went out. ......................................................

6. Are you going to invite to the party a lot of people? ................................

7. I phoned Tom immediately after hearing the news. .................................

8. Did you learn a lot of things at school today? ..........................................

9. Sue was here five minutes ago. Where is she now? .................................

10. Did you go late to bed last night? .............................................................


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Evaluation

The E-Factor: By having the students study the grammar as a homework task, the saving

in class time makes this approach maximally efficient. At the same timer, this exercise-

writing task requires students to engage with the rules at a deeper level than conventional

self-study exercises normally require, thus increasing the efficacy of this approach. As for

the ease of this approach, it assumes that students have access to self-study grammars. In

the absence of this, the grammar reference pages now found in most coursebooks would

serve equally well.

The A-Factor: Relying on students to take some resposibility for their own learning to

the extent of putting free time aside to study grammar rules and design exercises may be

asking a lot of certain students, especially those who would prefer the teacher to be the

source of all grammar input. Nevertheless, with motivated groups of adults students who

appreciate the value of freeing class time for language practice rather than for language

study, this approach has a lot in its favour.


According to the writers‘ opinions, the conclusion of this research is that the

Improvement of English Grammar Teaching for Students has always been one of the

most controversial and least understood aspects of language teaching. grammar is always

viewed as the unimportant thing to be learned by students even the English learners. They

often underestimate and mock any grammars. The writers‘ aim to explain and describe

the importance of studying grammar in class, the reasons why the students dislike

grammar instead of underestimate it. The findings of this paper is done by using the

writers‘ experiences against grammar learners in classes, English Language Teaching

books sources, and some online sources. The rates are, 30% rate we used the writers‘ own

opinions, 40% using book sources, and 30% using online sources. Also, the writers‘

considered that by using the mastery of basic grammar skills and teaching from rules can

help the grammar dislikers to like grammar-learning in the pleasing ways.

REFERENCES

About Education. (2015). What is Grammar? Retrieved May 14, 2015 from

http://grammar.about.com/od/basicsentencegrammar/a/grammarintro.htm.

Harmer, J. (2007). The practice of English Language Teaching. Cambridge: Pearson

Longman ELT.

Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and learning in the language classroom. Boston: Oxford

University Press.

Lebedev, R. L. (2015). 10 reasons why students say they hate grammar. Retrieved

May 15, 2015 from https://englishwithjennifer.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/10-

reasons-why-students-say-they-hate-grammar.

The National Capital Language Resource Center, Washington (2003,2004). Teaching

grammar. Retrieved May 12, 2015 from www.nclrc.org./essentials/

grammar/grindex.htm.

Thornbury, S. (1999). How to teach grammar. Reading: Pearson Education

What is Grammar. (2015). What is grammar?. Retrieved May 12, 2015 from

www.whatisgrammar.com.


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SOCIETY‟S EXPECTATION AND ITS EFFECTS ON WOMEN‟S MINDSET

SEEN IN KATE CHOPIN‟S THE AWAKENING: STUDY OF

PSYCHOANALYTIC FEMINISM THEORY

Anastasia R Mursanto and Rosa Vania Setowati



Abstract

Most women in our society live in society‘s expectations, a patriarchal society. Those

demands are coming from the women‘s surrounding such as family, husband, neighbors,

and others. The social expectation has been implanted within our society as a culture and

way of life. It has been internalized in such a way that women have been misguided to

think subconsciously that this kind of lifestyle is acceptable. Due to the expectations

demanded by society, women are unable to unleash their innermost desire and gain

personal emancipation. Representing the state of women in this modern age, Kate

Chopin‘s The Awakening has portrayed the restriction on women by society through the

main character named Edna Pontellier who is trapped between the demand and her desire

to be free. Through psychoanalytic feminism theory and document analysis, this paper

discovers that society‘s expectation affects Edna‘s mindset, mirroring the mentality of

women nowadays.

Keywords: psychoanalytic feminism, society‟s expectation, mindset

INTRODUCTION

In 2004, a study done by American Country Survey (ACS) showed that only 6

percent of the population has surname that differs from their spouse‘s surname due to

various reasons, such as age difference and education background (Gooding & Kreider,

2009). With only 6 percent of women having different surname from their spouse, this

means that that 94 of the women in United States have the same surname with their

spouse. According to a similar survey done in Pennsylvania State University in 2006,

more than 10 percent believes that those who do not change their surname into their

spouse‘ name are less dedicated to their matrimonial vow. The change of surname and the

mindset behind it is one of the many cases where society set a demand for women to obey

society‘s ultimatum which are mostly patriarchal ultimatum. However, the ultimatum

demanded by society has been there even before the modern age. It is portrayed in the

novel written by Kate Chopin entitled The Awakening, where the main character Edna

Pontellier feels trapped by society‘s demand on women‘s image. Through The

Awakening, the characterization of Edna Pontellier reflects society‘s expectation that is

still applied until now.


The main theory applied to the analysis of Kate Chopin‘s The Awakening is

Psychoanalytic Criticism and Repression. The application of psychoanalytic principles to

the study of literature, initiated primarily by a famous Austrian psychoanalyst who in

1900 published a seminal essay, The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud.

Psychoanalytic criticism derived from the techniques of psychoanalysis, a therapy which

aims to heal mental disorder by investigating the interaction between conscious and

unconscious elements in the mind. Habib (2005: 571) stated that Freud‘s fundamental

contribution was to open up the entire realm of the unconscious to systematic study, and

http://jfi.sagepub.com/content/31/5/681.abstract

http://jfi.sagepub.com/content/31/5/681.abstract

http://www.livescience.com/18633-husband.html


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to provide a language and terminology in which the operations of the unconscious could

be expressed. The theory of repression is one of Freud's most important contributions to

the study of the psyche. He argued that people repress, or drive from their conscious

mind, shameful thoughts that, then, become unconscious. Freud wrote, repression was

center to which all the other elements of psychoanalytic thinking was relate. As stated in

Murfin (1989: 504) according to Freud, all of us have repressed wishes and fears; we all

have dreams in which repressed feelings and memories emerge disguised, and thus we are

all potential candidates for dream analysis.

Another theory that is applied during the process of analysis is Social Learning

Theory. Defined by Albert Bandura, it is a theory stating that learning can be done

through the observation of others‘ engagements, behaviors, and the outcome of the said

things (1963). In this analysis, Social Learning Theory is applied on women‘s mindset

due to the surrounding. The surrounding here is analyzed as a patriarchal society, where

men are regarded as higher beings than women. With the theories and definitions

mentioned above, these papers dissect the relation between society and women‘s mindset

with the effects caused by it.

METHODOLOGY

There are two methodologies applied in this research; they are document analysis

and library research. Document analysis is done by reading the primary source [Kate

Chopin‘s The Awakening]. The researchers read the primary source and find the sections

that are possible to be studied and explored with the theories that are intended to be used.

Meanwhile, library research is done for the purpose of finding secondary resources that

are appropriate and suitable to be used as support for the analysis done in this paper.


A. Patriarchal Society in 1850 Patriarchal society has been established since the ancient times even before

Mesopotamian age and continues to spread its wings to other places. America in 1850 did

not escape from such society. Rooting from its Christian background, patriarchal society

creped its way up to American society and continues to be triumphant. In definition,

patriarchal society is a society where men are highly regarded above women. Moreover,

there is a distinguished line between ―men‘s job‖ and ―women‘s job.‖ According to

Aristotle, men are considered to be superior in every aspect compared to women, while

women are men‘s property whose purpose is to serve men (Dubber, 2005). Although it

cannot be seen right away at first glance, if delved further, the line that divided men and

women in 1850 can clearly be seen in society. In The Awakening, the dominant notion of

women in 1850 are things such as marrying when her age is considered appropriate by

society, being obligated to raise a child after the woman is married, using the husband‘s

surname after marriage, taking care of the house because the husband has a high mobility,

and others. This can be seen on pages 6-7, 10 and 76 given below:

―What folly! To bathe at such an hour in such heat!‖ exclaimed Mr.

Pontellier. He himself had taken a plunge at daylight. That was why the

morning seemed long to him. ―You are burnt beyond recognition,‖ he

added, looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal

property which has suffered some damage.‖ (pp. 6-7)

―He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the

children. If it was not a mother‘s place to look after children, whose on earth

was it?‖ (p. 10)


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―You are too lenient, too lenient by far Leonce,‖ asserted the Colonel.

―Authority, coercion are what is needed. Put your foot down good and hard;

the only way to manage a wife. Take my word for it.‖ (p. 76)

As it can be seen, the demand for women to stay home and obey the husband is

pretty high. Is such a demand can be categorized as patriarchal demand? Yes, it does.

According to Walby (1990), ―the family is considered to be the central of women‘s lives

and to the determination of gender equality‖. Another evidence of patriarchy in 1850 can

also be seen from the growing trend among women during that time, and that trend is no

other than the cult of domesticity or cult of true womanhood. A growing trend during the

1800s, this trend stated that women should have these four attributes on her: piety, purity,

submission, and domesticity. In another word, a woman should be religious, a virgin and

submissive to men because men are appointed by good, and a master of home life.

Barbara Welter summed the concept of cult of domesticity perfectly in her paper (1996):

―The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged herself and

was judged by her husband, her neighbors and society could be divided into

four cardinal virtues – piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. Put

them all together and they spelled mother, daughter, sister, wife – woman.

Without them, no matter whether there was fame, achievement or wealth, all

was ashes. With them she was promised happiness and power.‖

As it can be seen, the society demanded heavily on women to stay below men.

Women are expected to stay at home and serve men while taking care of children at the

same time. Women should follow the husband, no matter what. With such expectation

demanded by society, women in 1850 subconsciously thought that they have to obey the

husband.

B. Society‟s Expectation and Women‟s Mindset

Society‘s expectation can be internalized to one‘s mind through direct

observation and direct instruction, according to Bandura (1963) on the social learning

theory. Women are habituated by the common notion in the society such as women

should be the one who raised the children and ought to sacrifice themselves for the

children, worshipped their husband and protect themselves so that they are not losing

their charm.

―They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands,

and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and

grow wings as ministering angels.‖ (p. 12)

Such conditions halt women to choose what they wanted to be. They are trapped

into the social roles that are prescribed by society. With such prescription by society,

women are internalized to think that the requirements given by society are how women

should be. This is in accordance to Social Learning Theory proposed by Bandura (1963).

Social Learning Theory, by definition, is where learning occurs by observing others‘

actions or instruction then learns the outcome of it to be followed as a model. This is in

line with Edna‘s situation in The Awakening, where her surrounding tells her to become a

housewife who should obey her husband and regard him as someone higher than her. This

can be seen on pages 7, 11, 12 and 56:

―Coming back to dinner?‖ his wife called after him. He halted a moment

and shrugged his shoulders. He felt in his vest pocket; there was a ten-dollar

bill there. He did not know; perhaps he would return for the early dinner and

perhaps he would not. It all depended upon the company which he found


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over at Klein‘s and the size of ―the game.‖ He did not say this, but she

understood it, and laughed, nodding good-by to him.‖(p. 7)

―In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The mother women

seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them,

fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or

imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized

their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to

efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.‖ (p.

12)

―The fish was scorched. Mr. Pontellier would not touch it. Edna said she did

not mind a little scorched taste. The roast was in some way not to his fancy,

and he did not like the manner in which the vegetables were served.

‗It seems to me,‖ he said, ―we spend money enough in this house to procure

at least one meal a day which a man could eat and retain his self-respect.‘‖

(p. 56)

―The acme of bliss, which would have been a marriage with the tragedian,

was not for her in this world. As the devoted wife of a man who worshiped

her, she felt she would take her place with a certain dignity in the world of

reality, closing the portals forever behind her upon the realm of romance

and dreams.‖ (p. 22)

The second quote represents society‘s requirements of a good wife through Mr.

Pontellier‘s point of view. In The Awakening, a wife is supposed to be mother-woman.

That is, a woman who obeys her husband and takes care of her children all the time. A

wife who is unable to do such things are deemed as inappropriate, and it can be seen from

Mr. Pontellier‘s thought of having a wife who is not of mother-woman quality. The third

quote is an example of direct instruction. By not touching the burnt food and emphasizing

on man‘s self-respect, Mr. Pontellier ―instructs‖ Edna to put herself below Mr. Pontellier.

Meanwhile, Edna‘s action and thought in the first and last quote are results of the direct

instruction by society and observation by Edna. By swallowing society‘s instruction,

Edna is forced to become a good housewife who always obey her husband and buried her

own desire as a human being.

C. Psychoanalytic and Edna‟s Decision

During the marriage with Mr. Pontellier, Edna had repressed her desire. She even

did not have the chance to love someone truly. Her marriage is an accident. ―Her

marriage to Leonce Pontellier was purely an accident, in this respect resembling many

other marriages which masquerade as the decrees of Fate.‖ (p.22). What she repressed

were to love trully, to be a painter and to determine herself.

The idea of repression is theorized by Sigmund Freud in his book Five Lectures

on Psycho-Analysis. Freud believed that people repress or drive from unconscious minds

shameful thoughts that, then, become unconscious. It is the force to forget the material

and make the things someone desired to the realm of unconsciousness.

Edna‘s meetings with Robert Lebrun and Mademoiselle Reisz in the Grand Isle

awake her that she is under the condition of restriction and limitation. Robert Lebrun is

the depiction of man with excessive freedom, while Mademoiselle Reisz is seen to have

her life in her own control. Reisz should not meet society‘s expectation and society‘s

control over her life. She decided not to engage in a marriage life, she liked to enjoy the

freedom of living alone in her apartment, and was busy with her own music.

As Mitchell (1974) delivered in her book Psychoanalysis and Feminism


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―As Freud further pointed out, a man has more opportunity to engage in so-

called sexual perversion — a woman, whose sexual activity is more

restricted by society, must content herself with a neurotic symptom.‖

It is clear that women undergo neurotic symptom because they repress their

desire to sexual activity. It is seen natural when women are not engaging casual sexual

activities with more than one man. Women are restricted to decide what sexual relation

they wanted to have.

The thing Edna repressed in her mind then appears slowly. She wanted to have an

earnest feeling for her lover that cannot be exercised during her marriage to Mr.

Pontellier. All of her time she spent to regret the marriage. She was crying because she

had to take care of her children when he was sick. She had refused to be a mother-woman

by shifting the responsibility to the quadroon nurse.

Then, the repressed feeling found its way. She had a sexual affair with Alcee

Arobin when Mr. Pontellier was away for his business in New York. Besides, she still has

a strong feeling for Robert Lebrun. These are the representation of repressed feeling that

come into existence.

The other thing she tried to repress is the idea of becoming the wage earner. To

be a wage earner is a freedom for a woman. Edna wanted to be a painter—which is on the

surface seen as a job. ―Painting!‖ laughed Edna. ―I am becoming an artist. Think of it!‖

(p. 68) However, what she wanted is freedom. Painting is the representation of freeom,

because in painting she can choose whatever color she likes, she can draw whatever she

wants, and finish whenever she can.

Later, the last letter from Robert Lebrun is the evidence that society‘s expectation

is much powerful than somebody‘s desire. ―I love you. Good-by—because I love you.‖

(p. 117). Robert is afraid of what society would say to him. He argued that Edna is still

the wife of Mr. Pontellier and he will get the strong social punishment by society if he

recklessly trespasses the norm. So, he decided to leave Edna for good.

Robert action of leaving her surely cannot be considered as the best ending for

Edna‘s life. She did not want to suffer from any depression by facing the lost of Robert in

her life. She had enough depression while Robert left for Mexico.

Subconsciously, Edna wanted to have a desired life of choosing what‘s in her

mind. Unfortunately, she cannot make it because she was not able to choose to live with

someone she desired. Thus, this made her shift her mind and choose to end her life by

drowning her body into the sea so that there will be no one who could possess her, body,

and soul. It is the option that she made instead of searching for freedom in her life

through survival.

CONCLUSION

Society‘s expectation is internalized to women‘s mind through many ways. It can

be transformed, or directly instructed by the father, husband, and people surrounds

women. The notions that are attached to women are that they should be the angel in the

house who take care of the children, worshipped their husband, and to obey the role that

is prescribed by the society.

Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin‘s The Awakening underwent several events that

change her mind. First, the meeting with Robert Lebrun and Mademoiselle Reisz, that

leads her to her awakening. Second, her realizing that she is in control of marriage

institution which is prescribed by the society. Then, her state of losing Robert Lebrun at

the end leads her to suicide.

What Edna experienced is also shared among women nowadays. That women

should get married timely, to stay home, and obey the husband when they are married are

still rampant ideas in the modern life. At the end, it is the woman herself who can

determine what‘s pleasant for her life and what decision to be taken to liberate herself.


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SUGGESTION

The object of feminism analysis are varied and always be interesting to be dug

deeper since liberating women in any ways is not an instant agenda. Analysing the

language and symbol used by the character in the novel can be the further step to prove

some of the feminism concepts and theories that have not been explained in this paper.

The next thing the writers can suggest is to conduct more research on the history and

culture of Creole society depicted in the story. How Creole society and American society

in general‘s way of life in that era influence the condition of women would be a useful

finding.

REFERENCES

Bandura, A. (1963). Social learning and personality development. New York: Holt,

Rinehart, and Winston.

Billig, M. (1999). Freudian repression: Conversation creating the unconscious.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dubber, M. D. (2005). The police power: Patriarchy and the foundations of American

government. New York: Columbia University Press.

Mitchell, J. (1974). Psychoanalysis and feminism: A radical reassessment of Freudian

psychoanalysis. New York: Basic Books.

Walby, S. (1990). Theorizing patriarchy. Cambridge: Basic Blackwell.

Welter, B. (1966). True cult of womanhood: 1820 – 1860. American Quarterly. 18(2),

151-174.


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PSYCHOTHERAPY FOR STUDENT WITH SELECTIVE MUTISM AS SEEN IN

TOREY HAYDEN‟S GHOST GIRL: THE TRUE STORY OF A CHILD IN PERIL

AND THE TEACHER WHO SAVED HER

Haniah Hamidah Sahid

[email protected]


Abstract

This study analyzes a novel entitled Ghost Girl: The True Story of a Child in Peril and

the Teacher who saved Her which was written by Torey Hayden. This research focuses

on analyzing the characteristics of the main character with selective mutism, Jadie, and

the psychotherapy used by Hayden to treat Jadie as seen in novel. This research

formulated two problems, they are 1) how do Jadie‘s characteristics show the character of

selective mutism as seen in novel? and 2)what kind of psychotherapy is used by Hayden

to treat Jadie as a student with selective mutism as seen in novel? The objectives of this

research are to find out the characteristics of Jadie that show the characteristic of student

with selective mutism as seen in novel and to find out what kind of psychotherapy used

by Hayden to treat Jadie as a student with selective mutism as seen in novel. The method

of this study is library research with the novel as the primary source, while the secondary

sources are books and some electronic sources about selective mutism, psychotherapy

and psychoanalytic therapy. This study applied psychology approach to identify Jadie‘s

characteristics and find out the psychotherapy used by Hayden to treat Jadie. Based on the

findings, Jadie‘s characteristics show some of the characteristics of selective mutism such

as being silent while she is able to speak, has social isolation and withdrawal, compulsive

traits, and some negative symptoms. The second finding is that the psychotherapy used by

Hayden to treat Jadie is psychoanalytic theory which has three techniques of therapy, they

are free association, interpretation and transference.

Keywords: character, characterization, selective mutism, psychotherapy, psychoanalytic

therapy

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study Literary works are writings that serve a life experiences in sentences, even in a

novel. Moody (1986) says that ―the greatest pleasure and satisfaction can be found in

literature. A literary work may bring us back to the reality of human‘s satisfaction,

problems, feelings and relationship‖ (p. 2).

Ghost Girl: The True Story of a Child in Peril and the Teacher who saved her

was written by Torey Hayden. It is a novel that brings a gifted child as a theme. The

novel tells about a psychologist who firstly worked in a clinic with some psychiatrists and

psychologist with ability to deal with some children with special needs. Then, she moved

to a little town named Peril. In Peril, she worked as a teacher for a class with four

students with special needs. There were Reuben, Philip, Jeremiah and Jadie. This study

focuses on Jadie, who had a selective mutism disorder. Torey was really interested in

Jadie‘s case because her special research interest had been elective mutism, or also well-

known as selective mutism.

It is interesting to analyze selective mutism disorder, because in fact, children

may face a problem related to their developmental period such as selective mutism.

Camposano (2011) found that ―recent studies suggest that selective mutism may occur in

0.7 to 2% of early elementary students, although many researchers agree that these

prevalence rates may be underrepresented due to the lack of knowledge of the disorder.‖


Page | 94

(Cunningham, McHolm, & Boyle, 2006; Lescano, 2008; Schwartz et al., 2006; Sharkey,

McNicholas, Barry, Begley & Ahern, 2007, as cited in Camposano, 2011). The data show

that children may face selective mutism disorder in their developmental period and it is

found among society and the number of disabled is growing up, whereas they, the

disabled, have to attend a school. Therefore, teachers have to know how to handle the

disabled at school.

Problem Formulation

1. How do Jadie‘s characteristics show the characteristic of selective mutism as seen in

novel Ghost Girl: the true story of a child in peril and the teacher who saved her?

2. What kind of psychotherapy is used by Hayden to treat Jadie as a student with selective

mutism as seen in novel Ghost Girl: the true story of a child in peril and the teacher who

saved her?

Objective of the Study

1. To find out the characteristics of Jadie that shows the characteristic of student with

selective mutism as seen in novel Ghost Girl: the true story of a child in peril and the

teacher who saved her.

2. To find out what kind of psychotherapy is used by Hayden to treat Jadie as a student

with selective mutism as seen in novel Ghost Girl: the true story of a child in peril and

the teacher who saved her?


A. Psychological Approach

This study uses the psychological approach to analyze the novel. This approach is

chosen because it reflects the effect of modern psychology where comes up in literature

and literacy criticism as well (Kennedy & Gioia, 1995). Therefore it is appropriate with

the novel analyzed in this study which deals with psychological issue.

B. Theory of Character and Characterization

According to Abrams (1981), characters are described as follows:

- The persons presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by

the reader as being endowed with moral and dispositional qualities that are

expressed in what they say – the dialogue – and by what they do – the action.

(1981, p. 20).

- What the characters express through the story helps readers to visualize the

characters to be real persons. Besides having characters, a novel also has

characterization. As Rohrberger (1971), it is the process of an author creates a

character (p. 20).

In characterizing a character, an author can use two principal ways of

characterization (Rohrberger, 1971, p. 20). They are:

a. Direct

This way describes the character through physical appearance. For example, Sally is 5

feet 4 inches tall, weighs 110 pounds and has blond hair and blue eyes (Rohrberger, 1971,

p. 20).

b. Dramatic

It places the character in a situation to show what the character is through the way he/she

behaves or speaks. In addition, the behavior of a character must be consistent with his/her

nature, it means that when a character put in a situation, he/she should react in the way

she should be (Rohrberger, 1971, p. 20).


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C. Selective Mutism

Kumpulainen (1998) defines selective mutism as ―a rare disorder characterized by

consistent failure to speak in one or several social situations in which the child would be

expected to speak.‖ According to Hungerford et al. (2003), the characteristics of selective

mutism besides being silent are as follows:

1) Excessive shyness (and shyness/anxiety in family). An extreme form of shyness

is known as ‗social anxiety disorder‘ or ‗social phobia‘. People with social phobia have a

fear of being the centre of attention. They worry that everyone is looking at and judging

them (Stearn, 2011).

2) Anxiety disorder (social phobia). Social phobia is ―a persistent, irrational fear

generally linked to the presence of other people‖ (Davison & Neale, 1986, p. 117).

3) Social isolation and withdrawal. Social-withdrawal disorder is ―a disorder of

extremely shy children who never ―warm up‖ to new people both young and old, even

after prolonged exposure to them. They have loving relations within the family; but they

do not join in group play, and in crowded rooms they cling to their parents or hide‖

(Davison & Neale, 1986, p. G18). While ―isolated children make fewer attempts to

structure peer relations and are less imaginative in their play may indicate a deficiency in

certain social skills‖ (Davison & Neale, 1986, p. 389).

4) Compulsive traits. Compulsive personalities are ―perfectionists, preoccupied with

details, rules, schedules, and the like. They are work- rather than pleasure-oriented and

have inordinate difficulty making decisions and allocating time. They are generally

serious and formal and are unlikely to express warmth and friendliness.‖ (Davison &

Neale, 1986, p. 233).

5) Negativism. Negative symptoms, according to Davison and Neale (1986), consist

of behavioral deficits. The scale which assesses negative symptoms is as follows:

a. Alogia is a group of language deficits, including poverty of speech, poverty of content

of speech, blocking, and long delays before responding.

b. Avolition-apathy is a lack of interest, drive, and energy manifested as inattention to

grooming and hygiene, difficulty in seeking and keeping a job, and general activity.

c. Anhedonia-asociality is an ability to experience pleasure and feel intimacy, together

with little interest in recreational activities, sex, and social relationships.

d. Attentional impairment is an inability to focus, indicated by inattentiveness at work

and to the testing done during the patient‘s hospitalization. (Andreasen as cited in

Davison & Neale, 1986, p. 343).

6) Temper tantrums. Temper tantrums range from whining and crying to screaming,

kicking, hitting, and breath holding. They're equally common in boys and girls and

usually occur between the ages of 1 to 3.

7) Controlling or oppositional behavior. Oppositional behavior ―might be a normal

development phase for some toddlers and preteens and it is a common childhood response

to stress‖ (Sessoms, 2014).

8) Accompanying (underlying) communication disorder. ―Before the period when

language is usually acquired, autistic children have deficits in communication. (Davison

& Neale, 1986, p. 423)

D. Theory of Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy refers to ―the treatment of mental disorders by psychological

(rather than physical or biological) means‖ (Atkinson et al., 1981: 497). According to

Atkinson et al. (1981), there are five types of psychotherapy. They are:

a. Psychoanalytic therapy. It helps a patient discover and interpret the unconscious

beliefs that are distracting their current life and making them suffer from painful

symptoms like anxiety, depression, phobias or compulsion (Cabell, 2011).

Psychoanalytic therapy involves three techniques (Atkinson et al., 1981). They are

free association, interpretation and transference.


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b. Behavior therapy. It is a treatment that changes pattern of reinforcement and

conditions of emotional arousal (Smith, 1983: 157).

c. Humanistic therapy. This therapy concerns with self-understanding, development of

individual potential and human values (Smith, 1983: 155).

d. Group therapy. It is ―a type of psychiatric care in which several patients meet with one

or more therapists at the same time‖ (MedicineNet, nd).

e. An eclectic approach. It is also known as eclectic therapy. This is ―a therapeutic

approach that incorporates a variety of therapeutic principles and philosophies in order

to create the ideal treatment program to meet the specific needs of the patient or

client‖ (CRC Health Group, nd).

