Summary and Comments

Sheila Choirul Istifa

2201409059/ 405-406

8th assignment

A STUDY ON THE READING SKILLS OF EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Flora Debora Floris

Marsha Divina

Petra Christian University, Indonesia

1. Summary

The writer had done a research of investigating kinds of reading skills that EFL (English as a Foreign Language) University students have difficult with. Based on the studies, it is shown that the students who read a lot seem more have ability in understanding English. So that, having good reading proficiency is very important for EFL students, whether understanding the written statements or any type of written texts accurately and effectively.

The writer focused on the ten batch-2003-students studying at an English Department of a private university in Surabaya. The students were selected from whom had passed all levels of reading class. In doing the data collection, the writer used some steps which based on the reading class they had passed. Because the reading classes didn’t learn the learning skill based on Nuttal (1996, pp44-124) and Mc Whorter (2002), the writer focused on the seventeen skills which were already taught-scanning, skimming, improving reading speed, structural clues: morphology(word part), structural clues: morphology (compound words), inference from context, using a dictionary, interpreting pro-forms, interpreting elliptical expression, interpreting lexical cohesion, recognizing text organization, recognizing presupposition underlying the text, recognizing implications and making inference, prediction, distinguishing, between fact and opinion, paraphrasing, summarizing.

The next step was developing the test. There were two kinds of reading test in order to make the test more reliable. Each kind of the reading test covered the reading skill: twelve for first reading test and seven for the second. There were thirty four items for each test as the representatives of the seventeen reading skills. The writer preferred to use short answer types rather than multiple choices in order to avoid respondent’s guessing.

The third step was piloting the reading test in different times and similar ways as the real test. Three students of batch 2003 were chosen randomly to try doing the tests. After that the writer made some minor revision. Then the tests were distributed to ten students of English Department Batch 2003 and did it in two different times. The final step was check out and count the result of both the reading test.

There were some steps in analyzing the results. Start from put the results into the table according to the column. The next was listing the seventeen kinds of reading skills and percentage the correct and incorrect answer.

The result of the analysis shows which skill was difficult and which skill was easy. It was conclude that skill of recognizing text organization as the most difficult, seeing the percentage that is 72.5%. Whereas the easiest skill of the reading test was scanning skill, since there was only three wrong answers from the total respondents’ answer (7.5%).

2. Comment

The research or the study of the reading skill of EFL university students is very useful, especially for the teacher of EFL in Indonesia, because it was taken through Indonesian students. The text chosen to the study was good also, because it was an authentic text. Unfortunately, the study is only done for a small sample. It will be better if the sample is bigger, so that the variation of the result will be more.

3. Advantages of the research

The study on the reading skills of EFL university students gives some result. From the study we know at least in what skill of reading the students have difficult with, that is on the recognizing text organization. Even though this is only covers students of batch-2003-students. The other result is that we know in what skill the students have mastered or understand with, that is scanning skill.

The result must be very useful for the teacher. Teacher may know the progress of their students’ ability in reading skill. The other advantage is that the teacher may know in what skill they have to focus or teach more to the students. So, it can be a measurement or the evaluation of the learning process.

summary of Sex, Politeness, and Stereotypes

Sheila Choirul Istifa

2201409059

405-406

 

Summary

SEX, POLITENESS, AND STEREOTYPES

We are going to learn about examining styles and registers, the way language is used, and linguistic attitudes, the issue of ‘women’s language’ is one which illustrates all these concepts in this chapter.

The first part of this book discuss about women’s language and confidence. According to Robin Lakoff, she argued that women were using language which reinforced their subordinate status, they were “colluding in their own subordination” by the way they spoke.

• Features of women’s language

In this chapter, Lakoff suggested that women’s speech was characterized by linguistic features such as the following:

Lexical hedges or fillers, e.g. you know, sort of, well, you see.

Tag questions, e.g. she is very nice, isn’t she?

Rising intonation on declaratives, e.g. it’s really good.

‘Empty’ adjectives, e.g. divine, charming, cute.

Precise color teams, e.g. magenta, aquamarine.

Intensifiers such as just and so, e.g. I like him so much.

