final assignment: STUDY ON THE READING SKILLS OF EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

                Study on the reading skills of EFL university students is a research administered by Flora Debora Floris and Marsha Divina from Petra Christian University, Indonesia. This study investigates kinds of reading skills that EFL students have difficulty with, and the most difficult type of reading skill for the EFL students. To answer those questions, the researcher did the research in some steps. The first is analyzing kinds of reading skills which were taught in previous Reading classes. There are 17 which were already taught:

·         Scanning

·         Skimming

·         Improving reading speed

·         Structural clues: morphology (word part)

·         Structural clues: morphology (compound word)

·         Inference from context

·         Using a dictionary

·         Interpreting pro-forms

·         Interpreting elliptical expression

·         Interpreting lexical cohesion

·         Recognizing presupposition underlying text

·         Recognizing implication and making inference prediction

·         Distinguishing between fact and opinion

·         Paraphrasing

·         Summarizing

The second step was develop two reading test. Each reading test adopted from two texts which consists of 34 items as the representatives of 17 reading skills. More than one reading test could give more information about the students’ abilities. The third step was piloting the two reading test to three students who had passed all reading test, and they were chosen randomly. It aimed to see if the test has clear and good instruction and item. The next step was distributing the two tests to ten students in different time. And the final step was to check and count the result of both reading tests.

The first step in data analysis was to analyze the result of each reading tests and put it in two different tables. The next step was to list seventeen kinds of reading skills which were tested in the reading tests. Then the percentage of incorrect answer was calculated. The higher percentage meant the more difficult reading skill.

From the findings, we know that the most difficult skill for these students was recognizing text organization (72,5%).  It might because many Indonesian students were not trained to activate recognizing text organization after reading a passage. The second was paraphrasing (65%) because they had not fully understood the ideas of the original passage or sentence. It may also because they were unable to restate the idea in their own word although they understood the idea. And it related to the vocabulary skill which became the third most difficult (57.5%). Inference from context was also the important skill that was needed by respondents. It was found that the percentage was 57.5%.

Besides that, we could also notice which skill that considered to be easy for the respondents. The first was scanning (7.5%). It could be assumed that they had already trained to use this skill. The other reading skill which had low difficulty level were improving reading speed (10%) and recognizing presupposition underlying text (10%). It indicated that they were good reader. And the conclusion, although it was a small scale research, it showed that each reading skill had different difficulty level for the respondents. Further research could be conducted in the larger scale.

This research is useful for teachers, especially in designing reading teaching and test. From this research teacher know what they should and shouldn’t do. They know the difficulty commonly experienced by students, so that they may find a way to overcome that problem by improving the reading skills that considered being difficult for the students. Teachers may also change the lesson plan so that later, the students will not encounter such difficulty in certain reading skill. Teachers can also design a lesson by considering the reading skill that needs to be improved more, not only concentrate in some certain skill. For example, from the research we know that the students have difficulty with recognizing text organization, but they have no difficulty in scanning. From that, teacher can know that they should train recognizing text organization skill more, than just concentrate in scanning that have been mastered well by the students. But it doesn’t mean that teachers should force students to master all of the skills in a short time or just in one level. teachers may design lesson plan contained plan about which skill have to be mastered first, and what level need to master this skill. How is the method? What are the activities? How are the reading test that may elicit answer to show their mastery in particular reading skill? So it may begin from the easiest skill for the lowest level, and the more difficult skill will be trained in the higher level.

Sex, Politeness and Stereotypes

The issue of women’s language may illustrate the concept of register and style, the use of language, and linguistic attitudes.

Women’s language and confidence

Robin Lakoff, an American linguist argues from an example that women were using language which reinforced their subordinate status. Then, in the 2nd example that is a conversation between a lawyer, a female witness, and male witness, she focus on syntax, semantics and style rather than on differences between women’s and men’s speech in the areas of pronunciation and morphology, with some attention to syntactic construction. She identified many linguistic feature of women used to express uncertainty and lack of confidence.