METHODOLOGY

In conducting this research, the researcher does five major steps. The first step,

reading novel, takes more than three months since the researcher re-reads the novel to dig

the problem in the novel better and deeper. After that, the researcher analyzes the novel

through making a list of abnormal behavior shown by Jadie and a list of treatment used

by Torey to help Jadie, and then the researcher relates those two issues with psychology

theories.

The next step is the researcher consults to a psychologist and an English

Education lecturer as the advisor. Then, as the main step, the researcher does a library

study. It becomes the main step since it is very useful to help the researcher find

referential books for supporting data of the research. The library study includes reading

some books about literature to support the analysis of character and characterization and

some psychology books as the literature review for supporting the analysis. Besides doing

library study, the researcher also does internet surfing, and it is a minor step since it is

done only for helping the researcher find some additional information related to the

research that cannot be found in literary works.


This section discusses two main parts that answer the problem formulations of

this study. The first part analyzes the characteristics of Jadie as a student with selective

mutism and the second part discusses the psychotherapy used by Hayden to treat Jadie.

A. Characterization of Jadie

The character is a literary genre: a short, and usually witty, sketch in prose of a

distinctive type of person (Abrams, 1981, p. 20). In this novel, the author, Hayden,

bought a real character into the novel, her student. The way she characterized the

character of Jadie, according to Rohrberger‘s theory, are both direct and dramatic.

1. Characterization of character

a. Direct

There are some parts in the novel which show that Hayden describes Jadie‘s

characteristic through physical appearance.

After getting Reuben settled with a toy at one of the tables, I turned to see a

small face peering through the window of the classroom door. ―Hello,‖ I

said. ―Is it your room?‖ the door cracked open to reveal a small girl with

thin, matchstick legs and pinched features dwarfed further by what could

only be describes as a Pre-Raphaelite hairstyle – a great wodge of dark, curly

hair parted unevenly down the middle and descending over her back in a

sheet. She was attractive in a pale, overwhelmed sort of way (p. 6).

What I noticed immediately was her posture, quite unlike anything I‘d

previously encountered while treating elective mutes. Hunched over almost


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double, she had her arms crossed and tucked up under her, as if she were

clutching an unwieldy load of books. I made a mental note to inquire about

scoliosis (p. 7).

I, too, studied her. Her hair was very dark, almost black, as were her brows

and lashes. Her eyes, in contrast, were a clear, pure blue (p. 11).

From those parts, we can see that the author describes Jadie‘s physical

appearance directly. It can be concluded that Jadie is very thin. Her hair is dark, curly and

parted unevenly, while her eyes were blue. Her posture hunched so bad, showing her

insecurity.

b. Dramatic

This is the way where the author places the character into situation to show

his/her characteristic (Rohrberger, 1971). Torey also used this way, it is shown from this

following part.

―You want to know something?‖ I asked.

No response. No step nearer, no blink, not even a breath that I could see.

―Come over here.‖ I patted the chair next to mine at the table. Laboriously,

she hobbled across the classroom. Her eyes remained on me but her

expression was unreadable. She didn‘t sit down.

―You know what I did before I came here?‖

No response (pp. 11-12).

In this part, Hayden put Jadie into situation of conversation, where the addressee

should give reaction to the speaker through answering the conversation. What Jadie did is

not replying the question from Hayden. She did not give any response. By looking at that

situation, it is proved that Jadie has selective mutism disorder since she refuses to speak

or makes interaction with other people.

2. Characteristics of selective mutism

a. Silent in selected places Elective mutism or selective mutism describes those children who refuse to speak

to all but a small number of intimates (Trainer, 1934, as cited in Hayden, 1980). This

characteristic is shown from the conversation between Hayden and Jadie‘s parents.

―What do you think about Jadie‘s problems with speaking at school?‖

―Nothing,‖ the mother replied, her voice soft.

―Nothing?‖

―Don‘t see it‘s a problem. Leastways, it isn‘t one for us. She talks fine at

home. Sometimes she won‘t shut up.‖

―Oh? Can you tell me about such times?‖

―She gets silly,‖ the father offered.

―In what way?‖

He shrugged. ―Just silly. Jumping around. Her and Amber.‖ He smiled at the

younger girl, who ducked her head.

―Does Jadie talk then?‖

―Yeah, all the time. Shouts. Says silly things‖ (p. 30).

Jadie was actually able to speak up, but she never spoke in school. She only

spoke at home with her family. In this case, family has different intimacy with Jadie

compared to other people, that is why Jadie refused to speak up in school.


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b. Anxiety disorder (social phobia)

It is found that Jadie showed anxiety disorder rather than excessive shyness and

social isolation and withdrawal. As Davison and Neale (1986) state, she has irrational fear

generally linked to the presence of other people.

―I like this drawing,‖ I said at last. ―Do you suppose I could have it?‖

Jadie looked over. ―What would you do with it?‖

―Just keep it. Maybe put it up on the wall. It‘s a good picture. Maybe the

other would like to see it.‖

―No,‖ Jadie replied, alarm in her voice. ―I don‘t want anybody else to see it.‖

―No? Why not?‖

― ‗Cause I told you. ‗Cause it‘s private what goes on inside you. Besides, if

you put it on the wall, spiders might walk on it. Spiders might see. Then the

policeman would come‖ (p. 45).

The conversation above shows that her fear is irrational. It is impossible for

policeman to come just because there is a spider walk on drawing on a wall.

c. Compulsive traits

This characteristic is shown by a tendency to work-oriented rather than pleasure-

oriented (Davison & Neale, 1986, p. 233), and this characteristic is shown by Jadie, when

her friends were not cooperative with Hayden in the class, Jadie was only busy with many

exercises without any instructions given to her.

In the middle of all this was Jadie, carrying on as if she were in a completely

normal classroom. Without being instructed to do so, she ferreted out her

workbooks for math and reading, sat down and completed a few pages,

returned them to be corrected, found a spelling sheet on the shelf, did that,

handed it into the basket on the teacher‘s desk, then sought out a cassette,

put it into the recorder, and slipped the earphones on (p. 10).

d. Negativism According to Davison & Neale (1986), negative symptoms consist of behavioral

deficits. The only deficit that is shown by Jadie is anhedonia-asociality. This is an ability

to experience pleasure and feel intimacy, together with little interest in recreational

activities and sex, and social relationship.

When I opened the door, my jaw dropped. There was Jadie, sitting on the

toilet, her dress hiked up around her waist, her underpants around her ankles.

Reuben, standing in front of her, his overalls down, was howling pathetically

as Jadie clutched his penis (p. 88).

―Pull his dicky and get milk,‖ Jadie replied.

―You don‘t get milk out of a cow‘s pisser. You get it out of its boobs. He‘s

got to be a girl.‖

―No Sir. I know a way to get milk out of a pisser. Out of a dicky,‖ Jadie said.

There was a boastful tone to her voice, making it clear that she relished this

moment of one-upmanship with Jeremiah.

―You can‘t,‖ Jeremiah retorted.

―You can too. But you don‘t squeeze it like that. You got to suck on it, like

this‖ (p. 117).

Those two quotations show Jadie‘s interest in recreational activities and sex,

whereas, children in age of eight years usually do not understand yet about sexual

intercourse, even more oral sexual intercourse.


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e. Temper Tantrums

These characteristics are range from whining and crying to screaming, kicking,

hitting, and breath holding. Jadie shows it by screaming and crying.

And with this comment, he wriggled them again, running them up his other

arm and leaping them over onto Jadie‘s shoulder. Jadie jumped with a

scream for her chair. ―Get him away from me!‖ She cried. ―Make him

stop!‖ before I could react, however, she had bolted from her chair.

Scuttling across the room and into the cloakroom, she slammed the door

behind her. I struggled to catch up with her, but before I could, I heard the

key turn in the lock (pp. 122-123).

It can be categorized as temper tantrums since what happens to Jadie was actually

just Jeremiah‘s hand which is acted like a spider. There is not enough rational reason to

accept her screaming.

f. Oppositional behavior

According to Sessoms (2014), oppositional behavior is normal development

phase for children. Jadie showed this characteristic through behave oppositely.

―Last spring you put your mouth on Reuben‘s penis. I explained then that

that was a private place on Reuben and we don‘t do those sorts of things

because of it. At the time I wanted to think a bit of silliness had come over

you, because I know boys and girls can get pretty silly sometimes about

things like this. Now I‘m beginning to get concerned that maybe there‘s

more to it.‖

―I was just playing,‖ Jadie muttered and lowered her head.

―I‘m not angry. And I‘m not going to get angry, so you don‘t have to worry

about that. I am concerned, though, Jadie. When little girls do something

like you were just doing, it‘s usually because they‘ve seen it done before.

Sometimes, someone older shows them or does it to them, and so they

know.‖

Jadie sighed wearily (p. 118).

That part of the story shows how Jadie behave oppositely from Hayden, when

Hayden tried to interrogate her wisely without blaming her. From the explanation above,

it can be concluded that the characteristics of Jadie really show the characteristic of

selective mutism. They are being silent in selected places, having anxiety disorder,

compulsive traits, negativism, temper tantrums and oppositional behavior.

B. Psychotherapy used by Hayden to treat Jadie as A Student with Selective Mutism

What makes psychotherapist and psychoanalyst different is that psychotherapist

tends to offering specific advice or giving suggestion of coping strategies, while

psychoanalyst focuses more on the causes of the suffering. Taking look at the way

Hayden treat Jadie, it can be concluded that she used psychoanalyst‘s techniques since

she did not only focus on giving advice to the client, but she really worked hard dig out

the causes of selective mutism on Jadie. These are the techniques that Hayden used to

treat Jadie.

1. Free association.

It is a technique where an individual states what comes into his/her mind, without

regarding how personal, painful, or seemingly irrelevant it may be. Hayden did never stop

invite Jadie into a conversation although Jadie did never reply her. Until one day, Hayden

asked about Jadie‘s drawing and she started to speak by answering her question. She

listened to every single word of Jadie without regarding Jadie‘s story or statement is

irrational.


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Pointing directly to the figure on the painting, I asked again, ―Who‘s the

person?‖

Silence.

―Who‘s this?‖

Still silence.

I knew I had to work quickly now to keep the silence from growing potent.

My research had yield a highly successful method of treating the most

salient symptom of the elective mutism syndrome – the refusal to speak –

and it was both simple and efficient. All that was needed was for someone

unknown to the child to come in, set up expectations immediately that the

child would speak, but I had to do so right away before we‘d established a

relationship that included her silence. I also knew that to provide the

―unavoidable opportunity,‖ I had to be persistent, clinging like a terrier to

my question, and not let the inevitable wall of silence dater me.

―Who‘s in this picture?‖ Silence. ―Tell me what figure we have here.‖

Silence. ―What person is this?‖

Still silence. I could see her muscles tense. Her hands began to tremble.

―Who‘s this?‖ I asked again, intensifying my voice abruptly, not making it

sound angry, not even louder, just intense. And unavoidable.

I tapped the picture smartly with the eraser end of pencil I was holding.

―A girl,‖ she whispered.

―Pardon?‖

―A girl,‖ she murmured in a hoarse half whisper.

―I see. What‘s her name?‖

Silence.

―What do you call her?‖

―Tashee.‖ Still she hoarse whisper.

―Tashee? That‘s an interesting name. Is she a friend of yours?‖

Jadie nodded.

―What‘s Tashee doing in this picture?‖

―Standing in front of her grandma‘s house.‖

―Oh, so this is her grandma‘s house. It‘s pretty, all blue and white like that.

Especially the door. You‘ve made a beautiful door. And how old is

Tashee?‖ (p. 17).

When Jadie started to talk, Hayden just listened to her carefully and replied what

Jadie said as best as she could. And starting from that day, Jadie wanted to speak up, even

though she still was very passive in spontaneously conversation.

2. Interpretation What are interpreted here are dreams. This technique is a royal road to the

unconscious. Yet, Jadie never asked about Jadie‘s dream. Hayden only listened to every

single story that Jadie told to her although some of her stories sound irrational. Hayden

always take a note about what Jadie said such as Tashee, the way she asked for help

through a CCTV, drinking coke and to be a ghost, a symbol which is made by her and

even about spider and why it is dangerous.

3. Transference It involves transferring feelings from the past to someone in the present, and then

the feelings are transferred from the patient/client to the therapist (Study.com, nd).

Hayden also used this technique to help Jadie face her problem, so that she would be like

a normal girl. It is shown when Hayden gave explanation to Jadie that she needs

psychiatry to help her.


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―Well, what I wanted to say was that I think you‘re going to be seeing a

psychiatrist at the mental health clinic. That same clinic in Falls River

where you used to go when you were littler. Do you remember?‖

―Sometimes our feelings get sick, just like our bodies do, and when that

happens, we go to a special docote called a psychiatrist, who tries to make

our feelings well again.‖ ―Mr. Tinbergen and Mrs. Peterson aren‘t entirely

happy with the way we‘re getting on in here. They don‘t think I‘ve been

quite as much help as you need, and they think it would be better if you

went to see someone who understands more about the kinds of troubles

you‘ve been having. This isn‘t a punishment or anything. This lady‘s really

nice and she understands kids, and I think it‘s the right idea, too. You‘ll

still be here for school, of course, but she‘ll help us out on this other

matter‖ (pp. 201-202).

Hayden has transmitted what Jadie had ever told to her. Since she thinks the case

of Jadie is quite difficult to solve by herself, she tried to talk to Jadie, to suggest her to see

a psychiatrist, so that Jadie‘s problem will be solved, as rational as possible so Jadie can

accept her explanation and later on understand what is happening to her.


Conclusion

From the novel which is analyzed in this study, it is found that the characteristics

of Jadie in this novel show characteristics of selective mutism disorder. They are being

silent in selected places, having anxiety disorder, compulsive traits, negativism, temper

tantrums and oppositional behavior. While the psychotherapy used by Hayden to treat

Jadie as a student with selective mutism is a therapy developed by Sigmund Freud,

psychoanalytic therapy, which involves three techniques in approaching Jadie as the

client, they are free association, interpretation, and transference.

Suggestion The future researcher still can analyze this novel from psychology perspective.

Another case that can be found in this novel is the child abuse that Jadie had experienced

or even analyzes feminism as depicted in literature, which is this novel.

REFERENCES

Abrams, M.H. (1981). A glossary of literary terms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and

Winston.

Cabell, A. (nd). Psychoanalysis: What is it and how is it different from other types of

psychotherapy? Retrieved October 19, 2014, from

http://www.associatedcounselors.com/articles/psychoanalysis.html.

Composano, L. (2011). Silent suffering: Children with selective mutism. The

Professional Counselor: Research and practice, 1(1), 46-56.

CRC Health Group. (nd). What is eclectic therapy? Retrieved May 16, 2015, from

http://www.crchealth.com/types-of-therapy/what-is-eclectic-therapy/.

Davison, G. C. & Neale, J. M. (1986). Abnormal psychology: An experimental clinical

approach. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Hayden, T. L. (1991) Ghost girl: The true story of a child in Peril and the teacher who

saved her. New York: Avon Books.

Hungerford, S., Edwards, J., & Iantosca, A. (2003). A socio-communication intervention

model for selective mutism. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

Convention.


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Kennedy, X. J. & Gioia, D. (1995). Literature: An introduction to fiction, poetry, and

drama (6th ed.). New York: HarperCollins.

MedicineNet. (nd). What is group therapy? Retrieved May 16, 2015, from

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/mobileart.asp?articlekey=11388.

Moody, H. L. B. (1986). Literary appreciation: A practical guide to the understanding

and enjoyment of literature in English. London: Longman.

Rohrberger, M. & Woods, Jr. S. H.(1971). Reading and writing about literature.

Chicago: Random House, Inc.

Sessoms, G. (2014). Oppositional behavior in children. Retrieved November 17, 2014,

from http://www.livestrong.com/article/238854-opposotional-behavior-in-

children/.

Smith, J. (1983). Abnormal behaviors: Outlined references. Washington, DC: University

Press of America.

Stearn, M. (2011). Excessive shyness. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from

http://www.embarrassingproblems.com/problem/shyness.


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STUDENTS‟ LOW MOTIVATION TO READ ENGLISH BOOKS

AND ITS EFFECTS ON THEIR ENGLISH PROFICIENCY

Mia Rachmawati and Lisda Maulani


Galuh University, Ciamis, Jawa Barat

Abstract

In the developing country, the students‘ desire of reading is still low. Dealing with this

problem, this research aimed to investigate the low of students‘ motivation to read and its

effects on their English proficiency. The research was conducted toward EFL junior level

(the third grade in university) of English Education Program, Galuh University who were

selected purposively from a particular class, which consisted of 14 students. The writers,

therefore addressed two research questions: (1) What are the effects of the students‘

reading interests on their English proficiency? (2) How do the students‘ reading interests

affect on their English proficiency? In answering the research questions, the writers

applied case study to collect the data by observing and administering questionnaires to 14

respondents in Galuh University Ciamis. The results showed that 86% students in the

class who have low of enthusiasm in reading have less English proficiency than those

who like reading.

Keywords: reading, students‟ motivation, English language proficiency

INTRODUCTION

Reading is viewed as a way to gain knowledge besides experiencing. Through

reading, someone can see another part of the world without even touch it, someone can

know the fact or theory without trying an experiment and experiencing the failure first.

Therefore, reading is considered as an important activity both in academic and life

situation (Al-Saleem, 2012). Even though reading is important, many people do not

realize how important reading is, particularly in developing country such in Indonesia.

They do not regard reading as a need. Besides that, there are numbers of things, which

distract Indonesian generations from reading, such as television, games and so forth

which are more entertaining. They are also not accustomed to reading because commonly

their parents did not exemplify them to read. Most parents in Indonesia usually tell their

children a story verbally (Hartadi). In addition, Baswedan said on February 27, 2015 that

the reading habit of Indonesian people is still low. It is proven by UNESCO data which

tells that the percentage of Indonesians‘ reading interest is only 0.01%. It means that from

10.000 of Indonesian people, there is only one who has reading interest (―Persentase

Minat Baca Indonesia‖).

In line with the students‘ awareness of reading, the writers try to associate it with

the students‘ English proficiency. Hence, the writers intend to focus on the junior

students‘ English proficiency which is something quite problematic in EFL students,

especially in Galuh University. Therefore, the present study focuses on English books as

materials, which are to be read by students. Furthermore, the writers took three previous

studies in order to support the present study. The first previous study is carried out by Al-

Saleem (2012) who concerned on a content analysis research, entitled, ―Encouraging

reluctant readers to read‖. The second previous study is conducted by Starcher and

Proffitt (2011) who dealt with an empirical research entitled, ―Encouraging students to

read: what professors are (and aren‘t) doing about it‖. The last previous study is

undertaken by Ghavamnia, Kassaian and Dabaghi (2011), who focused on research


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entitled, ―The relationship between language learning strategies, language learning

beliefs, motivation and proficiency: a study of EFL learners in Iran‖.

In accordance with the present study, those previous studies have some

similarities and differences, yet they still support the present research. The first previous

study tells about what people can do to encourage reluctant students to read. Al-Saleem

(2012) commonly focuses on the environment and habitual building as the solution of his

problem. Unfortunately, he aimed his study to the general reading problem rather than

specifying it to English area only. The second previous study found that there are factors

why students completed their assignments late. One of the factors is the lack of reading

motivation. Students view interesting books differently, and it affects the students‘

motivation to read the books in order to complete their assignments. Therefore, according

to this case, the professor should consider about what does and does not have to do in

order to encourage students to do their assignments punctually. Afterwards, the third

previous study reveals the language learning strategies used by students of Isfahan

University, Iran, which are associated with three variables that are owned differently by

each student, those are motivation, proficiency, and beliefs of the learners.

Regarding the overview of previous studies above, all have relation with the

present study. Those previous studies focus on the importance of reading. In addition,

those previous studies assist the present study and provide appropriate resource to be

engaged with the present study. In harmony with that issue, the writers then conduct a

research entitled: ―The Lack of Students‘ Motivation to Read English Books and Its

Effect towards Their English Proficiency.‖

After discussing the background of the study and previous studies, the writers

then discuss the aim of the study. The writers investigate the study to find out the answers

of the following research questions that they have addressed:

1. What are the effects of the students‘ reading interests on their English proficiency?

2. How do the students‘ reading interests affect their English proficiency?


In this part, the writers delineate the relevant theories deals with the present

study. Those relevant theories cover definition of reading, motivation and English

language proficiency.

Definition of Reading

To begin with, the writers highlight the term ‗reading‘. Willis (2008: 11) defines

reading as a process of activity which involves ―several essential and interrelated phases.‖

Those phases are:

1. Information intake—focusing and attending to the pertinent environmental

stimuli.

2. Fluency and vocabulary—associating the words on the page with stored

knowledge to bring meaning to the text.

3. Patterning and networking—recognizing familiar patterns and encoding new

information by linking it with prior knowledge.

Then, Cameron (2001: 125) states that, reading is an activity that conveys

meaning. The meaning is derived from visual information, which is written symbol;

phonological information, which is sound; and semantic information, which is

conventional meaning associated with words.

Regarding the definitions aforementioned, the writers would like to elaborate

them that reading is a process of obtaining information by associating prior knowledge

which includes the recognition of written symbols, phonological information and

semantic information with new information in the text in order to bring meaning to the

text.


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Definition of Motivation

The next term which needs to be taken into account is motivation. Because this

study is dealing with the students‘ eagerness to read, hence the motivation refers to

students‘ motivation to read. Barry Corbin (2008) as cited in Kirby and McDonald (2009:

5), describes that motivation as an emotional reaction in which the learner sees a benefit,

reward, or the potential for a positive reward in a task. Furthermore, Cambria and Guthrie

(2010) argue that motivation is the values, beliefs and behaviors surrounding reading for

an individual.

In harmony with the aforementioned definitions, the writers elaborate them that

motivation is emotional reaction which includes values, beliefs and behaviors in a learner

in order to see benefits, rewards, or the potential for positive reward in reading activities.

Definition of English Language Proficiency

After defining the term of motivation, the writers then highlight the term ‗English

language proficiency‘. Lachat (2004: 25-26) states that English language proficiency is

the ability to read, speak, comprehend and write a message in English in order to

exchange ideas. The skills contribute in language proficiency are listening, reading,

speaking and writing. In addition, Wilson and Komba (2012) define, ―Language

proficiency is delimited to mean the overall ability of an individual in language and a test

of proficiency is organized basically into listening, reading, writing and speaking skills.‖

Dealing with two definitions aforementioned, the writers then elaborate them that

English language proficiency is the overall linguistic abilities which are possessed by a

learner which enables her/him to speak, listen, write and read in English by considering

the context to derive appropriate meaning.

METHODOLOGY

In this section, there are some points to be highlighted. Those points are research

design, participant and research site, data collection procedure and data analysis.

Research Design

In the present study, the writers apply case study, particularly intrinsic case study

as suggested by Fraenkel, et al. (p. 435). Intrinsic case study is a kind of research design

which investigates a case or little unknown phenomenon in depth. Thus, the writers

decided to apply case study because they intent to figure out the problem deeply and

collect the data in detail.

Participants and Research Site

In the present study, the writers selected purposively 14 respondents of a

particular class from Galuh University who are junior level. The reason is that the writers

want to figure out how much reading English books affect and improve their motivation

and English proficiency. Moreover, the writers are part of the class, therefore they had a

long time to observe the students whom are their fellows. In other words, the writers are

participant observers.

Data Collection Procedure

The data were derived by observation in the class and administration of

questionnaires to 14 respondents who were selected purposively from a particular class.

Each questionnaire consists of 6 questions which are all open-ended questionnaires. This

is intended to obtain data in more detail because some questions require reasons for each

answer that the respondents gave. The time for answering the questions were quite long,

it was about two days because the writers administered the questionnaires through

electronic device while the respondents were at home, so the respondents were able to fill

the questionnaires without a rush.


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Data Analysis

The answers to each question would be analyzed qualitatively in order to draw

conclusions of the effect of junior students‘ motivation on their English proficiency. The

answers also lead to the assumption which can reveal why junior students of Galuh

University have low of reading motivation. Besides, quantification is used to present data

in percentage form in order to simplify the description of the data.


Findings

In interpreting the data, the writers analyzed all the answers given by the

respondents. The answers of the questions numbered 1 up to 6 are described as follows:

Question number 1 is ―Do you like reading English books? Why?‖ According to

the answers, 86% of the respondents say that they do not like reading, and 14% do. The

common reasons why they do not like reading books are that English books are boring

and those make them sleepy. Furthermore, the language itself, which is regarded as

foreign for them, makes them reluctant to read because the books are difficult to

understand and those need so much effort for the students to understand the meaning.

Therefore, students prefer to close the English books and do something which can please

them. In contrast, 14% respondents think that reading can improve their knowledge and

make them get new information.

Question number 2 is ―What kind of book do you like to read in English?‖ in

regard with the answers, 79% respondents argue that they like reading literary works,

such as novels, short stories and poem. Meanwhile, 14% of the respondents argue that

they like reading educational books and 7% of the respondents argue that there is no

English book they like.

Question number 3 is ―What do you think of reading English books?‖ in harmony

with the answers, 50% of the respondents think that reading English books is interesting,

despite of the words which take too much time to understand and eventually make them

confused and bored. However, some respondents like books with pictures. Furthermore,

there are 43% of the respondents who think that reading English books is as a way to

increase their English vocabularies and their understanding, though they need patience in

doing that. In contrast, 7% of the respondents think that reading English books is boring.

Question number 4 is ―Do you think reading is useful for you?‖ In accordance

with the answers, 100% of the respondents confess that reading is useful for them.

Question number 5 is ―What makes you want to read English books?‖ Dealing

with the answers, 14% of the respondents say that they read English books in order to

increase their vocabularies, to get more knowledge about English and its culture, also to

understand the literacy used in the language. In contrast, 86% of the respondents say that

they want to read English books when their lecturers give them assignments to read.

Question number 6 is ―How should the learning process be to motivate you to

read English books?‖ In line with the answers, 50% of the respondents think that the

learning process should be interesting, joyful and the book itself should be interesting and

it is not difficult to understand. Whereas, 29% of the respondents think that there must be

an instruction from the lecturer to read books, thus the respondents would read books no

matter they like it or not because there is a score threat. Meanwhile, 21% of the

respondents think that the teacher should give them motivation for which they have to

read books and tell them what benefits they can get from reading books.

According to the data presented above, it can be inferred that reading English

books is not easy to do. However, all of the respondents confess that reading is very

useful for them, yet it is not enough to motivate them to read English books particularly

academic books. English books, both academic and non-academic require so much effort

and patience to be comprehended by EFL students, and that is the common reason for

which English books seem not interesting and boring. Therefore, to get students to read


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English books, particularly academic books, the lecturers should figure out some

appropriate techniques to motivate students to read.

Discussion

The results of this study indicates that the students still have lacks of motivation

to read English books particularly academic books which actually are able to give them

plenty of knowledge in increasing their English proficiency. Nonetheless, they still want

sort of joyful books like literary works to read which should not be their primary books to

read if they want to improve faster their English language proficiency.