‘Hypercorrect’ grammar, e.g. consistent use of standard verb forms.

‘Superpolite’ forms, e.g. indirect requests, euphemisms.

Avoidance of strong swears words, e.g. fudge, my goodness.

Emphatic stress, e.g. it was a brilliant performance.

 

The internal coherence of the features Lakof identified can be illustrated by dividing them into two groups. First, there are linguistic devices which may be used for hedging or reducing the force of an utterance. Secondly, there are features which may boost or intensify a proposition’s force. She claimed women use hedging devices to express uncertainty, and they use intensifying devices to persuade their addressee to take them seriously. According to her, both hedges and boosters reflect women’s lack of confidence.

The next material is INTERACTION. There are many features of interaction which differentiate the talk of women and men: interruption behavior and conversational feedback.

1.      Interruptions

In the same sex-interactions, interruptions were distributed between speakers. In cross-sex interactions almost all the interruptions were from male. It has been found that men interrupt others more than women do. Men interrupt more, challenge, dispute, and ignore more, try to control what topics are discussed, and are inclined to make categorical statements. Women are evidently socialized from early childhood to expect to be interrupted. Consequently, they generally give up the floor with little or no protest.

2.      Feedback

Another aspect of the picture of women as cooperative conversationalists is the evidence that women provide more encouraging feedback to their conversational partner than men do. In cross-sex conversation, women ask more question than men, encourage others to speak, use more signal like mhmm to encourage other to continue speaking, use more instant of you and we, and do not protest as much as men when they are interrupted. The mhmm a woman uses quite frequently means only “I’m listening”, whereas the mhmm a man uses, but much less frequently, tends to mean “I’m agreeing”.

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

The third is gossip. The author describes gossip as the kind of relaxed in-group talk that goes on between people in informal contexts. Its overall function for women is to affirm solidarity and maintain the social relationships between the women involved. It focuses on personal experiences and relationships also personal problems and feelings.

The last section in this chapter talks about “SEXIST LANGUAGE”. It is concerned with the way language expresses both negative and positive stereotypes of both women and men. However, in reality, it is more concerned with language conveys negative attitudes to women. According to the author, based on linguistic data supports the view that women are often assigned subordinate status by virtue of their gender alone and treated linguistically as subordinate, regardless of their actual power or social status in a particular context.

 

Code Switching

Sheila Choirul Istifa

2201409059/ 405-406

6th assignment of Topics in Applied Linguistics

Code Switching

            Code-switching occurs when a bilingual introduces a completely unassimilated word from another language into his speech (Haugen 1956:40). Bocamba (1989) defines code switching as the mixing of words, phrases, and sentences from two distinct grammatical (sub) system across sentence boundaries within the same speech event. Code switching is not a display of deficient language knowledge: a grammarless mixing of two languages. Instead it is a phenomenon through which its users express a range of meanings.  In conclusion, in my opinion it can be defined, code switching is the mixing of words which has distinct grammatical into our speech so that it will be more meaningful.

There are several types of code switching. In the e-book entitled “code switching and code mixing” I found that there are three types of code switching. The first type of code switching is known as mechanical switching. It occurs unconsciously, and fills in unknown or unavailable terms in one language. This type of code-switching is also known as code-mixing. Code-mixing occurs when a speaker is momentarily unable to remember a term, but is able to recall it in a different language.

The second type is known as code-changing, is characterized by fluent intrasentential shifts, transferring focus from one language to another. It is motivated by situational and stylistic factors, and the conscious nature of the switch between two languages is emphasized (Lipski, 1985, p. 12).

The third type of code- switching is Tag- switching. This involves the insertion of a tag in one language into an utterance that is otherwise entirely in the other language. We can see example, so he asked me for money, znas #, I had to say no, znas #. The tag here is Serbian for ‘you know’.

