Improving Students’ Writing Skill through Marking System Feedback

Writing is one of the four language skills that the learners should master. The 2013 curriculum also says that one of the English language competencies specified in high school level is that students must be able to compose short written texts using coherent text structures and linguistic elements fluently and accurately. In line with that this study aims to find out whether the marking system feedback can improve students' writing skill. This is a two-cycle classroom action research at SMA Negeri 1 Sewon. The subjects were 26 tenth grade students of class X MIPA 1. The data were collected from observation, written documents, writing scores, and questionnaire. The study results showed that by applying the marking system feedback, students' writing skills improved. The mean scores of the students' writing ability in the pre-cycle was 63.65 at the poor category, the first cycle was 73.65 at the fair category, and the second cycle was 81.35 at the good category. In addition, students tend to give positive responses to the implementation of the marking system feedback. As many as 88.46% think that the feedback is useful in writing activities and can help them in correcting their mistakes, 73.08% think that the technique makes them understand the grammar better, and 80.77% say this technique leads them to be more careful in their writing and also motivates them to improve their composition.

Communicative activities to enhance oral production in the EFL classroom

Introduction. Speaking is considered one of the most difficult skills to be developed in class when teaching a foreign language. Therefore, teachers need to look for alternatives to enhance learners’ oral production. In this regard, Communicative activities (CA) play a fundamental role in language teaching due to the fact they provide them with opportunities to use language as in real situations. Objective. The main goal of this research is to provide a general overview of Communicative activities to enhance oral production in the EFL classroom. Methodology. This article was based on the qualitative approach. A descriptive - documentary research was carried out through an extensive bibliographic literature review about the main principles of the Communicative Approach, communicative activities, types of CA, and speaking. Results. Results from the reviewed research investigations show that they are quite useful for teachers and learners since CA facilitate learners’ oral production employing the interaction among classmates and teachers. Conclusion. Besides, Communicative activities encourage learners to develop their language competencies due to the dynamic in which these activities are carried out in the EFL classroom.

THE IMPORTANCE OF E-LEARNING FOR MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGIES STUDENTS

The pandemic situation in Slovakia has shown that e-learning teaching within educational institutions has not received sufficient attention so far. The purpose of the paper is to stress the importance of e-learning application in foreign language teaching as well as show the possibilities of creating new educational portals for university students using professional foreign language texts. The KEGA project “Innovative Methods and Forms of Education for Needs and Development of Language and Communication Skills within Technical Professional Foreign Language Study Material” is still ongoing at the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities. The aim is to emphasize the importance of foreign language training for future engineers, and at the same time to look for modern and innovative mixed methods of education, which includes the use of e-learning. The paper compares the study results of more than 200 students in different study programmes at the Faculty of Manufacturing Technologies in Prešov Technical University of Košice achieved during the academic year 2020/2021. The research findings prove that the experimental group of students from different study programmes achieved the best study results in those manufacturing technologies e-tests which are closely connected with their study programme. The results confirm that English teaching focused on tailor-made professional texts and topics within the engineering levels of studies was effective. Teachers also identified the strengths and weaknesses of students within tasks to practice language competencies. By applying e-tests students were able to improve their language skills, which can be practised in selected foreign companies or in their future careers as engineers, technicians, managers or computer programmers.

English Language Literacies – Practices, Competencies vs Demands in Academic Discourses

