J01387
Vol. 19 No. 2 – October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
Fluency or Accuracy - Two Different ‘Colours’ in Writing Assessment ................................71
Listyani
Learning Model Design Integrating ESP Course and Service Learning
Program to Promote Relevance and Meaningfulness .................................................................82
Carla Sih Prabandari, Gregorius Punto Aji and Made Frida Yulia
Pursuing Autonomy through Dialogue ......................................................................................89
Huw Davies
Domains of Political Metaphors in Presidential Speeches ..........................................................96
Truly Almendo Pasaribu
Need Analysis of English for Aeronautical Engineering Purposes at STT
Adisutjipto Yogyakarta ......................................................................................................... 105
Dewanti Ratna Pertiwi
Students’ Lived Experience on The Toughest Place to be a Binman in
Critical Listening and Speaking 1 Class .................................................................................. 115
Martha Pritzanda Pudhika
The Use of Authentic Materials in Teaching Grammar for EFL Students
(Teachers’ Perspective) ......................................................................................................... 125
Sri Agriyanti Mestari and Fahria Malabar
Students’ Critical Thinking Skills in a Classroom Debate ................................................. 132
Reli Handayani
LLT Journal
Vol.
19
No.
2
Pages:
71-140
Yogyakarta
October 2016
Published by
English Language Education Study Program
Sanata Dharma University
ISSN
1410-7201
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
Published by
English Language Education Study Program
Sanata Dharma University
Fluency or Accuracy - Two Different ‘Colours’ in Writing Assessment ................................. 71
Listyani
Learning Model Design Integrating ESP Course and Service Learning Program to
Promote Relevance and Meaningfulness ............................................................................................. 82
Carla Sih Prabandari, Gregorius Punto Aji and Made Frida Yulia
Pursuing Autonomy through Dialogue ................................................................................................ 89
Huw Davies
Domains of Political Metaphors in Presidential Speeches ........................................................... 96
Truly Almendo Pasaribu
Need Analysis of English for Aeronautical Engineering Purposes at STT Adisutjipto
Yogyakarta .....................................................................................................................................................105
Dewanti Ratna Pertiwi
Students’ Lived Experience on The Toughest Place to be a Binman in Critical Listening
and Speaking 1 Class ..................................................................................................................................115
Martha Pritzanda Pudhika
The Use of Authentic Materials in Teaching Grammar for EFL Students (Teachers’
Perspective) ....................................................................................................................................................125
Sri Agriyanti Mestari and Fahria Malabar
Students’ Critical Thinking Skills in a Classroom Debate ..........................................................132
Reli Handayani
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
LLT Journal
A Journal on Language and Language Teaching
Chairman
:
Soepomo Poedjosoedarmo
Vice Chairman
:
J. Bismoko
Chief Editor
:
Yohana Veniranda
Managing Editors
:
Barli Bram and Patricia Angelina Lasut
Editors
:
Ignatius Harjanto, Widya Mandala Catholic University, Surabaya
Nik Aloesnita Binti Nik Mohd Alwi, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia
Sharilyn M. Childers, Saint Cloud State University, Saint Cloud, Minnesota, USA
Lilik Ratnasari Gondopriono, City University of New York, USA
Joana Llanderal, University of Southern Mindanao, Philippines
Tariq Saeed, Open Polytechnic, New Zealand
ISSN
:
1410–7201
Address
:
Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan,
Universitas Sanata Dharma
Mrican, Tromol Pos 29
Yogyakarta – 55002
Phones
:
(0274) 513301, 515352, ext. 1220
Fax
:
(0274) 562383
Notes on articles contribution:
LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE TEACHING JOURNAL (LLT Journal), to appear twice a year (in April and
October) for teachers and students, is published by the English Language Education Study Program,
Faculty of Teachers Training and Education, Sanata Dharma University. This journal welcomes articles
on language and language teaching.
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
Fluency or Accuracy - Two Different ‘Colours’ in Writing Assessment
Listyani
Faculty of Language and Literature
Satya Wacana Christian University
[email protected]
Abstract
Fluency and accuracy. These two things have victoriously won many teachers’
attention at tertiary level. In the case of writing, these two remain debatable, and
have always attracted many people, both lecturers’ and students’ attention. These
language production measures have distracted many lecturers’ concentration:
should they be faithful to fluency of ideas, or grammatical and language accuracy
in correcting students’ essays? This paper tries to present the classical yet neverending dilemmatic conflicts within the area of writing assessment. This debate
still remains interesting to follow. Data were gained from close observation on
documents, that is, 21 students’ essays and interviews with 2 students of
Academic Writing in Semester II, 2015-2016. Four writing lecturers were also
interviewed for their intellectual and critical opinions on these dilemmatic
problems in assessing writing. Discussion results of FGD (Forum Group
Discussion) involving all writing lecturers at the English Education Study
Program at the Faculty of Language and Literature of Satya Wacana Christian
University which were held in June, 2016, were also included as source of data.
Hopefully, this paper gives a little more “colour” in the area of writing
assessment, and gives a little enlightenment for other writing lecturers.
Keywords: fluency, content, accuracy, grammar, Academic Writing
Introduction
Students
with
average
capability usually have some
problems which can still be tolerated
both in the content and language of
their writing. The problem lies in the
writing of students with low ability
or proficiency of English. Both the
content and language may be very
difficult to understand. This,
unavoidably, can frustrate the
teacher. Perfect language with poor
ideas is not enough. However, how
can ideas be understood if the
language as a means to convey the
intended meaning is too difficult to
grasp? A student may have bright
ideas, but without good language,
those ideas will be in vain; they will
not be conveyed properly to the
readers (read: teachers). The teacher
then may end up giving an emotional
comment on a certain student’s
paper: “What did you intend to say,
actually?” written in red ink with big
letters. It is indeed a dilemma for
teachers; they may be confused,
which one to value more? Student’s
ideas or language? It is not an easy
question to answer.
One central question to be
answered in this paper is: Which one
should be prioritized in assessing
writing, grammar or content? In this
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LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
paper, I want to argue that both the
content and language in a piece of
writing are to be given attention in
assessment, though there may be
hierarchy in the scale. The content,
as well as the accuracy of language,
should not be passed unnoticed by
the teacher. Some data taken from
some students’ journals will be
attached as a support for my
argument.
voice into their writing. Writing with
real voice, Elbow further explains,
has the power to make you pay
attention and understand; the words
go deep. Writing without voice, in
his opinion, is “wooden and dead”
because it lacks sound, energy, and
individuality.
At tertiary level, whether they
realize it or not, students are usually
preoccupied with accuracy, and
many do not write in English beyond
sentence level when entering
university. Students are typically not
familiar with process approaches in
writing or with the requirement of
writing a research report (Reichelt,
2009). Hirose (2001), in Reichelt
(2009, p. 198), indicates that for the
first-year English majors in her
classes, “fluency-aimed writing
activities” besides activities that raise
students’ awareness of conventions
in academic writing, are important.
