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Papers by EFL Journal
The present paper discusses an important subject in pragmatics: politeness strategies with refere... more The present paper discusses an important subject in pragmatics: politeness strategies with reference to Arabic. At the beginning, it sheds the light upon some basic cultural facts which are necessary for everyday social interaction. Arab people have a set of verbal and non-verbal actions which should be respected by native citizens and foreigners as well. If a person violates these norms, this will lead to unsuccessful communication. These involve polite behavior towards adults, women, neighbours and strangers. The second part of the paper concentrates on one literary genre in Arabic i.e. 'praise'. Arab Poets pay great attention to praise because of the reward they get from kings and leaders. The study focuses on the impact of praise to maintain politeness in social communication. It concludes that Arab poets use images from their culture such as courage, generosity and nature to describe their kings. They resort to positive politeness through making reference to the superiority and high prestige of kings.
Since textbook evaluation is an interesting area in the field of applied linguistics, the present... more Since textbook evaluation is an interesting area in the field of applied linguistics, the present study intends to investigate Moroccan teachers' perspectives concerning the EFL textbook " Visa to the World " designed for common core high school students in Morocco. It also aims to assess the effectiveness of this textbook which was suggested by the Moroccan Ministry of National Education as an instructional material for middle school students. This means that the researchers intend to highlight teachers' attitudes towards the textbook through which students obtain the linguistic knowledge needed so as to communicate in English with native and non-native speakers. It is highly significant to mention that the study assesses the effectiveness of the textbook, " Visa to the World " , on the basis of seven main criteria: the physical appearance and format of the textbook, the accompanying materials, the content and the topics, the exercises and the activities, cultural presentation, the four skills and the language methods that the textbook adopts.
The problems of writing are found at MTs Almuna Samarinda; the students are reluctant to write En... more The problems of writing are found at MTs Almuna Samarinda; the students are reluctant to write English, they are difficult to express their ideas and thought to the paragraph writing, they made many grammatical mistakes in their writing, and they are also lack of vocabulary in their writing so that it made their writing monoton. This is a classroom action research which aimed at improving the students' writing ability of madrasah students. The setting of the research is the second grade students of MTs Almuna Samarinda. The instruments of the study are observation and writing test. The result of study shows that Guided writing can overcome the problems in the teaching of writing found at MTs Almuna Samarinda. It was found that in preliminary study, there were 14 students (50%) who achieved minimum passing grade and there were 14 students (50%) of the students who did not pass the minimum passing grade, the highest score was 80 and the lowest score was 50. In Cycle 1, there were 18 students (64%) who achieved minimum passing grade and there were 10 students (36%) of the students who did not pass the minimum passing grade, the highest score was 80 and the lowest score was 55. This cycle was not successful because it did not reach the criteria of success, 70. In Cycle 2, there were 22 students (79%) who achieved minimum passing grade and there were 6 students (21%) of the students who did not pass the minimum passing grade, the highest score was 90 and the lowest score was 60. This cycle was successful because it reached the criteria of success.
This paper investigates the representation of race and social class in three second year Baccalau... more This paper investigates the representation of race and social class in three second year Baccalaureate ELT textbooks currently used in Moroccan public high school. The study hopes to draw the attention of teachers, textbook designers and educational policy makers to the viability of textbook evaluation in improving the quality of Moroccan ELT textbooks. It aims to identify the extent to which Gateway to English 2, Insights into English 2 and Tickets to English 2 provide an authentic representation of race and social class through examining the frequency of appearance of, the visibility of, the space allotted to and the firstness of characters belonging to different races and social classes in texts, dialogues, images and exercises. The study is informed by the theoretical framework of the Standards-Based Approach and adopts content analysis as a mixed research methods that allows for quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data. The findings reveal an undisputable discrepancy marked by the dominance of the Caucasian race and the marginalization of the lower class. Finally, this paper suggests practical ways in which future textbooks could avoid or at least reduce the effect of these discrepancies.
