This study analyzed qualitatively the cohesive devices used in argumentative essays of undergraduate EFL students in South Sumatera, Indonesia. Eighty essays were collected from eight universities in which ten essays were obtained from each. Halliday and Hasan (1976) concept of grammatical cohesion was used as the framework for the analysis of the essays. All the cohesive devices were found. Reference had the highest frequency which is 50.24% of the total cohesive devices followed by conjuction which is 37.34%, lexical cohesion which is 7.7% and ellipsis which is 3.57%. Substitution was the least used type of cohesive device which is only 1.15%. In terms of correctness of using the devices, most of the devices were all used properly. It was revealed that there was still few mistakes of using reference and substitution since they both were frequently used in the essays. Hence, it can be concluded that the students are more familiar with the use of reference and conjunction even though they are able to use the other devices as well.Keywords: cohesive devices, argumentative essay

Writing is a fundamental, yet complicated part of language learning. In writing, Discourse Markers is an indispensable component of writing quality. The aim of the present study was to find out how Discourse Markers (DM) were applied to build coherence in EFL students’ essay writing and the problems encountered. Descriptive design was applied; analyzed 52 target DM and how they were used in 30 academic essay writing. The participants of the study were 30 students majoring in English Education of UIN Raden Fatah Palembang academic year 2019/2020. The results revealed that the participants employ 32 DM in 221 occurrences, in which 102 occurrences were inappropriately used. The problematic matters cover non-equivalent exchange (52 occurrences), and overuse (48 occurrences). Despite their awareness of the importance of DM to assure the coherence of their essays, they need to develop their ability to use DM correctly and efficiently to make their writing connected more logically. Keywords: discourse markers, coherence, essays.

This study aimed to investigate the teacher’s difficulties in teaching listening at MAN 1 Palembang. This study used a qualitative research. One of the qualitative research designs applied in this study was case study design. The participant of this study was one of English teachers at MAN 1 Palembang. The participant of this study was taken from one of the four English teachers at MAN 1 Palembang by using criterion sampling strategy. The data were collected through interview. The data were analyzed and presented descriptively. there are six steps commonly used in analyzing qualitative data, as follows; (1) the researcher have to be familiar with entire body of data (2) generate codes, (3) search for themes (4) review themes (5) define and name themes, and (6) produce the report. The results of this study showed that the difficulties faced by the teacher’s in teaching listening at MAN 1 Palembang were related to as follows: (a) the students' psychological factor; (b) students’ background knowledge; (c) students’ attitude; (d) lack of students’ vocabulary; (e) teaching aids or media; (f) the material; and (g) method of teaching listening comprehension.

This study was aimed at finding out teacher’s beliefs concerning learners’ autonomy in MA Masdarul Ulum. Qualitative research with case study study was applied by with two teachers of English of MA Masdarul Ulum as the participants. Observation and one-on-one interviews by using open-ended questions were administered to collect the data on teacher’s beliefs concerning learners’ autonomy in MA Masdarul Ulum. This study revealed the following: 1) Learner autonomy as the ability to understand and accepts responsibility for their own learning, 2) Teacher’s roles in developing learners’ autonomy were as a facilitator, counselor, resource, manager and organizer, 3) Teacher’s use group seating, and U-shaped can support cooperative learning that will help the students to develop their autonomy, 4) Indonesia current curriculum encourages the development of learner autonomy, and 5) The most effective way to practice learner autonomy in Indonesia are; hand-on exercise, small group discussion and project-based tasks to encourage collaborative learning