Appel and Musyken (1987) distinguish five reasons why speakers code-switch (the function):

• Referential function
• Directive function
• Expressive function
• Phatic function
• Metalinguistic function

Speakers will use the referential function of code-switching to compensate for shortcomings in the matrix language. This may either make up for lexical gaps in the matrix language, or help the speaker to maintaining a smooth speech flow. The directive function refers to a situation in which a speaker either wants to associate with, or dissociate themselves from other interlocutors. The phatic function signals a change in ‘tone’. The metalinguistic function occurs when speakers comment on a specific feature of a language by using the other language.

Sources:

http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/92496/code-switching-and-code-mixing

http://www.glottopedia.de/index.php/Code-switching

Summary of Discourse Analysis-Approaches

Sheila Choirul Istifa  (2201409059)

405-406

5th assignment of TAL

Approaches to Discourse

            Through this chapter, I will discuss several approaches to discourse analysis based on the seventh-meeting material available. First approach is speech act theory. This approach is developed by Austin (1955) and Searle (1969). The basic unit of analysis is speech act (SA) or illocutionary force (IF). From the basic belief that language is used to perform action, Austin and Searle state that the basic unit conversational analysis must be functionally motivated rather than formally design one. The systemic name of this approach is Speech function (SF), the central issue in discourse structure.

The second approach is Interactional Sociolinguistics and developed by Gumperz (1982) and Goffman (1959-1981). It is concerned with the interpretation of discourse and importance of context in production. The unit of analysis is grammatical and prosodic features in interaction. In other side, Schiffrin (1987) is focusing on quantitative interactive sociolinguistics analysis, especially discourse markers. His basic concern is on the accomplishment of conversational coherence and the unit’s analysis is turn.

Ethnography of communication is the third approach. It is developed by Dell Hymes (1972b, 1974). It concerns with understanding the social context of linguistics interaction: ’who says what to whom’, when, where, why, and how. The prime unit of analysis is speech event which has some components. The analysis of the speech units’ components then we called ethnography of communication or ethnography of speaking. Then the ethnography framework has led to broader notion of communicative competence.

The fourth approach is pragmatics (Grice 1975, Leech 1983, Levinson 1983). This approach formulates conversational behavior in terms of general “principles” rather than rules. The base of pragmatic approach is conversation analysis called Gricean’s cooperative principle (CP). This principle seeks to account how participants do in next conversation and how the interlocutor goes about interpreting the previous speaker has just done. This principle is divided into some maxims: quantity (say only as much as necessary), Quality (try to make your contribution one that is true), Relation (be relevant), and manner (be brief and avoid ambiguity).

The fifth approach is conversational analysis (Harold Garfinkel 1960s-1970s). It is a branch of ethnomethodology and the concern is to understand social members make sense of everyday life. There are two grossly apparent facts here, that is only one person speaks at a time, and speakers change recurs. Thus conversation is a ‘turn taking’ activity. Models conversation as infinitely generative turn-taking machine, where interactants try to avoid lapse: the possibility that no one is speaking.

The sixth approach is Variation analysis (Labov 1972a, Labov and Waletzky1967). This approach is branch of quantitative of linguistics of change and variation. Labov and Waletzky argue that fundamental narrative structures are evident in spoken narrative of personal experience. Its structures involve six stages: Abstract, orientation, complication, evaluation, resolution, coda (abstract and coda are optional). Although typically focused on social and linguistic constraints on semantically equivalent variants, the approach has also been extended to texts.

The seventh approach is structural functional approach to conversation. It refers to two major approaches of discourse analysis which relevance to the casual conversation: Birmingham School and Systemic Functional Linguistics. The conversational structure attempts to relate the description of conversational structure to that of other units, levels, and structures of language.

Discourse Analysis

Sheila Choirul Istifa

2201409059/405-406

4th assignment of Topics in Applied Linguistics

Summary

Discourse Analysis

            In his book (1983:1), Stubb argues discourse analysis as analysis of language use beyond the sentences, concern with the interrelationship between language and society, and dialogic properties of everyday communication.

Text analysis and discourse analysis are two different things. In the text analysis, it needs linguistics analysis, and the interpretation is based on the linguistic evidence. In other side, discourse analysis study the text-forming devices with reference to the purpose and function for which the discourse was produce. It relates to contexts of situation, culture, and social. The goal of discourse is to show how the linguistics elements enable language users to communicate. In other words it tells us about happenings, what people thinks, belief, how text represents ideology, etc.