• Features of ‘women’s language’ 

Lakoff suggested that women speech was characterized by some linguistic features that simply divided into two; the first is linguistic devices used for hedging or reducing the force of an utterance. The second is the device that may boost or intensify a proportion’s force. So, she claimed women use hedging devices to express uncertainty, and they use intensifying devices to persuade their addressee to take them seriously. 

•  Lakoff’s linguistic features as politeness devices 

In example 5 about the use of question tags, we know that they not only express uncertainty as claimed by Lakoff, but also express affective meaning. They may function as positive politeness device. Tags also used by someone who responsible for the success of interaction to make the addressee participate like what we found in example 7. A tag may also soften a directive and negative comment as in example 8. Tag may also be used as confrontational devices. In example 9 there is an example of a tag used to force feedback. From the example we can conclude that tag can also be classified in boosting devices. We can also summarize that in using tag, women tend to emphasize in polite function of tag, and men used more tags for the expression of uncertainty.

The examples above are example form western culture that might be different in other cultures. For instance in Malagasy, it is the men rather than women who qualify and modify their utterances, and who tend to use indirect language that considered the more polite speakers.

Interaction

There are many features of interaction that differentiate the talk of women and men.

• Interruption

From the conversation in example 11, we can see that in same sex interactions, interruptions were pretty evenly distributed between speakers. In cross sex interactions almost all the interruptions were from males. And the study of pre-schoolers found that boys learn to dominate the talk at very early age.

•  Feedback 

Women illustrated as cooperative conversationalist. This is the evidence that women provide more encouraging feedback to their conversational partners than the men do. In the other hand, men tend to be more competitive and less supportive of others.

•  Explanations 

The difference between women and men in ways of interacting may be the result of different socialization and acculturation patterns.

Gossip

Women’s gossip focuses on personal experiences and relationships, personal problems and feelings, and may include indirectly criticism. But men, they mainly discuss things and activities rather than personal experiences and feelings.

Sexist language

Sexist language is one example of the way a culture or society conveys it values to one group to another and from one generation to the next. In practice, research in this area has concentrated on the ways in which language conveys negative attitudes to women.

•  Can a language be sexist? 

Feminist have claimed that English is a sexist language that involves inequality between women and men. For example, in semantic area, the English metaphor tends to describe women using derogatory images compared to those used to describe men. For example, in animal imagery, women describe as negative and weak animal like bitch, and chicken, whereas men symbolized with such a strong and positive animal like wolf. In food imagery, women are also described as equally insulting as above.

It also suggests that suffixes –ess and –ette diminish women for its meaning that represents connotation of lack of seriousness. English also renders women invisible, when it uses he and men as generic forms of human.

The relative status of the sexes in a society may be reflected not only in the ways in which men and women use language, but also in the language used about women and men. The linguistic data also supports the view that women are assigned and treated linguistically subordinate.

Code Switching

Definition of code switching

Code switching is defined as the practice of selecting or altering linguistic elements to contextualize talk in interaction. It also refers to the alternate use of two or more languages in the same utterance or conversation. Example of code switching of bahasa Malaysian and English is "Suami saya dulu slim and trim tapi sekarang plump like drum" (Before my husband was slim and trim but now he is plump like a drum). From the example we can see that they use their own language to substitute some words in foreign language.

Types of code switching

There are many types of code switching:

·         Situational code switching      : code switching varies according to situation.

·         Metaphorical code switching  : in conversation, code switching varies according to discourse function. (e.g., to include or exclude someone from a conversation, to convey intimacy, or to emphasize a message).

Code switching functions

The functions of code switching are different according to its scopes. For example, in code switching of children conversation, the functions are:

·         Representation of speech        : CS employed to represent talk.

·         Imitation quotation                 : CS involving imitation and change in tone of voice to play a particular character.

·         Turn accommodation              : CS occurring between speakers’ turns.

·         Topic shift                               : CS occurring due to a change of topic in conversation.

·         Situation switch                      : CS marking a switch between science talk and non-science talk.