In this paper, the discussion centers on the research questions that have to be

answered based on the collected data. The answers are explained as follow:

Research question 1: what are the effects of the students‘ reading interests on their

English language proficiency?

The data aforementioned give the evidences that there are effects of the students‘

reading interests on their English language proficiency. This is also based on evidences

gathered by classroom observation. The writers observed the respondents‘ English

language proficiency which comprises of listening, reading, speaking and writing. Thus,

the answer to this research question is as follows:

a. Students do not have curiosity and eagerness to improve their English abilities;

b. Students have less vocabularies;

c. Students have lack of knowledge about English itself which includes grammar, and

literature aspects of English and knowledge about the content of the English books;

d. Students do not get used to reading, particularly English books which might make

them lazy to do more efforts dealing with English;

e. Students become speechless when they are needed to speak in English;

f. Students have lack of confidence in listening, speaking, reading and writing because

they are not sure whether what they are thinking is right or wrong which finally leads

them to cheat.

Research question 2: How do the students‘ reading interests affect their English

proficiency? To answer the second research question, the writers took all numbers

aforementioned and the results of observation as the evidence to strengthen the answer.

Based on the answer above, most of the students do not like reading English books

because it is confusing and boring. The remaining students see reading English books as

interesting activity in extent of literary work, yet they still encounter difficulties in

recognizing new vocabularies that reduces their motivation to read. In relation with those

answers above, the writers link those to their English language proficiency, which

consists of listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Motivation is important in reading in relation with listening. In listening activity,

less reading is needed. In order to be good in listening, students need to listen more and

more either intensively or extensively. However, in this case, reading still takes a role to

increase students‘ listening skill, because by reading, students are able to know what kind

of pattern the sounds that they heard and it tests the vocabularies that the students have in

their minds. In speaking, the role of reading is very important in recognizing what kind of

word patterns that students must produce. As in listening, it also tests vocabularies as well

as knowledge about English to be produced while speaking. In reading itself, the mixing

of the prior knowledge, such as vocabulary mastery and grammar, is necessary in order to

obtain meaning based on context. In writing, the role of reading is to obtain various

knowledge and information which are mixed in students‘ brain and then they produce an

idea in form of written text. According to the observation, it can be concluded that the

students who have high motivation to read because of their hobbies, their eagerness to

improve their knowledge and their curiosities have better English proficiency than those

who read just because of threat of the lecturer and assignments.


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Unfortunately, there are only 14% students who read to seek knowledge and to

satisfy his curiosity. Meanwhile, the remaining students who read in force may gain less

knowledge because they only read when their lecturers tell them to do so. It means that

they are not accustomed to reading in enjoyable and enthusiastic way. As the result, when

they are encountering assignments, which includes listening, speaking, reading and

writing skills, they seem so burdened with the assignments. They do not even practice

knowledge which they have gotten by force, whereas, English proficiency cannot be

gained by being passive, yet, it must be gained by actively practicing it in daily life.

CONCLUSION

Dealing with the results and discussion aforementioned, it can be inferred that the

students‘ reading motivation affects their English language proficiency which comprises

of their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Thus, students‘ motivation to read

should be increased in order to get plenty of knowledge which is admitted as important to

their lives. The lecturers in this case should be able to create or apply techniques which

can trigger students‘ motivation to read books, particularly academic books and forget the

difficulties of English language. The lecturers‘ task is to find out how to make learners to

read enjoyably and make it as a hobby that can satisfy their curiosities instead of

threatening them with bad scores. This issue is the task for parents and teachers as the

external factor in building good environment for learners to make reading habit within

their environment.

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001persen/79632.

Al-Saleem, B. I. A. (2012). Encouraging reluctant readers to read. European Scientific

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Fraenkel, J. R., Wallen, N. E. & Hyun, H. H. (2012). How to design and evaluate

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RAISING STUDENTS‟ PROACTIVE ATTITUDE BY IMPLEMENTING

SCIENTIFIC APPROACH AS USED IN 2013 CURRICULUM

Anthonia Jessy Perwirasari

[email protected]


Abstract

2013 Curriculum has just been deleted by the Ministry of Indonesian Education and

Culture in the beginning of 2015 because there are many ―premature‖ policies in the

curriculum. However, Curriculum 2013 also brings a good effect in the teaching-learning

system. This paper aims to show the benefit of 2013 Curriculum despite the problems

around the deletion of it. Also, this paper would help teachers to realize that scientific

approach in 2013 Curriculum is better than Exploration, Elaboration, and Confirmation

(EEC) approach in KTSP curriculum because it helps students to be aware of their senses

and abilities in studying. Interviews had been done towards 3 students. There are three

main findings. First, students realize that 2013 Curriculum insists them being more

proactive in findings the learning materials before they get the explanation from the

teachers. Second, there is no more spoon-feeding in teaching-learning system in schools.

Third, students can have a better relation with their friends because they have to do many

group-work projects in order to finish the assignments.

Keywords: 2013 Curriculum, scientific approach, EEC approach, KTSP curriculum

INTRODUCTION

Curriculum in Indonesia‘s educational system has recently been a big discussion

among Indonesian citizen, especially those who concern in education, such as educational

experts, teachers, and teacher candidates. Tyler (1949) defines curriculum as a set of plan

which has clear goals for students about what they have to achieve at the end of the

lesson. Tyler explained that setting the goal at the beginning of teaching-learning process

is important. However, Wiles and Bondi (1993) explain further about the curriculum set.

The curriculum is expected to be formed by using four-step plan: purpose, design,

implementation, and assessment. It is a complex thing to form the curriculum in

Indonesia‘s educational system since the implementation would be different in every

area. Thus, curriculum in Indonesia needs a thoughtful concern from educational experts

in order to fulfil its needs.

One of Indonesia‘s education goals is to create gold generation in 2045 in order

to make the most of upcoming 100th Independence Day celebration (Kemendikbud RI,

2014). Designing the curriculum is one of the ways to reach the goals. However, the

implementation faces many obstacles in the real fields. As we know, Indonesia consists of

many differences such as ethnics, races, religions, and contours of area. It is not a simple

thing to create a curriculum which can cover all the needs of Indonesian people. No

wonder, Indonesia has changed the educational curriculum seven times among 70 years

of its independence. Still, Indonesia has not found the best educational curriculum yet.

The latest applied curriculum was the 2013 curriculum and it collected a lot of

opinions. It was started in July 2013. There are more than 100.000 schools and 4.000.000

students from SD, SMP, SMA, and SMK applying this curriculum (Kemendikbud RI,

2013). Along the implementation of 2013 curriculum, there are many pros and cons

around the implementation. As a result, the curriculum has just been deleted by the new

minister, Anies Baswedan, in December 2014. The curriculum was still premature

because it has not been tested yet but already been implemented widely (Fajerial, 2014).


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Now, it is suggested that Indonesian schools use KTSP curriculum, the previous

curriculum, as the base of education.

Despite the deletion of 2013 Curriculum, there are still some beneficial things

related to teaching-learning system. One of them is the teaching-learning approach. In the

previous curriculum, activities are developed using Exploration, Elaboration, and

Confirmation approach (EEC). This approach gives students exposure of materials from

the beginning. As a result, teacher is the main source so students are mostly being

passive. On the other hand, the development of activities in 2013 Curriculum should

follow scientific approach: Observing, Questioning, Associating, Experimenting, and

Networking. Teachers give students assignment from the very beginning to find out about

the materials before the class is started. The role of the teacher is mostly as a tutor, who

will cover the blank space of students‘ understanding. Therefore, scientific approach in

2013 Curriculum is better than Exploration, Elaboration, and Confirmation approach in

KTSP curriculum because it activates all of students‘ senses and abilities, so students will

be more proactive in the teaching-learning process.

This paper aims to show the benefit brought by 2013 Curriculum. Despite many

disagreements about 2013 Curriculum, there is a good aspect along 1.5 years of 2013

Curriculum implementation, especially for students‘ characteristic development. Also, the

explanation in this paper aims to help teachers realizing that scientific approach is better

than EEC approach. The approach helps students being aware of their senses and abilities

in studying. Later, teachers could use scientific approach more in order to help students to

become a better individual.


This part presents some theories related to the background of curriculum-making

process. There are some learning theories and also laws and regulation as the background

of curriculum of Education in Indonesia.

1. Learning Theories

There are a lot of learning theories constructed from many centuries. All those

theories are influencing the curriculum development in Indonesia‘s educational system.

How a curriculum is constructed is based on which theories are chosen as bases. Here are

some learning theories used in KTSP as in EEC approach and in 2013 Curriculum as in

scientific approach.

Behaviorism is a theory which observing behavior of an individual. This theory

has been explained by Pavlov, Thorndike, and Skinner. Pavlov (1928) explained

behaviorism theory from an experiment with a dog. He used stimulus-respond hypothesis

in his experiment. In the experiment, the dog would produce saliva–the respond–after he

heard the bell–the conditioning–of food–the stimuli. That is a respond created by learning

process. On the other hand, Thorndike (1932) modified stimulus-respond hypothesis with

cause, training, and effect law. In Thorndike theory, reward and punishment are other

important aspects. When the training is successful, reward is needed so learners would

learn more and more. However, punishment given in failed training could reduce the

passion to learn. Therefore, feedback is needed here. Furthermore, Skinner (1974)

completed the behaviorism with positive & negative reinforcement and positive &

negative punishment. Positive reinforcement makes learners want to learn more. On the

other side, negative reinforcement would help students to make excuses. However,

positive punishment gives negative consequences for undesired respond. Then, negative

punishment removes or deletes the stimuli. In short, behaviorism theory is aimed to

change an observable behavior of individuals by setting up certain condition followed by

reinforcement and punishment.

Learning activities is more than only observable aspect; there is also

unobservable aspect to be considered. Unfortunately, behaviorism only focuses on

observable behavior. Learners‘ thinking process is not covered so cognitive theory is


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considered in the development of curriculum. Piaget (1973) explained that someone‘s

knowledge is depicted in a mental structure that can be called a scheme. Children have a

scheme and that condition is called equilibrium. When a new knowledge comes, there are

two possibilities might happen: assimilation or accommodation. Assimilation is the

condition when the new knowledge should fit in to the scheme while accommodation is

the condition when the new knowledge causes revision of the scheme to fit in. These two

conditions are also called adaptation. The next stage is disequilibrium or unbalanced

condition because of confusion between new knowledge and scheme. Equilibration is the

last stage; it is a condition when new knowledge and scheme have understood fully by the

learners. In short, learning is a process of restructured cognitive scheme over and over

again because of the new information.

Constructivism is also the theory used as the base for this curriculum created by

Vygotsky (1978). Cognitive theory captures learning as a passive theory. Constructivism

explains that learners‘ knowledge is formed not only from given materials by teachers but

also from previous experiences and social relations. As a result, each person would create

their own understanding. To get the best result of education, negotiation is needed

between one and others. ―I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I

understand." (Lao Tsu, Chinese Philosopher, 6th Century B.C). This old saying is one of

the bases of constructivism. Therefore, learning process is an activity combining new

knowledge with previous experiences in a realistic situation by doing negotiation between

each other.

Constructivism had become the root of many other theories. Cooperative learning

is one of them. When two people learn together, they could reach higher level of

individual intelligence rather than individual learning or learning by themselves (Johnson

& Johnson, 1986). Similar with it, there is collaborative learning: some people who have

various capability work together for the same goal. People have a big responsibility for

the group. The success of one person is related to other people‘s success in the group so

they have to help each other to reach the success (Gokhale, 1995). Furthermore, there is

also meaningful learning. Learning should contain more than only materials; learning

should be meaningful for learners‘ life so they could get the core of education (Ausubel,

1996). In meaningful learning, cooperative learning is needed in order to make the

learning process more meaningful. Meaningful learning cannot stand far away from the

relation with the context, as known as contextual learning. Based on Centre for

Occupational Research and Development (CORD), learning strategy of contextual

learning are explained as follows: 1) relating learning with real context in our real life, 2)

learning is experiencing actively including actively involved and exploring new things, 3)

applying the fruit of learning to the context and unction, 4) learning is also

communicating so collaboration and cooperation is needed in the learning process, and 5)

learning is transferring knowledge to a new situation.

Dyers, Grigersen and Christensen (2011) explained that someone‘s intelligence is

one-third from education and two-third from gen. However, someone‘s creativity is one-

third from gen and two-third from education. Thus, school should be about improving

someone‘s creativity. Creativity is developed by discovery skill: observing, questioning,

experimenting, associating, and networking. Similar with it, observation based learning

also emphasizes on personal experiences through scientific approach. To maximize the

result, collaborative learning is combined in order to make students more creative. An

intelligent based learning will only give 50% improvement, when creativity based

learning can reach 200% of improvement.

2. Approaches in Curriculum

Curriculums in Indonesia were made following some educational regulations in

Indonesia. KTSP and 2013 Curriculum were made to fulfil the needs of education in

Indonesia as written in Indonesian Law (UU) No.20 Year 2003. The law tells that

education is a planned and conscious effort to create learning atmosphere and learning


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process so students can actively develop their potentials of many aspects (religiosity, self-

control, personality, intelligence, character, and skills). Therefore, the curriculum is made

to answer those needs.

KTSP curriculum was implemented since 2006 until 2013. The content of KTSP

curriculum refers to Indonesian Regulation (PP) No.19 Year 2005 about Education

National Standard and Regulations of National Education Minister (Permendiknas) No.22

Year 2005 about Standard Content for Middle and High Schools and No. 23 Year 2006

about Standard Competency. Thus, KTSP curriculum was developed to complete and

revise the Competency-Based Curriculum which had been implemented since 2004. This

curriculum gives schools authority to develop the teaching-learning materials as well as

the grading system in order to make the education system suitable with the local

condition and characteristic (Muslich, 2007). Furthermore, the development of KTSP

curriculum can be explained further as below.

1. The curriculum strongly points attainment targets competence rather than mastering

the materials.

2. It accommodates the diversities of provided needs and resources of education.

3. It gives freedom for teachers to develop teaching materials so it will be suitable with

the local needs.

The curriculum is developed to be democratic and decentralized (Muhaimin, Sutiah &

Prabowo, 2008). It is expected to cover the various needs of education in Indonesia,

considering a lot of differences existed in Indonesia.

KTSP curriculum is more than a central-designed curriculum. Though, Education

Minister creates a framework of KTSP curriculum. Then, teachers can develop the

materials following the needs of schools and students. In designing the materials, there is

a specific approach that should be followed by teachers; it is called as Exploration,

Elaboration, and Confirmation approach. Exploration is when students are exposed with

the materials by teacher. Behaviorism and cognitive theory are the bases of this idea.

Furthermore, there is elaboration. Elaboration is when students combine their previous

knowledge with the new information to create the best understanding. Constructivism

stands as the base of this approach. The last step is confirmation. Confirmation is a

situation where the teacher checks students understanding. It can be done by class

discussion (Q&A) or also by assessment and testing.

However, 2013 Curriculum was developed above some new regulations. Based

on Regulations of Education and Culture Minister No. 65 year 2013 about Standard

Process in Elementary and Middle schools said that learning plan should be done in a

form of syllabus, lesson plan, and authentic assessment which included scientific

approach. In addition, this curriculum focuses more on the application of Indonesian

Laws No. 20 Year 2003 which requires Indonesia‘s education to go beyond academic

capability so students are expected to master other aspects. The curriculum also examines

students‘ behavior and tries to make a good character for students. Also, 2013 Curriculum

is concerning on the needs of the future time. In universities, successful students are those

who are excellent about not only in the academics aspects (hard skills) but also in the

nonacademic aspects (soft skills) such as communication, teamwork, and creativity

capability. An effective way to teach soft skills is by including it into the teaching of hard

skills (Schulz, 2008).

METHODOLOGY

To gather the data, a research was done by using some certain method and

technique. The researcher conducted this research which was categorized as qualitative

research because this research is to get better understanding about 2013 Curriculum.

1. Instrument and Data Gathering technique

To find out the real responds in the field, interviews had been done towards three

senior high school students in different time and places. The first interviewee is a student


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of SMA Stella Duce 1 in the 11th grade. The next interviewee is a student of SMA N 1

Kalasan in the 10th grade. The last interviewee is a student of SMA John De Britto in the

10th grade. All of them are now experiencing 2013 Curriculum in their schools. However,

they also experienced KTSP curriculum in their junior high schools previously.

Therefore, some questions are asked to get their responses about KTSP and 2013

Curriculum. The basic questions are:

1. Do you know about KTSP curriculum and 2013 Curriculum?

2. In your opinion, are they different?

3. If yes, what are the differences that you feel?

a. Which one does you like the most? Why?

4. If no, what do you think about learning process in the class from junior high

school until senior high school?

Furthermore, some questions are asked in order to get deeper and clearer information of

their answers.

2. Data Analysis Technique

Researcher collected the answers from interviewees as the data. Then, the data

were separated into three big parts: a) what students did individually in the classroom, b)

what teachers did in the classroom, and c) what happened between one student and

another.


1. Students Preparation of Understanding Materials before the Class Started

In the recent curriculum, students were expected to have understood the materials

before they come to the class. Therefore, teachers gave them assessments in order to be

prepared. Based on the interviewees‘ information, all of them had been asked to make

some collaborative papers about the materials in the classroom. One of the interviewees

was asked to prepare the materials before the class started and he had to explain the

materials to the rest of the class. Then, the other friends – who had also prepared the

materials – would give comments on his work, whether it was similar with what they got

or no. As a result, this kind of assignment was quite exhausting and boring for them. They

kept making papers over and over again. Then, the activities in the classroom were

mostly presentation and paper assessment. On the other hand, they realized that this kind

of approach forced them to learn more and more. Preparing material for presentation was

quite terrifying, but they could understand more about the materials because they had the

experience of learning them. In short, students realized that 2013 Curriculum insisted

them to be more proactive in finding the learning materials before they got the

explanation from the teachers.

Comparing to the previous materials, things that they mostly did was sitting while

listening to teachers‘ explanation then they had to do their quizzes and examinations.

They did not experience making papers or presentations. They were mostly quiet in the

classroom. However, in 2013 Curriculum they were also expected to ask questions to

teachers in the classroom. They would certainly get more scores if they dared to ask

questions. As a result, they would try their best to make questions related to the materials.

On the other hand, the previous curriculum did not force them to do so. Though the

teachers opened question and answer session also gave extra scores for those who were

asking, students were not encouraged to ask something in the classroom because they

thought that they have understood the materials based on what the teacher had explained.

Thus, the previous curriculum has no urgency to ask students to participate actively in the

classroom activities.

The students actually need trigger to learn actively in the classroom. The previous

curriculum did not ask many things to be done by the students. They were mostly asked

for listening to the materials given by teachers and working on quizzes and tests. These

ways of teaching only activated few senses of students. They were using their sights,


Page | 115

hearing, and thinking ability mostly. As a result, they were more passive in the classroom.

On the other hand, the recent curriculum asked more from students. They have to know

the materials before the class. It also means that they have to discover the materials by

themselves. In the discovery learning, they have to use more senses in order to get the

maximum understanding. Moreover, they have to deliver their understanding by making

paper or presenting it. These ways force students to use the best of their senses in order to

succeed. Also, students are expected to be active in the classroom by asking teacher about

what they do not know. They have to chase the materials. In short, students have to be

ordered to do some things which will activate their maximum capabilities.

2. Teacher as only Tutors, not the Main Source of Learning

Students were making a lot of papers and presentations assigned by their

teachers. Then, teachers would review their materials, whether it was appropriate and

right or not. Also, teachers would revise their works if the mistakes were made. Further,

teachers would give explanation mostly when students asked them about the materials.

Teachers‘ explanation in the classroom was designed as effective as possible. It means

that explanation of the materials was given only when it was needed. The explanation was

not too short but also contained some important ideas. However, the previous curriculum

had a really different role of teachers in the class. Teachers were the one who knew the

materials. Students were usually only receiving the materials and they had only few kinds

of activities in responding the materials. It made a teacher-centered learning process and

students learned passively in the classroom.

Nevertheless, the interviewees had different perception. All of them agreed with

teachers‘ role in the class. However, all of them were also looked quite disappointed

because their teachers explained learning materials only a few. They said that they needed

more explanations from the teachers. Also, they needed more feedback on their

assignment. One of the interviewees said that she never got an explanation or correction

of her papers and presentations from teachers so she wanted to go back like in the junior

high school. Another interviewee said that he was quite disappointed with teachers‘ role

nowadays. However, he understood that what his teachers did was one of their ways to

encourage their students for asking more in the class so they could get more explanation.

Teacher‘s role at class in 2013 Curriculum was different with in KTSP

curriculum. Teachers were successfully becoming the tutors in the class if they could

encourage students to be proactive in the classroom. At first, it might seem like the

teacher did nothing because students were expected to be really active inside and outside

the classroom. This is what teachers should learn. They have to be more creative in the

teaching-learning process in the classroom so students will not get bored. Moreover,

teachers need to give feedbacks and brief explanation to their students so they would not

get lost in the learning process. Teachers are allowed to give explanation and actually

teachers should give explanation to them; it is just a matter of portion; whether teachers

who talk the most or students. In conclusion, there is no more spoon-feeding in teaching-

learning system in school. Teachers are only being tutors; they give students explanation

when they need it because they cannot find the materials or they make mistakes.

3. Students Interrelation in Connection to the Group Assessment

Students were asked to prepare materials by themselves before the class started.

Since 2013 Curriculum was more than about academic ability, the papers and

presentations had to be done in group so they could be better in other aspects. The

interviewees said that they did not find any difficulty in the group work. Instead, they

could communicate more with their friends. Thus, group work is one of the ways to make

students build their relations between friends.

2013 Curriculum wanted to build other aspects of students beside academic side.

Therefore, assignments were mostly done in group work. By doing group work, students

were implementing cooperative and collaborative learning. These two ways of learning


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could create better results than working as individual. Furthermore, they also learn to

have responsibility about their friends‘ work. Other things to be considered are their

communication and teamwork skill. These skills are two from many skills included in

soft skills. Students need to learn these skills from the early time in order to help them to

become a better individual. In group, students need to communicate with each other to

reach their goal so a good capability of communication is needed to prevent

miscommunication. Also, teamwork is important in group work. A responsibility as a part

of the team is needed to be successful in the real world. Therefore, group work is a good

medium for students to build and train their communication and teamwork skill.


Among the implementation of 2013 Curriculum since July 2013 until December

2014 –some schools are until now– it has good goals for education in Indonesia. The

curriculum is trying to fulfil not only the needs of present time but also some requests in

the future. Furthermore, scientific approach in 2013 Curriculum helps students to explore

their best capabilities of learning inside and outside classroom. Students use their senses

to do some activities in learning: 1) students learn the materials before they come to the

class; 2) students work in a group with their friends which help them learning and

socializing; 3) students present the learning materials to all friends in the classroom, and

4) students write the result of their study or the learning materials in a form of essay of

paper. By doing this approach of learning process, students can make the most of their

learning process so it will become meaningful learning for them.

However, students need their teachers as the tutors. Teachers are expected to still

teach the core materials even though they have tried to find out about the learning

materials. Also, students need to be appreciated about the task that they have done. The

appreciation is more than rewards. Students also need feedback of their works, whether

they have done good, bad, or incomplete performance. The feedbacks are useful for

students understanding related to the materials. Therefore, students need to be more

creative in the classroom.

Seeing the result in the fields, it can be understood that actually students agree to

learn with scientific approach as in 2013 Curriculum because the learning process is

meaningful for them. However, they need teachers to teach them in the classroom. They

want teachers to teach as in EEC approach, KTSP curriculum so they can get more and

detailed information. Therefore, teacher may develop the learning activity in the

classroom using scientific approach to make students able to have meaningful learning.

Then, teacher can continue the explanation of learning materials using the way which has

had been done in EEC approach to enrich students‘ knowledge of education. By

combining these two approaches, students are very possible to gain the maximum result

of learning process rather than only one of them.

REFERENCES

Dyer, J., Gregersen, H. B. & Christensen, C. M. (2011). The innovator's DNA: Mastering

the five skills of disruptive innovators. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Ebert, E. S. & Culyer, R. C. (2011). School: An introduction to education. Belmont, CA:

Wadsworth.

Edwards, S. L., Watson, J., Nash, R. & Farrell, A. (2005). Supporting explorative

learning by providing collaborative online problem solving (COPS)

environments. A paper presented to the OLT 2005 Conference, QUT, Brisbane,

81-89. Retrieved from https://olt.qut.edu.au/udf/olt2005.

Fajerial, E. (2014). Anies Baswedan: Kurikulum 2013 prematur. Tempo.co website:

http://www.tempo.co.


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Gokhale, A. A. (1995). Collaborative Learning Enhances Critical Thinking. Journal of

Technology Education. 7(1).

Indranto, A. & Ferry T. (Eds). (2013). Menyambut Kurikulum 2013: Forum

Mangunwijaya VII. Jakarta: Kompas.

International Centre for Educators‘ Learning Style. (nd). Jean Piaget‟s stages of cognitive

development. Retrieved from http://www.icels-educators-for-learning.ca.

Isjoni, H. (2009). Pembelajaran kooperatif. Meningkatkan kecerdasan komunikasi antar

peserta didik. Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar.

Kementrian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia. (2013). Sekolah pelaksana

Kurikulum 2013 ditetapkan. Retrieved from http://kemdikbud.go.id/

kemdikbud/berita/1046.

Kementrian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia. (2014). Implementasi

Kurikulum 2013. Retrieved from http://kemdikbud.go.id.

Kurmasin, I. & Sani, B. (2014). Implementasi Kurikulum 2013: Konsep & penerapan.

Surabaya: Kata Pena.

Muhaimin, H., Sutiah & Prabowo, S. L. (2008). Pengembangan model Kurikulum

Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) pada sekolah & madrasah. Jakarta:

Rajagrafindo Persada.

Ornstein, A. C. & Hunkins, F. P. (2013). Curriculum: Foundations, principles, and

issues. Boston: Pearson.

Schulz, B. (2008). The importance of soft skills: Education beyond academic knowledge.

NAWA Journal of Language and Communication.

Tyler, R. W. (2013). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago: University

of Chicago Press.

Wiles, J. & Bondi, J. (2014). Curriculum development: A guide to practice. Boston:

Pearson.

Yulaelawati, E. (2004). Kurikulum dan pembelajaran: Filosofi, teori, dan aplikasi.

Bandung: Pakar Raya


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A STUDY OF LANGUAGE VARIETY SEEN IN PYGMALION MOVIE

Anastasia N Cendra and Wening P Pertiwi



Abstract

There are many theories on how social class can affect the language spoken in each class;

that the language spoken in upper class will most likely be different to the one spoken in

lower class. Because these phenomena are commonly happened in our daily life, it

becomes intriguing to conduct a research on this matter by observing a movie entitled

Pygmalion, a 1938 movie. This research, A Study of Language Variety Seen in Pygmalion

Movie, aims at solving the following objectives: to point out the language varieties exist

in Pygmalion movie and to find the relation between the varieties of languages and the

social status of the speakers in Pygmalion movie. The data is gathered through document

and content analysis method as well as library study for a deeper analysis. The research

results on the fact that there is a language variation found in Pygmalion movie in the form

of Standard English, the UKSE, and non-standard English, which in this case is Cockney

English. The lower class people tend to speak non-standard form while the upper class

use the standard form. However, if the lower class people are able to better their English,

it is possible for them to elevate their social status.

