30 It can be concluded that through journal writing, students are able to not
only recall their memories about the lesson but also to honestly express what they are actually feeling about what they have done.
The success of using reflection to improve the quality of education has been supported by some studies specifically in the field of education. Kabilan in
his study with 18 students in the bachelor of education TESOL degree program found that ―reflecting on reflections actually strengthens the students‘ positive
feelings and attitudes toward improving their teaching and learning‖ Kabilan, 2007: 695. Cisero in his study with students of an undergraduate educational
psychology found that reflective journal writing help students especially those who are not high achievers acquire the skills of self-reflection or press them to
put more effort into learning‖ Cisero, 2006: 2. In short, reflection improves both
students‘ academic enhancement and their positive attitudes in their learning process.
6. Empowerment
The last crucial thing to explore is learning empowerment. It is related with the objective of the study which is to empower the research participants
through English learning. Therefore, principles of empowerment are essentially elaborated in the next section.
a. Principles of Empowerment
This section clarifies the concept and characteristics of empowerment. To be able to deal with the world today which has a lot of challenges, people in
31 general are demanded to have the ability to have knowledge and to increase their
ability to interact with others if they want to survive. The issue then leads to the importance of empowerment. ―Empowerment is a way of using human resources
that is driven by market conditions and the unavoidable requirements to do all work more efficiently, with fewer people and at higher levels of quality‖ Kinlaw,
1995: 5. It can be interpreted that empowerment is a means for human to be more effective and efficient in doing their works for the sake of quality improvement.
The nature of empowerment era is that people have better understanding, better chances, and better ability to interact and to support system provided for them
Spady and Schwahn, 2010. People eventually have power to make progress for themselves and for others. ―Empowerment is the power that one has to produce, to
prosper, and to promote growth i n self and in others‖ Dye, 2012: vii.
The principle of empowerment lies on the ability to direct oneself and the skill to function in society. The followings are some characteristics of
empowerment as stated in Kinlaw, 1995: 6.
It is clearly coupled with the idea of continuous improvement in an organization‘s total performance.
It is concentrated on making the most of all the mental resources represented in all the people.
It creates conditions and initiatives that go far beyond anything that was ever contemplated within the context of earlier ideas like participative management
and employee involvement.
Empowerment therefore highlights the need for someone to increase competence to the highest level and to influence others in reaching their
maximum growth. It refers to a process instead of an end because progress should
32 always be made. ―The goal of empowerment is not only to improve performance
but continuously to improve performance‖ Kinlaw, 1995: 20.
b. Learning Empowerment