This is because students still have
little experience of composing in
English.
Other researchers, Schoonen,
et.al. (2009, p. 80) argue that when it
comes to formulating a message,
linguistic skills and knowledge
become prominent in the writing
process. They further mention that
for sure, the writer needs to have a
larger
“repertoire
of
words,
collocations, sentence frames, and
morphological options” to get the
intended message across. In order to
formulate fluency in writing, the
retrieval of words, collocations, and
sentence frames should be easy and
should not burden students’ working
memory. The underlying reason is
because memory resources should be
available for “keeping tracks of the
discourse”. The need for linguistic
Research Methods
Data for this study were
mainly derived from direct interview
four lecturers and two students,
whom I named Lecturer A, B, C, and
D according to the time of the
interviews (in chronological order).
Student A and Student B. Besides
that, close observation was also done
on the students’ essays. Discussion
results of Forum Group Discussion
with Academic Writing Lecturers
were also used as source of data. The
data were then qualitatively analyzed
and interpreted.
Grammatical
Accuracy
or
Content?
Elbow (1998, p. 299), an
expert in writing who is for fluency
in writing, mentions that most
people’s writing does not have
“voice” because people often stop in
the middle of the sentence and think
about which word to use or which
direction they should go. Writing
with “voice”, according to Elbow, is
“Writing into which someone has
breathed”. It has the fluency, rhythm,
and “liveness” that exist naturally in
the speech of most people when they
are enjoying a conversation. People
who write frequently, copiously, and
confidently will be successful to get
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LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
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proficiency
and
metacognitive
knowledge is higher than the ones
needed for speaking. In Schoonen et
al’s opinion, “lack of context and
conversational feedback” demands a
higher level of explicitness. In FL
writing, things become more
difficult.
Limited
linguistic
knowledge of FL can hinder the use
of metacognitive knowledge and
writing experience.
Schoonen et al (2009, p.82)
further claim that L1 expertise and
knowledge comes under pressure at
other stages of the writing process,
that is, during formulation, when the
writer is struggling with the
difficulties caused by limited FL
linguistic knowledge. Writing is
much slower and cyclical than
speaking. They confirm that “The
relationship between L1 and FL
writing proficiency is without doubt
mediated by FL linguistic knowledge,
but the issue of how and to what
extent these three constructs interest
is still not settled.” Schoonen et al
show the correlations between
linguistic knowledge and writing
performance, and between fluency
and writing performance are
generally higher than for the mother
tongue.
The more metacognitive and
linguistic knowledge a writer has, the
faster the grammatical and lexical
knowledge can be retrieved, and the
better the writing performance will
be (Schoonen et al, 2009, p. 83).
Schoonen et al also mention that.
foreign langauge writing is more
dependent on the level of linguistic
knowledge and fluency, rather than
first language (L1) writing. Foreign
or second language writing is
generally higher for English than for
the mother tongue. From two
examples of writing texts of two
students, Schoonen et al found in
their research that Student A
performed poorly on English
grammar test and received low
grades for his/ her test and the
writing. On the other hand, Student B
scored highly on both grammar test
and writing assignment. There is a
great difference on grammar
repertoire on students of the same
class (Schoonen et al, 2009, p.85).
Another opinion comes from
Raimes (2002) who states that in the
early 1960’s, writing courses were
also treated as grammar practice.
Later on, it was realized that writing
was generative of ideas; it was
tolerable to be messy and chaotic in
the process. Raimes (2002) then
sums up that teachers must accept the
messy and chaotic nature of writing,
or, if teachers do not like the “mess,”
they can impose order on it to focus
on grammar, rhetorical modes, and
models of academic discourse. This
is intended to provide teachers
themselves with neat systems of
teaching. To focus on both content
and language is, unavoidably, an
extra work on the teachers; more
time to give feedback and comments
on both aspects (p. 309). This is in
line with Penaflorida (2002)’s
opinion that:
Teacher gives writing
assignments which take
time to mark and give
feedback to students, or
worse,
teacher
sometimes fails to return
the papers. We were
students once and know
how
important
the
teacher’s feedback was
(p.345).
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Ur (1999) also raises this
question, “What should feedback be
mainly on: language? Content?
Organization?” She then answers
that the hierarchy should be content
first, whether the ideas written are
significant and interesting, then
organization – whether the ideas are
arranged in good and pleasing way and lastly language forms, whether
the grammar, vocabulary, spelling
and punctuation are acceptable in
terms of the standard accuracy
(p.170).
Sokolik (2003) also gives an
idea of what aspects to be assessed in
writing; she asks teachers to ask
themselves, what aspects to assess:
creativity or originality of ideas,
writing
format,
grammatical
accuracy, inclusion of recently
taught material, or spelling and
punctuation. In short, just as Ur’s
opinion, there are three aspects to
assess: content, organization and
grammar (p.94). Basically, those
three aspects are to be given attention
in assessing a piece of reading
journal: content, organization and
language.
From the discussion above, I
can say that it remains debatable,
which one should teacher give
emphasis on the assessment of a
piece of writing: the content or the
grammatical accuracy, or both? Well,
many argue that it is the content that
becomes the primary concern of
writing. As long as students can
express their ideas well (clearly),
then the piece of writing is
considered okay, regardless of the
language problems he/she may
encounter. I personally prefer seeing
a piece of writing from both the
content or fluency and language
accuracy. Dollahite and Haun (2012)
firmly state that a writer’s goal is to
make sure that they have presented
their ideas well to the readers, so that
those ideas can be clear to them.
Dollahite and Haun (p. 100) further
claim, “Your job is to create a
reader-friendly paper that smoothly
guides the reader from one idea to
the next. “
As mentioned before, without
understandable language, brilliant
ideas will not be understood by the
readers (read: teachers). Sokolik
(2003) and Ur (1999) have great
ideas in saying that in writing, the
priority is the content, but it does not
stop there; there are still other
aspects to consider which are no less
important than the first ones:
organization of ideas and language
accuracy. The biggest percentage
may be given in content, but still
organization and language must be
given a place in the assessment, for
the last two also take part in making
a piece of writing understood by its
target readers. As concluding
remarks, I believe that every lecturer
has
their
own
beliefs and
perceptions. The same case happens
in this matter. Some lecturers prefer
giving more emphasis on grammar or
accuracy rather than content or
fluency. Other lecturers would do the
other way around. No one is right
and no one is wrong. As long as
ideas can be conveyed successfully
to the readers, both are okay.
Whether the content or the grammar
gets priority in the assessment, it will
not cause a problem. Presented
below are examples of students’
sentences which have problems in
grammatical and content levels.