Keywords: social class, variation, movie, standard form, non-standard form

INTRODUCTION

This part is dealing with a brief introduction to the study. It consists of two parts,

research background and research objectives. Research background explains the reason

why this research is worth conducting. The later part elaborates the problems this

research aims to answer.

Research Background

Most of language communities have social stratification which divides the society

into some social classes. Each social class has their own language. Many theories mention

that social class affects the language spoken in each class. It is no surprise then to find

that the language spoken in upper class will most likely be different to the one spoken in

lower class. As these phenomena are commonly found in our daily life, it becomes

intriguing to conduct a research to prove these theories.

Observing a movie can be a good choice for the research since a movie is a good

and honest representation of our daily life. A 1938 movie entitled Pygmalion fulfils this

demand as the characters belong to different social classes. This fact gives an opportunity

to observe and prove if there is language variation indeed exists across social status.

Research Objectives

Understanding the background above, this research is conducted to prove the

theories by pursuing two objectives, as follows:

1. to point out the language varieties exist in Pygmalion movie

2. to find the relation between the varieties of languages and the social status of the

speakers in Pygmalion movie


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Language varies. Language varies because there are differences in the situation of

use which later may cause the variety of word choice and the syntactic ordering. They are

defined primarily by the circumstance and purpose of communicative situation rather than

by the individual user or ethnic or social group using the variety. This is what we call as

language registers. They refer to the characteristics differences in way of speaking which

involves certain particular word choices and constructions (Stockwell, 2002).

However, language variation phenomenon in society can also be caused by

regional or socio-economic origins, so-called dialect. Different dialects will show

different syntactic ordering and other grammatical choice. A language may consist of one

dialect or more. English, for example, has both standard and non-standard forms. Either

form can be related to the racial or ethnic background (Jay, 2003).

There are many factors that may cause the variation of language. As mentioned

above, the existence of different dialects within one language, for example, may be

caused by both regional and socio-economic background differences. The first mentioned

refers to the geographical area where the language is spoken; different area will result in

different dialects. The later refers to the different social class where the speakers belong.

Speakers belong to different classes will most likely to speak differently.

Stockwell argues that social class, which is closely related to economic class,

become one of the most complex factors responsible for language variation. Many

language communities have a hierarchy of health and power which has the strong

connection to economics and prestige (Stockwell, 2002). In Britain, for example, there

are three major classes that are known: the upper class which is often referred as upper-

middle class, the middle class or the middle-middle class, and the lower class or the

working class. This classification is defined primarily by their wealth and family‘s

relation. Education, however, can also be a strong factor contributing to this stratification.

Among those classes in Britain, many dialects are spoken. However, the one that

is considered as the most prestigious dialects is the UK Standard English (UKSE) or well-

known as BBC English which has become the form widely used in printed media, law

and education (Stockwell, 2002).This particular UKSE can be an indicator that marks

some certain social status like wealth, class, and education. It is safe to conclude that

people who speak the perfect form of UKSE definitely do not belong to any lower class.

This view of language has resulted in elitism where a certain form of language,

which is the standard form, is considered superior to the non-standard ones. Thus,

speaking properly becomes an extremely important social goal (Jay, 2003). It is because

the fact that people make judgement from our social status on the way we speak.

METHODOLOGY

The research belongs to qualitative research. It is conducted primarily through

document and content analysis method. The major object of the observation is Pygmalion

Movie (1938) which is based on the popular play of George Bernard Shaw. Library study

is also conducted for the deeper analysis.


This part of the research is dealing with the findings which have been found in

the research followed by the discussion. The findings and discussion is divided into two

parts. The first part is the discussion of the characters‘ background and its relation to their

social status. It observes the difference of language used across social classes. The second

part discusses about social mobility; it is about how a person can elevate their social

status by bettering his/her language as seen in the movie.


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1. Language Variety Analysis

The title of the movie for the discussion is Pygmalion, an adaptation of George

Bernard Shaw‘s play with the same title. The film is produced in 1938 whose setting

inside the film is in England around that period. There are two characters from the film

that will be the centre of the discussion: Eliza Doolittle (the main character) and Professor

Henry Higgins (the teacher). The followings are some information of the background of

the characters as the introduction to the analysis.

a. Characters‘ Description

Eliza Doolittle is a young Cockney flower girl. She buys flowers from a small

market and sells them in Piccadilly Circus for living. Whenever she meets people, she

would likely to say, ―Buy some flowers off a poor girl?‖. Despite the fact that she is the

only daughter of her father, Eliza Doolittle lives alone in her shabby house. Knowing the

setting, she most likely belongs to lower class of the society.

Henry Higgins is a well-educated professor of phonetics. He is able to

differentiate many similar sounds by hearing them and easily get irritated by bad

speeches. Professor Henry Higgins is quite rich, observed from the luxury of his house.

He belongs to the upper class of the society.

b. Finding and Analysis

From the movie it is observed that Henry Higgins speaks UK Standard English

(UKSE). This fact is closely related to the social-economic background of the character

as he is an educated and well-mannered man.

On the contrary of how well Professor Henry Higgins delivers UKSE form, it is

observed that there are many non-standard forms of English language spoken by Eliza

Doolittle in the film. The following tables are the findings.

a. The omission of ŋ ending

Time Proof Standard Form

00.05.26 ... look where you‘re goin‟ ... ... look where you‘re going ...

00.05.51 ... and run away without payin ... ... and run away without paying

...

00.06.09 Who‘s tryin‟ to deceive you? Who‘s trying to deceive you?

00.06.53 ... by speakin‟ to the gentleman. ... by speaking to the gentleman.

00.07.24 That ain‘t proper writin‟. That is not proper writing.

00.12.20 Here, take the whole bloomin‟

basket for sixpence!

Here, take the whole blooming

basket for sixpence!

00.17.20 I‘m not askin‟ any favours. I‘m not asking any favours.

00.17.28 Oh, now we‘re talkin‟. Oh, now we‘re talking.

b. The omission of h sound


00.37.08 ... „ardly ever appen‟. ... hardly ever happen.

c. The pronoun you becomes ya


00.05.27 ... look where you‘re goin‘, do

ya?

... look where you‘re going, do

you?

00.05.59 Thank ya kindly, lady. Thank you kindly, lady.


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d. The pronoun my becomes me


00.21.22 ... to take it out of me mouth. ... to take it out of my mouth.

00.23.15 I‘d catch me death. I‘d catch my death.

00.23.18 I‘ll take me skirt off. I‘ll take my skirt off.

e. Double negations


00.06.53 But I ain‟t done nothin wrong ... But I have not done wrong ...

00.13.12 Eighteen pence ain‟t no object

to me, Charlie.

Eighteen pence do not object me,

Charlie.

00.20.03 I don‟t want no loonies teachin‘

me.

I don‘t want loonies teaching me.

00.20.12 I ain‟t got no mother. I don‘t have a mother.

f. Non-standard words/pronunciation


00.07.13 What you wanna take down ... What you want to take down ...

00.12.17 You oughta be stuffed with

nails, you ought!

You ought to be stuffed by nails,

you ought!

00.20.58 You oughta be ashamed of

yourself!

You ought to be ashamed of

yourself!

It is observed from the table that Eliza Doolittle utters many non-standard forms

of English; either they are connected to pronunciation, grammatical pattern, or non-

standard choice of words. If these forms she utters are compared to the forms Henry

Higgins speaks, which again is a professor of phonetics who will most likely to use

UKSE form in his speech, there is clear distinction drawn. The professor will most likely

to utter sentences with perfect English form in terms of the pronunciation, grammar, and

word choice while Eliza Doolittle does not.

It is also mentioned on the film that Eliza is a Cockney flower girl; she spoke

Cockney English. Cockney English refers to the variety of English language that is

usually spoken by working class people who belong to lower class. Cockney English has

some features that are different from the Standard English. It is one variety that covert

prestige (Mott, 2011).

The clear distinction between two forms of English observed in the film is closely

related to the fact that the characters belong to different social status. Observing their

occupations, Professor Henry Higgins clearly belongs to upper class while the flower girl

Eliza Doolittle belongs to lower class. The distinction of the forms of English observed

because of the different social status. It is in same light as Labov‘s finding in 1940s. With

his famous ―department store‖ study, he has successfully proved this stratification often

has a strong connection to the language used within the class. He shows that there were

variations of the language form spoken by people on different classes. Similar thing is

mentioned by Stockwell; that social class in one of the most significant factors of

linguistic variation (Stockwell, 2002).

In addition, there is another interesting finding about language in the film. The

character Eliza Doolittle tends to repeat the subjects and the operators after she finishes

one sentence, as seen in:


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- I am a good girl, I am.

- You are a robber, you are.

- I know what the likes of you, I do.

- I washed my face and hands before I come, I did.

- He‟s off his chump, he is.

- I didn‟t know when I was well of, I didn‟t.

The finding is most likely triggered by the character‘s wanting to be noticed.

Elisa Doolittle tends to repeat her subjects and operators at the end of the sentence

because she wants to emphasise what she is meant to say... This may be related to the

social class she is in, the lower class. She most likely wants to show her existence in the

society.

2. Further Analysis: The Plot and Elitism

Pygmalion itself is a relatively old film about a flower girl named Eliza Doolittle

who wanders around the Piccadilly Circus. One interesting thing about her which attracts

a phonetic expert, Professor Henry Higgins, is her peculiar way of speaking. She speaks

in her high pitched voice with an accent which is crude-sounded for those who belong to

the higher classes in the society. It is often that people do not take her seriously because

of her peculiarity which is not only limited to her words pronunciation, but also her

vocabularies. Yet, the same peculiarity of the flower girl also leads Professor Higgins to

the decision of taking her under his tutelage and turning her into a lady who will certainly

gain respect from the society. He makes a point of drilling the idea of how to be a lady

into Eliza‘s mind. He underlines the agenda of shaping up her way of speaking, her

language competence. Through the relatively difficult and rather harsh process, the

respected professor is able to change Eliza Doolittle from a crude sounded and brash

flower girl who runs around the Piccadilly Circus into a lady worth the respect of the

society, even those who belong in the upper class.

From the story, it is concluded that Eliza Doolittle has changed from an ill-

mannered flower girl into a lady under the tutelage of Professor Henry Higgins. The

change is not only felt by Eliza herself, but also by the professor and the society. The

professor starts to treat her like a lady that he ‗shapes‘ her to be, quite an opposite to the

way he see her as a dirt under his shoes in their earlier meetings even though she is his

own student. The society is also unable to point out the flower-girl beneath the currently-

turning-into-a-lady Eliza Doolittle; they only see her as a well spoken and equally well-

mannered lady.

This is in accordance with what Bahar (1989) has said on the relation between

education and what is called as social mobility. Social mobility itself is a person‘s

movement over time from one class to another. It can be up or down or can either be

inter-generational which is occurring between generations, such as when a child rises

above the class of his or her parents, or intra-generational, which is occurring within a

generation, such as when an individual changes class because of business. In the open

class system, the placement of one‘s class is based on individual achievement, in this

case: education.

In Pygmalion, we can see that Eliza is experiencing the social mobility because of

the education which has been given by the professor to bring the lady in the flower girl

into the surface. When Eliza is being pushed around by Professor Higgins to memorize

this and that, to plant the idea of well-mannered lady into her mind, the education process

is happening. It also matters that the education given is closely related to language. The

language improvement experienced by Eliza becomes her main ride so that she is able to

raise her social status from just a flower girl with harsh English pronunciation and spoke

mostly in non-standard English into a lady who bears well-manners and speaks UK

Standard English (UKSE) in smooth and perfect grammar, word choice, and

pronunciation.


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This is also related to the concept of Elitism (Jay, 2003), stating that speaking

‗properly‘ using Standard English is something which is considered superior to non-

standard English. People tend to judge other by the way they speak and speaking using

non-Standard English is frowned upon. It is difficult to have a ‗social rise‘ when a person

speaks using non-standard English. On the other hand, when they are able to use standard

English, in this case is UKSE, it will be easier for them to be on their merry way to move

their social class.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, there is variation of language found in Pygmalion movie in the

form of Standard English, the UKSE and non-standard English, which in this case is

Cockney English. The variation has a strong relation with the social status exists among

the speakers. The lower class people tend to speak non-standard form while the upper

class use the standard form. These findings support the theories explained above.

Furthermore, when the lower class are able to better their English speaking and gain the

society‘s respect, it is possible for them to do the social mobility toward the higher class.

REFERENCES

Bernstein, B. (1974). Class, codes and control. Theoretical studies towards a sociology of

language, 1(6), 95-117.

Jay, T. (2003). The psychology of language. London: Pearson Education.

Lieberson, S. (1981). Language diversity and language contact. Chicago: Stanford

University Press.

Mott, B. (2011). Traditional cockney and popular London speech. Retrieved April 8,

2015 from http://etheses.dur.ac.uk. Stockwell, P. (2002). Sociolinguistics: A resource book for students. London: Routledge.


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IMPROVING CRITICAL SPEAKING ABILITY

THROUGH IMPROMPTU SPEECH

Marcelline Gratia Sephira Taum, Dionisia Stella Ayu Saputri, Yosephin Diva Fabiola

Nuralita and Emma Hadiana Cahyani

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],

[email protected]


Abstract

Speaking plays a major role for student teachers of English Language Education Study

Program (ELESP) in Sanata Dharma University since they are expected to be the source

of knowledge for the students. English speaking courses challenge students to give oral

critical response toward a particular topic, which lead them to be fluent in learning and

later teaching English as a second language. One of English speaking courses which are

taught in ELESP is impromptu speech. ―Impromptu speech is readily understood and

translated, while prepared speeches make greater demands on him [the interpreter] and

prove less amenable to successful rendering‖ (Seleskovitch, 1982: 241). This research

aimed to find out (1) the students‘ perception of impromptu speech and (2) the relation of

impromptu speech and students‘ critical speaking ability. The respondents for this

research are fourth semester students who have experienced impromptu speech in

Speaking 1, Speaking 2, Critical Listening and Speaking 1, and Critical Listening and

Speaking 2. The findings of this research will show how impromptu speech improves

students‘ critical speaking ability.

Keywords: critical thinking, speaking ability, impromptu speech

INTRODUCTION

―Critical thinking is one of the most modern issues in education around the

world, being utilized in the classroom and the curricula as a way to train decisive, open-

minded individuals with fair judgmental qualities referred to as cultivated critical

thinkers‖ (Paul & Elder, 2008). ―Critical thinking is a cognitive activity. Associated with

using the mind, learning to think in critically analytical and evaluative ways means using

mental processes such as attention, categorization, selection, and judgment‖ (Cottrell,

2005). That is why critical thinking becomes one of abilities that should be had by Sanata

Dharma University students, especially in Faculty of Teacher Training and Education

because we are expected to become teachers who are the main facilitators in the class for

students. However, it is not enough to only have critical thinking ability if student

teachers cannot deliver their ideas or messages to the students. One way of delivering

their ideas or messages is through speaking. Speaking is the main tool for the teachers

and the students to communicate with each another in the class. That is why student

teachers need to have critical speaking ability. Critical speaking ability is the ability to

speak logically and suitably based on the situation and condition, so they can

communicate meaningfully.

As student teachers of ELESP of Sanata Dharma University, they have to master

critical speaking ability because they learn English as a second language and they must

respect and use the language wisely. To make the students aware of the usage of a foreign

language, the lecturers should give the students many techniques so the students can

understand the implicit and explicit knowledge of the language. In speaking classes, the

lecturers use several techniques for the students, one of which is impromptu speech.

Impromptu speech is a technique of speaking which is unprepared or spontaneous in short

period of time. A speaker only has more or less a minute to arrange his/her ideas into a


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structured speech. There are many forms of impromptu speech but in Speaking I,

Speaking II, Critical Listening and Speaking I, and Critical Listening and Speaking II of

ELESP Sanata Dharma University, the form of the impromptu speech that they got is the

free topic impromptu speech. The topic of the speech will be chosen by one student for

the student who gets the chance to do the impromptu speech. Based on researchers‘

observation, not all of the students recognize the importance of applying impromptu

speech. Some of them do not even know the goal of applying impromptu speech in

speaking classes and its relation in improving critical speaking ability.

Therefore, this study aimed at analyzing the improving critical speaking ability

through impromptu speech. This study focuses on two problems as follows.

1. What is students‘ perception of impromptu speech?

2. How does impromptu speech relate to students‘ critical speaking ability?


Literature review covers some related literature to support the research: exploring

student‘s perceptions, critical thinking, speaking for English as a Second Language (ESL)

and impromptu speech. The discussion of each concept as follows.

1. Critical Thinking and Critical Speaking

―Critical thinking is a cognitive activity. Associated with using the mind.

Learning to think in critically analytical and evaluative ways means using mental

processes such as attention, categorization, selection, and judgment‖ (Cottrell, 2005).

According to Cottrell, critical thinking is a complex process of consideration which

involves a wide range of skills and attitudes. It includes:

Identifying other people‘s positions, arguments and conclusions;

Evaluating the evidence for alternative points of view;

Weighing up opposing arguments and evidence fairly;

Being able to read between the lines, seeing behind surfaces, and identifying false or

unfair assumption;

Recognizing techniques used to make certain positions more appealing than others,

such as false logic and persuasive devices;

Reflecting on issues in a structured way bringing logic and inside to bear;

Drawing conclusions about whether arguments are valid and justifiable based on best

evidence and sensible assumptions;

Presenting a point of view in a structured, clear, well-reasoned way that convinces

others.

―Skills in critical thinking bring precision to the way you think and work. You

will find that practice in critical thinking helps you to be more accurate and specific in

noting what is relevant and what is not‖ (Cottrell, 2005). Critical speaking itself is a part

of critical thinking. Critical speaking is a tool for the students to deliver their critical

thinking.

2. Speaking for English as a Second Language (ESL)

According to Spratt, Pulverness and Williams (2005), ―Speaking is productive

skill, like writing. It involves using speech to express meanings to other people‖.

Learning foreign language is not only about using correct grammar and semantic rules. It

is more than those things (Shumin, 2002). To improve the speaking skills of the students,

they can be exposed to certain aspects of speaking frequently, such as fluency,

pronunciation, grammar, and body language (Spratt, Pulverness & Williams, 2005). As

non-native speakers of English, they have to master all of those things to respect the


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language. They cannot use the language in wrong way without being aware of those

aspects.

3. Impromptu Speech

Impromptu speech is a speech with limited time of preparation which can be held

by giving the speaker a current topic (Cox, nd). ―Impromptu speech is readily understood

and translated, while prepared speeches make greater demands `on him [the interpreter]

and prove less amenable to successful rendering‖ (Seleskovitch, 1982: 241). Impromptu

speech delivers the meaning of the messages or ideas from the speaker better than

scripted speech (Le Féal, 1982). Based on researchers‘ observation in speaking classes,

the students are given a certain topic by the other student or the lecturer. After that, they

only have more or less one minute to prepare their speech. In front of the class, they have

to deliver their speech for 2-3 minutes.

METHODOLOGY

This research is using descriptive qualitative method. ―The goal of qualitative

descriptive studies is a comprehensive summarization, in everyday terms, of specific

events experienced by individuals or groups of individuals‖ (Lambert & Lambert, 2012).

The data in this research were collected through three techniques, which are

questionnaire, interview, and observation. The questionnaires were filled by Class C

ELESP of Sanata Dharma University batch 2013 that consists of 23 students. They were

asked to answer the questionnaire about their personal perception on impromptu speech.

The questionnaires contain of eight ticking questions with three answer choices: agree,

doubt, and disagree, and two elaborative questions. The questions were formulated to

gather the data of the students‘ perception when experiencing the impromptu speech, the

influence of impromptu speech to students‘ critical speaking ability, and the students‘

perception about correlation between impromptu speech and their improvement on

critical speaking ability. The researchers also interviewed two lecturers, Lecturer 1 and

Lecturer 2, who teach Critical Listening and Speaking 1 and 2 for Class C ELESP of

Sanata Dharma University batch 2013. The interview aimed to find out why impromptu

speech was given to students majoring in ELESP of Sanata Dharma University, and the

lecturers‘ perception about relation between impromptu speech and students‘

improvement on critical speaking ability. The researchers also did observation in the

classroom to know and to experience the impact of impromptu speech in improving

critical speaking ability.


This section is divided into two parts: the data of the findings and the discussions.

The first section is the result of questionnaire related to research problems. The second

section is aimed to discuss the two research problems, which are students‘ perception on

impromptu speech, and the relation between impromptu speech and their improvement on

critical speaking ability.

1. Data of the Questionnaire

The data used in this table is written data from the questionnaire that the

researchers have distributed in Class C PBI batch 2013. Questions 1 up to 4 are related to

students‘ perception when they experience impromptu speech. Meanwhile, questions 5 up

to 8 are related to the role of impromptu speech in improving their critical speaking

ability.


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Table 1 Students‟ Perception on Impromptu Speech

No Questions Number of Respondents

Agree Doubt Disagree

N % N % N %

1 For me, impromptu

speech is important.

22 95 1 5 - -

2 I am eager/ enthusiastic to

perform an impromptu

speech.

10 43 12 52 1 4

3 I am always afraid to

perform an impromptu

speech.

7 30 13 56 3 13

4 The materials of

impromptu speech are

meaningful.

13 56 8 34 2 8

5 Impromptu speech helps

me improve my speaking

ability.

23 100 - - - -


me think critically.

19 82 3 13 1 4


me speak in a

spontaneous, logical, and

organized way.

21 91 2 8 - -

8 Impromptu speech makes

me more sensitive to

respond current issues.

10 43 12 52 1 4

*) R = 23 students

2. Students‟ Perception on Impromptu Speech

From the data at Table 1 above, researchers conclude that almost all respondents

think that impromptu speech is very important in relation with their speaking ability.

Only one respondent (5%) doubts the importance of the course. However, researchers

found a very interesting data about students‘ attitude relating to their enthusiasm towards

impromptu speech. From the answers of number 2, the result is 12 respondents are still in

doubt whether they are eager or not to have impromptu speech. From question number 3,

there are 7 respondents (30%) who are still afraid to do the impromptu speech and 13

respondents (56%) are still in doubt. The 13 respondents sometimes feel afraid and

sometimes not. That is why they do not feel enthusiastic to attend impromptu speech.

Based on the researchers‘ observation on impromptu speech in Critical Listening and

Speaking 1 and 2 Class C batch 2013, the materials come from two ways; the lecturers‘

words and friends‘ words. The words can be in a form of questions or statements. These

first four questions are about students‘ perception on experiencing impromptu speech.

Although they acknowledge that impromptu speech is important, some of the respondents

still feel afraid to do an impromptu speech.

From question number 5, the researchers can conclude that impromptu speech

plays a great role in improving speaking ability to the respondents because all of them

agree to the question. Questions number 5 until 8 explain how impromptu speech

improves the respondents‘ critical speaking ability. All of them agree that impromptu

speech helps them to think critically, and speak in a spontaneous, logical, and organized

way. Even though they feel that way, the majority of the respondents are still in doubt


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whether they are becoming more sensitive to respond current issues or not. The

researchers also distributed two elaborative questions to the respondents:

1. What do you think about impromptu speech?

2. In what ways does impromptu speech improve your critical speaking ability?

These questions were created to find out the students‘ perception about

correlation between impromptu speech and their improvement on critical speaking ability.

From the answer of question number one, the researchers can conclude that all of the

students recognize that impromptu speech is important for them because it is challenging.

They need to think about a particular topic in a very short time and share the ideas to the

whole class. Moreover, it helps the respondents develop their critical speaking ability.

From the answer of question number two, the researchers can perceive that the

respondents had already known that impromptu speech can improve their critical

speaking ability. By preparing in a short time, the respondents are demanded to organize

their ideas nicely. By developing ideas in a short time preparation, the respondents are

trained to get used to be aware with their surroundings and not only talk about common

knowledge. This findings are supported by Cottrell‘s theory which says that one criteria

of being critical thinking is the students are able to reflect on issues in a structured way

bringing logic and inside to bear.

3. Relation between Impromptu Speech and Students‟ Improvement on Critical

Speaking Ability

McPeck (1990) states, to think critically, students need something to think

critically about. In impromptu speech, the students are given a particular topic to think

critically about and deliver the thoughts to the whole class. This is what we call critical

speaking. The students are not only able to speak in front of the audience, but also relate

the topic with current issues that happen around us spontaneously, logically, and

organized. People cannot separate critical speaking from critical thinking because to be a

critical speaker we have to own the ability to speak and have to own critical thinking.

That is why the student teachers of ELESP of Sanata Dharma University have subjects

Speaking 1, Speaking 2, Critical Listening and Speaking 1 and 2. First, they are trained to

be able to speak and deliver messages clearly in front of the class. Later, they are trained

to be able to speak critically.

Impromptu speech is given by Lecturer 1 and 2 because it helps the lecturers to

assess the competence of the students (especially vocabulary, grammar, and

pronunciation) because they are given a short time to think and to prepare. It makes their

speech is original and pure based on the knowledge they have already had. According to

Lecturer 2, the students can be their own selves when they do the impromptu speech.

Impromptu speech also helps the speakers to see their competence and evaluate their own

selves so later the speakers can improve their speech. For the audience, they can be

inspired from friends‘ speech because everybody has different and unique thoughts. The

audience also can enrich their knowledge that they have not known yet.

Why can impromptu speech develop the students‘ critical thinking and critical

speaking? Based on our interview with Lecturer 1 and 2, impromptu speech triggers the

students to think critically because it trains students to connect their ideas with their

surroundings or current issues, think out of the box, and use their imagination to see

everything from different perspective. According to Lecturer 2, critical speaking ability is

the combination between theory (academic knowledge) + awareness (conscience and

compassion) + knowing the reasons why and when to speak. They also have to dig deeper

in order to have strong reasons behind their thinking. Impromptu speech itself cannot be

done once or twice. It should be trained over and over again. This statement is suitable

with Cottrell‘s theory which says that being critical thinkers mean the students are able to

evaluate the evidence for alternative points of view and also recognize techniques used to

make certain positions more appealing than others, such as false logic and persuasive

devices.


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The student teachers already have the academic knowledge as their competence.

