The current study aimed at analyzing an English textbook titled English Alive used by English teachers from some senior high schools in Curup, Bengkulu, Indonesia. The textbook analysis was oriented towards two domains, namely genres and lexical density, by applying a content analysis method. This study revealed that the English Alive textbook had five genres: reading materials in the narrative, report, analytical exposition, spoof, and hortatory exposition. Those genres were embedded in sixteen passages distributed to the entire textbook, and those passages were mapped into ten units. Lexical density measurement indicated that most of the passages were categorized as easy to be comprehended, and a few passages were categorized as too easy to be comprehended. However, text genres in this textbook did not sufficiently conform to the distribution of English reading materials as suggested by the K-13 curriculum. Some reading passages did not seem contributive to students’ English acquisition according to comprehensible input theory and other related findings. Hence, the English Alive textbook could be used in today’s context and needs as supplementary material, but the primary reading materials should be resting upon K-13-driven English textbooks. Strength and weaknesses were also identified from the English Alive textbook. The former could be noted that this textbook adopted the constructivism theory and genre-based approach properly. However, the latter indicated that the provision of genre materials did not entirely conform to essential competencies formulated in the current K-13 curriculum of English education. Further studies could analyze more textbooks to help teachers choose appropriate English textbooks.
This study investigates elementary school students’ anxiety over learning English, the influential factors of their anxiety, and the teacher’s strategies to reduce their anxiety. Anchored in a mixed research method, 75 fifth grade students at SDIT Robbi Rodhiyah in Curup, Bengkulu, Indonesia were involved as the sample for quantitative investigations into their learning anxiety levels and the influential factors of their anxiety. In addition, one English teacher was recruited as the qualitative subject to be interviewed on the teacher’s strategies to reduce students’ anxiety. The quantitative investigations deployed the FLCAS questionnaire developed by Horwitz, and the qualitative investigation conducted interviews with the English teacher. Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze questionnaire data, and an interactive model was undertaken to analyze interview data. The results revealed that the students were at a high level of English learning anxiety. Their anxiety stemmed from some factors such as anxiety over tests, fear of negative evaluation, and communication apprehension. In efforts to help students cope with and reduce their English learning anxiety, the teacher applied some strategies such as relaxation, music and laughter, self-encouragement, and additional considerations resting upon students’ to help them reduce their anxiety.
Students’ problems in using English to communicate need to be handled seriously. Teaching English is no more teaching the knowledge of English only but also the use of context. This library research elaborates on the importance of pragmatics for EFL students to improve their communication skills in various contexts of interaction and to strengthen the importance of pragmatic competence for non-native English teachers in teaching natural English communication. Documentation is the collecting technique using a checklist and fieldnote instruments. The primary sources are theories about pragmatics and teaching communication from books and published journals. In order to obtain correct and precise results in analyzing data, a content analysis technique is used. The data analysis procedure covers determining the design, which is linkage analysis, finding main data, and theories about pragmatics from books, then finding contextual knowledge from published research related to pragmatics and teaching English communication, and finally, writing and interpreting the linkage to describe the results. The findings show that pragmatics should not limitedly act as classroom instructions but as competence to be constantly developed and practised for students or teachers. Pragmatics should be seen from its whole aspect in order to communicate naturally and contextually. It can also be concluded that opportunities for pragmatic practice should be provided to achieve the goal of teaching English, that is, the ability to use English in various contexts of interaction.
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