The objective of this study was to determine the attitudes of students in learning foreign langua... more The objective of this study was to determine the attitudes of students in learning foreign languages, namely Spanish, German and Japanese at Sultan Idris Education University (UPSI). This study measured the attitudes through the aspects of interest, motivation and perception of students on the basis of Socio-Educational Model presented by Gardner (1985). The methodologies used in the study were quantitative and qualitative. Questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data of the study. A total of 90 respondents involved in this study comprising of 30 Spanish, 30 German and 30 Japanese language students. The overall results showed positive attitudes, interest and perceptions among respondents towards learning process of all the three languages. The study found out that interest of students to attend foreign languages courses was
This article describes word formation processes and a technique in understanding Waria Slang Tulu... more This article describes word formation processes and a technique in understanding Waria Slang Tulungagung. This study was done through a survey to warias in Ngunut and Tulungagung surroundings, a small district in East Java-Indonesia, in order to get underlying basis of processes of word formation in waria or Bences variety which are influential toward their language style and their behavior. The instrument-interview &documentation were developed in accordance to get the word formation processes and slang words used by Waria. The study reveals that processes of word formation and technique understanding slang words used by Waria Tulungagung are divided into eleven processes i.e Syllable Vowel and the technique of understanding Waria sentences by removing some suffixes. Finally, the results of this study offers language phenomena arises because of some reasons which are mainly useful for those conducting communication among waria members smoothly, transgender identity and those who are concerned in investigating slang words used by waria or other varieties as well as suggestions for future research.
The objective of the study was to implement the debate technique and peer assessment to improve t... more The objective of the study was to implement the debate technique and peer assessment to improve the third semester student's speaking ability. This study employed classroom action research and it was done in two cycles. There were four meetings in each cycle; three meetings was for the implementation of debate in the teaching of speaking and one meeting was for conducting speaking test. The instruments used to collect the data were: (1) observation checklist, (2) field-note, (3) score sheet, and (4) questionnaire. The result of the research showed that the criteria of success had been reached in cycle 2. There were two aspects determined as the success criteria; score improvement and classroom atmosphere. The result of speaking test showed that the students had made some progress, the average scores raised from 60 in pre-test, 69 in cycle 1 and 75 in cycle 2. These scores indicated that there is an increasing ability from being 'fair' to being 'good'. The classroom atmospheres were also increasing positively. The result shows that the students gradually could express their thought and opinions in debate practice. This activity encouraged the students' creativity to explore the language, since they were asked to develop their arguments from certain motions. The motions were made familiar to them so that they found it easy to speak on the topics. By practicing speaking in the debate practice, they improved their fluency as well as their confidence.
It is obvious that Literature is an important subject to be studied since it reflects every singl... more It is obvious that Literature is an important subject to be studied since it reflects every single aspect of human life such as happiness, sadness, truth, justice, respect, courage, faith, and other urgent elements. In this article, the researcher investigates moral values where it becomes one of the aspects to be analyzed in Literature where the novel of " The House on Mango Street " written by Sandra Cineros is chosen by the researcher as the subject of the research with some important considerations. The criteria of moral values used by the researcher is based on the theory proposed by Kinner et.al. that consist of six major parts. In addition, the design of this research is qualitative research since the researcher tries to explore the moral values as reflected in the novel of " The House on Mango Street " descriptively. As the result, the researcher finds that all of the elements of moral values exist in the content of the novel except the point of " respect and caring for others " exactly in the element of " to not hurt others ". Meanwhile, the researcher also explains parts of novel subtitles which consist the facts which oppose with some elements of moral values.
Rambu Solo traditional ceremonies of Toraja South Sulawesi is a wisdom which contains a lot of va... more Rambu Solo traditional ceremonies of Toraja South Sulawesi is a wisdom which contains a lot of value as a handle and the views of community life in the Toraja. This study aims to explore and assess the information about the preservation of the values of local wisdom ceremonies Rambu Solo in efforts to establish character education. This research approach is qualitative using method of ethnographic study. Data collection techniques and information conducted through interviews observation and documentation study. The findings of this study were (1) the EFL JOURNAL
The main purpose of this study is to identify a standard structural pattern of introduction secti... more The main purpose of this study is to identify a standard structural pattern of introduction sections of two different disciplines, i.e. research articles from English Language Teaching (ELT) and Civil Engineering (CE) corpora. Twelve articles were randomly chosen from four established journals of both disciplines namely; Language Learning (LL), Foreign Language Annals (FLA), Transportation (T) and Structural Survey (SS). Content analysis was manually conducted by incorporating the modified CARS model of Anthony's (1999) in identifying the introductions' rhetorical moves in both disciplines. Besides move structures, the headings, length and paragraphing element were highlighted for the comparison purposes. As a result, the rhetorical move of the modified model is totally applicable in CE corpora but it slightly fit the presented structural patterns in ELT research articles. Thus, it is noticeable that relying on this modified model has only given the general guide for authors of both disciplines. The model could be further revised in allowing 'emerging' patterns of any discipline writing styles and these findings can also be added to existing literature of interdisciplinary RA introduction genre analyses.