To build the academic knowledge, students are provided with materials from other

subjects, such as Structure, Pronunciation, Reading, Writing, and so on. Then, students

have strong reasons and awareness about a particular topic; the students are also able to

connect the particular topic, their ideas, and their sensibility of current issues that happen

in our environment. In the end, the students can reflect their out-of-the-box thoughts and

how to apply it. For example; based on researchers‘ observation, one student in class C

had got a topic about love. People usually talk about love in general way such us boy and

girl‘s relationship, mother and children‘s relationship or broken heart. However, the

student who got the topic could talk about love in economical point of view. In less than a

minute the student could think differently than what other people usually think. It

happened because the student got such idea in a short period of time. When he was under

pressure, he made himself use his own knowledge and to trigger his critical thinking. As

the result, he could produce a speech which was critically unexpected by the other

students. This finding matches with Cottrell‘s theory which says that the students should

be able to present a point of view in a structured, clear, well-reasoned way that convinces

others.

The lecturers‘ perception about the correlation between impromptu speech and

critical speaking ability is it increases not only the vocabulary, grammar, and

pronunciation of the students, but also the way they respond a particular topic and the

way they build and organize their ideas. Moreover, the lecturers acknowledge that the

students make progress and improvement in speaking. They become more confident and

trust themselves to face the challenge on having impromptu speech. If the students get

used to do impromptu speech, they will be more comfortable to share their critical

thoughts through speaking.

CONCLUSION

After researchers did the research, researchers can conclude that there are two

points that can be noted. First, from the data researchers can conclude the perception of

the students toward impromptu speech. The majority of the students agree that impromptu

speech is important in improving their critical speaking ability. Although they

acknowledge the importance of impromptu speech, they still feel afraid to do an

impromptu speech. Second, researchers can conclude that there is a relation between

impromptu speech and critical speaking ability. Impromptu speech is an effective way to

improve the critical speaking ability of the students based on the research.

There are some suggestions related to the finding of this research. First, for the

students who want to improve their critical speaking ability, they have to recognize the

importance of impromptu speech, be enthusiastic to do impromptu speech, and practice it

frequently because practice makes perfect. Second, for the lecturers, impromptu speech is

an effective method to be applied to the students in speaking classes. This method will

help the lecturers to monitor the improvement of the students and encourage their

students to be critical speakers.

REFERENCES

Cotrell, S. (2005). Critical thinking Skills. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cox, M. R. (nd). Impromptu speaking. Retrieved May 14, 2015 from

https://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/impcox0998.pdf.

Lambert, V. A. & Lambert, C. E. (2012). Editorial: Reviewers‘ and editors‘ comments

and questions. Pacific Rim International Journal of Nursing Research 16, 255-

256. Retrieved May 15, 2015 from www.tnc.or.th/e-journal/e-journal-list.html.

Le Féal, K. D. (1982). Why impromptu speech is easy to understand. In Impromptu

speech: A symposium. In Enkvist, N. L. (Ed). 221-239. Åbo: Åbo Akademi.


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McPeck, J. E. (1990). Critical thinking and subject specificity: A reply to Ennis.

Educational Researcher, 19(4), 10–12.

Paul, R. & Linda, E. (2008). The miniature guide to critical thinking concepts and tools.

Tomales, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking Press.

Seleskovitch, D. (1982). Impromptu speech and oral translation. In Enkvist, N. (szerk.)

1982. Impromptu speech: A symposium. 241−253. Abo: Abo Akademi.

Shumin, K. (2002). Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice.

In Richards, J. C. & Renandya, W. A. (Eds). Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A. & Williams, M. (2005). The TKT (Teaching Knowledge Test)

course. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


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AN ANALYSIS OF TAKE HOME ASSIGNMENTS FOR STUDENTS

Yunda Anissa, Paula Tiara Yunitasari and Gabriela Maria Pangesti Wening



Abstract

Assignments are part of students‘ life. Students are usually given many assignments

outside the class. The purpose of doing assignments is good, which is intended to make

the students more discipline, responsible, and practical with the content. However, some

people think that take home assignments become a burden to the students. This pros and

cons of take home assignments have drawn our attention to do a deeper research on this

problem. Using the questionnaire technique, this research would take some samples in a

group of high school students. The purpose of this research is to know more about the

students‘ perspective towards take home assignments. The expectation is that after doing

this ongoing research, the real value of take home assignments and what they think about

it will be understood.

Keywords: students, take home assignments, value, perspective

INTRODUCTION

There are many methods in teaching and developing learning process at every

school in Indonesia. Teachers can use both group and individual assignments. The

examples of group assignment are group discussion and presentation. The purpose of

group assignment is to develop students‘ socialization, interaction, and conscience.

Socialization means students are expected to exchange their opinion with other friends.

Interaction means students are expected to learn how to communicate with others well. In

addition, conscience is also important. Conscience means students are expected to keep or

reduce their selfishness and understand others‘ perspectives. By doing so, they can get

same understanding with others and get those benefits of doing group discussion or

presentation. Another kind of assignment given by the teacher is individual assignment.

There are two kinds of individual assignment; one is class assignments, and another is

take home assignment. The class assignments are usually given to be done in the class

(e.g. working on module), and the take home assignments are given to be done at home.

Actually, the intention of giving take home assignments is good which is to monitor

students‘ progress on a particular lesson. Another reason is to make them more

independent in doing their tasks. Teachers and parents expect that it is good to give their

students or children take home assignments because they can develop their knowledge.

Sometimes, they think that more assignments that the students got will make them do not

have time to play or do something useless.

However, the results of the methods are not as good as the expectation. People

around the world have been deeply discussed the results of giving take home

assignments. It seems not good enough because of many factors that make take home

assignments become less beneficial. For example, there are many assignments in the

same period and short deadline. Then, students might feel tired after have long time for

studying at school which has been wasted students‘ energy. When students arrived in

their house, they should think again their home assignments. Therefore, students will not

able to understand the benefits of take home assignments.

On the other hand, let us consider the educational system in Finland. We can see

that Finland is the best country with the best educational system. According to Dr. Reijo

Laukkanen, a 34-year veteran of Finland‘s National Board of Education, states that we

trust our teachers so that teachers in Finland are expected to have good quality. Teachers


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are prepared and educated well. As a result, students will be more motivated and

understand the lesson. There are also many little aspects that make Finland has best

educational system. For example, students are not pushed harder than their capacity,

students are not given and forced doing take home assignments, schools has short school-

time which can make students will not feel tired and can do other beneficial activities.

After knowing about the educational system in Finland, questions that pop up is

that take home assignments really helpful? Can take home assignments improve students‘

academic achievement? If so, why are many students feeling burdened because of take

home assignments? This paper is made to answer those questions and to know the

purpose of giving take home assignments and the effect towards students. The purpose of

making this paper is to analyze the factors that make the students cannot take the

advantages of their take home assignments. The references are based on the theory and

practice which are related to independent learning.


This part is going to discuss the essence of take home assignment and the reality

in the learning process. Take home assignments become one of the parts of independent

learning, so we focused on the literature related to independent learning. First, what is

meant by independent learning? According to Holec (1981), independent learning is the

ability to take charge of one‘s learning. We can see from the statement that independent

learning is meant to nurture ourselves to be independent in doing the tasks given by our

lecturers or teachers. Some proponents also state that independent learning can develop

our creativity and internal curiosity. It makes students become active rather than passive.

By doing so, students‘ mind are demanded to be critical in order to finish their

assignments.

1. Purposes and Benefits of Independent Learning

Independent learning in one way has its own benefits. It teaches self-regulation to

the students. As stated by Harvey and Chikie-Wolfe (2007: 2), self-regulation is

important to improve students‘ mental training so that they can manage their motivation,

emotion, and behavior to create strategies in their work. They will manage to throw away

the negative feelings and gain their concentration to achieve a better work.

Another benefit taken from independent learning is the greater student awareness

of their limitations and their ability to manage their work (Meyer et al., 2008). Students

can monitor themselves as they work on their assignments. By doing independent

learning, they will notice the part whether they understand it or not. It will help students

to be more focused on the material that they feel difficult about and also help them easier

to ask for assistance.

2. Take Home Assignment as Part of Independent Learning

In doing independent learning, there are some ways to do it. One of them is by

doing take home assignments. It is one of assignments which given by teachers to their

students in which students should do in the outside of the class. Take home assignment

can be meant as an examination or assignment to be completed outside the classroom.

The form can be in various ways, from working on a module to conduct a research by

them. The intention of take home assignments is actually good, which is to give students

time to work by themselves. The supporters of take home assignments itself also believe

that assignments foster self-discipline, good work habits, and responsibility. In addition,

the assignments can be a proof for parents to know what was happening during the school

time and what their children got at school.


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3. The Reality of Take Home Assignment in Learning Activity

As what has been stated before in the previous part, take home assignment has

some beneficial towards the students. However, we notice that there is incoherence

between the intention and the practice. As we all know, students nowadays have so many

homework and assignments from their teachers. This is because take home assignments

have become one of the traditions and strategies of learning process. Many of us

supervise homework because we have been led to believe that homework helps to boost

academic achievement. In fact, the relationship between homework and academic

achievement is conflicting and misleading (Kralovec & Buell, 2000). Many teachers see

that homework can improve students‘ motivation while they are studying. Moreover,

some argue that homework will give them learning experience that can be useful for their

life. However, students as the receiver of those assignments feel that it is too much for

them to cope. Goldberg (2012) found out that as students‘ grade got higher, they would

receive a lot more assignments from their teachers. He also shared his experience with her

daughter who did not want to go to school because she had not finished her assignments.

From these two perspectives, we can see that take home assignments has both

good side and bad side. Concerning the purpose of the study, there is one question being

addressed. This study is set to investigate the main problem of incoherence between the

essence of giving take home assignments and the practice in students‘ daily life.

METHODOLOGY

The subjects of this study were high school students in Yogyakarta region. We

decided to choose high school students because high school students are the suitable

source for us to collect the data. The subjects came from different region in Indonesia and

belong to two classes; one is Language Department, and another is Social Science

Department. They confess that they got many assignments from their teachers in the same

period.

At the beginning of the semester, they were assigned to make a research paper

about their surroundings. Besides doing the main research paper, they were also doing

other assignments such as reviewing a book, doing workbooks, and doing presentations.

In the middle of the semester after having the mid-term tests, they were assigned to make

a seventy-page long research paper for Anthropology lesson. They had to conduct an

interview, and searched some sources and references. These two assignments were to be

submitted at the end of each semester.

In collecting the data, we use one of the types of research methods. Actually,

there are several types of research methods that we can do as researchers in order to

collect the data. They are qualitative, quantitative, correlation or regression analysis,

experimental, and meta-analysis. In doing this research, we use the quantitative method.

Quantitative method is one of the types of research methods that involve describing in

details specific situation using research tools. Research tools can be meant as the media

for researches to collect data, such as interviewing the respondents, doing small surveys,

observing the object that the researches want to analyze, and spreading questionnaires.

We decided to distribute questionnaires to our respondents. The types of questionnaire

that we used in this research are close-ended questions and open-ended questions. The

questionnaire consists of several question related to our topic which is take home

assignments. We want to know more about students‘ perspective about take home

assignments and the real value of giving take home assignments for students.


We conducted research on May 12 by distributing questionnaires to thirty senior

high school students. On the first part, we wanted to know about students‘ opinions on

their take home assignments. We also asked about the intensity of the assignments.


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In the first part of the questionnaire, we used close-ended questions. We provided

seven questions for them to be answered. They had to put a mark on the ―Yes‖ or ―No‖

box. The first question that we asked was about the intensity of the assignments. 28 out of

30 answered that they got a lot of homework. The second question was about their effort

on doing the homework. 26 out of 30 answered that they were serious when doing the

homework to get a good result. The third question was about their comments whether

take home assignments was an effective way to boost their learning motivation or not. 26

out of 30 answered that they felt motivated by doing the homework. The fourth question

was about whether their teacher gave the feedback or not. 30 out of 30 students said that

their teacher always gave them feedback. The fifth question was about whether they did

their homework in a hurry or not (it was usually because of the short deadline). 25 out of

30 answered yes, they did it in a hurry. The sixth question was about whether they felt

burdened by the assignments or not, and 26 out of 30 answered that they felt burdened

because of their assignments. The seventh question was about whether they had to skip

the class because of the assignments or not. 2 out of 30 said that they had to skip the class

because they had a lot of homework.

In the second part, we used open-ended questions. They were asked to write their

answer in the provided space. We provided three questions for them to be answered. First

question that we asked was about the amount of assignments that they had in a week. On

the average, they got 2 up to 4 assignments every week in many forms (workbooks,

presentations and book reviews). Second question was about the form of feedback that

the teacher had been given to them. Most of the students answered that their teachers

usually gave mark or score, but only some of them gave comments. The third question

was about whether their assignments were reviewed on the class or not, and most of them

answered ―yes‖.

Based on the result of the questionnaires from the high school students in

Yogyakarta region, we found that students always got their home assignments from their

teachers. The take home assignments that they got were about four until five assignments

in a week. Most of the students always tried their best to do their assignments. However,

based on their perspectives, they thought that take home assignments was not an effective

way to motivate them to study. They often did their home assignments in a hurry. They

also thought that home assignments as their burden. Most of them, sometimes, had to skip

the class because they got many assignments to do in their house. Then, from teachers‘

side, teachers always gave them feedback such as score, comment, and correction.

Sometimes, teachers also discussed the home assignments in class.

From that result, we can see that there are two aspects that can be the factors of

how take home assignment is not always helpful. First factor is the students itself.

Sometimes, they postponed their home assignments and did it like an hour before it

should be submitted. We can also find students stay up until midnight for doing their

tasks. They sometimes go to bed very late and they will not have enough time to take a

rest. As a result, they could not do their assignments well and could not prepare

themselves for the following day at school. They also could not understand the real value

of the assignments that given by their teachers. Therefore, they cannot take the

advantages of their take home assignments.

Second factor is the teachers. Sometimes, teachers only give their students‘ home

assignments score. There are no correction and discussion in class. Therefore, students do

not know their mistakes on doing their home assignments. Sometimes, teachers also only

give a sign if students have done the assignments without any feedbacks. It is

meaningless for students because they will not know whether their assignments are true

or false. They also will not know how to improve their academic skills if teachers do not

give beneficial comments or correction on their assignments. As a result, students will

think that their assignments is useless because teachers only give sign if they already

done the assignments. Students will do their assignments as far as they can without any

effort.


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After doing this research, we can say that take home assignment is one of the

parts of independent learning. Its purpose is to make students able to nurture themselves

by doing their tasks that given by their teachers independently. Proponents believe that

the independent learning can develop students‘ creativity and internal curiosity. However,

we found some aspects that make take home assignments cannot achieve its purpose as

one of the parts of independent learning. Students like to postpone their tasks. So, when

the deadline comes, they do it in a hurry. Another aspect is the teachers. The teachers also

become the factor which makes take home assignments for students less beneficial.

Teachers do not really understand the purpose of giving take home assignments for their

students. Teachers do not realize that take home assignments also become one of the

teaching methods in order monitoring students‘ progress at school.

The problem that occurs in this paper is related with education. Therefore, this

problem is also related with teacher‘s roles. As a future teacher, we suggest teachers to

understand students well. Future teachers should be a professional teacher who is not only

able to teach students but also able to educate them. We should also have purposes on

giving take home assignments so that students will not feel burdened. Teachers should

also be fair when they give assignments. It means that they should correct it well and give

the beneficial feedback to students. For example, teachers should give comments which

one is right and which one is wrong. Besides those aspects, we should also understand the

students‘ capacity by not giving them a short deadline. We need to make negotiation with

the students. It means that we should ask students‘ opinion when they should submit the

assignments. If teachers give students short time of submitting the assignments, students

will not do their assignments well. As a result, they will get bad mark. Another way to

make students feel comfortable with their assignments is give them schedules of what

they are going to do and when the deadline is. Therefore, students can get the benefits of

doing their assignments and achieve the purpose of giving take home assignments.

REFERENCES

Goldberg, K. (2012). The homework trap. Haddon Heights, NJ: Wyndmoor Press.

Harvey, V. S. & Chickie-Wolfe, L. A. (2007). Fostering independent learning: Practical

strategies to promote student success. New York: Guilford Press.

Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy and foreign language learning. Oxford: Pergamon.

Kralovec, E. & Buell, J. (2000). The end of homework: How homework disrupts families,

overburden children, and limits learning. Boston: Beacon.

Meyer, B., Haywood, N., Sachdef, D. & Faraday, S. (2008). Independent learning:

Literature review. London: Department for Children and Families Research

Report Press.


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USING CHANTS TO TEACH ENGLISH FOR YOUNG LEARNERS

Roosefine Shierly S, Ignatia Yole P W, Chezia Eufresia I and Kartika Eva R

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],

[email protected]


Abstract

This paper will focus on using chants to teach English for young learners. Children, as the

young learners, have to prepare themselves to face the global communication and the

global opportunity. They have to master the language before mastering other fields of

science and technology. However, teaching English for young learners is not as easy as

people think. Some of the children do not pay attention to their teachers and enjoy talking

to their friends. These phenomena have a relationship with children‘s interest and

teaching media. Children will be more interested in the learning process if the material

can be applied in their real life and the use of interesting objects and technique such as

pictures, realia, songs, and chants can gain children‘s interest in learning. The objective of

this paper is to present the advantages of using chants to teach English for young learners.

In order to make the presentation of this paper‘s objective and more obvious, a workshop

is a great way to give delineation of it. Later, the workshop will present how to use chants

to teach young learners based on the advantages of it, which are already written in this

paper.

Keywords: teaching, English, young, learners, chants, advantages

TEACHING ENGLISH FOR YOUNG LEARNERS

Learning English is important for Indonesians, not only for adults, but also for

children. The reason is exactly aimed to prepare for the global communication because

later on Indonesia will be ready to open a global opportunity. It will involve everybody

around the world to join and gather in Indonesia especially for joining the job vacancy in

2015. Therefore, Indonesians have to prepare themselves to face the global

communication and the global opportunity. Children as the next generation of this

country need to be prepared – language preparation has to be more strengthen, especially

English which everybody knows English as universal language for global communication

- for facing the global ―rivalry‖ on their future. The facts about global ―rivalry‖ are one of

the bases of children learning, especially on language learning because before mastering

other fields of science and technology, children have to be master of language. It is

because language is the fundamental component that must be mastered to be another

master in another field as the media of fluent and clear communication.

The background above leads to learn deeper about young learner, especially

teaching English for young learners. The definition of young learners are 6 up to 12 years

old primary school students or students in first until sixth grade of Elementary School

who are learning English as foreign language.

According to Moon (2005: 3-10), there are seven characteristics of young

learners. The seven characteristics of young learners are using language creatively, going

for meaning, using ‗chunks‘ of language, having fun, joining the action, talking their

heads off, and feeling at home. Therefore, teaching English for young learners has special

ways to make a meaningful learning.

Teaching English for young learners must guide and facilitate children activities

on learning, knowing, understanding, comprehending ideas, attitudes, values, and skills.

Teachers-in order to build students‘ learning, knowing, understanding, comprehending

ideas, attitudes, values, and skills- need tricks and strategies. One of the strategies and

trick is by using chant.






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Chant that will be the focus of teaching English for young learners has

characteristics which are appropriate for children on learning English as their second

language. It is very helpful for young children to learn English. Chant is a simple strategy

and trick to make English learning for young children easier. The using of chant to teach

English for young learner has a lot of advantages. Therefore, chant has to be accustomed

to make a meaningful English learning for young learners and the technique that used to

accustom chant is workshop.

YOUNG LEARNES‟ CHARACTERISTICS

According to Moon (2005: 3-10), children as language learners have natural

abilities and characteristics which help them to learn foreign language. The natural

abilities and characteristics of children are very different with adults, so the way of

teaching English for young learner is also different. On learning language, especially

second language, children natural abilities and characteristics are using language

creatively, going for meaning, using ‗chunks‘ of language, having fun, joining the action,

talking their heads off, and feeling at home.

Using language creatively is the first children‘s natural ability and characteristic.

It shows us that classroom activity and discussion for children have to allow them the

freedom to be creative and beyond what they have learned. Whenever children try to

speak English, teacher shows interest and support what children already learned to make

children confident. Teacher‘s supports are needed for children who are creative using

language because children not only learn about saying words, but also the meaning and

the usage of the words.

Going for meaning is the second natural ability and characteristic of children as

young learners. This natural ability and characteristic shows that children have good

instinct for interpreting the sense or meaning of a situation. Children tend not to go with

words first, but they more pay attention to the meaning. Teacher has to concern in

children‘s going for meaning characteristic because it is very useful for them to apply the

words appropriately in everyday life. However, teacher needs to respond children to help

them understand the meaning of a word. Ignorance in going for meaning is avoided for

building a meaningful learning.

Using ―chunks‖ of language is the third children‘s natural ability and

characteristic. When children learn a foreign language, they use complete phrase that they

have imitated from someone else, for the examples: Goodbye, Come on, Go away, Listen

to me, and so on. These are called chunks because children use the whole of phrase that

they have heard. At the beginning, children do not use the phrase formally. The using

chunks of language help children to communicate when they only have little

vocabularies. Later, children will know how to break down the phrase and combine the

words to make wider meaning of speech.

The forth natural ability and characteristic is having fun. It means that children

love to enjoy themselves. If they are interested and they have curiosity in something, they

will continue their exploration about it. They will pay attention more to it. Learning

English activities can be design for involving children desire to continue learn about

English. It will give exposure for children to increase the input of the language.

Joining in the action is the fifth natural ability and characteristic of children on

learning English. Action has meaning as the physical activities. From the physical

activities, children will be easier to build the meaning of the words. Young learners learn

by doing. They also learn through listening. Listening and doing are meaningful activities

for young learner to accustom words and use the word in everyday life. Those are ahead

activities before they develop their speaking, reading, and writing activities.

The next children‘s natural ability and characteristic is talking their heads off. It

means that young learners have strong desire to do communication using foreign

language than adults, but they only have limited language. When they are interested in the

activities of using foreign language, they will talk every idea that they have. Young


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learners are better on learning foreign language than adults because their wants to

communicate are stronger and they are happy to use new language then get practices to

use it.

The last natural ability and characteristic of young learners is feeling at home. It

means teacher has to give support for young learners because sometimes they are not

confident with their own abilities. The supports from teacher are needed because supports

can help young learners to feel confident and secure. Teacher needs to be sensitive about

young learners‘ feeling. Motivation and compassion help young learners to develop and

explore their language.

THE ADVANTAGES OF USING CHANTS IN TEACHING ENGLISH FOR

YOUNG LEARNERS

According to Graham (2006), chant is a rhythmic expression of natural language

which links the rhythms of spoken American English to the rhythms of traditional

American jazz. The rhythms, stress and intonation pattern of the chant should be an exact

replica of what the student would hear from an educated native speaker in natural

conversation. The music for chants is often taken from some traditional English songs so

the children can concentrate on the words and rhythm more because they already know

the melody from the original songs. Chant is divided in two types. The first type is

teaching English using chant for some specific everyday life themes, whereas the second

type is teaching English using chant for grammar or structure.

Young learners love using chants (or young learners know chants as songs), or in

other words young learners love singing a song. It considers improving young learners‘

listening and speaking skills for learning foreign language (Murphey, 1992). The

consideration is the most important objective teaching English using chant for young

learners.

The using of chant to teach English for young learner has a lot of advantages. The

advantages are prioritized from the context of teaching. The contexts of teaching English

for young learners are a linguistic resource, a psychological/affective resource, a

cognitive resource, a cultural resource, and a social resource.

The advantages for a linguistic resource context are allowing young learners to be

introduced new vocabularies and grammar or structure, presenting familiar language in

new and exciting context, providing a lot of natural enjoyable repetition, developing

young learners skills in an integrated way, and helping young learners improving all

aspects of pronunciation.

The next context is a psychological/ affective resource. The first advantage of

using chants for young learners is fun motivations for young learners to develop positive

attitudes towards foreign language. Second, the using of chants is not threatening for

young learners and they will feel secure when chanting and singing together in class. It

will improve young learners‘ confidence and encourage feeling of achievement because

young learners can share and teach the chants to their friends and family members.

First advantages of using chants to teach English for young learners by looking at

a cognitive resource context is developing young learners‘ concentration, memory, and

coordination. Second, chants help young learners to improve young learners‘ sensitivity

to rhyming clues in order to go for meaning. Next, the repetition of words, what come

next, builds young learner skills combining the words or the formula of using foreign

language. Last, the using of chants also change the atmosphere of a lesson, so children

will feel comfortable because of the learning style that is enjoyable for young learners.

A cultural resource and a social resource context help young learners to compare

their mother tongue and foreign language. These contexts help students to have social

experiences by chanting together with their same age friends. The using of chants also

develops the identity of young learners‘ group when they are chanting together.

Chants in terms of teaching English for young learners influence students on their

listening, speaking, and vocabulary skills as the basic skills of learning language. Young


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learners are learners who have high level of boredom, especially only listen to narration

or dialog. It is very monotonous. They prefer to listen to something which has rhythm or

melody, like chants and songs. According to Murphey (1992), rhythm or melody has

strong power to keep itself in human‘s long and short memory. Young learners are more

interested in singing songs or chanting rather than only saying words in a common way.

In order to build their speaking skill, chants help young learners to learn about stress,

intonation, and patterns because these are similar with the spoken English. Chant also

gives advantages for young learners on learning English by looking at vocabulary skill. It

provides new words that are contextual in young learners‘ everyday life. The repetition,

which is the typical of chants, offers great exposure for children to memorize new

vocabularies and it gives keen meanings for the using of the new words.

The explanation above about the advantages of using chants to teach English for

young learners reminds us that teaching English for young learners is different from

teaching English for adults. Young learner need more learning that related with their

simple everyday life. A meaningful learning by doing is more emphasized while young

learners are learning words rather than only the literary meaning of the words. Therefore,

a workshop of using chants to teach English for young learners is needed to be

accustomed for a young learners‘ teacher in order to optimize young learners‘ basic skills

of learning language, especially foreign language.

CONCLUSION

Using chants to teach English for young learners is one technique to make

meaningful learning. It is made based on young learners‘ characteristics learning English.

The application of chanting has a lot of advantages to develop young learners‘ language

ability, especially foreign language. Therefore, a workshop of the using of chants to teach

English for young learners is important in order to accustom this technique for optimizing

children‘s basic skills of learning foreign language.

REFERENCES

Graham, C. (1993). Grammar chants: More Jazz chants. Oxford: Oxford University

Press.

Murphey, T. (1992). Music and song. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Purcell, J. M. (1992). Using songs to enrich the secondary class. Hispania, 75(1), 192–

196.

Rixon, S. (2012). How young learners learn languages and how to test them. ALTE-

Association of Language Testers in Europe. Retrieved May 15, 2015

http://www.alte.org.

Zang, J. (2011). Jazz chants in English language teaching. Theory and Practice in

Language Studies, 1(5), 563-565. Retrieved May 15, 2015 from

http://ojs.academypublisher.com.


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NO FEAST LAST FOREVER BY MADAME WELLINGTON KOO AS AN

EXAMPLE OF THE ROLE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TOWARDS

INDONESIAN LITERATURE

Vina Octavia

[email protected]

Satya Wacana Christian University

Indonesian literary works might refer to literary works written in Indonesian or with

theme lingers out and about Indonesia and other things as definition is highly subjective.