Discourse analysis is defined as the study of how stretches of language used in communication assume meaning, purpose and unity for their users (coherence). Coherence itself is an interaction of text with given participant based on the context (participants’ knowledge, perception of paralanguage, other texts, the situation, the culture, the world in general and the role, intentions and relationships of participants. There are some approaches to Discourse Analysis: speech act theory (interpretation), interactional sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication, pragmatics, conversational analysis, variation analysis, and structural functional approaches.

Communicative Competence

Sheila Choirul Istifa
2201409059 / 405-406
3rd assignment of Topics in Applied Linguistic

Communicative Competence

            The term ‘performance’ and ‘competence’ are used frequently in discussing the second language. These two terms are used differently by the research, so that why Chomsky (1965) had differed those two terms. According to Chomsky (1965), the term ‘competence’ refers to the linguistics system (grammar) that an ideal native speaker of a given language has internalized whereas ‘performance’ mainly concerns the psychological factors that are involved in the perception and production of speech. Given this perspective, theory of competence is equivalent to the theory of grammar or language rule that can generate and describe the grammatical sentence of a language. In other hand, theory of performance focuses on the acceptability of sentence in perception and speech production.

            Some researchers had been defining the term communicative competence, Munby (1978) assumed that communicative competence should focus minimally on the relationship and interaction between regularities in grammatical competence and regularities in sociolinguistic competence. in other words, communicative competence can be defined as a knowledge that enables someone that enables someone to use that knowledge communicatively. It can be assumed that the rule of language will be useless if there is no grammar rule “not only knowing the grammatical rules of language, but also what to say to whom in what circumstances and how to say it, example: the rule when we greet the younger will be different with the rule when we greet the elder.

                There are some guiding principles for communicative competence in second language teaching. The first, communicative competence is composed minimally of grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and communicative strategies. A communication approach must be based on and respond to the learner’s need. The second language must have the opportunity to take part in meaningful communicative interaction with highly competent speaker of the language. It is particularly at the early stages of learning (young age). The primary objective of a communication-oriented second language program must be to provide the learners with the information, practice, and much of the experience needed to meet their communicative needs in second language.

Communicative Competence

Sheila Choirul Istifa

2201409059 / 405-406

3rd assignment of Topics in Applied Linguistic

 

Communicative Competence

            The term ‘performance’ and ‘competence’ are used frequently in discussing the second language. These two terms are used differently by the research, so that why Chomsky (1965) had differed those two terms. According to Chomsky (1965), the term ‘competence’ refers to the linguistics system (grammar) that an ideal native speaker of a given language has internalized whereas ‘performance’ mainly concerns the psychological factors that are involved in the perception and production of speech. Given this perspective, theory of competence is equivalent to the theory of grammar or language rule that can generate and describe the grammatical sentence of a language. In other hand, theory of performance focuses on the acceptability of sentence in perception and speech production.

Some researchers had been defining the term “communicative competence”, Munby (1978) assumed that communicative competence should focus minimally on the relationship and interaction between regularities in grammatical competence and regularities in sociolinguistic competence. in other words, communicative competence can be defined as a knowledge that enables someone that enables someone to use that knowledge communicatively. It can be assumed that the rule of language will be useless if there is no grammar rule “not only knowing the grammatical rules of language, but also what to say to whom in what circumstances and how to say it, example: the rule when we greet the younger will be different with the rule when we greet the elder.

There are some guiding principles for communicative competence in second language teaching. The first, communicative competence is composed minimally of grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and communicative strategies. A communication approach must be based on and respond to the leaner’s need. The second language must have the opportunity to take part in meaningful communicative interaction with highly competent speaker of the language. It is particularly at the early stages of learning (young age). The primary objective of a communication-oriented second language program must be to provide the learners with the information, practice, and much of the experience needed to meet their communicative needs in second language.