The present paper discusses an important subject in pragmatics: politeness strategies with refere... more The present paper discusses an important subject in pragmatics: politeness strategies with reference to Arabic. At the beginning, it sheds the light upon some basic cultural facts which are necessary for everyday social interaction. Arab people have a set of verbal and non-verbal actions which should be respected by native citizens and foreigners as well. If a person violates these norms, this will lead to unsuccessful communication. These involve polite behavior towards adults, women, neighbours and strangers. The second part of the paper concentrates on one literary genre in Arabic i.e. 'praise'. Arab Poets pay great attention to praise because of the reward they get from kings and leaders. The study focuses on the impact of praise to maintain politeness in social communication. It concludes that Arab poets use images from their culture such as courage, generosity and nature to describe their kings. They resort to positive politeness through making reference to the superiority and high prestige of kings.
Since textbook evaluation is an interesting area in the field of applied linguistics, the present... more Since textbook evaluation is an interesting area in the field of applied linguistics, the present study intends to investigate Moroccan teachers' perspectives concerning the EFL textbook " Visa to the World " designed for common core high school students in Morocco. It also aims to assess the effectiveness of this textbook which was suggested by the Moroccan Ministry of National Education as an instructional material for middle school students. This means that the researchers intend to highlight teachers' attitudes towards the textbook through which students obtain the linguistic knowledge needed so as to communicate in English with native and non-native speakers. It is highly significant to mention that the study assesses the effectiveness of the textbook, " Visa to the World " , on the basis of seven main criteria: the physical appearance and format of the textbook, the accompanying materials, the content and the topics, the exercises and the activities, cultural presentation, the four skills and the language methods that the textbook adopts.
The problems of writing are found at MTs Almuna Samarinda; the students are reluctant to write En... more The problems of writing are found at MTs Almuna Samarinda; the students are reluctant to write English, they are difficult to express their ideas and thought to the paragraph writing, they made many grammatical mistakes in their writing, and they are also lack of vocabulary in their writing so that it made their writing monoton. This is a classroom action research which aimed at improving the students' writing ability of madrasah students. The setting of the research is the second grade students of MTs Almuna Samarinda. The instruments of the study are observation and writing test. The result of study shows that Guided writing can overcome the problems in the teaching of writing found at MTs Almuna Samarinda. It was found that in preliminary study, there were 14 students (50%) who achieved minimum passing grade and there were 14 students (50%) of the students who did not pass the minimum passing grade, the highest score was 80 and the lowest score was 50. In Cycle 1, there were 18 students (64%) who achieved minimum passing grade and there were 10 students (36%) of the students who did not pass the minimum passing grade, the highest score was 80 and the lowest score was 55. This cycle was not successful because it did not reach the criteria of success, 70. In Cycle 2, there were 22 students (79%) who achieved minimum passing grade and there were 6 students (21%) of the students who did not pass the minimum passing grade, the highest score was 90 and the lowest score was 60. This cycle was successful because it reached the criteria of success.
This paper investigates the representation of race and social class in three second year Baccalau... more This paper investigates the representation of race and social class in three second year Baccalaureate ELT textbooks currently used in Moroccan public high school. The study hopes to draw the attention of teachers, textbook designers and educational policy makers to the viability of textbook evaluation in improving the quality of Moroccan ELT textbooks. It aims to identify the extent to which Gateway to English 2, Insights into English 2 and Tickets to English 2 provide an authentic representation of race and social class through examining the frequency of appearance of, the visibility of, the space allotted to and the firstness of characters belonging to different races and social classes in texts, dialogues, images and exercises. The study is informed by the theoretical framework of the Standards-Based Approach and adopts content analysis as a mixed research methods that allows for quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data. The findings reveal an undisputable discrepancy marked by the dominance of the Caucasian race and the marginalization of the lower class. Finally, this paper suggests practical ways in which future textbooks could avoid or at least reduce the effect of these discrepancies.