Within this paper, the memoir of No Feast Last Forever written by Madame Wellington

Koo, or famously known as Oei Hui Lan in Indonesia, will be analyzed as an example of

how English language supports Indonesian literary works. The memoir tells us about her

story about the life of being the daughter of the richest man in South Asia in the Dutch

East Indies era and the reason behind the title of the book. The matter that the memoir

was written in English might raise questions and oppositions from many individuals.

However, even though the memoir was written in English, by analyzing her stories from

her work and the life history of Oei Hui Lan by using author-oriented approach. It will be

explained that the use of English language here stands as a medium of communication.

Keywords: Indonesian literature, literature nationality, author-oriented

INTRODUCTION

Nationality could be a very sensitive subject to bring in today‘s society. For

instance, identifying a literary work‘s nationality might be a very subjective matter for

some. When such question as ―What makes an Indonesian literature?‖ is raised, one‘s

answer might differ from another. One might answer that Indonesian literature is

literature written by an Indonesian author. On the other side of the coin, one might

respond that to be classified as Indonesian literature, a literary work has to be written in

Indonesian language. Some might argue that it has to linger around Indonesia for either

its theme or setting to be called an Indonesian literature. However, in this paper, a literary

work written in English by its Indonesian author, with a story revolves around Indonesia

as well will be deliberated.

The literary work itself, entitled No Feast Last Forever is one of the many

examples of the realization of the role of English language in Indonesian literature, which

occupies the role of medium of communication. English today has the role of lingua

franca, or simply it is a main medium in today‘s intercultural communication (Papp,

2009). The writer of the memoir, Madame Wellington Koo or famously known in

Indonesia with her birth name, Oei Hui Lan, was born and raised in Indonesia before she

got married and moved to the United States. The memoir‘s setting, theme, and

background also revolve around Indonesia. Yet, the memoir was written in English, and

this has raised a thought that English language here stands as a medium used by Oei Hui

Lan to share her life in a literary work. There might be several factors behind the reason

why the author did not write in her mother language, and this paper will explore what

might be the reason why the author, Madame Wellington Koo or Oei Hui Lan, wrote the

memoir in foreign language.


The autobiographical memoir of Oei Hui Lan was written together with Isabella

Taves from New York Times, tells us stories from her childhood until her adulthood. The

story began with a little introduction of her grandfather and father, followed by her life in

Indonesia until she moved to the States with her husband, Vi Kyuin Wellingtoon Koo.

The 313-page book which was first published in 1975, guides us with many of Oei Hui



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Lan‘s feelings towards her life which seem like the dream of millions of women all over

the world, but in reality, no feast lasts forever as the Chinese proverb says.

She was born in 1889 as the second daughter of the first wife of the ―Sugar King

of Java,‖ Oei Tiong Ham, who resided in Semarang, Central Java. Oei Tiong Ham was

one of the wealthiest men in the region during his era with unimaginable amount if his

wealth were to be converted to today‘s currency. Oei Hui Lan has stated herself in the

memoir that when she was a three-year-old girl, her mother put an 80-carat diamond

necklace on her neck. The wealth of Oei Tiong Ham was absolutely unimaginable as

according to Oei Hui Lan in their 92 hectare house‘s backyard, they own a private zoo of

their own as stated by Agnes Davonar in her book that retells Hui Lan‘s story (Davonar,

2009).

If people were only told Oei Hui Lan‘s memoir, they might think that she owns a

picture perfect life with nothing less to worry about. But, behind all of those pictures of

happiness which remains in history, there is a deep scar in Oei Hui Lan‘s heart in which it

was the reason of why she wrote the memoir. Being born as the legitimate daughter of

Oei Tiong Ham when her father had more than 18 concubines and 42 acknowledged

children, she could never found what happiness truly means, according to her book. Even

though she was born blessed with beauty, fortune, and brain, she realizes that those are

not the key to happiness as she watches her mother and father who can never achieve

happiness despite of the crazily huge amount of money they had spent to achieve

happiness, as stated in her book, ―his unsatisfactory is the root of my unhappiness, and so

did my father.‖

As mentioned, Hui Lan was very fortunate to be blessed with a picture perfect

life which anyone could ever imagine as she was beautiful, born with a silver spoon on

her mouth, and even though she grew without proper education she was able to speak in

six languages. Soon because her mother was terribly hurt by her father‘s behavior, they

moved to Europe together with Oei Tjong Lan, her older sister. She lived an extravagant

life in Europe, being a social butterfly among the rich. Soon after, she was married to

Wellington Koo, a Chinese diplomat. The marriage was set up by her mother and sister,

and she was the third wife of the Chinese diplomat, ironically.

This memoir implies a very personal touching message in it. Those stories about

how the rich went through life, especially Hui Lan‘s family is something very new to

learn. Those cosmopolitan stories by Oei Hui Lan are mesmerizing, yet also

heartbreaking in its own way. In some parts of the book, Hui Lan‘s honest thoughts and

stories on how she was raised and thus explains why she was unhappy even when she was

blessed with the beautiful life of hers can be seen.

METHODOLOGY

Literature is one of the ways of expressing ourselves, and this memoir just did

justice on how Oei Hui Lan expresses herself since this memoir is more like an

autobiography of hers. The central concern in this paper is to find out whether Oei Hui

Lan‘s upbringing and history are one of the reasons why she wrote this memoir in English

instead of her mother tongue, Indonesian. That explains why author-oriented approach is

used for this paper, completed with autobiographical criticism since the work itself is an

autobiography. A lot of parts of Oei Hui Lan‘s words in the memoir tell us something

more than stories, it also tells us her ―no-secret‖ secrets, from a closer look.


Why authors write in ―other language‖ rather than their mother tongue is one

complex question to answer. However, in Oei Hui Lan‘s case, there might be things

behind the reason why. For instance, even though she was born in Indonesia, she was said

to not have any friends since she did not go to school. Amazingly, without going to

school, she was fluent in six languages, including Indonesian, French, Dutch, and


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English. In her book also stated that she had a French nanny and spoke fluent English,

taught by Elizabeth Jones from Britain. She learned English since she was little until she

left Java when she was around 16 years old as it stated in No Feast Last Forever.

Afterwards, she moved to Europe before she got married to V.K Wellington Koo,

a Chinese Diplomat in 1922. After that, they stayed in the United States until her last

breath. Her husband is Chinese origin, so they communicate either in Chinese or English.

From it could be concluded that English is the language she uses the most in her lifetime.

No Feast Last Forever is written in 1975 so it has been approximately 50 years of her

using English. The linguistic term of Hui Lan‘s case is linguistic assimilation, as said by

Ronald Wardaugh (2006) ―is the belief that everyone, regardless of origin, should learn

the dominant language of the society.‖

Hui Lan was living in England since she was 16 until she got married at the age

of 33 and moved to the United States soon after. She used English since she was in

England and of course, in the States as well to communicate daily, Hui Lan‘s case is also

could be categorized as the phenomenon of internationalization, which according to

Wardaugh (2006) in his book ―Introduction of Sociolinguistics‖ is the adoption of a

foreign language for certain purposes such as to achieve wider communication either as

an official language or for instance, other purposes as education or trading.

The spread of English in Asian countries, as discussed by Honna (2005), might

also be related to the grounds of Hui Lan‘s choice of language in writing her memoir. He

wrote the importance of English as a multinational communication language in many

countries. In the countries where Hui Lan had lived in, UK and US, English is the native

language and this explains her language shifting. English is also considered as an

international language in many other countries including Indonesia and China, countries

where her roots came from. In Singapore, English is the second language even though it

is used more rather than the national language. Hui Lan‘s father was famous of the

nickname ―Man of 200 Millions‖ in Singapore after his death because of the wealth he

left behind.

Another thing that might as well be contributed is Madame Wellington Koo‘s

grounds in writing her memoir. She wants to share a message, why? One of the reasons

might be her oppressed feelings of being having everything anyone could ever dream of

and still being unable to find happiness. The other one might be her despising her father

of making her life despicable. She bluntly wrote that her father has a lot of concubines

and children out of wedlock, even though it might not be a secret since the life of Oei

Tiong Ham is highly in the spotlight as well. Even though she wrote that her father

always gives her everything that she wants, she also wrote that they both share the same

traits, ―I never feel satisfied with what I already had. So did my father. He never satisfied

with what he had, and so pity that his life ended.‖

The tone of her writing throughout the book was sad with a touch of despises at

the same time, and this could be related to her purposes of writing the memoir. Other than

her message which actually expressed explicitly in the book‘s title, she wanted to tell

people that she was both loving and hating Oei Tiong Ham at the same time. One

statement which should be highlighted to support this statement is, "while my father was

still alive, he never taught me how to do business. All I know is just spending money

without knowing how to earning it back," taken from her autobiography, No Feast Last

Forever (1975). At the same time, she tells us how much her father loves her, and how

much she hates him for that.

That reason is of course, because she wanted the world to know what she has

been through was as unimaginable as the wealth she possessed. However, she did that

together with exposing her father‘s past which could be said as full of acts of debauchery.

She might want the whole world to see and choose to write in English because it has been

a global language. Most schools also have English as a subject, and as for today there is a

huge increase in number of bilingual and international schools which mostly the first

language is English. English is becoming a basic skill by today. Oei Hui Lan wants the


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―legacy‖ of hers, in a form of a book, to be read by a lot of people, including the young

generations. If she were to write it in Indonesian, she might be worried about the quality

of translations because English language is easier to translate into many languages and

when a literary work is written in English, it gives a wider opportunities to enter world

literature based on the fact that English is widely used internationally. (Damrosch, 2003)

As known, writers have to think about their possible audiences as well, she might

have targeted the market to Indonesia since it is the country where she was born and

where her life stories are famous in. However, it might be her lack of ability of

Indonesian language caused by language shifting, internalization, and assimilation, causes

her to only be able to write in English. She might found that her vocabulary in Indonesia

is not enough to use to write her feelings down as language is dynamic.

She worked together for the memoir with Isabella Taves from New York Times,

and she is an English speaker as well, this explains more about the language choice. The

book was never translated to Indonesian but a different book of her biography was written

because of Oei Hui Lan‘s fame, entitled ―Kisah Tragis Oei Hui Lan: Putri Orang

Terkaya di Indonesia‖ by Agnes Davonar was published in 2009.The stories then spread

all over Indonesia through many social media platforms. Oei Hui Lan‘s book No Feast

Last Forever also became a huge sensation in her birth country.

This case of Oei Hui Lan is one example that an author‘s circumstances might

force her not to be able to write in her mother tongue, but since English language has

been popularized all over the world throughout the years, English language become a way

of communicating to Indonesian readers. Even though the ways might be indirect since

her work was not really accessible in Indonesia, in the end of the day, the work was able

to reach us.

CONCLUSION

From those little findings, it can be concluded that it might be Oei Hui Lan‘s

disability to use her mother tongue that causes her to only be able to write in foreign

language. Her will of sharing her thoughts and feelings also plays a role in her choice of

language as well. Because with today‘s development of views towards English language,

writing in other language is no longer a complex situation as English can be seen as a

medium of communication rather than bashing Indonesian writers for not writing in their

mother language.

REFERENCES

Davonar, A. (2009). Kisah tragis Oei Hui Lan, putri orang terkaya di Indonesia. Jakarta:

Inti Book.

Honna, N. (2003). English as a multicultural language and intercultural literacy.

Southern Review No. 18.

Hoon, L. H. (2009). Oei Tiong Ham. Singapore: National Library Board Singapore.

Retrieved from http://thingsasian.com/story/no-feast-lasts-forever.

Koo, M. W. & Taves, I. (1975). No feast last forever. New York: Quadrangle. Retrieved

from http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/.

Papp, J. S. (2009). English as the main language in intercultural communication.

Miskolc: Department of English Language and Linguistics University of Miskolc

Wardhaugh, R. (2006). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Chichester, West Sussex:

Blackwell.


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SOPHOMORES‟ DIFFICULTIES IN ENHANCING THEIR

SPEAKING SKILL

Muhammad Izwan Furqon and Vivi Putriyantina

[email protected]

English Education Program, Galuh University

Abstract

Speaking is one of the most important skills in a language expressed by people to

communicate each other. The study aimed to explain the difficulties faced by sophomore

level in English Education Program, Galuh University. In this regards, two research

questions were addressed: (1) What problems are faced by the sophomores in speaking

English? (2) How do the sophomores solve those difficulties in their speaking? To gain

and to analyze the data, the writers employed a cross-sectional survey design as the

method at which they administered questionnaires to 10 respondents from 2D

purposively. The research questions‘ results showed that 100% of the respondents faced

difficulties in learning speaking. Meanwhile, 40% of them applied drilling technique to

solve their difficulties; cognitive strategy was employed by 10% of them, and the rest of

50% of the respondents had their own strategy to overcome their difficulties during

learning speaking. In conclusion, sophomores should master the language aspects and the

proper strategy needed to overcome the difficulties which covered several aspects such as

grammar, vocabulary, dictions and fluency.

Keywords: sophomores, difficulties, speaking, skill

INTRODUCTION

English as an international language is as a communication medium by most of

people widely in the world. In English, there are four skills that should be mastered by

every language learner, one of them is speaking. Richards and Renandya (2002: 201)

assert that a large percentage of the world‘s language learners study English in order to

develop proficiency in speaking. From this statement, learning a language particularly

English is meant to be able to speak English. This phenomenon is also experienced by

language learners especially the sophomores in a university level, but they assume that

speaking is difficult to learn, because they should be able to master grammar and

vocabulary at the same time. Thus, speaking is nothing without mastering the language

aspects. For example: If they omit vocabulary, they are going to get confused when they

are talking about a certain topic with their partners. If they omit grammar, they are going

to make misunderstanding meaning because the patterns of grammar they use are

incorrect. If they omit pronunciation, they are going to mispronounce the similar

phonemes and words which effect to misunderstanding meanings. Regarding to the

problems above, the writers infer that language aspects are the first priority for

sophomores in the process of learning English skills particularly speaking.

In line with the problems are faced by sophomores above, those should be

overcome immediately. The sophomores are suggested to have a lot of practices both in

and outside of classroom through having habitual speaking hours in English which should

be done consistently both by the sophomores and the lecturer. The writers believe that the

motto: ‗practice makes perfect‘ can come true if in a certain period of time the lecturer

and the sophomores interact each other using English both for academic and non-

academic situations. Thus, speaking English should be the habit for them in every

situation.



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In the preceding paragraph, the writers have explained the background of the

study. Then, in the following paragraph, the writers select the previous studies to support

the originality of the present study. The first previous study is carried out by Hendriani

(2013), entitled‖ Developing a Model of Learning Strategy of Speaking. ‖ The second

previous study is undertaken by Nazara (2011), entitled ―Students-Perception-on-EFL-

Speaking-Skill-Development.‖ Meanwhile, the last previous study is conducted by Al-

Jamal and Al-Jamal (2014), entitled ―An Investigation of the Difficulties Faced by EFL

Undergraduates.‖

Regarding to the three previous studies, all of them are similar to the present

study at which the first previous study focuses on developing the method of learning

strategies in speaking and determining the difficulties which is faced by the students.

Meanwhile, the second previous study investigates the students‘ perception on EFL

speaking skill development. The last previous study focuses on the difficulties

encountered by EFL Undergraduates in speaking. With regard, the whole previous studies

are used as the references in the present study.

Moreover, the writers initiate to set forth the research questions: (1) What

problems are faced by the sophomores in speaking English? (2)How do the sophomores

solve those difficulties in their speaking? To find out the answers of those research

questions, the writers are going to discuss them in forthcoming part of this study.


In this point, the writers highlight several terms to discuss. Those terms cover the

definition of sophomore, the nature of difficulty, the definition of speaking, and the

proper strategy to learn speaking which function is as the underpinned theory.

Defining sophomore

To begin this section, the writers discuss the term ‗sophomore.‘ Hidayat (2014: 80)

states, ―sophomore is a student who is in his or her second year of college level.‖ In

addition, another definition is expressed by Heier (2012). He argues, ―A sophomore

student is defined as an undergraduate student who is in the second year of collage –

regardless of where he/she completed the first year.‖

Referring to the definitions aforementioned, the writers elaborate each of them that

sophomore is a student at which he or she has passed the second semester in the first year,

and continued to the third semester at college or university. In relation to the present

study, the sophomore here is related to the sophomore level which is learning at English

education program, faculty of teacher training and education sciences, Galuh University

in Ciamis regency, West Java.

In short, the term ‗sophomore‘ can be understood as the second year students who

learn in college or university level, and they have been given the series of courses from

the lecturer and have passed first and second semester.

The nature of difficulty

After defining the term ‗sophomore,‘ the writers then continue to highlight the term

‗difficulty.‘ Scanlon (2003: 103) underlines that difficulty is the fact that it is extremely

difficult to regulate one category of speech without restricting others as well.

Furthermore, another definition comes from Hidayat (2014: 80) asserts, ―Sophomores‘

difficulties are a condition where the students face a troubled fact when they do or learn a

thing without being able to do perfectly in order to get maximal results."

Regarding to the definitions above, the writers then elaborate them that the term

‗difficulty‘ is a situation or condition faced by people in doing something and they are not

having an ability to do it well. In other words, they cannot reach the maximum results

from what they have done in their activity. In relation to the present study, the term

‗difficulty‘ is related to the sophomore level who have difficulty in learning speaking


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course at English education program in university level. Explicitly, the sophomore faces

difficulties in using grammar, mastering vocabulary, and pronouncing some words.

In conclusion, the term ‗difficulty‘ is the problem related to sophomore who

encounters an unpleasant situation or condition at which he or she cannot handle it by

him/herself during learning speaking in and outside the classroom.

Defining speaking

In this section, the writers highlight the definition of speaking. The first definition

is explained by Argawati (2014: 75), who argues, ―Speaking is one of the main purposes

of language learning in that it is an ability to transfer some ideas to other people clearly

and correctly.‖ Furthermore, the second definition is asserted by Richards and Renandya

(2002: 204), who state, ―Speaking a language is especially difficult for foreign language

learners because effective oral communication requires the ability to use the language

appropriately in social communication.‖ The last definition is reported by Al Housni

(2014: 23), who points out, ―Speaking is the active use of language to express meaning,

and for young learners, the spoken language is the medium through which a new

language is encountered, understood, practiced, and learnt.‖

Regarding the definitions aforementioned, the writers elaborate each of them that

speaking is an oral communication which is expressed by someone to interact or to

communicate with others and also to transfer the information or some ideas to other

people directly. Besides, speaking is not only expressed by people to communicate, but

also as the way for someone to express their feeling. In relation to the present study,

speaking is the way to exchange the information which is used by sophomore particularly

at English education program, Galuh University at which they express it to interact with

others particularly in learning activity at speaking class.

In conclusion, speaking is an interactive process which is expressed by

sophomore to interact with other in order to deliver the information directly.

The proper strategy to learn speaking

After defining the term ‗speaking,‘ the writers then continue to highlight learning

strategies based on the experts. In general, language learning strategies are categorized

into four main groups, those are: Cognitive strategy, Metacognitive strategy, Affective

learning strategy, Social learning strategy (Richards & Renandya, 2002: 121-122). In

relation to the strategies mentioned above, those are explained in detail below.

1) Cognitive strategy

Cognitive strategy involves the identification, retention, and retrieval of language

elements. For example, students may use memory-enhancing strategies (e.g., the key

words method) to help them remember the new words.

2) Metacognitive strategy

This Strategy deals with the planning, monitoring, and evaluating language learning

activities. For example, students may develop a plan for monitoring their progress by

constantly comparing their current level of proficiency with the course goal outlined in

the curriculum.

3) Affective learning strategy

Affective strategy is serving to regulate emotions, attitudes, and motivation. For

example, students may read linguistically simplified books to develop a positive

attitude toward reading materials.

4) Social learning strategy

This strategy refers to learners‘ actions to interact with the language user. For

example, students may deliberately seek out opportunities to use the target language

with native speaker of the language.

Regarding to the definitions aforementioned, the writers determine two strategies

which are suitable to be applied by sophomore in learning speaking. Those are cognitive

strategy and metacognitive strategy.


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In conclusion, the proper strategies are needed in language learning especially for

learning speaking in order to get maximum results. In the other words, it can be used to

assist and to minimize sophomores‘ difficulties during learning speaking.

METHODOLOGY

In this section, the writers highlight several points which are divided into four

parts. Those points are research design, respondents and research site, data collection

procedure, and data analysis. For detailed explanation, the writers present them below.

Research Design

In this present study, the writers employed a qualitative design particularly a

cross-sectional survey design as recommended by Fraenkel, et al. (2012: 394), who state,

―Cross-sectional survey design is the process of collecting the information from

respondents by using research instruments such as, administering questionnaires and

conducting the interviews at which the information is collected at just one point.‖ From

the definition above, the writer decided to apply a cross-sectional survey design because

the writer only employed an instrument (questionnaire), besides focusing on only one

point and accomplishing it at once.

Participants and research site

In this present study, the writers selected 10 sophomores from 2D at English

Education Program, Galuh University, as the participants which were selected

purposively. The reason for choosing sophomores as the respondents was because the

writers tended to find out the difficulties which were experienced by sophomores during

learning speaking. Besides that, the writers desired to assist sophomores for enhancing

their speaking proficiency by using the proper strategy. Concerning the research site, the

writers chose English Education Program, Galuh University, because the writers can have

an easy access during conducting the research. Besides, the writers have been being the

students at the English education program. As a result, the writers could collect the data

faster and could accomplish the study in a short space of time.

Data collection procedure

In the present study, the writers administered questionnaires to 10 participants in

order to get the data. Each questionnaire consisted of six questions to be answered by

participants. These questionnaires were given when the participants had a break time. To

answer these questionnaires, the writers allocated 20 minutes for the participants to

answer all questions. After the questionnaires were answered, the participants submitted

each questionnaire to the writers half an hour later.

Data analysis

After collecting the data, the writers then analyse them qualitatively to interpret

then conclude them. Nevertheless, quantification is also applied to describe the data in

percentage.


After analysing all answers from the questionnaire, the writers then interpret the

data from all respondents and summarize it in percentage as shown in the table below.

No. Statements Yes (%) No (%)

1. I speak English in my speaking class,

although sometimes. 100%

2. Learning speaking is difficult because I 100%


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have to use the appropriate grammar

rules.

3. When I speak English, I usually find out

some problems such as the use of tenses,

vocabularies, dictions, and fluency.

100%

4. Since I have problems to speak English, I

feel afraid to speak in my English

speaking class.

80% 20%

5. To solve my problems, I implement a

proper strategy during learning speaking

English in my speaking class.

90% 10%

Regarding the results aforementioned, the writers describe the data in detail from

each statement beginning from number one up to number five. Besides, the writers also

describe an additional question which is numbered by number 6.

Statement number one is: “I speak English in my speaking class, although

sometimes.” According to the statement number one, 100% of the participants answer

―Yes‖. The answers show that participants speak English in speaking class, although they

speak English sometimes. Furthermore, the answers indicate that every participant tries to

speak English during their speaking class although not all time during joining the class.

Statement number two is: “Learning speaking is difficult because I have to use

the appropriate grammar rules.” Regarding to the answers written by the participants,

100% of participants think that learning speaking is difficult, because they have to use the

grammar rules appropriately. Meanwhile, they are still confused and find out the

difficulties in learning grammar. In other words, their grammar is not good enough.

Therefore, they assume that learning speaking is difficult.

Statement number three is: “When I speak English, I usually find out some

problems such as the use of tenses, vocabularies, dictions, and fluency.” According to

the third statement, 100% of the participants find out some problems in using dictions,

tenses and mastering vocabulary. The answers mean that they cannot speak English well,

because they find out some problems in mastering language aspects at which it is very

important thing for language learners to master if they want to speak English fluently.

Statement number four is: “Since I have problems to speak English, I feel

afraid to speak in my English speaking class.” Referring to the fourth statement, 80%

of participants are afraid to speak English in their speaking class because their classmates

laugh at them when they make any mistakes during their speaking in front of their

classmates. Furthermore, 20% of the participants answer ―no.‖ The answers mean that

they do not feel afraid to speak English, although they are aware that they find out some

problems during speaking English.

Statement number five is: “To solve my problems, I implement a proper

strategy during learning speaking English in my speaking class.” Dealing with the

statement above, 90% of the participants state that they apply the proper strategy in

learning speaking to overcome their difficulties. On the contrary, 10% of the participants

answer ―no.‖ The answers indicate that the participants do not apply the proper strategy to

assist or to minimize the difficulties which are faced by the participants during learning

speaking.

Besides delivering five statements, the writers also give one additional question

to be answered by the participants. The question is numbered by 6 which is the

continuation from the five statements written in the preceding point. The data is presented

below:

Question number six is: “How do you solve your problems to minimize your

difficulties in learning English speaking? Please explain in detail.” Concerning on the

answers, 40% of participants choose to write what they want to speak before they perform

or present it in front of the class, and they practice it again and again. It means that they


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use the drilling method. 10% of the respondents choose to memorize every word and

phrase which will be performed in front of the class. The rest of 50% of the participants

answer that they have their own strategy to overcome their difficulties during learning

speaking in speaking class, for instance: (1) must be confident and trying to speak what

we want to speak; (2) reading the text a lot then practicing speaking; (3) studying

grammar, vocabulary, trying to change all about speaking skill; (4) usually practicing

speaking at my home before performing in front of classroom, so it can minimize the

problems when practicing the speaking assignment.

DISCUSSION

Regarding the results of the study, it indicates that most of students face the

difficulties during learning speaking because of several factors. Most of them face the

difficulties in mastering vocabulary and grammar rules at which it is the crucial aspect in

speaking, for they feel afraid or not confident to speak English. Besides, speaking is the

productive skill in English language at which it should be mastered by language learners,

so it needs more a lot of practices. Furthermore, learning a language particularly English

is meant to be able to speak English. Therefore, the proper strategy is needed during

learning speaking in order to overcome or to minimize the difficulties faced by language

learners especially sophomore level.

After highlighting the results of the present study, the writers tend to answer the

research questions as presented in the preceding section.

Research question 1: What problems are faced by the sophomores in speaking English?

Dealing with the first research question, the writers accumulate the evidences from the

participants‘ answers. From the answers of the statement number 2, 3, and 4, the

participants respond that there are several problems arise during learning speaking, those

problems cover: feeling worried or afraid of their classmates if they make any mistakes

during their speaking English in front of them. Furthermore, most of respondents reveal

that they face the difficulties in speaking English particularly in mastering grammar,

vocabulary, dictions, and pronunciation.

Dealing with the evidences gained from statement number 2, 3, and 4 from the

questionnaire, those can lead the writers to answer research question number one that the

sophomores‘ problems in learning speaking English cover (1) feeling worried or afraid to

speak English, (2) their inadequate grammar, vocabulary, dictions, and pronunciation.