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LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
A student once wrote,
“The quotation from Mark Surman tell
to people if they hardly to survive in the
future if they get blind about digital
functions…The
informations
that
received by the students are more global
rather than use books. The informations
on web are larger than books. It
happens
because
the
digital
informations are easly to distribute for
entire world, it is not like books that
need some regulation to distribute to
another area.R.F. George assumed that
“We have infinite supply of information
and yet we cannot read” (source:
goodreads.com,no date). It means the
informations that provide by digital era
are very global and many in quantity.”
(Student C’s essay, paragraph 1 & 5,
unedited)
Though he made lots of
grammatical errors in his essay, but
his ideas are still understandable. The
following example is a student’s
writing with problems in fluency
which hinders understanding.
“That
is
simple
reason
why
digitalization should be taught in Senior
High School. It is because Senior High
School students will more accept that
way than elementary or Junior High
student. How do come? Senior High
School students, usually have been using
digitalization better than other level of
ISSN 1410-7201
educations. It may because they have
had further material and explanations
about how to use Internet in previous
level. High School students also have
been mature to look for and get proper
informations which they absence for.”
(Student D’s essay, paragraph 2,
unedited)
Both students came from the
same academic year, they were from
Batch 2014, and they were asked to
write about the same topic:
Digitation in secondary education.
Yet, the first student’s essay is more
understandable than the second one.
It is because, the level of errors is on
the grammar, in the first student
essay; while the second student had
problems with her fluency.
Discussion on Interview Results
For this paper, I interviewed
4 writing lecturers These lecturers
come from different universities and
they range from junior to the senior
ones. Below are their opinions on
grammar/ accuracy or content/
fluency. I presented the results of the
interviews chronologically. The table
below will clarify the four lecturers
whom I interviewed.
Table 1: Lecturers who were interviewed
Initials of Lecturers
Universities
A
Sanata Dharma
University
Satya Wacana
Christian University
Satya Wacana
Christian University
Miami University
B
C
D
Experiences in teaching
writing
7 years
Sexes
10 years
F
2 years
M
17 years
F
M
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LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
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Writing Lecturers’ Opinions
Lecturer A has been teaching
writing for 7 years in three different
universities, Universitas Kristen
Krida
Wacana,
Sampoerna
University, and Universitas Sanata
Dharma. He admitted that in teaching
writing, his focus is mainly on the
content of my students' essays first.
Then, I look at their grammar.
Similar answers came from the
second respondent, that Lecturer D,
from Miami University in Ohio,
USA. She also thinks that priority
should go to content first, grammar
ranks second.
Asked
about
priority,
Lecturer A thinks that the content is
the priority because the content
contains the intended message. When
his
students
write in
Bahasa
Indonesia, for example, they still
have problems in the content.
Therefore, if we can teach/assist the
students to develop the content, their
skills on idea development will be
transferable when they write in any
languages. Talking about students
whose sentence forms are very
simple, like S V O pattern, Lecturer
A mentioned that it happened in his
class as well, “I think those students
should be trained to think critically.
As a result, their ideas are not
superficial. And, for those students
having good ideas but poor
grammar, we should assist them to
express their ideas in good English”.
Lecturer A then suggests that writing
lecturers need to focus on the fluency
first (the development of ideas),
accuracy later. The underlying
reason is if we only focus on the
accuracy, we will be trapped in
grammar-oriented writing. As a
result, we teach grammar, instead of
writing.
Different perspectives come
from Lecturer B, who has been
teaching writing for about 10 years.
She was teaching Writing 3 and 4,
and at present Expository and
Argumentative
writing,
and
Academic Writing. She focuses on
the content, rather than grammar. For
her, content - including organization
of idea, coherence - is more
important than grammar, because
writing is not only about grammar.
She further states, “Although
grammar is important, but to me it is
only one of the components that
supports writing. Not the heart of the
writing process. Writing is about
sharing or expressing our thoughts.
We might have perfect grammar. But
it will be meaningless, if we don't
have enough idea to write on our
draft. Mastery in writing is not only
about grammar mastery”.
Lecturer B further states that
there is no guarantee that the students
who can perfectly write simple
sentences can have good idea on the
topic they write. Also, in terms of
style, if the students keep using
simple sentences, it will make the
writing style boring and monotonous.
Although their grammar might be
perfect. It will be obvious because
they only use simple sentences. So,
their mistake will be very limited.
Lecturer B prefers to
prioritize on fluency. She also
suggests that integrating writing with
reading is a perfect idea as it might
be able to cater both fluency and
accuracy. By using the reading texts
as the models, the students might be
aware of the author's writing styles.
They can also have more ideas about
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LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
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the topic. They can also be exposed
with the grammar and vocabulary for
their own writing.
Different from the previous
two Lecturers, Lecturer C, who has
just been teaching writing for 2
years,
Creative
Writing,
Argumentative
Writing,
and
Academic Writing, always believes
that good grammar can help him
understand essays better. In the
Creative and Argumentative Writing,
he pays attention to the grammar a
lot since, for him it is a "foundation"
class before entering classes in their
upper semesters. “If their grammar is
still bad, I will feel sorry for it. I
discuss their mistakes almost every
week; I remind them to use an article
for a singular countable noun, for
instance. However, in Academic
Writing, I usually focus on their
content; seeing their outline;
coherence among paragraphs in the
first five weeks though I become
stricter with their grammar after they
submit their first draft”.
Asked about which one
should be prioritized, Lecturer C is
certain that for undergraduate
students, considering their role as a
teacher' candidate, grammar is more
important. These students will
become a model for their future
students. If they cannot write
sentences using correct grammar,
they will not be able to teach their
future students to do so. His attention
is more on ensuring the students'
language accuracy after they
graduate. For first year writing
classes, Lecturer C suggests that
accuracy should be give more
attention
because it
is
the
"foundation" for the students before
entering future writing classes. It will
be nice if students can use a software
to check grammatical aspects of their
writing before they submit their
work.
The last respondent, Lecturer
D, has been teaching writing since
1999 at the university level. She was
teaching Descriptive Writing and
mostly Academic Writing. Now she
is teaching composition at Miami
University, Ohio, The United States
of America. Lecturer D states that
both grammar and content should be
prioritized because if we are teaching
second language learners, we cannot
focus on one. “Through grammar,
other people can understand the
content. Both are important. If we
focus on the grammar, but the
content is not good, then, it’s just the
same thing. But the way you teach it,
I think you must focus on the content,
and then, grammar”. Asked about
the percentage for grammar and
content in the assessment rubrics,
Lecturer D mentions that in writing
assessment, both need emphasizing.
Content is 70%, and language or
grammar is like 30%. Sometimes,
there are students whose content is
good, but the grammar is not, so we
cannot separate grammar from
content. Both are important.
