CHARACTER BUILDING: ARE EFL TEACHERS READY? (VOICES FROM LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS)

Character building education in classroom contexts is nowadays gaining a lot more attention than in the past as a way to provide solution to the social misbehavior that students often conduct outside classroom and even school levels. This is in line with the new curriculum of 2013 in which “Pendidikan nasional berfungsi mengembangkan kemampuan dan membentuk watak serta peradaban bangsa yang bermartabat....peserta didik agar menjadi manusia yang beriman dan bertakwa kepada Tuhan yang Maha Esa, berakhlak mulia,sehat, berilmu, cakap, kreatif, mandiri, dan mejadi warga negara yang demokratis serta bertanggung jawab (Suherdi, 2013). This indicates that character building education is very important in producing students who have a strong religious character as well as a good attitude to make them not only succeed academically in school but also in their social life. This study is thus aimed at finding out the aspects of characters that teachers and students need to possess, the teachers’ role in promoting character education in the classrooms, and the importance of character education to enhance students’ learning activities. This study involves several teachers and students of different classes from some English learning institutions. The preliminary study revealed that teachers do not have a significant role in emphasizing character building in the classrooms and that most students are not fully aware of the importance of character education in enhancing their learning.

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF WORD WALL STRATEGY IN TEACHING WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

Sometimes students experience writing problems, attempt to understand the text and get confused to begin describing because they lack vocabulary and concept. The study was directed at finding out the Word Wall approach introduced in teaching descriptive text to high school vocational learners and finding answers for learners in learning descriptive text to implement the Word Wall approach. The study was carried out at one of Bandung's vocational high schools. In this study, the descriptive qualitative method was used. The research participants are a first-grade teacher and five students. The information was acquired as the study tool by observation and interview. Word wall approach is one of the strategies that can be used in the learning process of teaching. Word Wall approach was a strategy consisting of a group of phrases that placed a distinct background color on the wall that corresponds to a distinct curricular goal. The teacher provides learners with important phrases or clues to readily create their thoughts. The outcome demonstrates that all respondents responded positively to the approach of Word Wall. Implementing Word Wall approach has been useful in teaching for high school vocational learners and makes writing descriptive text enjoyable for learning.

AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ ERRORS IN TRANSFORMING ACTIVE TO PASSIVE SENTENCE

Passive voice is one of the important English grammar that should be mastered because it is used at formal and informal communication. The EFL students tend to produce grammatical errors in transforming active to the passive sentence because of syntactical interference of their first language. The objectives of this research are to know the types of errors that students made in transforming active to passive sentences, to know the students' problems in transforming active to passive sentences and to know the proportion of the students' errors. The subject of this research is 20 English students at one private university in Lampung. The result of this research shows that the total number of errors that had been committed by the students based on surface strategy taxonomy is 280 errors, which falls into the following proportion of the four kinds of errors in surface strategy taxonomy: 126 errors of omission error, 18 errors of addition error, 120 errors of misformation error, and 16 errors of misordering error.

ENGAGEMENT ANALYSIS OF CRIME NEWS IN THE JAKARTA POST AND THE JAKARTA GLOBE: A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTIC STUDY

This research explores the application of Appraisal Theory, more specifically, its sub-system Engagement. There were six texts of the Crime News taken from The Jakarta Post and The Jakarta Globe and they were classified into the same topics. The present research aims at comparing the engagement of crime news in The Jakarta Post and The Jakarta Globe employed by appraisal theory. Through this research, the researcher wants to know whether The Jakarta Post and The Jakarta Globe describe the Crime News in Subjective or Objective. It applies quantitative and qualitative methods. The technique used in this research was the total sampling technique since all the data that contains appraising items become the data of this research.

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SQ3R TECHNIQUE IN TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION

This study aims to describe the implementation of SQ3R in teaching reading comprehension and to identify students' responses to the implementation of SQ3R. This study uses a qualitative case study conducted at one of the state vocational school in Purwakarta. It involves 4 students. Data were collected through observation and interviews. The data from 2 instruments were analyzed qualitatively. The results of this study indicate that the implementation of SQ3R helps students to understand English words. According to Apandi (2011), SQ3R helps the students to understand English words. The students also responded positively to the implementation of SQ3R. Therefore, SQ3R is recommended to be implemented in teaching reading comprehension.