Research question 2: How do the sophomores solve those difficulties in their speaking?

Dealing with the second research question, the writers then relate the evidences to answer

the second research question. Then, the writers choose the statement number 5 and the

question number 6 to answer the second research question. Based on the statement in the

number 5 and question in number 6 aforementioned, the respondents answer that they use

the proper strategy to overcome their difficulty which are cognitive strategy and

metacognitive strategy. Furthermore, they also use their own strategy to assist their

difficulties in learning speaking.

Regarding the evidences gained from the statement number 5 and the question

number 6 from the questionnaire, those can lead the writers to answer research question

number two that the sophomores solve their difficulties in their speaking class by

applying some ways such as: (1) employing the proper strategy to solve their difficulties

in learning speaking through practicing to speak English and to memorize every words

and phrases before they perform in front of the class; (2) employing their own strategy to

solve their difficulties in learning speaking, for instance: (a) being confident and trying to

speak what they want to speak; (b) reading the text a lot then practicing speaking; (c)

studying grammar, vocabulary, trying to change all about speaking skill; (d) practicing

speaking at home a lot before performing it in front of the classroom, hence it can

minimize the problems when practicing the speaking assignment.


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Referring to the results and the discussion in the preceding section, the writers

draw two conclusions based on the evidences which are gained from the results of the

present study. The present study can be summed up that the difficulties faced by the

sophomores in learning speaking cover several aspects such as feeling worried to speak

English, inadequate grammar rules, pronunciation, dictions, and limitation of the

vocabulary. Furthermore, to solve their difficulties in learning speaking, the sophomores

apply some strategies namely: cognitive strategy and metacognitive strategy which are

regarded to be able to minimize their difficulties in learning speaking. Meanwhile, some

sophomores also have their own strategy to assist their difficulties through using other

strategies, such as: being confident when they speak English, mastering language aspects,

and practicing more to speak English regularly.

Moreover, the writers suggest that the sophomores should implement the proper

strategy in overcoming their difficulties during learning speaking and changing their

learning style if they want to succeed in their learning speaking class. Besides, they

should have habit to communicate in English in their daily activities both in and outside

the classroom.

REFERENCES

Al-Jamal, D. A. & Al-Jamal, G. A. (2014). An investigation of difficulties faced by EFL

undergraduates in speaking skills. English Language Teaching, 7(1), 19-27.

Retrieved January 16, 2015 form www.ccsenet.org.

Argawati, N. O. (2014). Improving students‘ skill using group discussion. ELTIN

Journal, 2(2), 74-81. Retrieved January 16, 2015 from

http://download.portalgaruda.org/.

Dornyei, Z. & Taguchi, T. (2010). Questionnaires in second language research (2nd

ed).

New York: Routledge.

Fraenkel, J. R., Wallen, N. E, & Hyun, H. H. (2012). How to design and evaluate

research in education (8th ed). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Heier, M. (2012). Summary report understanding the year experience. Washington:

University of Washington Division of Student Life. Retrieved February 2, 2015

from http://depts.washington.edu/stdntlfe/.

Hendriani, S. (2013). Developing a model of learning strategy of speaking English at

collage. International Review of Social Sciences and Humanities, 6(1), 104-112.

Retrieved January 16, 2015 from www.irssh.com.

Hidayat, Y. (2014). Some sophomores‘ difficulties in mastering English listening

comprehension. Journal of English Applied Linguistics (JEAL), 1(1), 79-86.

Nazara, S. (2011). Students‘ perception on EFL speaking skill development. Journal of

English Teaching, 1(1), 28-43. Retrieved January 8, 2015 from

http://Fjet.uki.ac.id.

Richards, J. C. & Renandya, W. A. (Eds.). (2002). Methodology in language teaching.


Scanlon, T. M. (2003). The difficulty of tolerance: Essay in political philosophy.



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CODE-SWITCHING PHENOMENON IN WHATSAPP GROUP OF ENGLISH

LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM CLASS E BATCH 2012

Benedictus Prabandanu and Aprilia Devitasari



Code switching is a phenomenon of alternating a language into another language in a

conversation. When a person who has bilingual language, especially English language

learners, this phenomena occurs. They are accustomed to speak English instead of Bahasa

Indonesia in academic atmosphere like in the classroom activities and perfomances.

Therefore, the phenomenon of code switching is something unavoidable to happen in

daily conversation whether it is written or spoken. In line with background above, this

study aims to analyze the phenomena of code switching among students of English

Language Education Study Program Class E Batch 2012 Sanata Dharma University in

their conversation through social media group of WhatsApp. The research analysis of this

code switching phenomena includes lexical borrowing, many forms of part of speech and

social reason of students‘ attitude through qualitative study.

Keywords: code switching, language learner, lexical borrowing, part of speech, social

reason

INTRODUCTION

Speakers of more than one language (e.g., bilinguals) are known for their ability

to code-switch or mix their languages during communication (Heredia, 1997). This

phenomenon occurs when bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from one language with

a phrase or word from another language. Code-switching may be indicative of difficulties

in retrieval (access) affected by a combination of closely-related factors such as language

use (i.e., how often the first-language is used) and word frequency (i.e., how much a

particular word is used in the language). Therefore, the notion that people code-switch as

a strategy in order to be better understood and to enhance the listeners‘ comprehension is

another plausible alternative.

This code switching can happen everywhere, even it is not only for those who can

speak English but also for speakers who can speak different local language. The speakers‘

desicion to code-switch is influenced by a number of social and discursive factors

(Gardner-Chloros as cited in Barbara et al., 2009). In line with the background of the

code switching mentioned earlier, this paper tries to analyze a group of English learners‘

code switching in a social media. The object of this research is students in class E batch

2012 English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University

Yogyakarta. This paper gathers data from different speakers‘ mother tongue. Some of the

respondents are from particular place in Sumatra, Borneo and, of course, Java. In the

classroom, all students should speak English, but outside of the classroom, they tend to

speak Bahasa Indonesia. However, it is unavoidable for them to switch into their own

language or in English language to emphasize their meaning of the conversation. In other

words, switching their language will make the conversation go comfortable to select

appropriate words (diction) in a particular unexplainable topic.

This paper is set to analyze the phenomena of code switching happen to the

students of class E batch 2012 Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta, especially when

they communicate through social media WhatsApp.

From the background above, the research questions are formulated as follow:

1. What is the type of code-switching phenomenon used in social media group of

WhatsApp among students of English Language Education Study Program class E in

Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta batch 2012?


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2. How many parts of speech are found in social media group of WhatsApp among

students of English Language Education Study Program class E in Sanata Dharma

University Yogyakarta batch 2012?

3. What is the reason behind the use of code-switching in social media group of

WhatsApp among students of English Language Education Study Program class E in

Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta batch 2012?


This section elaborates theories on the definition, the relationship between code-

switching and bilingualism, and the motivation for code-switching. It presents what is

meant by code-switching, the relationship between code-switching and bilingualism and

some motivation why it happens

Definition

Code-switching (hereafter CS) is the ability on the part of bilinguals to alternate

effortlessly between their two languages (Barbara et al., 2009). CS is the alternate use of

two or more languages among bilingual interlocutors (MacSwan, 2010). According to

Gardner-Chloros (2009), the phenomenon of code-switching defined as ―the use of

several languages or dialects in the same conversation or sentence by bilingual people‖. It

refers to such monolingual behavior as style shifting. CS gives the speaker chance to

change one language into another language at one point in time or in a conversation.

Therefore, in CS, its linguistic manifestation may extend from the insertion of single

words to the alternation of languages for larger segments of discourse.

The Relationship between Code-Switching and Bilingualism

―Bilingual‖ is a cover term that encompasses speakers who fall along a ―bilingual

range,‖ a continuum of linguistic abilities and communicative strategies (Valde´s, 2001 as

cited in Barbara et al., 2009: 7). Bilingual is an individual who has native-like control of

two (or more) languages. Bilinguals speak different languages, but they do not perceive

the world differently when they switch from one language to another (Kroll & De Groot,

2009). Since it is considered as the use of two languages, it has the relationship with

code-switching. As stated above that CS is the changing from one to another language,

bilingual does take part in the existence of CS.

The Motivation for Code-Switching At first, the study of Code Switching was conducted for children only, but now it

has spread among any ages, gender, and situation. According to Bullock and Toribio

(2009) Code Switching is a linguistic behavior frequently used among bilinguals for a

variety of reasons. In line with the earlier idea, Holmes (2013) highlighted that the way

people speak is influenced by certain social aspects and social scopes in which they are

speaking. This all depends on where they are speaking, who can hear what they are

talking, and what their outlooks and purposes during the speech exchange are. Normally,

people express the same message somewhat difference to quite different audience.

In addition, according to Grosjean (1982), code-switching can also be used for

many other reasons, such as quoting what someone has said (and thereby emphasizing

one‘s group identity), specifying the addressee (switching to the usual language of a

particular person in a group will show that one is addressing that person), qualifying that

has been said, or talking about past events. Thus, Zentella (1999) claims that code

switching is more common during informal interpersonal interactions, including those

that take place between family members in natural contexts. In sum, it is like what Bhatia

and Ritchie (2004) stated, that some languages are viewed as more suited to particular

participant/social groups, settings or topics than others.


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METHODOLOGY

This paper uses document analysis study to find the answer of those research

questions. Document analysis is a social research method and is an important research

tool in its own right and is an invalueable part of most scheme of triangulation. A

document is something that we can read and which relates to some aspects of the social

works (Bryman, 2001). The data is collected through a group forum in an online

application called WhatsApp. It is an application that can enable class E batch 2012 of

English Language Education Study Program (hereafter ELESP) in Sanata Dharma

University (hereafter USD) Yogyakarta to communicate each other. This application can

be used to chat like Short Message Service (SMS) but the chats can be recorded. This

application can be used in group and invite many members to chat in one forum.

The writers also do an interview as a part of qualitative research study. Interview

is a method in which the individual is allowed to talk openly about a topic largely without

the use of specific questions (Cresswell, 2003: 17). The interview question asked may be

related to opinions and perceptions about Code-Switching Phenomena in WhatsApp

group of ELESP class E batch 2012. The interview is carried out among students who

actively comment on the WhatsApp group of ELESP class E batch 2012. The interview

process is recorded to know the detail of the answers. After the data is collected, the

researcher tries to figure out and analyze that to answer the research problems. Therefore,

the answers have to be related to the topic of the questions. The instrument is intended to

find out members‘ opinion about the use of code-switching in WhatsApp group.


There are many vocabularies found in social media WhatsApp group forum for

ELESP batch 2012 in USD. The main conversation is in Bahasa Indonesia but in several

sentences, there are some English vocabularies. It indicates that there is a bilingual

language that all the members agree with. This bilingualism phenomenon becomes the

trigger of the existence of code-switching.

The type of code-switching data found in this social media WhatsApp is lexical

borrowing. Lexical borrowing is one of the ways of language enrichment and doesn‘t lead

to the loss of its spesificity and identity (Tarev, 2012). Lexical borrowing is the idea that

the speaker borrows/takes a particular part of speech of another language to express the

concept of an object. It usually takes one single word to be inserted in a sentence. For

example: ―Gaes, ada yang tahu kenapa attachment di exelsa buffering tiada henti?‖

These two bold words are the example of code-switching from Bahasa Indonesia to

English. It shows that the writer borrows two words which are considered as noun. Those

two words inserted in a sentence to emphasize the concept in a particular web. The word

‗attachment‘ means enclosure, a file that is put in a particular portal to be sent. While the

word ‗buffering‘ means a symbol in the internet that indicates a moment to wait a data

connection.

Another example of lexical borrowing is in this sentence: “Translation bsk

kamis di bawa dalam bentuk soft file/printed?” This is another one-single word of code

switching inserted in a sentence. It is considered as lexical borrowing which uses one of

linguistic aspects. It shows the tendency of expressiveness, that leads to the appearance of

foreign language (Tarev, 2012). It is written to emphasize the meaning of the type of the

file. Therefore, the insertion of these words done by the writer is to express the idea of an

object to be shown in another language.

There are three kinds of part of speech that the writer found in the conversation:

noun, verb and adjective. The example of the noun inserted in the coversation are

attachment, deadline, and buffering. The others example of part of speech verb appears in

the conversation are: post and upload. The last examples of adjective are down, offline,


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and printed. This is another evidence that the insertion which is considered as lexical

borrowing is just a particular part of speech.

Table 1. List of words found in WhatsApp Group of ELESP class E batch 2012

Noun(s) Verb(s) Adjective(s)

Attachment Upload Down

Message Post Offline

Translation Reply Printed

Essay Upload

Deadline Download

Article critique

Email

Hardcopy

Research question

Article

Page

Buffering

Soft file

The third analysis goes to the reason of the group members to write a sentence

inserting another language which then indicates a code-switching. Through interview 5

active participants or members in social media group in WhatsApp of PBI class E batch

2012, the data was collected and analyzed qualitatively. The average amount of the

interview of each respondents are 5-10 minutes. All repsondents have agreed to be

interviewed and they are willing to do so. The respondents are questioned related to code

switching happening in the social media group in WhatsApp. At first they are asked

whether they have already known about code switching or not. Then, the questioned

continued to whether they were aware/ realized or not. Finally, they are investigated why

they did code switching. after that, the data are collected, summarized and discussed.

Table 2. Interview result summary

Firstly, all respondents were asked whether they know about code switching and

these active members have known exactly about the meaning of code switching.

Moreover, some of the respondents give clear explanation and examples. That is why

they also admit that they are aware of the existence of code switching. They can also

mention some Englsih words happened during the code switching conversation like what

have been mentioned in previous discussion. In addition, the respndents can explain why

they did code switching and here are five points summary of the reasons why the

respondents did code switching:

1. Some of the words has awkward meaning if it is translated into Bahasa

Indonesia.

Respondent Active in

Whatsapp

Aware of code

switching

phenomenon

Able to

mentions some

code switched

words

Able to explain

the reasons of

code switching

1 Yes Yes Yes Yes

2 Yes Yes Yes Yes

3 Yes Yes Yes Yes

4 Yes Yes Yes Yes

5 Yes Yes Yes Yes


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2. The respondents are accustomed to use the words.

3. The respondents are uncosciously use the words since the other members use

similar words.

4. The respondents are accusomed to speak English.

5. Those English words are popular or trend.

All respondents agree that they did code switching because there is an awkward

meaning if it is translated into Bahasa Indonesia. For example the word ‗download‘, the

meaning in Bahasa Indonesia it is ‗mengunduh‘ and none of the respondents ecer used

that word in daily conversation. Therefore, all repondents prefer to use common words

like ‗download‘, ‗upload‘, ‗attachment‘, etc. That they are accustomed to use in daily

conversation.

Some respondents admit that they tend to use ‗thanks‘, ‗sorry‘ since it is

something unconsious for them to do that. One respondent said that it is spontaneous to

use the words. Some of the respondents also realized that they use the words which has

been used by their friends. Two respondents stated that they will use similar words, for

example the ‗attachment‘ has been used earlier and then they will reply respond the

concersation using similar word.

All respondents said that the biggest reason why they did code switching because

they were accustomed to speaking English. They were accustomed to speaking English

inside and outside of the classroom since they learned English. This behaviour of

speaking English brought them to easily code switch and they also believed that every

member of the WhatsApp group will understand so it is okay to use English in some

conversation. Three of the respondents even said that it is cool to use English. One

respondent said that some members uploaded announcements in English, thus it

influenced the way they responded to it. This respondent also admited that he ever

uploaded some announcements with some English words.

To sum up what the writers have talked that the main reason why the group

members do code switching is to signal their identity as a student of ELESP in USD

which is accustomed to speak English. It is in line with Barbara et al., that the factor is

directly related to the speakers, both as individuals and as member of variety of

subgroups: their competence in each variety, their social networks and relationships, their

attitudes and ideologies, their self-perception and perception of others (2009, 116). The

community in the WhatsApp group of ELESP class E batch 2012 shares the same

behavior to speak English. The group members are comfortable to insert any English

vocabularies to emphasize the meaning since they belong to ELESP and its culture.

Therefore, it makes the students familiar with English speaking and brings it into the

daily conversation, even when it is in the written conversation.

CONCLUSION

Code switching happens when there are two languages spoken in one sentence.

There is bilingualism in the conversation. Code switching has so many types, but in this

case (code-switching found in the social media WhatsApp) is lexical borrowing type. The

word consists of three parts of speech. The students in that group belong to ELESP so that

it will be okay if the use both of Bahasa Indonesia and English in the conversation. That

is why they do the code switching. Therefore, it can be concluded that code switching in

WhatsApp group of ELESP class E batch 2012 is done by using lexical borrowing and

because of social reason.


Page | 156

REFERENCES

Bhatia, T. K. & Ritchie, W. C. (2004). Social and psychological factors in language

mixing. In W. C. Ritchie & T. K. Bhatia. (Eds.), Handbook of Bilingualism

(pp.336-352). Chichester, West Sussex: Blackwell.

Bryman, A. (2001). Social research method (4th ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bullock, B. E. & Toribio, A. J. (2009). The Cambridge handbook of linguistic code-

switching. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Gardner-Chloros, P. (2009). Code-switching. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Grosjean, F. (1982). Life with two languages: An introduction to bilingualism.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Heredia, R. R. (1997). Bilingual memory and hierarchical models: A case for language

dominance. Current Directions in Psychological Science 10.

Heredia, R. R. & M. Brown, J. (2009). The encyclopedia of linguistics. Chicago: Fitzroy

Dearborn Publishers.

Holmes, J. (2013). An introduction to sociolinguistics. New York: Longman.

Kroll, J. F. & De Groot, A. M. B. (2009). Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic

approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

MacSwan, J. (2010). Plenary address: Unconstraining Code-switching Theories.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Tarev, B. V. (2012). Lexical borrowings: Linguistic and didactic aspects. Journal of

Siberian Federal University.

Zentella, A. C. (1999). Growing up bilingual. Malden, MA: Blackwell.


Page | 157

LANGUAGE VARIATION IN DANGEROUS MINDS MOVIE

Maria Alina Putri Rejeki and Thomas Wahyu Prabowo Mukti



Abstract

―Dangerous Minds‖ is a movie about an American teacher who teaches a troublesome

class with the students from different backgrounds; however most of them are from lower

class family who live in the urban area. The differences make the way the members of the

class communicate to each other with different approaches, even the teacher. This study is

aimed to know what the reasons behind the different of language varieties especially the

different pronunciations, grammatical features and choice of languages of the dialogues

of the movie are. Moreover, this study is qualitative study by using data collected from

the movie collaborated with the data from many books on libraries and the internet in

order to know the reasons of different pronunciation, grammatical features and choice of

language that happen in the dialogues of ―Dangerous Minds‖ movie. This study revealed

that the reasons are the different social class, the participant and the feeling of solidarity

that affects the language variation occurred in this movie.

Keywords: Dangerous Minds, language variation, social classes, participants, solidarity

INTRODUCTION

―Dangerous Mind” is a movie about a teacher, named LouAnne, who teaches a

troublesome class at Parkmont High School in California which the setting is around

1989. LouAnne finds herself confronted with a classroom of tough, sullen teenagers, all

from lower-class and underprivileged backgrounds, involved in gang warfare and drug

pushing, flatly refusing to engage with anything. They immediately coin the nickname

"White Bread" for LouAnne, due to her race and apparent lack of authority, to which

LouAnne responds by returning the next day in a leather jacket and teaching them karate.

The students show some interest in such activities, but immediately revert to their former

behavior when LouAnne tries to teach the curriculum.

Desperate to reach the students LouAnne devises classroom exercises that teach

similar principles to the prescribed work, but using themes and language that appeal to

the streetwise students. She also tries to motivate them by giving them all an A grade

from the beginning of the year, and arguing that the only thing required of them is that

they maintain it. In order to introduce them to poetry, LouAnne uses the lyrics of Bob

Dylan's 'Mr. Tambourine Man' to teach symbolism and metaphor; once this is achieved,

she progresses on to Dylan Thomas's 'Do not go gentle into that good night'. LouAnne

rewards the students liberally, using candy bars, reward incentives, and a trip to a theme

park. However, her methods make the school authorities, George Grandey (Courtney B.

Vance) and Carla Nichols (Robin Bartlett), angry and they try to force her to remain

within the curriculum.

Particular individual students attract LouAnne's attention for their personal

problems. Callie Roberts is an unusually bright girl who excels at English, but is removed

from the school halfway through the semester when she becomes pregnant. LouAnne

visits her outside of school hours to try to persuade her to continue with further education.

Raúl Sanchero is a well-meaning boy who is frequently involved in gang warfare and

street crime. LouAnne tries to encourage him to focus by paying a special visit to his

family to congratulate him on his work, and going to dinner with him as a way of

instilling confidence and self-respect. Emilio Ramírez is her most troublesome personal

project, as he believes strongly in a sense of personal honor that prevents him from asking

for help. When LouAnne discovers that his life is in danger because of a personal grudge




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held by a recently released thug, she tries to protect him, but due to the cold attitude of

the principal, he is abandoned at the crucial moment and is subsequently killed.

At the end of the year, she announces to the class that she will not be continuing

to teach at the school, which prompts an unbridled display of emotion from the students

who refuse to let her leave. Overwhelmed, she decides to stay

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_Minds).

Since this movie tells about a class consists of students from many backgrounds

and races, we can hear many dialects and accents, even code switches used by some

students such as, ese, puta and chismosa. Through this paper, we will analyze more the

reasons behind the different of language varieties especially the different pronunciations,

grammatical features and choice of languages of the dialogues of the movie.


Language varies from region to region and also across ethnic, socioeconomic, and

gender boundaries. For example, speakers of American English know that white

Americans and black Americans tend to speak differently, even when they live in the

same city. Similarly, middle-class speakers can often be distinguished from working-class

speakers. Women and men also differ from one another in their language use. Throughout

the world, in addition to regional dialects, there are ethnic varieties, social class varieties,

and gender varieties. These constitute what some call social dialects, although the word

dialect is commonly limited to regional varieties (Finegan, 2008).

The term dialect refers to the language variety characteristic of a

particular regional or social group. Partly through his or her dialect we recognize a

person‘s regional, ethnic, social, and gender affiliation. Thus, a dialect is related to

language users, with groups of speakers. In addition, all dialects vary according to the

situation in which they are used, creating registers: language varieties characteristic of

situations of use. Languages, dialects, and registers are all language varieties. Dialect and

Accent Dialect refers to a language variety in its totality—including vocabulary,

grammar, pronunciation, pragmatics, and any other aspect of the linguistic system. By

contrast, the word accent refers to pronunciation only. When we discuss a ―Southern

accent‖ or a ―Boston accent,‖ we mean the pronunciation characteristic of the Southern

dialect or the Boston dialect (Finegan, 2008).

Speakers choose linguistics forms that they believe to be the best suited to a

particular speech event. Moreover, Labov (1972) shows that aspects of language such as

phonological and syntactic variation could be related to linguistics environment and

social context.

In addition, based on speech accommodation theory, speakers may vary their

language in ways that symbolize the relationship that the speakers wish to obtain with

their interlocutor(s), especially with regards to group membership. Thus, in order to show

group solidarity, speakers will ―converge‖ their speech patterns, that is, choose language

varieties that accommodate to other speakers. Conversely, speakers may choose to show

their lack of solidarity with other speakers and that usually symbolize membership in

another group (Giles & Smith, 1979).

METHODOLOGY

This study was conducted by using library research. The writer collected data

from many books on a library and the internet in order to know the reasons of different

pronunciation and language varieties that happen in the dialogues of ―Dangerous Minds‖

movie. Library research is an inquiry and it recommends an efficient, effective way to

plan an investigation before starting to uncover evidence (George, 2008). By using library

research the writer could find theory related to the events happen in the movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_Minds


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The language variation enterprise began with the correlation of language use and

social class. According to Labov (1972), the social situation is the most powerful

determinant of verbal behavior. In language variation research, social class is meant to

model the socioeconomic hierarchy of a community rather than impose a discrete set of

identifiable classes.

In the ―Dangerous Minds‖ movie, the characters come from different social

classes. The teacher, Louanne, is white skin, ex marine and coming from middle class.

The students in her class mostly are black skin, lower class and coming from gangster and

urban area. Some of the students also speak Spanish sometimes.

There are differences between the language that is the teacher used and the

students used. The teacher used more formal English language compared to her students

without any other accent or dialect. The teacher used American English

Example [1]: Loanne: ―I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to touch a student.‖ ‖But if

you really think you know what you're doin', come on up here"

In one scene, the teacher said ―doin‘‖ instead of ―doing‖. The teacher sometimes

reduces the sound of (η). According to Aichison (1999), the highest class in USA never

omits the –ing. The lower the class, the lower the –ing sound is produced by the speaker.

The result of his research is the upper class is produced the sound of –ing. This variation

usually called phonological variation. Aichison also stated that phonological variation is

important as a reflection of various social statuses.

In the movie, we found that the students come from the lower social status. Most of

them are black skin and coming from gangster or urban area. They usually talked to each

other using informal English. They are also talked to their teacher using informal English

that is usually used by the lower classes. They came from different origin. Sometimes

they used African English and Spanish English. They also do some code-switching while

they are talking to everyone, especially when they want to yell to someone.

Example [2]: A Spanish students: ―I was beginning to like this puta”

When Loanne wants to begin to teach karate, the class is really noisy so one of the

black students said, ―Shut up. Y‟all sound like them fifth-graders‖. Moreover, when a

student pronounces karate incorrectly, then a Spanish students named Emilio said,

―Estupido‖

When Loanne wants to start,

Emilio : ―I'll try some karate with you, Miss Johnson.

Loanne : ―I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to touch a student. But if

you really think you know what you're doin', come on up

here.‖

A Spanish students : ―Hey, sounds like a challenge to me, ése. You'd better

get up there.‖

Emilio : “Oh, I know what I'm doin'. There's no sense doin' it

though if you can't touch me.‖

From the example, we can find that in some scene, the students use informal

English like ―ain‘t‖ and ―y‘all‖. People from the upper class usually use I am not or I‘m

not instead of ‖ain‘t‖. It means that the word ―ain‘t‖ is usually used by lower class. The

people from the upper class usually use ―you all‖ instead of ―y‘all‖. It means that y‘all is

usually used by the lower class. This phenomenon is usually called phonological variation

and regional dialects. They also ignored some –ing sounds. It means that they use

African-American Vernacular English or AAVE. According to Rickford (1996) in

general, AAVE features are used most often by young lower and working class speaker in

urban areas and in informal styles. The students in the movie came from urban areas and

from lower class. Lower class area means that in that area only few people are educated


Page | 160

and most of the people there are jobless, the same with the background of most of

Loanne‘s students.

In the movie, the students sometimes did code-switching. They did code-switching

especially when they yelled to someone and when they speak to someone coming from

the same region or have the same mother tongue. The common words they used when

they yelled to someone are puta, ese, and estupido. Those words come from Spanish.