·         Insistence                                : CS indicating a child’s persistence in a specific idea. The child usually repeated the same utterance in both languages.

·         Emphasis (command)              : CS used to put emphasis on a specific command.

·         Clarification or persuasion      : CS giving more information to clarify an idea or message.

·         Person specification                : CS occurring when children referred to another person during their conversation.

·         Question shift                         : CS indicating a switch in language when children had a question.

·         Discourse marker                    : Discourse markers are linguistic elements that do not necessarily add to the content of the utterance but act as markers of the context in which the utterance is taking place

Sources:

Reyes, Iliana. 2004. Functions of Code Switching in Schoolchildren’s Conversations. Bilingual Research Journal. Retrieved from http://www.u.arizona.edu/~ireyes/bibDoc/Reyes_BRJ_2004.pdf on 9 May

Cook, Vivian. Code switching. Retrieved from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/codeswitching.htm on 8 May

Nilep, Chad. 2006. “code switching” in Sociocultural Linguistic. Colorado Research in Linguistics, Volume 19. Retrieved from http://www.colorado.edu/ling/CRIL/Volume19_Issue1/paper_NILEP.pdf . on 3 May.

assignment 5: Approaches to Discourse

·         Speech act  (Austin 1955, Searle 1969)

It focuses on interpretation rather than the production of utterances in discourse.

·         Interactional sociolinguistics (Gumperz 1982, Goffman 1959-1981)

It centrally concerned with the importance of context in the production and interpretation of discourse. unit of analysis of interactional sociolinguistics  is the turn in conversation.

·         Ethnography of Communication (Dell Hymes (1972b, 1974)

Concerned with understanding the social context of linguistic interactions: ‘who says what to whom, when, where. Why, and how’. The unit of analysis is speech event.

·         Pragmatics (Grice 1975, Leech 1983, Levinson 1983)

At the base of pragmatic approach to conversation analysis is Gricean’s co-operative principle (CP) which seeks to account for not only how participants decide what to DO next in conversation, but also how interlocutors go about interpreting what the previous speaker has just done.

·         Conversation Analysis (CA)  (Harold Garfinkel 1960s-1970s)

CA is a branch of ethnomethodology. There are two grossly apparent facts: a) only one person speaks at a time, and b) speakers change recurs.

·         Variation Analysis (Labov 1972a, Labov and Waletzky1967)

Although typically focused on social and linguistic constraints on semantically equivalent variants, the approach has also been extended to texts.

Assignment 4: Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis describes a range of research approaches that focus on the use of language. it has been used to understand a wide range of texts including natural speech, internet communication, political rhetoric, interview, journals, etc.

 Some (but not all) forms of discourse analysis have an explicit focus on the relationship between discourse and power, as dominant discourses define what is seen as truth within a given context.

There are some examples of discourse analysis types:

• Conversation analysis focuses on the ways in which language is used like how people reply to a spoken invitation, or the word used in any utterance.
• Discursive psychology applies the notion of discourse to psychological topics.
• Critical discourse analysis considers the social power implications
• Foucauldian discourse analysis based on the ideas of Foucault, consider the development and changes of discourses overtime.

Discourse analysis approaches:

Speech act

Speech act theory is concerned with what people do with language or it is concerned with the function of language.

Each speech act consists of 3 components:

•                 Locutionary act (the actual words which the speaker is saying);

•                 Illocutionary act (the intention of the speaker);

•                 Perlocutionary act (the effect of the utterance on the hearer).

Pragmatics

It is used to explain how we interpret implicatures. There are two types of implicatures:

•       Conventional implicatures do not require any particular context in order to be understood (or inferred)

•       Conversational implicatures are context – dependant. What is implied varies according to the context of an utterance.

Interactional Sociolinguistics

Centrally concerned with the importance of context in the production and interpretation of discourse.

Ethnography of Communication

Concerned with understanding the social context of linguistic interactions: ‘who says what to whom, when, where. Why, and how’.

Conversational Analysis

concern: to understand how social members make sense of everyday life.