Communicative Language Teaching

Sheila Choirul Istifa

2201409059 /405-406

2nd assignment of Topics in Applied Linguistics

The History of Communicative Language Teaching

            Communicative Language Teaching or we usually called it CLT is a learning activity of language especially which is emphasized on communication, interaction, or problem solving as the goal of learning language (especially English). Communicative Language Teaching has some activities such as pairs work, group or team work. The learning activities using CLT try to switch the previous learning activities which are focused on grammatical only.

The history of Communicative Language Teaching is divided into three main head. Starting from the late 1960s, that is the traditional approaches. Then in 1970s till 1990s, the classic Communicative Language Teaching is appeared. The last is the late 1990s till presents, the current Communicative Language Teaching is presented.

1. Traditional Approaches (the late 1960s)

The grammatical proficiency was introduced first in language teaching. In that period of time (1960) the experts believe that grammar rule can be learnt through direct instruction. The approaches to teach grammar was deductive methodology, where the rule was presented first and then the students were asked to practice or construct their own sentences/utterances using the rule given.  It was contrasted with inductive methodology where the students were given the sentences containing the grammar rule first and then they were asked to find out the rule.

There were some methodology that was used such as memorization of dialogue, drilling, question-and-answer practice. The focus on this method was on the accurate pronunciation and accurate mastery of grammar. It was stressed from very beginning of the learning process.

Richard, Jack C. (2006) saiys that methodologies based on the assumption above include Audiolingualism in North America (known as Audio-Language method) and Structural-Situational Approach in United Kingdom (known as Situational Language Teaching). Syllabuses during this period consisted of word list and grammar list, graded across level. There was also a technique such as three-phase sequence, known as P-P-P cycle (presentation, practice, Production) often used. This technique had been widely used in language teaching materials and continues in modified today. The skill that had been focused in was speaking, or can be grammar-based lesson, for example, begin with an introductory phase in which new teaching poinys are presented and illustrated in some ways and where the focus is on comprehension and recognition.

Under the influence of CLT theory, grammar-based methodologies such as the P-P-P have given way to functional and skills-based teaching, and accuracy activities such as drill and grammar practice have been replaced by fluency activities based on interactive small-group work. This led to the emergence of a “fluency-first” pedagogy (Brumfit 1984) in which students’ grammar needs are determined on the basis of performance on fluency tasks rather than predetermined by a grammatical syllabus. We can distinguish two phases in this development, which we will call classic communicative language teaching and current communicative language teaching.

 

1. Classic Communicative Language Teaching (1970s-1990s)

In the earlier 1970s, the reaction to the old method (audio-lingual method) was spread out around the world. They thought that audio lingual wasn’t up to date anymore. While grammatical competence was needed in such interaction between people, the people attention change to the knowledge how to use the language appropriately and communicatively, such as making request, giving advice, asking something, etc. then the communicative competence was came up.

The idea of communicative competence was developed within the disciplines of linguistics who argued that communicative competence should be the goal of language teaching, not only the grammatical competence. It resulted the communicative language teaching. The CLT first appeared in 1070s and 1980s. At that time, all the teachers  in teaching language began to rethink their teaching include reconstruct their syllabus.

The syllabus of communicative language teaching should present some requirements, they are:

–          Purpose

–          Setting

–          Role

–          Communicative events

–          Language function

–          Idea

–          Discourse and rhetorical skill

–          Variety

–          Grammatical context

–          Lexical content

There were several new syllabus were proposed by advocates of CLT which was different with the traditional syllabus, such as skill-based syllabus (focus on the four skills of language), a functional syllabus (the function in which can express their feeling using English), a notional syllabus (one based around the contents and the notion a learner would need to express), and a task syllabus (specified the task and activities the students should carried out in the classroom).

Advocates of CLT also recognize that many learners needed to learn English in order to use in spesifical order or aims, such as, a nurse, she need English to communicate with the patients or doctor. It needed analysis what the learners need actually in learning language so that they can use English effectively and communicatively.

