The purpose of this study was to find out the validity, practicality, and potential effect of the developed interactive multimedia for teaching descriptive texts based on Palembang local culture. With Research and Development (R&D) study, this research procedure was adapted from ADDIE model consisted of five phases, i.e. analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. In evaluation phase, formative evaluation which consisted of self-evaluation, expert review, one to one evaluation, small group evaluation, and field test. Formative evaluation was conducted to see the validity, practicality, and potential effect of the product. Validity was evaluated in expert review phase for its content, construct, and media. Based on experts review the result showed that the average score of all aspects of the developed product was 3.58 which can be categorized as very highly valid. The practicality was evaluated in one to one evaluation and small group evaluation. The result showed that the product was very highly practical since the average score in both phases were 3.69 and 3.74 respectively. The potential effect was evaluated in the field test. The product also had very high potential effect after being tried out in the field test as 100 % of the students achieved the minimum mastery criterion which was 75. In conclusion, the developed product was potentially effective to be applied for the tenth grade students.Keywords: development research; interactive multimedia; descriptive texts; Palembang local culture

Developing Islamic instructional descriptive reading materials for the seventh graders. Objectives: This study aims at developing a dynamic teaching-learning process by integrating Islamic values materials to improve student learning outcomes. Methods:This study applies design research (Akker,1999) the data were collected through questionnaires, validity tests and effectiveness of Islamic values developed as instructional descriptive reading materials through stages designed according to Akker models. Findings: The results of the validity testing showed that the developed product is feasible instructional materials for improving students' learning outcomes (average score 3.66). The result of pre-test showed that 9.30% students achieved the benchmark, while in the field test (post-test) 88.37% achieved the benchmark. It shows that the developed product has potential effect. Conclusion: Islamic values are effective to be integrated in Islamic instructional descriptive reading materials for the secondary school students.

Having good English proficiency is a necessity in the 21 st century and students' comprehension skills must be identified before any teaching is done. Studies that investigate students' comprehension skills have been conducted over years but the one related to students' specific comprehension skills in terms of their school locations, grade levels, and gender has not been much discussed. This study aims to investigating 355 junior high school students' specific comprehension skills as measured by 18 assessments of Warncke Informal Comprehension Assessment (WICA) Instruments (Warncke & Shipman, 1984) based on their school locations (City-based District-CBD, the district which has all levels of education-ALED, and underprivileged-based district-UBD) of Palembang City, grade levels (7 th , 8 th , 9 th ) and gender in a developing country context. The findings show that students' comprehension achievement is in average level with those from CBD neighborhood have better mean score than those from the other two locations respectively and higher graders have higher achievements. In terms of gender, females' achievement is better than that of males. While the highest students' achievements are on multiple meanings and context and details, the lowest one is on affixes, and the most influential factors on comprehension are school locations and grades. These results lead to the conclusion that students' comprehension should be enhanced and good school environment provided. It also suggests that the degree of difficulty of the materials match students' grade-level and students be taught using more innovating strategies to achieve the best comprehension and eventually applicable outcome.

The objectives of this study were to investigate teachers’ professional development, the obstacles faced by the teachers, teachers’ efforts to resolve the obstacles, and school support for the teachers in continuing professional development. To reveal the phenomenon, qualitative case study design was used. This study combined observation, questionnaires, and interviews in data collection. English teachers, vice-principal of the curriculum, teachers who taught other subjects, and students who had been taught by the English teachers were the participants of this study. Findings revealed that English teachers’ professional development was good. The results also revealed that teachers’ scientific publications were in the poor category. Innovative works for both English teachers were in the average category. Lack of time and information were the obstacles faced by the English teachers in continuing professional development. Teachers attempted to resolve the obstacles by looking for information needed through the internet. They also had discussions with other teachers to gain information for their knowledge. The school frequently conducted some programs related to teachers’ professional development and allowed them to attend professional development activities held by other institutions.

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Conducting assessment is one of the crucial responsibilities every teacher has to do. A teacher needs to assess his students both during and at the end of instruction; therefore he needs to have good assessment literacy in order to be able to carry out assessment successfully. This study investigated teachers’ of English assessment literacy at two different senior high schools in Palembang. This case study involved six teachers of English as participants. The data were collected using questionnaires, semi-structured interview, classroom observation, and documentation. Data obtained from questionnaires were analysed using descriptive statistics, while data obtained from the semi-structured interview were analysed using thematic analysis through coding. Data obtained from classroom observation and documents were used to verify the ones from the questionnaire and interview. The findings revealed that teachers of English were in fairly literate category of assessment literacy; not every teacher carried out formative assessment regularly; they encountered difficulties in assessing students learning due to lacked understanding in interpreting the basic competence of the curriculum which led to inappropriate indicators formulation; assessment items did not match with the formulated indicators; and lacked of variety in constructing question items for formative assessment. These difficulties are due to that they lacked of experience in constructing assessment items and lacked of formal training related to test items construction. These findings lead to the conclusion that teachers assessment literacy needs to be enhanced so that they could carry out accountable assessment to support their students learning.

Tujuan: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengungkap kebutuhan siswa sekolah menengah atas untuk mengembangkan bahan bacaan bahasa Inggris berbasis perubahan iklim dan dikaji dari perspektif siswa, guru bahasa Inggris, dan pemangku kepentingan. Metode: Penelitian ini menggunakan metode campuran. Partisipan dari penelitian ini adalah siswa kelas sebelas, guru bahasa Inggris, dan pemangku kepentingan sekolah lainnya. Data diperoleh dengan menggunakan kuesioner dan wawancara semi terstruktur. Temuan: Hasil analisis kebutuhan menunjukkan bahwa: 1) siswa masih kesulitan memahami teks. 2) jenis teks yang dibutuhkan adalah teks laporan, 3) siswa masih belum mengetahui tentang perubahan iklim, 4) alasan utama memasukkan perubahan iklim dalam membaca adalah untuk mendorong motivasi bahasa Inggris. Kesimpulan: Karena kebutuhan, perlu untuk mengembangkan bahan bacaan teks laporan tambahan yang menggabungkan perubahan iklim agar sesuai dengan kemampuan bahasa Inggris siswa.Kata kunci: bahan bacaan bahasa Inggris, SMA, perubahan iklim, analisis kebutuhan.

Since the rapid spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, the government of Indonesia through the Ministry of Education and Culture has shifted the assessment mode from face-to-face into online assessment following the policy of online teaching and learning process. This conversion can essentially encourage the lecturers in higher education to reflect on and improve their assessment methods that are novel, stimulating, and practical for them. On the other hand, various kinds of challenges are likely to encounter by lecturers in carrying out the online assessment. This study aims to find out the challenges of online assessment in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic disruption, and the solutions to meet these challenges. Qualitative method in a case study design was used to achieve the objectives of this study. The data were collected through in-depth interview and observation from two EFL lecturers at a state university in Palembang as the participants. The data were analysed by using thematic analysis. The findings revealed five primary challenges of online assessment: uneasiness, technical problems, time-consuming process, late submission, and academic dishonesty. Each of the challenges in the findings was followed by the solutions to deal with those challenges done by the participants. Keywords:   Challenges of online assessment; Online assessment amidst Covid-19 pandemic; The voice of EFL lecturers.