Variation Analysis

fundamental narrative structures are evident in spoken narratives of personal experience.

Structural-Functional Approaches to Spoken Discourse

Refers to two major approaches to discourse analysis which have relevance to the analysis of casual conversation

The contribution of pragmatics to Discourse Analysis is a set of principles that constrains speakers’ sequential choices in a text and allows hearers to recognize speaker’s intentions.

Source:

Pustejovsky, James. Discourse analysis. Retrieved from http://pages.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesp/classes/usem40a06/slides/DiscourseAnalysis.ppt  on 18 April 2012

Discourse Analysis. Retrieved from http://www.cprjournal.com/documents/discourseAnalysis.pdf on 18 April 2012

Assignment 3 COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

Discourse Competence

Discourse competence concerns the selection, sequencing and arrangement of words, structures, sentences and utterances to achieve a unified spoken or written text. There are many sub-areas that contribute to discourse competence, such as:

·         Cohesion

·         Deixis

·         Coherence

·         Generic structure

·         Conversational structure

Linguistic competence

 Linguistic competence is historically the most thoroughly discussed component of our model. It comprises the basic elements of communication: its systematic aspect (including meaning, word-building process) to linguistic competence, and lexical phrases to actional and discourse competence. Components of linguistic competence:

·         Syntax

·         Morphology

·         Lexicon

·         Phonology

·         Orthography

Actional competence

It defined as competence in conveying and understanding communicative intent. It matches actional intent with lngustic form based on the knowledge of an inventory of verbal schemata that carry illocutionary force. Actional competence is closely related to “interlanguage pragmatic” which has been defined as “the study of nonnative speakers’ use and acquisition of linguistic action patterns in a second language.”

Components of actional competence are:

•  Knowledge of language function: interpersonal exchange, information, opinion, feeling, suasion, problems, future scenarios.
• Knowledge of speech act sets.

Socio cultural competence

It refers to the speakers’ knowledge of how to express messages appropriately within the overall social and cultural context of communication, in accordance with the pragmatic factors related to variation in language use. In this case, language is not simply as a communication coding system, but also an integral part of individual’s identity and the most important channel os social organization. Raising socio cultural awareness is not an easy task, because socio cultural rules and normative patterns of expected or acceptable behavior have not yet been adequately analyzed and described. Social cultural variables are:

·         Social contextual factors

·         Stylistic appropriateness factors

·         Cultural factors

·         Non-verbal communicative factors

Strategic competence

It defined as knowledge of communication strategies and how to use them. Work on communication strategies has typically highlighted three functions of strategy use from three different perspectives:

a)      Psycholinguistic perspective

Communication strategies are also verbal plans used to overcome problems in reaching communicative goal.

b)      Interactional perspective

Communicative strategies involve appeals for help as well as other cooperative problem solving behaviors which occur after some problem has surfaced during the communication.

c)       Maintenance perspective

Communicative strategies are means of keeping the communication channel open in the face of communication difficulties and playing for time to think and to make speech plans.

Source:

Celce-muria, M., Dornyei, Z., & Thurrel,S. (1995). Communicative Competence: A Pedagogically Motivated Model with Content Specifications. Issues in Applied Linguistics. Retrieved from http://escholarship.ucop.edu/uc/item/2928w4zj 7 April 2012

Assignment 2 HISTORY OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

Communicative approach views language as system for communication. The goal of language teaching in this approach is that learners are able to communicate in the target language. It will include semantic and social function, not only linguistics structures.  In communicative approach, there is inter relatedness of skills, not only in written and oral, but also in the need to have experience of communication, to participate in negotiation of meaning. Language has seen many changes and we may group trends in language teaching in the last 50 years into three phases.

Phase 1 : Traditional Approaches (up to the late 1960s)

Prior to the twentieth century, language teaching methodology vacillated between two approaches:  getting learners to use language vs getting learners to analyze a language. During the renaissance, the formal study like grammar was very popular supported by the mass production of books. Traditional approaches in this phase also gave priority to grammatical competence as the basis of language proficiency. Grammar could be learned through direct instruction and methodology that use repetitive practice and drilling. There were two approaches in teaching grammar:

• Deductive : students are presented with rule s to practice.