From my interviews with the
four lecturers, a red thread can be
seen. Lecturer A was in line with
Lecturer B and Lecturer D. They
gave priority to fluency. Lecturer C
was the only one who preferred to
focus on grammar. For him, accuracy
was more important. About fluency
first then accuracy, Chin et al
(2013a) also suggest that writers read
their draft to check content and
organization, write comments on a
different sheet of paper, write the
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weaknesses of their own paper and
write down ways to improve it. After
checking
the
content
and
organization, writers should also read
the draft to check the grammatical
errors and style problems. Singleton
(2011) also strengthens this idea. She
explains that after revising the ideas
in the paragraph, a writer is ready to
edit, which means to check the
grammar.
Singleton further clarifies that
if a writer edits the grammar first,
he/she will waste his/her time
working on irrelevant sentences.
Smalley et al (2012, p.9) have a
similar idea. They mention that
editing and proofreading are the final
steps in writing. Editing means
checking sentences to make sure that
they are all grammatically and
mechanically
correct.
While
proofreading means reading the
paper again to find “any remaining
errors
in
grammar,
spelling,
mechanics, or punctuation”.
correct grammar” (Unedited). Being
a daughter of an English teacher, she
feels that she has more opportunities
to acquire English more than others
who do not have English teacher
parents.
Similar to Student A, Student
B also thinks that grammar and
content are equally important,
especially in writing. She claims, “If
we master the grammar well, ppl
(people) will easily understand what
we're going to convey (content). The
use of language in writing is
important because the language is a
tool to make ppl understand our
meaning. It's kinda a bridge to help
us deliver our ideas well to the
reader.” (Unedited)
Talking about how she
acquired good command of English,
Student B said that she started to join
an English course since I was at the
first grade of elementary school. That
time her mother asked an English
tutor to come. She then I joined an
English course in Salatiga when she
was eight. The course has many
stages,
such
as
beginner,
intermediate, and advanced. Each
stage is divided into some levels also
and every 4 months, she had to pass
each level. When she was in grade 6,
she passed the end of the
intermediate level, while her other
course mates were senior high school
students. These two students excelled
in terms of grammatical awareness in
their writing.
From my interviews with
both students, who both came from
2014 academic year, a conclusion
can be drawn. Both students
preferred to give priority on
grammar. For them, good grammar
will help clarify the fluency of their
Students’ Opinions
Besides the four lecturers, I
also interviewed two students whom
I thought had good mastery of
grammar. From my on-line interview
with two Academic Writing students,
I found that both students consider
grammar an important part of writing
which helps readers understand their
ideas. These two students always had
good ideas besides very good grasp
of English grammar. Student A
firmly says that in writing both
grammar and content are important.
She explains further, “The content of
our writing should be meaningful,
interesting, and reach the purpose of
the text. We also should make our
writing understandable by using
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ISSN 1410-7201
thoughts in writing. Thus, it will help
readers understand their view points.
Their opinion is in line with Chin, et
al (2013b, p.125)). They mention
clearly, “Writing filled with errors in
grammar, punctuation, selling, and
capitalization is very distracting to a
reader.” They further assert that
writers have to fix these errors before
submitting the essay for evaluation.
Forum Group Discussion (FGD)
with Academic Writing Lecturers
On June 24, 2016, I managed
to conduct a forum group discussion
with four Academic Writing
Lecturers, all from Satya Wacana
Christian University Salatiga. One of
them was Lecturer C (who also
became
the
respondent
I
interviewed). The table below will
clarify the FGD attendees.
Table 2: FGD Attendees
Initials of Lecturers
C
E
F
G
Experiences in teaching writing
2 years
17 years
14 years
2 years
One of the topics discussed is
grammar in writing. Dealing with
the first problem discussed, Should
grammar also be taught in writing
classes? The answers are as follows.
Yes, grammar should be taught in
writing, but independent grammar
classes are still needed, with 2
reasons. First, grammar teaching
surely helps students in using
grammar in context in their writing.
Secondly, lecturers do not need to
spend too much time on grammar.
Discussing
the
second
question (Which one is to be the top
priority for contextual grammatical
aspects to be taught in writing?), all
the lecturers had the same agreement.
Frequency of the most frequently
seen/found grammatical points that
appear in writing is not the only
parameter that needs consideration.
The common and important ones
should be taught. Talking about point
3 (Which one should be prioritized?
The fluency, the accuracy, or both?)
The lecturers attending the group
Sexes
M
F
M
F
discussion had various answers. One
prefers giving equal attention to both,
one lecturer to grammar. One junior
lecturer mentioned that for lowerlevel writing classes, yes, grammar
should be prioritized; another
lecturer prefers to give priority to
fluency, and the last one, content
first, grammar later.
The last question is Should
grammar get a better position in the
rubrics? All the lecturers agreed that
the percentage should be between
30-35% for grammar in the
assessment rubrics in all levels of
writing. This is similar to Lecturer
D’s opinion. The underlying reasons
are as follows. First, this is to
balance grammar and fluency.
Secondly, grammar points can be
used as an incentive. If students can
write with good grammar, they will
get more points in the rubrics. The
next reason is grammar is an integral
part of writing, and good grammar
adds meaning. The last reason is if
students have good fluency, but poor
79
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
grammar, then their writing is not
realistic.
Agreement was made at the
end of this FGD session. There were
three points. First, grammar needs to
be taught, though independent
grammar classes are still needed.
Secondly,
the
most-frequently
appearing grammatical items are not
necessarily the ones to be taught. The
next agreement is both fluency and
accuracy should be given priority in
writing assessment. The final
agreement is that rubrics for
grammar should cover 30-35% of the
whole percentage of scores.
priority. Grammar or fluency.
Secondly, grammar needs to be given
bigger portion in the assessment
rubrics. Rubrics for grammatical
points of 30-35% will be ideal for
writing assessment. The rest 65-70%
should be given to fluency or
content.
Conclusion
From the discussion part
above, two conclusions can be
drawn. Frist, every lecturer of
writing courses has their own
preference of which should be given
Acknowledgements
I owe words of thanks to my
respondents, Ibu Henny ZachariasLiem, Bapak Priyatno Ardi, Bapak
Yustinus Calvin, and Ibu Anita
Kurniawati. Also to my students
Bene and Bella. A bunch of thanks
are also given to Academic Writing
Lecturers who attended FGD, Ibu
Titik Murtisari, Pak Yustinus Calvin,
Pak Christian Rudianto, and Bu
Yustina. Thank you so much for your
help.
References
Chin, Peter; Reid, Samuel; Wray, Sean; and Yamazaki, Yoko. Academic Writing
Skills. Student’s Book 1. (2013a). CUP.
Chin, Peter; Reid, Samuel; Wray, Sean; and Yamazaki, Yoko. Academic Writing
Skills. Student’s Book 3. (2013b). CUP.
Dollahite, Nancy, E & Haun, Julie. (2012). Source Work: Academic Writing from
Sources. Boston: Cengage Learning.
Elbow, Peter. 1998. Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing
Process. OUP.