THE EFFECTIVITY OF ORAI APPLICATION IN TEACHING PRESENTATION SKILLS FOR NON-ENGLISH SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS

Non-English teachers often get nervous and are not confident when they have to speak up in English, especially when they have to speak in front of many people or do the public speaking in English. But nowadays, there are many mobile applications that offer the new method in speaking English. Orai is one of the applications which concerns to help the users in improving their English-Speaking Skills. The research aims to examine the improvement of teachers’ speaking skills by using Orai application. The data were taken from the teachers who did not teach English in Senior High School in Bandung. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistic by finding out the total score per item. The results of the research show that Orai application helps teachers in improving their speaking skill. It helps teachers in correcting their pronunciation and their intonation when they speak. It also reduces some sources for the efficiency such as books, speakers, writing tools, headset, etc. The participants show the positive and good response using Orai application in assisting participants’ speaking fluency.

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF WRITE, SHARE, AND REVISE TECHNIQUE TO EMPOWER STUDENTS’ CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND INTEREST IN WRITING ENGLISH

This study aims to: (1) examine the influence of Write, Share, and Revise technique in recognizing students‟ interest in writing English; and (2) analyze students' character development in writing skills after applying Write, Share, and Revise. It is a qualitative descriptive research where the primary data analyzed is the development of students‟ writing interest and skill during the time of implementation of Write, Share, and Revise Technique. In addition, as secondary data, the analysis of interviews, and classroom observations were tabulated as supporting primary data. Participants selected by using Purposive Participant technique. A total of 60 regular students of the 2017 English Education Study Program at IKIP Siliwangi were involved. The results of the study showed an increase in students‟ interest in writing English and also help them to develop their own writing skill form before the implementation, during, and after the implementation of Write, Share, and Revise technique. Based on interview and observation, it also reveals that students‟ are still struggle with writing materials. This implies that the students still needed extra care from teachers. Thus, it can be concluded that Write, Share, and Revise technique affects the process of writing as an individual and group. By doing Write, Share, and Revise, students tend to be opening minded and lessen selfish feeling and ego by helping each other to make a better writing form.

TEACHERS’ TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY TO YOUNG LEARNERS

This research aimed at investigating the techniques used by teacher in teaching English vocabulary of young learners as well as the reasons employing the techniques. Observations and interview were carried out to collect the data. The respondent of this research was the English teacher and the object is the process of technique in teaching English vocabulary. Based on the data collection, the researcher concluded that the techniques used by the English teacher were Spelling Rules and Keeping Record. The media used by the teacher was song. The reason why the teacher used those techniques were: (1) Help the students remember their vocabulary, (2) Attract the students’ attention to the lesson, (3) The techniques can be used in any situation.

THE FALLACY ANALYSIS OF THE PROGRAM “WAKTU INDONESIA BERCANDA”

Recently, one of popular programs on TV is Waktu Indonesia Bercanda (WIB). It is a Quiz Show program that offers problems to solve and the host makes use fallacies as the core of its game. WIB offers the sense of achievement among its participants, but competitive atmosphere is hardly to find among them. This research tries to analyze the fallacies being used in WIB and figure out how such fallacies can encourage people to think critically. The research employs descriptive research design as it simply attempts to determine, describe or identify phenomena. 6 WIB from September through December were randomly selected as the subject of the research. The result shows that WIB demonstrates the use of fallacies of relevance but it avoids using argumentum ad hominem that contains personal attack. WIB may encourage the audiences and participants to think critically as fallacious arguments offered make the audiences work hard to think any possible implicatures. Eventually, WIB is the program that invites the participants and the viewers to think, evaluate and decide the answer or solution to the problem provided. In conclusion, WIB is a worth watching ShowQuiz as it is entertaining and encouraging its audience to think critically.

WRITING AND PUBLISHING A MAGAZINE

Students who write a piece of writing need a perfect tool to engage themselves to write even when they are not interested in writing at all. One of the perfect tools to engage the students in writing process is creating a magazine as it offers students to publish their writing. Publication, according to Lange (1992) is a great tool to engage students to write, involving even those who do not consider themselves to be writers. This paper explores the implementation of writing and publishing a magazine in a writing class in one of the universities in Bandung. The class applies project-based learning as its teaching method.