1. The Current CLT (1990s-presents)

Since the 1990s the communicative approach had been widely implemented by many teachers or participant in education because it covers the general principles in the idea of language communicative competence as the goal of the second or foreign language. Current Communicative Language Teaching draws on a number of different educational paradigm and tradition. And since it draws on a number of diverse sources, there is no single or agreed upon set of practices that characterize current communicative language teaching. Rather, communicative language teaching today refers to a set of generally agreed upon principles that can be applied in different ways, depending on the teaching context, the age of the learners, their level, their learning goals, and so on.

Richard (2006) mention that there are ten core assumption of current CLT, they are:

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

2. Effective classroom learning tasks and exercises provide opportunities for students to negotiate meaning, expand their language resources, notice how language is used, and take part in meaningful interpersonal exchange.

3. Meaningful communication results 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 is facilitated both by activities that involve inductive or discovery learning of underlying rules of languageuse and organization, as well as by those involving language analysis and reflection.

6. Language learning is a gradual process that involves creative use of language, and trial and error. Although errors are a normal product of learning, the ultimate goal of learning is to be able to

use the new language both accurately and fluently.

7. Learners develop their own routes to language learning, progress at different rates, and have different needs and motivations for language learning.

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

9. The role of the teacher in the language classroom is that of a facilitator, who creates a classroom climate conducive to language learning and provides opportunities for students to use and practice the language and to reflect on language use and language learning.

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

Sources:

http://www.cambridge.org/other_files/downloads/esl/booklets/Richards-Communicative-Language.pdf

http://teflpedia.com/Communicative_language_teaching

Applied Linguistics

Sheila Choirul Istifa

2201409059

405-406

1st assignment of TOPICS in APPLIED LINGUISTICS

 

1. Definitions of Applied Linguistics

•  Applied linguistics is an area of work that deals with language use in professional settings, translation, speech pathology, literacy, and language education; and it is not merely the application of linguistic knowledge to such settings but is a semiautonomous and interdisciplinary . . . domain of work that draws on but is not dependent on areas such as sociology, education, anthropology, cultural studies, and psychology.”(Alastair Pennycook, Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction. Routledge, 2001) on http://www.about.com

•  Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of research and practice dealing with practical problems of language and communication that can be identified, analysed or solved by applying available theories, methods or results of Linguisticsor by developing new theoretical and methodological frameworks in linguistics to work on these problems. (AILA International Association of Applied Linguistics)

•  Applied linguistics is an umbrella term that covers a wide set of numerous areas of study connected by the focus on the language that is actually used. The emphasis in applied linguistics is on language users and the ways in which they use languages, contrary to theoretical linguistics which studies the language in the abstract not referring it to any particular context, or language, like Chomskyan generative grammar for example. (Kamil Wiśniewski Aug 29th, 2007 on www.anlozof.com )

2. Similarities and differences of the definition

	DefinitionA (Alastair Pennycook )	Definition B ( AILA)	Definition C (Kamil Wisniewsky)
Similarities	Area work of language	Area work of language	Area work of language
Differences	deals with language use in professional settings, translation, speech pathology, literacy, and language education	deals with practical problems of language and communication that can be identified, analysed or solved by applying available theories, methods or results of Linguisticsor	the ways in which the language users  use languages, contrary to theoretical linguistics which studies the language in the abstract not referring it to any particular context, or language

3. The scope of Applied Linguistics

1.      Language and Education/Learning : it includes :
· First-language education : when child studied their home language
· Additional language education ( second language and foreign language)
· Clinical linguistic : the study of treatment of speech and communication impairments.
· Language testing : the assesment and evaluation of language achivement and proficiency.
2.      language, Work and Law  
it includes :
· workplace communication : the study of language is used in the workplace.
· Language planning : the making of decission.
·   Forensic linguistic : the deployment of language evidence in crimnal and other legal investigation.

2. Language, Information and Effect

it includes :

• literary stylistic : the study of the relationship between linguistic choices and  effects in literature.
• Critical discourse analysis : the study of the relationship between linguistic choices and  effects  in persuasive uses of language.
• Translation and intepretation : formulation of principles underlying the perceive equivalence between a strecth  of language and its translation.
• Information design : the agreement and presentation of written language.
• Lexicography : the compelling of both  monolingual and bilingual dictionaries and also other language references.

new entry,,

bkin blog baru,, bingung…