Penaflorida, Andrea H. (2002). “Nontraditional Forms of Assessment and
Response to Student Writing: A Step Toward Learner Autonomy.” In
J.C. Richards & W.A. Renandya (Eds.). Methodology in Language
Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Raimes, Ann. (2002). “Ten Steps in Planning and Training Teachers of Writing”.
In J.C. Richards & W.A. Renandya (Eds.). Methodology in Language
Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reichelt. 2009. A Critical Evaluation of Writing Teaching Programs in Different
Foreign Language Settings. In Rosa M. Manchón. Writing in Foreign
Language Contexts: Learning, Teaching, and Research. Bristol:
Datapage International Ltd.
Sasaki, Miyuki. 2009. “Changes in English as a Foreign Language Students’
Writing over 3.5 Years: A Sociocognitive Account. In Rosa M.
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Manchón. Writing in Foreign Language Contexts: Learning, Teaching,
and Research. Bristol: Datapage International Ltd.
Schoonen, Rob; Snellings Patrick; Stevenson, Marie; and Gelderen, Amos Van.
2009. “Towards a Blueprint of the Foreign Language Writer: The
Linguistic and Cognitive Demands of Foreign Language Writing. In
Rosa M. Manchón. Writing in Foreign Language Contexts: Learning,
Teaching, and Research. Bristol: Datapage International Ltd.
Singleton, Jill. (2011). Writers at Work. The Paragraph. 11th Printing. CUP.
Smalley, Regina L.; Ruetten, Mary K.; and Kozyrev, Joann Rishel. (2012).
Refining Composition Skills. Academic Writing and Grammar. Boston;
Cengage Learning.
Sokolik, Maggie. (2003). “Writing.” In David Nunan (Ed.). Practical English
Language Teaching. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Ur, Penny. (1999). A Course in Language Teaching. Practice and Theory.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zacharias, Henny. July 8, 2016. Personal Interview. Salatiga.
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A Learning Model Design Integrating ESP Course
and Service Learning Program
to Promote Relevance and Meaningfulness
Carla Sih Prabandari, Gregorius Punto Aji and Made Frida Yulia
Sanata Dharma University
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Abstract
Relevance and meaningfulness of the content courses need to be
established to make learners realize that the knowledge acquired in the clasroom
can be utilized to give contributions to society. This research is aimed at designing
a learning model integrating ESP course and Service Learning Program. ESP is a
subject designed to enable students to design ESP programs. The integration of
ESP and SLP allows students to exercise their skills in designing an ESP program,
which is eventually implemented as one of their SLP programs. The current
research is targeted to describe what the learning model design integrating ESP
Course and Service Learning Program looks like.
Keywords: Learning Model, English for Specific Purposes, Service Learning
Program (KKN), Relevance, Meaningfulness
Introduction
In the era of progressivism in
education
and
curriculum
development, the focus of education
is on the relevance, meaningfulness,
self-actualization and emancipation.
Relevant and meaningful learning is
a process which roots into the reality
in the learners’ lives. In progressive
education programs, the goal is selffulfillment of the learners. To
achieve the goal, education programs
are focused on the process-based
learning to develop learners’
awareness,
responsibility
and
autonomy for life-long learning
(Richards and Renandya, 2002)
In order that learning can be
meaningful and relevant, the process
must enable the learners to connect
the classroom activities and the real
life that they face. There must be a
relation between theories that the
learners learn in class and how the
82
theories can be applied in their life.
Furhermore, learners should be able
to experience how useful the theories
are in solving social problems in
their community. Thus, learning is
said to be relevant and meaningful
when the acquired kowledge can be
put into practice for serving others.
In an attempt to create
meaning and relevant learning, the
teachers often need to make some
innovations and breakthroughs. This
would not be easy for teachers who
do not want to get out of routines. In
classroom practice, the common
activities include discussion, sharing,
simulation, lectures, doing exercises
in order to facilitate learners to
master the materials. Such activities
still focus on theories and they
cannot provide students with handson experience about how the
knowledge is applied in real context
in the society.
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
Among the courses offered in
the curriculum of the English
Language Education Study Progam
are English for Specific Purposes
(ESP) course and Service Learning
Program (Kuliah Kerja Nyata).
English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
is an elective course whose goal is to
enable students to design their own
ESP programs. The course requires
students to understand concepts of
ESP and utilize their knowledge in
the process of designing their
programs. Although in practice, the
students are required to design an
ESP program, their design is not
based on actual need analysis and
they are not required to implement
their designed program. In the
process of designing their ESP
program, the students follow the
steps in developing the components
of the design, including setting the
goal, teaching learning procedure,
material and assessment designs.
However, the design cannot be
implemented since it is not based on
actual needs of the clients. The
product is submitted only for the
sake of their ESP Course grade. The
current practice in ESP course, which
is still felt to be theoretical, needs to
be reviewed and revitalized in order
to make the couse more meaningful
and relevant to the learners.
Meanwhile, Service Learning
Program (SLP) is a compulsory
course whose objective is to train
students to develop their potentials
by means of doing community
service. The course provides students
with oppotunities to exercise their
hard skill and soft skill to solve
problems they find in their
community. They are required to
conduct observations and needs
survey in order to identify problems
that occur in society. Based on their
observations and needs analysis, the
students,
as
educated
young
generation, are to perform as agents
of change in the community by
offering community service program.
Through SLP, students have an
opportunity to experience being
members of a community who are
responsible to exercise their hard
skill and soft skill to serve others. As
the nature of SLP course is to start
from the needs of society, the
programs that the students prepare
should address the real and
contextual needs of the society.
To
make
ESP
more
meaningful, some effort has been
made. For example, Shu-Chiao Tsai
conducted research on “Integrating
English for specific purposes
courseware into task-based learning
in a context of preparing for
international trade fairs” (2013). The
research tried to integrate ESP and
Task-based Learning. The finding
showed that the students found the
integration is beneficial and that they
learned better through the tasks
which involved problem solving and
higher order thinking. In this
research, we attempted to do similar
thing by integrating real and
meaningful tasks in ESP course,
which proved to be effective in
promoting a meaningful and relevant
learning. However, our focus was on
the integration of ESP and SLP. This
paper elaborates our attempt to
provide a learning model which
integrates SLP in ESP course so as to
make the students aware that what
they learn in class is something
meaningful to them and that they can
utilize their knowledge to solve
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LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
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problems in society. The learning
model will provide opportunities for
the learners to apply their knowledge
of ESP during the process of SLP.
In developing the proposed
learning model, the research adapted
the steps of Educational Research
and Development methodology as
presented by Dick, Carey, and Carey
(2003). The research subjects were
students of ESP class who were
taking SLP in the same semester.
Besides, the research also involved
experts in ESP and SLP to evaluate
the proposed design.
Thomas Orr
(2002) specifically
explains that ESP refers to three
aspects. First, ESP is designed for
specific needs of English learning.
Second, ESP is a branch of ELT
whose aim is to help learners master
English for specific purposes. Three,
ESP is seen as a movement to
expand the role of English in
different professions.