The objective of this study was to determine the attitudes of students in learning foreign langua... more The objective of this study was to determine the attitudes of students in learning foreign languages, namely Spanish, German and Japanese at Sultan Idris Education University (UPSI). This study measured the attitudes through the aspects of interest, motivation and perception of students on the basis of Socio-Educational Model presented by Gardner (1985). The methodologies used in the study were quantitative and qualitative. Questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data of the study. A total of 90 respondents involved in this study comprising of 30 Spanish, 30 German and 30 Japanese language students. The overall results showed positive attitudes, interest and perceptions among respondents towards learning process of all the three languages. The study found out that interest of students to attend foreign languages courses was
This article describes word formation processes and a technique in understanding Waria Slang Tulu... more This article describes word formation processes and a technique in understanding Waria Slang Tulungagung. This study was done through a survey to warias in Ngunut and Tulungagung surroundings, a small district in East Java-Indonesia, in order to get underlying basis of processes of word formation in waria or Bences variety which are influential toward their language style and their behavior. The instrument-interview &documentation were developed in accordance to get the word formation processes and slang words used by Waria. The study reveals that processes of word formation and technique understanding slang words used by Waria Tulungagung are divided into eleven processes i.e Syllable Vowel and the technique of understanding Waria sentences by removing some suffixes. Finally, the results of this study offers language phenomena arises because of some reasons which are mainly useful for those conducting communication among waria members smoothly, transgender identity and those who are concerned in investigating slang words used by waria or other varieties as well as suggestions for future research.
The objective of the study was to implement the debate technique and peer assessment to improve t... more The objective of the study was to implement the debate technique and peer assessment to improve the third semester student's speaking ability. This study employed classroom action research and it was done in two cycles. There were four meetings in each cycle; three meetings was for the implementation of debate in the teaching of speaking and one meeting was for conducting speaking test. The instruments used to collect the data were: (1) observation checklist, (2) field-note, (3) score sheet, and (4) questionnaire. The result of the research showed that the criteria of success had been reached in cycle 2. There were two aspects determined as the success criteria; score improvement and classroom atmosphere. The result of speaking test showed that the students had made some progress, the average scores raised from 60 in pre-test, 69 in cycle 1 and 75 in cycle 2. These scores indicated that there is an increasing ability from being 'fair' to being 'good'. The classroom atmospheres were also increasing positively. The result shows that the students gradually could express their thought and opinions in debate practice. This activity encouraged the students' creativity to explore the language, since they were asked to develop their arguments from certain motions. The motions were made familiar to them so that they found it easy to speak on the topics. By practicing speaking in the debate practice, they improved their fluency as well as their confidence.
It is obvious that Literature is an important subject to be studied since it reflects every singl... more It is obvious that Literature is an important subject to be studied since it reflects every single aspect of human life such as happiness, sadness, truth, justice, respect, courage, faith, and other urgent elements. In this article, the researcher investigates moral values where it becomes one of the aspects to be analyzed in Literature where the novel of " The House on Mango Street " written by Sandra Cineros is chosen by the researcher as the subject of the research with some important considerations. The criteria of moral values used by the researcher is based on the theory proposed by Kinner et.al. that consist of six major parts. In addition, the design of this research is qualitative research since the researcher tries to explore the moral values as reflected in the novel of " The House on Mango Street " descriptively. As the result, the researcher finds that all of the elements of moral values exist in the content of the novel except the point of " respect and caring for others " exactly in the element of " to not hurt others ". Meanwhile, the researcher also explains parts of novel subtitles which consist the facts which oppose with some elements of moral values.
Rambu Solo traditional ceremonies of Toraja South Sulawesi is a wisdom which contains a lot of va... more Rambu Solo traditional ceremonies of Toraja South Sulawesi is a wisdom which contains a lot of value as a handle and the views of community life in the Toraja. This study aims to explore and assess the information about the preservation of the values of local wisdom ceremonies Rambu Solo in efforts to establish character education. This research approach is qualitative using method of ethnographic study. Data collection techniques and information conducted through interviews observation and documentation study. The findings of this study were (1) the EFL JOURNAL
The main purpose of this study is to identify a standard structural pattern of introduction secti... more The main purpose of this study is to identify a standard structural pattern of introduction sections of two different disciplines, i.e. research articles from English Language Teaching (ELT) and Civil Engineering (CE) corpora. Twelve articles were randomly chosen from four established journals of both disciplines namely; Language Learning (LL), Foreign Language Annals (FLA), Transportation (T) and Structural Survey (SS). Content analysis was manually conducted by incorporating the modified CARS model of Anthony's (1999) in identifying the introductions' rhetorical moves in both disciplines. Besides move structures, the headings, length and paragraphing element were highlighted for the comparison purposes. As a result, the rhetorical move of the modified model is totally applicable in CE corpora but it slightly fit the presented structural patterns in ELT research articles. Thus, it is noticeable that relying on this modified model has only given the general guide for authors of both disciplines. The model could be further revised in allowing 'emerging' patterns of any discipline writing styles and these findings can also be added to existing literature of interdisciplinary RA introduction genre analyses.