The role and position of the English language within the higher education has increasingly plays a significant role as the leading language of academic publications, technologies as well as communication. The higher institutions in the country hold important responsibilities to educate and produce the younger generation of Malaysians as potential human resources that not only fulfil the needs of the local and international workforce in the attempt to achieve the national’s aspiration of a developed country. This study seeks to understand the undergraduate students’ English language literacies in relation to the demand of the literacy practices and competencies needed at the tertiary level. The literacy practices in this instance include academic literacies that encompasses not only knowledge of discrete language skills and appropriate language use in context, but it is to be holistically understood to include also competence in reading and writing. Subsequently, data were collected via questionnaires and focus groups with selected undergraduate from various disciplines to investigate whether their educational and environmental factors influence their existing level of English language competencies.. Findings of the study provides in-depth insights of the challenges faced, and the language literacy practices needed in meeting the expectations of potential employers of the required English language skills to be used at workplace. Peranan dan kedudukan Bahasa Inggeris di peringkat pengajian tinggi semakin meningkat kepentingannya dan telah menjadi antara bahasa utama didalam penerbitan ilmiah, bidang teknologi serta komunikasi. Institusi pengajian tinggi di negara ini memegang tanggungjawab yang utama didalam mendidik dan melahirkan generasi muda warga Malaysia yang berpontensi bagi memenuhi keperluan tenaga kerja yang berkemahiran tinggi di peringkat tempatan dan antarabangsa didalam usaha negara ini mencapai inspirasinya sebagai negara yang membangun. Kajian ini dijalankan untuk memahami keperluan penguasaan amalan literasi dan kecekapan Bahasa Inggeris yang diperlukan oleh pelajar di peringkat Sarjana Muda. Amalan-amalan literasi yang dimaksudkan merujuk kepada penguasaan literasi akademik yang merangkumi bukan saja pengetahuan kemahiran berbahasa serta penggunaan bahasa yang sesuai didalam konteks, malahan juga kecekapan didalam aspek membaca dan menulis. Oleh itu, dapatan data dilakukan melalui kaedah soal selidik secara bersasar kepada sekumpulan pelajar sarjana muda yang berlatar belakangkan pelbagai bidang di dalam mengenalpasti samada pengaruh persekitaran akademik mereka mempengaruhi tahap penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris sedia ada mereka. Hasil kajian memberikan gambaran yang jelas berkaitan cabaran serta amalan literasi bahasa yang diperlukan oleh pelajar sarjana muda didalam memenuhi tahap penguasaan bahasa Inggeris yang diharapkan oleh bakal majikan mereka berkaitan kemahiran Bahasa Inggeris yang diperlukan untuk digunakan di tempat kerja.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE COMPETENCY AND BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

The article reviewed the relationship between language competency and business opportunity in five global regional trading blocs. By having the language competency may facilitate the business opportunity but language differences may create frictions between the business partners and/or the workers. Besides for the purpose of communication, language use in the business world may enhance trust and loyalty between business partners and from the customers. Different linguistic landscapes are formed and dominated by different language communities in the global business world. Five important languages used in the global business world which are English, Mandarin, Spanish, German and Portuguese, are reviewed according to their regional trading blocs. Malaysian authority specifically the Malaysian Education Ministry is suggested to design and adapt more practical and relevant education language plan to produce graduates with different language competencies for the future human resource market. The authority is also suggested to create a favourable institutional environment for variant language use in the country.

The Influence of Musically Gifted on the Development of Language Competences

Cognitive processes related to children involved in music are directly related to other cognitive processes in the brain because music is known to directly or indirectly affect many mental processes, but we still don't have evidence of how and in which way this process takes place. Since the paper deals with influence of musically gifted students on the development of language competencies, in the theoretical elaboration of the paper we will try to analyze and compare musical intelligence in relation to linguistic intelligence. The empirical part of the paper will present the results of research on the process of mastering language competencies among students going to gymnasium who are musically gifted and attend music education in relation to other students.

Some Issues of Electronic Teaching and Assessment System in Non-Georgian Speaking Groups

Assessment plays an important role in the planning and implementation process of teaching. Assessment is a continuous process of collecting, recording and analyzing quality data to achieve learning objectives, a consistent study of the success and progress of language learners.In this paper we discuss the issues of teaching and assessment of Georgian as a foreign language. First of all, we will discuss some strategies related to learning process. We will present our innovation in the assessment system. This is a novelty that we have worked on with our colleagues at Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University within the short-term educational program “Georgian Language for Foreigners”.In this work we will discuss about how to use the electronic resources to develop specific language competencies and assess the knowledge based on relevant materials. We note that the article mainly reflects our personal experience, which we have accumulated in the teaching process, the innovations that we have tried to introduce to groups of non-Georgian listeners.

VOT production, writing skills, and general proficiency in multilingual learners of French: approaching the intertwinement of different linguistic levels

We investigate the interrelations between pronunciation and writing skills in French as a foreign language produced by two groups of bilingual learners (German-Russian; German-Turkish) and a monolingually raised German control group (each n = 10). As an indicator of the learners’ pronunciation skills, we refer to a perceptually relevant acoustic feature of stop production, “Voice Onset Time” (VOT). Our aim is to explore whether the learners’ proficiency at the level of pronunciation is mirrored in (1) their global language competencies and (2) their writing skills. We applied an extreme-cases approach based on the learners’ VOT productions in L3 French. Both positive and negative deviations from the French target pronunciation were found in all groups. In orthography, bilinguals showed lower correctness scores as compared to monolinguals. The VOT measurements yielded more target-like results for the bilinguals. For the monolinguals, the results reveal no correlation between pronunciation and general language proficiency as well as writing skills. In the bilinguals the investigated phenomena were more interrelated. Our analysis of semi-focused interviews conducted with all participants revealed that more target-like VOT productions correlate with a greater degree of phonological and multilingual awareness. This suggests that phonological and cross-linguistic awareness should be fostered in today’s multilingual classrooms.