The idea is also supported by
Ann M. Johns and Donna PrinceMachado (as cited in Celce-Murcia,
2001: 43) who suggest that language
learning should be based on the need
of the learners, their learning styles
and their socio-cultural context
where the language is used. ESP has
been developed for a wide range of
purposes, such as English for
Academic Purposes (EAP) and
English for Professional Purposes or
English for Occupational Purposes
(Hutchinson and Waters, 1994).
Discussion
Most
research
and
development projects in ESP are
aimed at developing classroom
materials. This research, however,
aims at developing learning model to
integrate SLP in ESP course. The
discussion will be divided into four
sections, namely ESP and its
development,
meaningful
and
relevant learning in the paradigm of
progressivism, and the description of
the learning model.
ESP and Its Development
ESP emerges from the reatity
that English learning develops in
different parts of the world to serve
different needs of the learners, such
as for business and trade, technology,
education, and various industry
(Hutchinson and Waters, 1994).
84
Steps in Developing ESP Programs
The steps in developing an
ESP program are basically similar to
the steps in developing other learning
programs. However, some experts
propose their own models for
developing ESP programs. One of
the procedures of ESP development
is Skill-centered Approach, which is
designed by Hutchinson and Waters
(1994: 69-71). The proposed
procedure is presented in Figure 1.
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
Theoretical
views of language
Identify
target
situation
Analyze
skills required
in the target
situation
Write a
syllabus
Select text and
Write exercises
to focus on
skills
Develop
evaluation
procedures
Theoretical views
of learning
Figure 1: Steps in developing ESP program by Hutchinson and Waters (1994)
The first step is analyzing the
target situations, which refers to the
context where the language is used.
From the results of the analysis, then,
the course designer can identify the
language skills required for the
particular context. Only after the the
language skills have been identified,
s/he can proceed to the development
of syllabus. The next step is selecting
or developing suitable learning
materials, which focuses on the
required skills. The last step is
developing the evaluation and
assessment to measure the the
achievment of the learning objectives
and the effectiveness of the program.
Relevant and Meaningful Learning
in Progressivism Philosophy of
Education
In
the
paradigm
of
Progressivism, the emphasis of
education
and
curriculum
development are on the relevance,
meaningfulness,
self-actualization
and emancipation. According to
John Dewey (1897, p. 1), education
is a process that should enable the
learners to behave as active beings to
participate
“in
the
social
consciousness of the race.” In the
higher education, learners are
expected to be able to develop their
knowledge and partake in society. In
Dewey’s belief, learners learn
through actions and being involved
in the process. This would require
learners to work in hands-on project
so as to ensure that learning would
take place, rather than demanding
them to do memorization. Thus,
within this philosophy, in order to
create a relevant and meaningful
learning, classroom activities should
be tailored to facilitate the learners
development by providing relevant
and meaningful tasks.
As the goal of education is
self-fulfillment of the learners,
education is not oriented toward
measurable objectives as in the
Objectivist-reconstructionism
paradigm but rather on the process of
learning (process-based learning).
The process is designed to develop
learners’
understanding
and
awareness on their own learning
process as part of life-long education
(Richards and Renandya, 2002). To
achieve the goal, there needs to be a
link and match between the process
in the classroom and the reality that
the learners face outside classroom.
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LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
The link and match needs to be
established in order to ensure that the
concepts and theories that they learn
during class will not remain abstract
in the learners’ mind but will be
useful for solving problems in
society. Learning takes place when
the learners are aware that what they
learn in class benefits them in their
real life because they can give
contributions to society.
A Learning Model of Integration
of SLP in ESP Course
The proposed learning model
is not to merge the two courses, since
they remain separated in the
curriculum, but it is meant to
establish
relevance
and
meaningfulness to the learners. The
end product of the research is a
learning model which integrates SLP
in ESP course. The model consists of
five major components, namely the
Goal of the Project, Learning
Outcomes and Indicators, Classroom
Implementation, Learning Contents,
and Assessment and Evaluation. The
following is the elaboration of the
model.
Goal of the Project
The goal of the project is to
design a learning model which
integrates SLP in ESP Course. There
are two rationales for this. They are:
1) The integration of SLP in ESP
course will provide opportunities
for learners to realize the
relevance between the theory and
the practice of ESP in society.
2) The integration allows learners to
develop their own ESP programs
which
are
ready
for
implementation
86
ISSN 1410-7201
Learning Outcomes, Competence
and Indicators
Learning Outcomes, Competence
and Indicators are components of the
Learning Semester Plan. In this
project, the learning outcomes,
competence and indicators are
formulated as follows.
Learning Outcomes
The learning outcomes in this model
cover the three aspects of
Competence,
Conscience
and
Compassion. They are set according
to the Ignation Pedagogy, as in the
following:
Competence (Kompetensi):
Understanding the nature, basic
concept and theories in ESP,
designing concrete ESP programs to
suit the need of the real clients in
society, implementing the design.
Conscience (Suara Hati)
Honesty in joining the course, hard
work in executing the given tasks.
Compassion (Bela Rasa)
Responsibility in doing the assigned
tasks with the groups and in
implementing
the
programs,
assiduousness in identifying and
solving problems, care for others,
good communication ability with
friends and others in society, synergy
in
planning,
developing
and
implementing the program.
Competence and Indicators
The
competence
and
indicators are separated into two
aspects, namely Hard Skills and Soft
Skills. The hard skills represent the
cognitive competence and the soft
skills represent the conscience and
compassions.
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
Hard Skills
ESP
1. Explain the goal and outcome of the course
2. Explain the concepts and elements of ESP
3. Elaborate the steps in developing ESP
programs
4. Choose potential clients
5. Conduct need survey
6. Interpret target situation based on the survey
result
7. Develop the syllabus, material and assesment
SLP
1. Explain the vision and mission of SLP
2. Explain the procedure of SLP
3. Explain concept and practice of SLP
4. Elaborate the metod of program development
5. Conduct observation and collect data
6. Analyse data and develop plans of progams,
one of which is ESP program
Learning Activities and Procedure
The learning activities take
place in and outside classroom. They
are designed based on the cycle of
Ignatian Pedagogy, i.e. Context,
Experience, Reflection, Action and
Evaluation.
Context: Learners are guided to
understand the current context of
learning and the benefits of their
learning.
Experience: Learners are guided to
undertake authentic tasks and share
their understanding through group
discussion and presentation. Learners
gain feedback from peers and the
teacher.