Words in Spanish Meaning in English

Puta a prostitute or slut

Ese a form of address for a man

Estupido Stupid

For example

Raul (to Emilio) : ―Rata, you fuckin' puto‖

Raul (to Gusmaro) : ―Man, I cracked that motherfucker's head, ése.‖

They usually used those words when they yelled to someone especially their

friends which are coming from the same social community. From the example, Raul uses

those words when he speaks to his friend who came from the same social community:

Spanish and gangster in urban area. Milroy (1980) demonstrated that the closer the

individual‘s network ties are with his community, the closer his language approximates to

localized vernacular norms.

Gilles and Smith (1979) also state that in order to show group solidarity, speakers

will ―converge‖ their speech patterns, that is, choose language varieties that accommodate

to other speakers. Conversely, speakers may choose to show their lack of solidarity with

other speakers and that usually symbolize membership in another group. There are many

reasons why someone does code-switching.

According to Blom and Gumperz (1972), there are several reasons of someone

does code-switching. The reasons are to change the topic of conversation, to punch a line

of a joke, to change the tone, and to mark emphasis. In this movie‘s case, the students

changed the language in order to mark emphasis because they did it whenever they

wanted to show that they were angry.

When the students had interaction with the teacher, they also tried to use more

polite language. In the first time, the students used impolite English language to the

teacher. For the example they called their teacher with ―white bread‖. White bread means

the teacher‘s race and the apparent lack of authority of the teacher. However, after

passing the days together, the relationship between the teacher and the students became

closer and closer. That is why the students tried to use more formal language when they

were having conversation with the teacher. Giles and Smith (1979) state that the speakers

may vary their language in ways that symbolize the relationship between the speakers and

the listeners. In this case, the relationship occurs in this movie is teacher-students

relationship. The students changed the language became more polite after having a good

relationship with the teacher and they respect their teacher.

CONCLUSION

In ―Dangerous Minds‖, we can observe the language variation based on social

background. There are two different social backgrounds. The first one is the middle,

white, and educated people and the second one is the lower, black and less educated

people. The middle, white, and educated people is the teacher and the lower, black, and

less educated people is the students. From the movie, the writers found that social

background affect the way people speaking. It is also giving differentiation in the word

choice.


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The other thing that affects the variation of language used by someone that the

writers found in this movie is the relationship between the speaker and the listeners. If the

speaker has close relationship and comes from the same place, he will use informal form

of language and sometimes use some vernacular words. The social status, the education

background, and the origin are also the thing that affects the variation of language used in

the movie.

REFERENCES

Aitchison, J. (2003). Teach yourself: Linguistics. Chicago: Hodder & Stoughton.

Finegan, E. (2008). Language: Its structure and use. Boston: Tomson Wadsworth.

George, M. W. (2008). The elements of library research. Princeton: Princeton University

Press.

Labov, W. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington,

DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Milroy, L. (1980). Language and social networks. Baltimore: University Park Press.

Rickford, J. R. (1996). Regional and social variation: Sociolinguistics and language

teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


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THE IMPORTANCE OF ENGLISH

IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CURRICULUM 2013

Siska Anggraeni

[email protected]

English Department, Faculty of Letters, Jember University

Abstract

Recent development of the implementation of Curiculum 2013 is moving English as

compulsory subject in elementary school especially in basic classes. There are several

advantages and disadvantages toward the using of Curiculum 2013. It has a relation

between the motivation of students to learn English and the program that develop with the

Curriculum 2013. The problem is English becomes one of the importance skills that the

students need for the globalisation era. However, the implementation of Curiculum 2013

removed English as a compulsory subject for basic classes in elemetary school. In another

hand, many English courses emerge to make the students interested to learn English. In

this paper, I will try to propose some suggestion and priorities for the improvement of

Curiculum 2013 especially English subject. The researcher uses descriptive research to

get the data from the development of elementary school students. Relevant findings are

about the development of the importance of English based on the motivation of students

to learn English.

Keywords: English subject, Curriculum 2013, implementation, motivation

INTRODUCTION

English language is one of the most spoken languages of today. English becomes

international language because more than 400 countries use English as their mother

tounge. English language becomes an importance skill that everyone should have as a

means to communicate globally. In Indonesia, English is a foreign language. Some people

who learn English think that they need to learn English because of the importance of

English to communicate with other people globally. Moreover, the using of English in

Indonesia still develop with the motivation of students to learn English. The students with

high motivation and high enthusiasm will do anything to improve their ability. For

example, they will follow a course that suply the material to improve their English. On

the other hand, school as a basic source to the development students ability, will move

English as a compulsory subject. It means that, the time for studying English is less than

usual. For several reasons, English is moving into extracuricular subject in elementary

school. That is why, the importance of English is not work as well because it moving into

extracuricular subject.

Therefore, the researcher aims to conduct a research about the importance of

English in the implementation of Curiculum 2013 trough the motivation of students. This

research will answer three research questions namely (1) What are the advantages and

disadvantages of moving English as compulsor subject to extracuricular in Curiculum

2013? (2) Why does English become importance in the globalization era? (3) What are

the students‖ motivation in learning English?

The purposes of this research are first is to know the advantages and

disadvantages of moving English as compulsory subject to extracuricular in Curriculum

2013, second, is to explain the importance of English in the globalization era and third is

to know the students motivation to learn English. The benefits of this research are people

in education field will have more understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of

moving English as compulsory subject extracuricular in Curriculum 2013, people can



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have more knowledge of the importance of English in the globalization era and people

can be aware of students‘ motivation of elementary school students.


The English language has been seen as a good medium of communication in

Indonesia. Apart from the fact that it has been adopted as a teaching language in higher

Institution of learning, it is also considered as an enhancement for social status. English

language has been seen as a defacto standard medium of communication all over the

world and Indonesia cannot be left out. In some way or another, teaching and learning of

English Language can be considered to be an integral part of Indonesia educational

system for a long time. As stated by Lauder (2008), English is being used for following

technological and scientific improvements and also for better job opportunities. Daloğlu

(1996) points out that an important requirement for effective delivery of high quality

language education is a proper definition of the curriculum with clear aim and objectives.

Developing a curriculum that clearly spells out how knowledge can be acquired

constitutes an important phase towards realizing good quality language dissemination.

Pittman (1985) adopted Robert Stake‘s Responsive Evaluation Model (RSREV)

for evaluating a social science curriculum in an indigenous school district in the United

States of America. The significance of the evaluation was predicated on developing,

implementing, and evaluating a curriculum evaluation procedure. This was done in order

to identify the appropriateness and failures so that areas with shortcomings can be

improved and to determine if the improvement been made are positive on students‘ skills

in social studies. The results of the evaluation identified the competency of the existing

curriculum and suggested areas to be improved upon. Yıldız (2004) evaluated the Minsk

State Linguistic University (MSLU) Turkish Language Program for foreigners in Belarus.

He used Context Input Process Product (CIPP) Model was used to evaluate the program.

The study was aimed at detecting the inconsistencies among the existing curriculum and

the outcomes expected from the Turkish language program hosted at MSLU. The aim of

the evaluation was similar to that of Pittman (1985). The study concludes that the needs

and expectations of the learners are been met by the curriculum, although some

recommendations were made to further improve the curriculum for improved

dissemination and learning.

English program evaluation from the students‘ perspective of Çukurova

University, a Vocational School, was done by Gullu (2007). The study examined the

students‘ perception about the effectiveness and usefulness of English program and the

difficulties they encountered. The evaluation also took into consideration the expectations

and the essentials of the students. The outcome of the study indicated that the students

faced some specific challenges such as problem of the course content; unappealing and

inappropriate study materials, lack of interest and motivation and lack of instructional

materials. Findings also showed that the program is not adequate and did not conform to

students‘ expectations and needs.

METHODOLOGY

The research was conducted by using descriptive research. According to Gay

(2000), descriptive method is useful for investigating a variety of educational problems

and issues (p. 275). Population of this research are students of elementary school who are

considered by spreading the questionaire for 30 students.

In this research, the questionaires were distributed into 30 elementary school

students. Therefore, I spread the questionaire for 5 different background of school. They

are 15 boys and 15 girls at the class 5 – 6 elementary school. The researcher uses

descriptive research to analyze the data.


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According to the data that I got, 12 students like to learn English and 8 students

are not . It means that not all the students in the school love to learn English. It makes the

atmosfer to learn English not comfortable for the students who do not like to learn

English. If we relate to the Curiculum 2013 that is moving English as extracuricular

subject, choosing English as extracuricular subject based on their interested to learn

English. The students with high interested and motivation will able to choose English as

their extracuricular subject. But, for the students who do not have motivation, they will

not choose English as their extracuricular.

The data shows that 3 students have English as their compulsory subject in the

school and 17 of them are not. It means that the Curiculum 2013 are working in the most

of elementary school in Indonesia. But, if we do an evaluation, the Curiculum 2013 is not

ready to use. It is because of the quality of Indonesia people still not ready to follow and

accept the system of Curiculum 2013.

The data shows that 9 students follow a course and 11 are not. It means that the

motivation that they have to learn English is high. Most of students who follow a course,

they like to learn English and understand the importance of English in globalization era.

Also most of them who follow the course are them who have extra money.

The data shows that 15 students agree if English is moving into extracuricular

subject and 5 of the students are not. It means that, English subject is not become the

favourite that the students like to learn more. It relates to the system of curiculum 2013

that is moving English as extracuricular subject. Also the system of teaching English is

not interested for the students. It becomes an evaluation for the teacher, how to teach

English interestingly.

The data shows that 13 students think that English is important for them and 7

students are not. It means that, actually the students understand that they need to learn

English in globalization era. But, the willingness to learn English based on the

background of each students. Also, from the outside factor such as curiculum.

The advantages and disadvantages of moving English as compulsory subject. The

advantage of moving English as extracuricular subject are first, the students can focus on

the other compulsory subject such as mathematics, Bahasa Indonesia, Ilmu Pengetahuan

Alam, Ilmu Pengetahuan Sosial, Pendidikan Kewarganegaraan, Pendidikan Agama, etc.

Here, they can focus on what actually they learn more about compulsory subject, second,

the advantage of moving English as compulsory subject is the students can elaborate their

understanding in English beside the class. We know that English is practice ability that

develop by practicing. The more we practice, the more improvement that we can get. So,

without following English in school, if the students have willingness to learn and practice.

The disadvantages of moving English as compulsory subject are first the students lose

their time to practice English in front of the class in the school. They do not have chance

to improve their English with their friends. Second, several students think that English is

not important anymore because it is not provide in curriculum. In Curriculum 2013, the

system that provide by government like assume that English is not important to learn

more as basic ability. It means that the students who have willingness to learn is based on

their motivation and enthusiasm.

The globalization era gives positive and negative effect especially for Indonesia.

Nowadays, English plays an importance rule to communicate globally. English become

the most needed as a means to communicate with other people. We need English to get in

touch with other people around the world. English is a means to know all the knowledge

in this world. People who have ability to speak and write globally.

The motivation of students to learn English are different. Of course, it depend on

several baground that they have. From the research that I did, several baground that they

have such as motivation, willingness, assumption, curriculum. The students with good

motivation, they will learn English as well. Because they think that English is important


Page | 165

and they should learn English as well. Also, the students with high willingness to learn

English, they will do anything to improve their ability to learn English. For example, they

will follow a course that provide several ways to improve their ability to learn English

such as listening, speaking, grammar, writing, etc. The students with good assumption

about English, they think that English is important. That is why they need to learn

English. But then, the students with bad assumption think that English is not important

anymore.

The relation of importance of English with Curiculum 2013 is moving English as

extracurricular subject. From the past evaluation of the implementation of English as

compulsory subject was the system not run as well. According to the preceeding findings,

the system of teaching English in Indonesia is not appropiate for low motivation students.

It means that, high motivation is needed to learn English. It is because of the complex

system of English. First thing that we have to do is making an evaluation about the

Curiculum 2013. By evaluating the system of curiculum, the motivation and enthusiasm

of students will increase.


The students with high motivation to learn English, will do anything to improve

their ability in English. The students will give extra time to follow a course. Also, they

still interested to learn English if it is moving into extracuricular subject. If it relates to

the Curiculum 2013 that is moving English as compulsory subject, it is not good for the

student who have high motivation to learn English. They still need English as a

compulsory subject in the school.

The students with low motivation think that English is not important and they do

not like to learn English. It means that the willingness of students to learn English is not

high. The students have low motivation because of external factor like the way of

teaching that is not interesting. If it relates to the Curiculum 2013, the importance of

English is still concern to sthe students who have high motivation to learn English.

Curiculum 2013 is moving English as compulsory subject and it seems that

English is not important anymore. While there are many courses that provide they way to

improve the students ability in English. Of course, it means that there are many students

that have high motivation to learn English. Most of them who follow a course think that

they need to learn English and they know that English is important. Curiculum 2013 need

an evaluation such as from the teachers way to teach. Because if the way of teacher to

teach English is interesting, the students will be interested in the material.

REFERENCES

Anonymous. (2013). The Asian conference on language learning: Official conference

proceedings.

Mappiasse S. S. & Johari, B. (2014). Evaluation of English as a foreign language and its

curriculum in Indonesia: A review. Laval, Quebec: Canadian Center of Science

and Education.

Sahirudin. (2013). The implementation of the 2013 Curriculum and the issues of English

language teaching and learning in Indonesia.


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ENGLISH CLUB AS ONE ALTERNATIVE TO LEARN ENGLISH

Yulius Gustav Ndolu W P, Martha Erika Diana and Bernadetha Wahyu W



Abstract

The aim of this paper is to offer an alternative to solve English learning problems

especially in formal schools. The paper is based on the reality that English subject in

formal schools in Indonesia may not give satisfying results. As mass media have

mentioned, education in Indonesia only focuses on national examination and this has

become the parameter of successful education while ignoring other factors (Baswedan,

2014). Besides, every student has different intelligences that need to be concerned

(Gardner, 1983). The research objective is to figure out an alternative way to help

students learn English better through some methods that lead into positive atmosphere. In

order to reach the objective, the researchers distributed questionnaire to 34 junior high

school students in SMP N 2 Mlati in 7A class as respondents. Furthermore, we had follow

up interviews and observation in schools to complete the information. Next, the proposed

alternative solution that the researchers are going to offer is by setting up an English Club

for students. This English Club will provide the students with 3 competences namely

Compassion, Conscience, and Competence. The findings show that 22 out of 32 students

are interested in joining the English language course program outside the class.

Keywords: Indonesian education problem, different intelligences, various methods,

English Club

INTRODUCTION

Education in Indonesia is still developing. In this matter, government is the one

who directly manages this matter. However, can people in education field fully hand this

matter to the government? They need to get involved in education and the development

itself for making it more successful. Therefore, the researchers realize this condition and

want to take a part of the development itself by trying to give solution to some problems

that occur in Indonesian education especially in English education. The problems which

will be discussed are from the learning process in the formal schools. At least there are

three problems found. The first is some formal schools in Indonesia may not give

satisfying result in English subject education. The second is that the development of the

education in Indonesia is still inconsistent condition which makes the progress of the

education in schools disturbed. The third is the researcher find that students‘ preference,

multiple intelligences are being neglected while it can be useful for education

development in Indonesia (Gardner, 1983).

The researchers analyze the three problems and try to find an alternative solution

to solve those problems. The researchers know that it will be hard things to change the

curriculum of formal schools and it will take long time for the researchers. Thus, the

researchers try to make an alternative solution from outside of the school curriculum. The

researchers find a solution which is more suitable namely English club. English club is a

place for students to learn English outside the school in which we can learn English

through various ways. The multiple intelligences can be applied in English Club and

students can learn English through their own intelligences. In English Club, teachers can

use various learning methods and fun activities to build students‘ motivation in learning

English.

Three competences, which are competence, conscience, and compassion, are also

implemented in this learning. The role of teacher in English club will be taken by English

Language Education students to improve their teaching skills and gain experiences. And


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later on this paper, the researchers will find out why this English club is needed and how

this English club is become beneficial to the education in Indonesia. This kind of learning

activities, hopefully, will be helpful to solve the educational problems in Indonesia and to

develop the education in Indonesia.


1. Howard Gardner‘s Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Human potential lies in the fact that people have a unique blend of capabilities

and skills (intelligences). Gardner (1983) asserts that educators should not follow one

specific theory or educational innovation when designing instruction, but instead employ

customized goals and values appropriate to their teaching and student needs. There are

nine intelligences according to Gardner‘s Multiple Intelligences, those are; verbal-

linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, spatial-visual intelligence,

bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, musical intelligences, interpersonal intelligence,

intrapersonal, naturalist intelligence, and existential intelligence.

2. Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL)

Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) is a learning system that matches the

performance of the brain, to develop patterns that create meaning, by linking academic

content in the context of everyday life learners. This is important applied to the

information received is not only stored in short-term memory, which is easily forgotten,

but can be stored in long term memory so it will be internalized and applied in job duties.

CTL is called contextual approach because this concept of learning helps teachers to link

between the content to be studied with real-world of students‘ lives. It encourages

students to make connections between the knowledge possessed by its application in their

lives as members of Contextual approach (CTL) has seven main components, namely

constructivism (constructivism), find (Inquiry), asking (questioning), community-learning

(Learning Community), modelling (modelling), reflection (reflection), and The actual

assessment (Authentic) (Sears, 2002).

3. Competence, compassion, and Conscience

Competence – people develop and demonstrate innovation and competence in the

performance of their responsibilities as they seek excellence. Pursuing

competence enables them to comply with legal standards, to adhere to University

policies and to leave morality beyond legality. By competence they solve

problems and support one another in difficult times. People ask questions and

seek assistance when they are uncertain about the proper course of action. People

promote free, active and original intellectual inquiry among all University

members.

Conscience – people cultivate and follow our conscience for the development of

the whole person in community. Respecting conscience encourages us to value

inter-religious collaboration and respect the faith of diverse religious

communities. Through conscience, we deepen and clarify ethical conduct in the

ongoing quest for enlightenment, understanding and truth.

Compassion - people embrace and show compassion through patience with and

understanding of themselves and other people. Practicing compassion helps

people to demonstrate effective communication skills by listening, seeking first to

reflect and understand before making decisions and taking action. With

compassion, people enhance selflessness when interacting with others and we

seek forgiveness when appropriate.

4. Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan on English Syllabus

KTSP (Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan) or School-Based Curriculum

(SBC) is the curriculum which is applied based on the Government Regulation


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(Peraturan Pemerintah) no. 19/2005. This regulation allows schools to develop its own

curriculum. The government sets some standards to be met by the schools. The standards

are called Content Standard (Standar Isi) and Graduate Competence Standard (Standar

Kompetensi Lulusan). Those standards are guidelines to follow while developing the

appropriate syllabus for the schools concerned. Overall, any KTSP of formal schools will

contain an English syllabus which sets four main language competencies (listening,

speaking, reading, and writing). The efforts to make the students acquire the

competencies become the responsibility of each individual English teacher in the school.

5. Curriculum 2013

Curriculum 2013 uses four theoretical frameworks that consist of (1) model of

competence, (2) model of language use, (3) model of language literacy, and (4) stages of

language learning. The model of competence refers to the expected learning outcomes

resulting from the teaching and learning process using this curriculum. Curriculum 2013

has three aspects of assessment, those are the aspect of knowledge, skills and attitudes or

behaviour (Kemendiknas, 2006). In Curriculum 2013, English subject will not be taught

at elementary school. It will still be taught 4 hours a week in junior high school, but only

2 hours a week in senior high school, for students majoring in social and science

programs. Then, for students who major in language programs, they will have 3 hours a

week of English subject in grade 10, and 4 hours a week in grade 11 and 12

(Kemendiknas, 2013).

METHODOLOGY

The researchers used quantitative and qualitative approach on gathering our data.

The data for this report were gathered from 13 May -15 May 2015. The researchers

conducted our research in one of the junior high schools in Yogyakarta which is SMP N 2

Mlati on 13 May 2015. The researchers carried out a questionnaire survey for the

quantitative approach and an interview for the qualitative approach. For the quantitative

approach, the questionnaires were distributed to a total of 32 students, consisting of the

students who are in seventh grade. For the quantitative approach, one of the English

teachers from the school was interviewed on 13 May 2015. To collect more information,

the researchers also interviewed a teacher of English Club of Sanata Dharma University

on 15 May 2015.


Findings

The researchers got some qualitative and quantitative data from the research that

we have done. The table below is the result that we got from questionnaires that we share

and collect from SMPN 2 Mlati in 7A class. The numbers in column jawaban (jawaban is

Indonesian term for answer) are the number of the students who chose the answer.

No Pernyataan

Jawaban

1 2 3 4

1. Saya merasa senang

belajar bahasa Inggris. 12 20

2. Saya merasa kesulitan

dalam mempelajari bahas Inggris. 5 23 4

3. Saya merasa bahasa Inggris itu penting

bagi masa depan saya. 7 25


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2. Quantitative data

From the table, the researchers find that the students like to learn the English

language even though they felt that English is difficult. It also shows that English

language is important for the students. From the questionnaire the researchers also find

that the teacher could teach the students quite well. The students can understand the

lesson well. The teacher taught the students four skills (reading, writing, listening, and

speaking) and taught them with various media such as pictures and videos. The students

learnt the skill well, but their listening skill is better than other skills. The results also

show that most of them are satisfied already with the result. However, six students are

still disappointed with their results. From the last statements, the researchers can see that

22 out of 32 students are interested in joining English language course program outside

the class.

4. Guru saya mengajar dengan metode pembelajaran

yang menarik dan cocok dengan saya. 11 21

5. Saya dapat memahami materi yang

diajarkan oleh guru Bahasa Inggris dengan baik. 7 25

6. Guru mengajarkan Bahasa Inggris

melalui aktivitas membaca (reading). 1 14 17


melalui aktivitas menulis (writing). 16 16


melalui aktivitas berbicara (speaking). 12 20


melalui aktivitas mendengarkan (listening). 13 19

10. Saya dapat mengikuti

kegiatan reading dengan baik. 1 23 8

11. Saya dapat mengikuti kegiatan

writing dengan baik. 1 23 8


speaking dengan baik. 1 24 7


listening dengan baik. 20 12


melalui media gambar. 15 17


melalui media musik. 12 20


melalui media video. 10 22


melalui media games. 2 4 11 15

18. Nilai Bahasa Inggris saya

sudah cukup memuaskan. 2 4 22 4

19. Saya tertarik dan berniat untuk mengikuti

program kursus bahasa Inggris di luar sekolah. 1 9 12 10


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2. Quantitative results

a. Result of an interview with English language teachers of SMPN 2 Mlati

From the interview with the teacher, the teacher told the researchers that

overall, students‘ achievements are quite good. However, the teacher also said that

some students are talented and good in certain skills such as writing and speaking,

but some are not. In the learning process, the students are very enthusiastic when

the class activities are more various, like when the teacher used media such as

games, videos and pictures.

However, the activities in class are still more emphasized in the material from

the curriculum. So, the activities are more focused in reading and writing. The

method that is being used by the teacher is CTL. There are some difficulties that

the teacher found in the class. The first is the students need to catch up with more

material in this second semester, because the curriculum is changed back to KTSP

from Curriculum 2013. It is because in the Curriculum 2013 the materials are

simpler than KTSP which is more complex. So, the students need to catch up with

more material in the second semester. Another problem is to build students‘

motivation in class. The students are less motivated to speak and use English in

class because they are scared to be mocked and ashamed. Students are usually

being told arrogant by their friends when they are talked in English. They are also

unconfident and low self-esteem to learn English (they feel that they cannot use or

learn the English language).

b. Result of an interview with Sanata Dharma PGSD‘s English Club teacher

The teacher said that at first, the students‘ skills in English were not good.

Their grammar was not good and other skills also. The teacher tried to use English

but the students did not understand. Their speaking, reading, and writing skills

were not good and so much grammatical mistakes. The teacher found hard time

when the teacher had to stick with the syllable while their skills were still not good.

Though, few students were good. The teacher decided to focus on the students‘

understanding, speaking, and listening skills. The teacher made her lesson to be

understandable by the students and she built their motivation.

Discussion

From the data that the researchers have collected, the researchers find that

English education in SMP N 2 Mlati is quite good. It is quite different with the prediction

which their result would not be good. However, the researchers can see from the context

which is the teacher use variant activities using media. It is also because the curriculum

that students used in the semester before was 2013 Curriculum which is simpler, so their

results were quite good. The researchers also find that they were still in first year. It

means that their materials were still in beginner level which may be easy enough to

understand. The researchers can find it from the second interview which in the results that

university students‘ English skills and knowledge are still bad. Their skills seem in the

beginner level although they have graduated from high school. It means, many students

were not developing much when they moved to intermediate level.

From the results, the researchers can also see that the curriculum changed back to

KTSP and it makes some problems to the students. Like the teacher had said that the

students need to keep up with the materials which are more complex than the material

that they should have learnt in 2013 Curriculum. From this matter, the researchers can see

that the education system in Indonesia is not stable and it still has some problems.

Another problem is that the researchers can see that some other factors are

neglected. The evidence that we can get from the data is that the curriculum‘s materials is


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focused on the reading and writing skills. However, from the data, the students learn

listening better than others skills. It means that the education system neglected the

students learning preference. The government also too focused on the result of the

evaluation (National Examination) rather than the students‘ skill. It can be seen through

the graduated students that pass national exam but their skills are not really good.


1. Conclusion

To sum up, the Indonesian curriculum nowadays has not given satisfying result

for the students. The design of the curriculum will predictably still drive the teaching of

English in Indonesia to become reading and grammar oriented, test-preparation based

teaching oriented. While in fact, the real situation that happened in the classroom has not

effective. One of the major problem is the level of intelligences of each student is varied.

There is a student who is good in speaking skill but weak in writing. On the other hand,

some students are smart in reading and writing, but they are not able to speak English

well. The diversity of students‘ competencies should be accommodated so that the

learning of a foreign language can be expected to succeed.

2. Suggestion

The English Club that the researchers offer may be one of solutions to solve the

problems of Indonesian education. However, English Club should be organized in a

fascinating way. We can use various learning method and fun activities to build the

students‘ motivation to learn English. Besides, the syllabus of English Club should not

only focus on Indonesian Curriculum since the curriculum is only reading, grammar and

test-preparation based teaching oriented. It must emphasize all of the students‘ skills

which need to be improved for their future progress such as speaking, listening,

interpersonal skill and the other skills.

In addition, this English Club uses various methods which implement three

competences which are competence, conscience, and compassion. However, there must

be an activation to disseminate the information of this English Club and trigger the

students‘ motivation to join the club. Moreover, there should be attention from our

government to advance this program. Thus, it is expected that this program will be

helpful for English teachers and students to improve the quality of the students‘ English

skills.

REFERENCES

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York:

Basic Books.

Sears, S. (2002). Contextual teaching and learning: A primer for effective instruction.

Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.

The Third Undergraduate Conference 2015

Proceedings - Universitas Sanata Dharma

Documents

Transcript of Proceedings - Universitas Sanata Dharma