• Inductive : students are given examples containing rules to work with.

Techniques that employed in this phase are: memorization of dialogs, question and answer practice, substitution drill, and various forms of guided speaking and writing practice. One of the grammar based methodology known as P-P-P cycle:

• Presentation : presentation of a new grammar structure.

• Practice : students practice using the new structure in controlled context.

• Production : students practice using their own content or information.

Under the influence of CLT theory, grammar based methodology such as P-P-P cycle has been replaced by fluency based on interactive small-group work.

Phase 2 : Classic Communicative Language Teaching (1970s to 1990s)

In the 1970s the traditional language teaching approaches fell out of fashion. People began to question the centrality of grammar and shifted their attention to the knowledge and skill to use grammar for communicative purposes. What was used was communicative competence which was answered by CLT as a new approach to language teaching in 70s and 80s. The communicative competence consisting of : grammatical competence, Discourse competence, Sociocultural competence, and strategic competence.  The first one refers to sentence level grammatical forms, the ability to recognize lexical, morphological, syntactic, and phonological feature. Discourse competence is concerned with the interconnectedness of a series of utterances, words or phrases from text. Sociocultural competence extends well beyond linguistics forms and the social rule. It was argued that a syllabus should identify the language aspect to develop the learner’s communicative competence.

1. The purpose for which learner whishes to acquire the target language, for example : English for business purposes.

2. Setting in which they will use the language, for example: in office, in a store.

3. The social role assumed, fro example: as traveler, as a sales person.

4. The communicative events in which the learner will participate, like everyday situation, academic situation.

5. The language functions such as making introductions, giving explanations.

6. The notions or concept involved, like leisure, finance, history.

7. The skill involved in “knitting together” discourse role and rhetorical skills for storytelling, giving presentation, and so on.

8. The variety that will be needed (American, Australian, or British English )

9. The grammar content.

10. The lexical content.

New syllabus type which proposed by advocates of CLT:

• A skill-based syllabus: focuses on the four skills and breaks them into their micro skills.

• A functional syllabus: organized according to the functions that should be carried out by students.

Phase 3: Current Communicative Language Teaching

There are ten core assumption of current CLT:

1. Second language learning is facilitated when learners are engaged in interaction and meaningful communication.

2. Effective classroom learning tasks provide opportunities for students to develop communication.

3. Meaningful communication result from students processing content that is relevant, purposeful, interesting, and engaging.

4. Communication is a holistic process that often calls upon the use of several language skills or modalities.

5. Language learning facilitated by activities that involves inductive rules of language and language analysis and reflection.

6. Language learning is a gradual process.

7. Learners develop their own routes to language learning.

8. Successful language learning involves the use of effective learning and communication strategies.

9. Teacher has role as a facilitator in classroom.

10. Classroom is a community where learners learn through collaboration and sharing.

Characteristics of CLT classroom activities:

• Grammar is not taught in isolation but arises out of a communicative task.

• Use problem solving, information sharing, and role play.

• Provide opportunities for both inductive and deductive grammar.

• Use content that connect to students’ life and interest.

• Allow students to personalize learning.

• Use authentic texts to create interest and provide valid models.

Key components of the shift toward CLT are focus on:

1. The role of learners rather than the external stimuli.

2. The learning process rather than the product.

3. Social nature rather than the external on students as separate.

4. Diversity among learners and view this as resource to be recognized and appreciated.

5. The view of those internal to the classroom rather than those who come from outside.

6. Connecting the school with the world beyond.

7. Help students to understand the purpose of learning and develop their own purpose.

8. A whole-to-part orientation instead of a part-to-whole approach.

References:

• Celce – Murcia, M. 2001. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language Third Edition. Unit 1. Teaching Methodology, Topic 1 & Topic 2

• Richard, J.C. 2005. Communicative Language Teaching Today. New York: Cambridge University Press