Reflection: Learners are guided to
write reflection on their learning
process so that they realize what
aspects which need improvements
and what aspects are
ISSN 1410-7201
Fluency or Accuracy - Two Different ‘Colours’ in Writing Assessment ................................71
Listyani
Learning Model Design Integrating ESP Course and Service Learning
Program to Promote Relevance and Meaningfulness .................................................................82
Carla Sih Prabandari, Gregorius Punto Aji and Made Frida Yulia
Pursuing Autonomy through Dialogue ......................................................................................89
Huw Davies
Domains of Political Metaphors in Presidential Speeches ..........................................................96
Truly Almendo Pasaribu
Need Analysis of English for Aeronautical Engineering Purposes at STT
Adisutjipto Yogyakarta ......................................................................................................... 105
Dewanti Ratna Pertiwi
Students’ Lived Experience on The Toughest Place to be a Binman in
Critical Listening and Speaking 1 Class .................................................................................. 115
Martha Pritzanda Pudhika
The Use of Authentic Materials in Teaching Grammar for EFL Students
(Teachers’ Perspective) ......................................................................................................... 125
Sri Agriyanti Mestari and Fahria Malabar
Students’ Critical Thinking Skills in a Classroom Debate ................................................. 132
Reli Handayani
LLT Journal
Vol.
19
No.
2
Pages:
71-140
Yogyakarta
October 2016
Published by
English Language Education Study Program
Sanata Dharma University
ISSN
1410-7201
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
Published by
English Language Education Study Program
Sanata Dharma University
Fluency or Accuracy - Two Different ‘Colours’ in Writing Assessment ................................. 71
Listyani
Learning Model Design Integrating ESP Course and Service Learning Program to
Promote Relevance and Meaningfulness ............................................................................................. 82
Carla Sih Prabandari, Gregorius Punto Aji and Made Frida Yulia
Pursuing Autonomy through Dialogue ................................................................................................ 89
Huw Davies
Domains of Political Metaphors in Presidential Speeches ........................................................... 96
Truly Almendo Pasaribu
Need Analysis of English for Aeronautical Engineering Purposes at STT Adisutjipto
Yogyakarta .....................................................................................................................................................105
Dewanti Ratna Pertiwi
Students’ Lived Experience on The Toughest Place to be a Binman in Critical Listening
and Speaking 1 Class ..................................................................................................................................115
Martha Pritzanda Pudhika
The Use of Authentic Materials in Teaching Grammar for EFL Students (Teachers’
Perspective) ....................................................................................................................................................125
Sri Agriyanti Mestari and Fahria Malabar
Students’ Critical Thinking Skills in a Classroom Debate ..........................................................132
Reli Handayani
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
LLT Journal
A Journal on Language and Language Teaching
Chairman
:
Soepomo Poedjosoedarmo
Vice Chairman
:
J. Bismoko
Chief Editor
:
Yohana Veniranda
Managing Editors
:
Barli Bram and Patricia Angelina Lasut
Editors
:
Ignatius Harjanto, Widya Mandala Catholic University, Surabaya
Nik Aloesnita Binti Nik Mohd Alwi, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia
Sharilyn M. Childers, Saint Cloud State University, Saint Cloud, Minnesota, USA
Lilik Ratnasari Gondopriono, City University of New York, USA
Joana Llanderal, University of Southern Mindanao, Philippines
Tariq Saeed, Open Polytechnic, New Zealand
ISSN
:
1410–7201
Address
:
Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan,
Universitas Sanata Dharma
Mrican, Tromol Pos 29
Yogyakarta – 55002
Phones
:
(0274) 513301, 515352, ext. 1220
Fax
:
(0274) 562383
Notes on articles contribution:
LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE TEACHING JOURNAL (LLT Journal), to appear twice a year (in April and
October) for teachers and students, is published by the English Language Education Study Program,
Faculty of Teachers Training and Education, Sanata Dharma University. This journal welcomes articles
on language and language teaching.
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
Fluency or Accuracy - Two Different ‘Colours’ in Writing Assessment
Listyani
Faculty of Language and Literature
Satya Wacana Christian University
[email protected]
Abstract
Fluency and accuracy. These two things have victoriously won many teachers’
attention at tertiary level. In the case of writing, these two remain debatable, and
have always attracted many people, both lecturers’ and students’ attention. These
language production measures have distracted many lecturers’ concentration:
should they be faithful to fluency of ideas, or grammatical and language accuracy
in correcting students’ essays? This paper tries to present the classical yet neverending dilemmatic conflicts within the area of writing assessment. This debate
still remains interesting to follow. Data were gained from close observation on
documents, that is, 21 students’ essays and interviews with 2 students of
Academic Writing in Semester II, 2015-2016. Four writing lecturers were also
interviewed for their intellectual and critical opinions on these dilemmatic
problems in assessing writing. Discussion results of FGD (Forum Group
Discussion) involving all writing lecturers at the English Education Study
Program at the Faculty of Language and Literature of Satya Wacana Christian
University which were held in June, 2016, were also included as source of data.
Hopefully, this paper gives a little more “colour” in the area of writing
assessment, and gives a little enlightenment for other writing lecturers.
Keywords: fluency, content, accuracy, grammar, Academic Writing
Introduction
Students
with
average
capability usually have some
problems which can still be tolerated
both in the content and language of
their writing. The problem lies in the
writing of students with low ability
or proficiency of English. Both the
content and language may be very
difficult to understand. This,
unavoidably, can frustrate the
teacher. Perfect language with poor
ideas is not enough. However, how
can ideas be understood if the
language as a means to convey the
intended meaning is too difficult to
grasp? A student may have bright
ideas, but without good language,
those ideas will be in vain; they will
not be conveyed properly to the
readers (read: teachers). The teacher
then may end up giving an emotional
comment on a certain student’s
paper: “What did you intend to say,
actually?” written in red ink with big
letters. It is indeed a dilemma for
teachers; they may be confused,
which one to value more? Student’s
ideas or language? It is not an easy
question to answer.
One central question to be
answered in this paper is: Which one
should be prioritized in assessing
writing, grammar or content? In this
71
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
paper, I want to argue that both the
content and language in a piece of
writing are to be given attention in
assessment, though there may be
hierarchy in the scale. The content,
as well as the accuracy of language,
should not be passed unnoticed by
the teacher. Some data taken from
some students’ journals will be
attached as a support for my
argument.
voice into their writing. Writing with
real voice, Elbow further explains,
has the power to make you pay
attention and understand; the words
go deep. Writing without voice, in
his opinion, is “wooden and dead”
because it lacks sound, energy, and
individuality.
At tertiary level, whether they
realize it or not, students are usually
preoccupied with accuracy, and
many do not write in English beyond
sentence level when entering
university. Students are typically not
familiar with process approaches in
writing or with the requirement of
writing a research report (Reichelt,
2009). Hirose (2001), in Reichelt
(2009, p. 198), indicates that for the
first-year English majors in her
classes, “fluency-aimed writing
activities” besides activities that raise
students’ awareness of conventions
in academic writing, are important.
This is because students still have
little experience of composing in
English.