Tata Kelola Pramuwisata Khusus Sebagai Bentuk Pelibatan Masyarakat Lokal

Abstrak: Adanya regulasi Dinas Pariwisata Propinsi Bali mengenai kebijakan pengkategorian pramuwisata umum dan khusus menimbulkan permasalahan baru. Permasalahan yang muncul adalah makin berkembangnya pramuwisata ilegal (non formal) yang tidak memiliki Kartu Tanda Pengenal Pramuwisata (KTPP). Pramuwisata illegal tidak hanya dilakukan oleh orang Indonesia yang memiliki kemampuan berbahasa asing, tetapi juga dilakukan oleh wisatawan asing yang sudah mengenal pariwisata Bali karena sering melakukan kunjungan ke Bali. Permasalahan yang lain adalah tidak adanya pelimpahan tugas dari pramuwisata umum ke khusus. Pramuwisata umum di Bali adalah pramuwisata yang bekerja di tingkat provinsi, sedangkan pramuwisata khusus adalah pramuwisata yang bekerja di daerah tujuan wisata di tingkat kabupaten. Penyebab permasalahan ini karena tidak adanya regulasi yang berupa peraturan Bupati untuk mengatur pramuwisata khusus. Di Bali terdapat Peraturan Daerah No. 5 Tahun 2016 yang mengatur pramuwisata secara umum, tetapi di tingkat kabupaten belum dilakukan kajian pramuwisata khusus sehingga pembagian kerja antara pramuwisata umum dan khusus tidak jelas. Ketidakjelasan inilah yang menyebabkan banyak permasalahan yang muncul terutama di daerah tujuan wisata tingkat kabupaten. Tim Pengabdian kepada Masyarakat (PKM) melakukan pengabdian di kabupaten Bangli dengan pertimbangan bahwa kabupaten ini merupakan salah satu kabupaten yang memiliki kontribusi besar bagi income daerah pada sektor pariwisata. Kabupaten Bangli merupakan salah satu kabupaten yang siap menelaah Peraturan Daerah nomor 5 tahun 2016 tersebut untuk dapat diturunkan menjadi peraturan Bupati Bangli mengenai tata kelola pramuwisata khsusus. Tujuan PKM ini adalah untuk mengiventarisir ecxiting codition dikaitkan dengan permasalahan yang ada. Hasil dari iventarisir ini dijadikan dasar pembuatan model tata kelola pramuwisata khusus. Model tata kelola pramuwisata diusulkan kepada Bupati Bangli sebagai dasar pembuatan peraturan Bupati tentang pramuwisata khusus.Abstract: The regulation issued by the Bali Province Tourism Office on policy related to the categorization of both general and special tour guides resulted in new problems. The arising problems included the recently growing illegal (non-formal) tour guides without Tour Guide Identity Card. Illegal Tour guides were not only performed by the Indonesia people with foreign language competencies but also foreigners familiar with Bali tourism and frequently visited Bali. The other problem was related to the entrustments from the general to the special tour guides. The general tour guides in Bali are those working at the provincial level, while special tour guides are those working in the tourism destinations at regency level. These arising problems were due to the inexistence of regulation in the form of Regent Regulation to regulate the special tour guides. The Regional Regulation No. 5 Year 2016 only regulates the general tour guides, yet the special tour guides have not been discussed, thus, there is no clear division of duties for the general and special tour guides in Bali and results in various problems in the tourism destinations at regency level. The Community Service Team has made various community services in Bangli Regency by considering that this regency has a great contribution to its regional income, especially in tourism sector. Bangli is a regency which is ready to review and downgrade the Regional Regulation No. 5 Year 2016 into Bangli Regent Regulation on Special Tour Guide Management. The purpose of this community service is to inventory the existing problems, formulate a special tour guide management model, and propose the model to the Bangli Regency as a basic reference in formulating the Regent Regulation on Special Tour Guides.