This study aims to investigate parents� language ideology and family language policy (FLP) among Acehnese families that impact on language shift and language maintenance of Acehnese as a heritage language. The participants of the study were 10 female parents from one of the suburbs in Lhokseumawe City, who have young children from 2 years to 15 years old. The study employed a descriptive qualitative method. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews. The result of the study shows that the majority of parents� belief that Indonesian is significant for their children's education, has resulted in parents prioritizing Indonesian for their children as the dominant language to speak at home. Furthermore, the family language policy adopted by parents has an impact on language shift among Acehnese children to the Indonesian language. �Parents are reluctant to speak Acehnese to their children as a mother tongue and tend to abandon their heritage language. There are two significant points that are lost due to the consequence of parents� belief and there the family language policy to choose only Indonesian as a mother tongue to their children; first, it has led their children to grow as monolingual people that somehow is a big loss for the Acehnese children in order to gain various benefits culturally, cognitively, and communicatively from being bilinguals; second, Acehnese is under serious threat as Acehnese children ability in speaking their heritage language keep decreasing. Thus, strong efforts need to be done by all parties for Acehnese language preservation as a part of the unique identity of the Acehnese people.

Learning English is learning skills in which practice plays the most prominent role. Among other skills, speaking has the highest interest to be mastered by English learners. Not only English students but also general English learners, fresh graduates in specific, retain spoken English to apply for their further study or future jobs. The pandemic disruption, undeniably, has limited access to an offline English practice. That is why some autonomous ways of learning spoken English are worth trying. This study is aimed at finding out the fresh graduates' way of improving their English speaking skills. Ten graduates of the engineering department were interviewed on their ways of improving their speaking ability in line with the absence of classmates or partners. The data were then analyzed descriptively. The findings showed that most of the respondents preferred to sing English songs in practicing English speaking skills. Some others chose to talk to themselves and use a mirror. Only a few of them focus on fluency, not grammar and none of them took online English courses. This indicates that sitting with classmates or having direct partners in improving spoken English is not a must.

This study aims to find out the Acehnese parents’ attitudes toward their heritage language, Acehnese, and its implication for the intergenerational transmission of the Acehnese language in the family domain among Acehnese parents residing in two suburbs of Lhokseumawe city in Aceh Province, Indonesia. This qualitative study collected data from semi-structured interviews with 20 female parents who are from endogamy families and Acehnese native speakers. The results of the study underlined three significant issues. First, the parents’ attitudes toward higher educational degree graduates toward their heritage language are negative, and have low self-esteem to speak their heritage language which gradually resulted in a language shift among female parents. However, the parents with lower educational degrees are more confident to speak Acehnese with a strong sense of belonging to their heritage language. Second, a discrepancy is found between the parents’ declaration and their practices in using Acehnese as a mother tongue in their homes because of educational pressures and negative attitudes of the parents. Last, the traditional pattern of intergenerational transmission of Acehnese has been disturbed in the home domains, and this resulted in the Acehnese language being under threat. Consequently, the ability of Acehnese children in speaking Acehnese deteriorates. This study suggests that the important status of Acehnese needs to be recognized as equally important as Indonesian by strengthening the local content policy and immersion approach in schools. Revising the language planning and policy to improve awareness of the values of Acehnese needs to be done.

The old pattern of learning the heritage language has been disturbed because nowadays, some parents do no longer speak their heritage to their children as a mother tongue that consequently may result in a language shift among Acehnese children. The study aims to find out the role of parents in speaking Acehnese as a mother tongue to their children and how speaking Acehnese as a mother tongue for the children impacts on language maintenance and language shift among Acehnese children. This research is a case study that employed qualitative description. The data was collected based on interviews and observation. The informants of the study are six Acehnese people who live in Blang Puntuet village, one of the suburbs in Lhokseumawe city. The informants consist of three female parents and three Acehnese youths aged over 16 years old. The result of the study shows that from three families, one parent is actively speaking Acehnese to their children, one other parent is actively speaking Indonesian to their children, and the rest one is actively speaking Acehnese only to one of her three daughters. Therefore, the study indicates that once the old pattern is disturbed the ability of the children in speaking their heritage language is also disturbed because they are no longer actively speaking Acehnese in home in speech community.

This paper aims to analyze the grammatical structures used in the written texts of two English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. One of the EFL learners was from stage 2 and the other was from stage four. Therefore, both learners had different periods in learning English, and also grammatical knowledge of English. The learner in stage 2 has studied English for three terms and the learner in stage 4 has learnt English for two terms. The study was conducted using mixed-method approach. The results of the study showed that writing competence highly relied on the learners’ grammatical structure knowledge in order to express a clear message in writing. The learner of stage 4 was more capable of expressing his message in his writing because of his better ability to use grammatical knowledge in his sentences. The study concludes that the better English grammatical knowledge the learners have, the better expressions can be written by them.

Present tense and past tense are prominent as basic general knowledge of English. Because present tense and past tense are essential parts of predicate of the sentences, the English learners are required to have adequate knowledge of present tense and past tense to enable them to construct effective sentences when expressing their idea in writing or in speaking. However most of the studens still have weakness of understanding on present tense and past tense. It becomes crucial issue for students when they construct their own sentences in writing and speaking. The aims of this research are 1) how the focused divided verb teaching method can improve students' ability in writing and speaking? 2) how the teaching method improves student's comprehension on present tense and past tense? This is classroom-based research that employs explicit teaching approach. The data is gathered based on a semi-structured interview and by analyzing documents of students' worksheets. The documents are students' paper test, prior and after the teaching method applied. The data is analysized quatitatively and qualitatively. The result of the study indicates that the teaching method enhances the students' comprehension of present tense and past tense and improves the students' ability in writing and speaking.