Other researchers, Schoonen,
et.al. (2009, p. 80) argue that when it
comes to formulating a message,
linguistic skills and knowledge
become prominent in the writing
process. They further mention that
for sure, the writer needs to have a
larger
“repertoire
of
words,
collocations, sentence frames, and
morphological options” to get the
intended message across. In order to
formulate fluency in writing, the
retrieval of words, collocations, and
sentence frames should be easy and
should not burden students’ working
memory. The underlying reason is
because memory resources should be
available for “keeping tracks of the
discourse”. The need for linguistic
Research Methods
Data for this study were
mainly derived from direct interview
four lecturers and two students,
whom I named Lecturer A, B, C, and
D according to the time of the
interviews (in chronological order).
Student A and Student B. Besides
that, close observation was also done
on the students’ essays. Discussion
results of Forum Group Discussion
with Academic Writing Lecturers
were also used as source of data. The
data were then qualitatively analyzed
and interpreted.
Grammatical
Accuracy
or
Content?
Elbow (1998, p. 299), an
expert in writing who is for fluency
in writing, mentions that most
people’s writing does not have
“voice” because people often stop in
the middle of the sentence and think
about which word to use or which
direction they should go. Writing
with “voice”, according to Elbow, is
“Writing into which someone has
breathed”. It has the fluency, rhythm,
and “liveness” that exist naturally in
the speech of most people when they
are enjoying a conversation. People
who write frequently, copiously, and
confidently will be successful to get
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proficiency
and
metacognitive
knowledge is higher than the ones
needed for speaking. In Schoonen et
al’s opinion, “lack of context and
conversational feedback” demands a
higher level of explicitness. In FL
writing, things become more
difficult.
Limited
linguistic
knowledge of FL can hinder the use
of metacognitive knowledge and
writing experience.
Schoonen et al (2009, p.82)
further claim that L1 expertise and
knowledge comes under pressure at
other stages of the writing process,
that is, during formulation, when the
writer is struggling with the
difficulties caused by limited FL
linguistic knowledge. Writing is
much slower and cyclical than
speaking. They confirm that “The
relationship between L1 and FL
writing proficiency is without doubt
mediated by FL linguistic knowledge,
but the issue of how and to what
extent these three constructs interest
is still not settled.” Schoonen et al
show the correlations between
linguistic knowledge and writing
performance, and between fluency
and writing performance are
generally higher than for the mother
tongue.
The more metacognitive and
linguistic knowledge a writer has, the
faster the grammatical and lexical
knowledge can be retrieved, and the
better the writing performance will
be (Schoonen et al, 2009, p. 83).
Schoonen et al also mention that.
foreign langauge writing is more
dependent on the level of linguistic
knowledge and fluency, rather than
first language (L1) writing. Foreign
or second language writing is
generally higher for English than for
the mother tongue. From two
examples of writing texts of two
students, Schoonen et al found in
their research that Student A
performed poorly on English
grammar test and received low
grades for his/ her test and the
writing. On the other hand, Student B
scored highly on both grammar test
and writing assignment. There is a
great difference on grammar
repertoire on students of the same
class (Schoonen et al, 2009, p.85).
Another opinion comes from
Raimes (2002) who states that in the
early 1960’s, writing courses were
also treated as grammar practice.
Later on, it was realized that writing
was generative of ideas; it was
tolerable to be messy and chaotic in
the process. Raimes (2002) then
sums up that teachers must accept the
messy and chaotic nature of writing,
or, if teachers do not like the “mess,”
they can impose order on it to focus
on grammar, rhetorical modes, and
models of academic discourse. This
is intended to provide teachers
themselves with neat systems of
teaching. To focus on both content
and language is, unavoidably, an
extra work on the teachers; more
time to give feedback and comments
on both aspects (p. 309). This is in
line with Penaflorida (2002)’s
opinion that:
Teacher gives writing
assignments which take
time to mark and give
feedback to students, or
worse,
teacher
sometimes fails to return
the papers. We were
students once and know
how
important
the
teacher’s feedback was
(p.345).
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Ur (1999) also raises this
question, “What should feedback be
mainly on: language? Content?
Organization?” She then answers
that the hierarchy should be content
first, whether the ideas written are
significant and interesting, then
organization – whether the ideas are
arranged in good and pleasing way and lastly language forms, whether
the grammar, vocabulary, spelling
and punctuation are acceptable in
terms of the standard accuracy
(p.170).
Sokolik (2003) also gives an
idea of what aspects to be assessed in
writing; she asks teachers to ask
themselves, what aspects to assess:
creativity or originality of ideas,
writing
format,
grammatical
accuracy, inclusion of recently
taught material, or spelling and
punctuation. In short, just as Ur’s
opinion, there are three aspects to
assess: content, organization and
grammar (p.94). Basically, those
three aspects are to be given attention
in assessing a piece of reading
journal: content, organization and
language.
From the discussion above, I
can say that it remains debatable,
which one should teacher give
emphasis on the assessment of a
piece of writing: the content or the
grammatical accuracy, or both? Well,
many argue that it is the content that
becomes the primary concern of
writing. As long as students can
express their ideas well (clearly),
then the piece of writing is
considered okay, regardless of the
language problems he/she may
encounter. I personally prefer seeing
a piece of writing from both the
content or fluency and language
accuracy. Dollahite and Haun (2012)
firmly state that a writer’s goal is to
make sure that they have presented
their ideas well to the readers, so that
those ideas can be clear to them.
Dollahite and Haun (p. 100) further
claim, “Your job is to create a
reader-friendly paper that smoothly
guides the reader from one idea to
the next. “
As mentioned before, without
understandable language, brilliant
ideas will not be understood by the
readers (read: teachers). Sokolik
(2003) and Ur (1999) have great
ideas in saying that in writing, the
priority is the content, but it does not
stop there; there are still other
aspects to consider which are no less
important than the first ones:
organization of ideas and language
accuracy. The biggest percentage
may be given in content, but still
organization and language must be
given a place in the assessment, for
the last two also take part in making
a piece of writing understood by its
target readers. As concluding
remarks, I believe that every lecturer
has
their
own
beliefs and
perceptions. The same case happens
in this matter. Some lecturers prefer
giving more emphasis on grammar or
accuracy rather than content or
fluency. Other lecturers would do the
other way around. No one is right
and no one is wrong. As long as
ideas can be conveyed successfully
to the readers, both are okay.
Whether the content or the grammar
gets priority in the assessment, it will
not cause a problem. Presented
below are examples of students’
sentences which have problems in
grammatical and content levels.
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LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
A student once wrote,
“The quotation from Mark Surman tell
to people if they hardly to survive in the
future if they get blind about digital
functions…The
informations
that
received by the students are more global
rather than use books. The informations
on web are larger than books. It
happens
because
the
digital
informations are easly to distribute for
entire world, it is not like books that
need some regulation to distribute to
another area.R.F. George assumed that
“We have infinite supply of information
and yet we cannot read” (source:
goodreads.com,no date). It means the
informations that provide by digital era
are very global and many in quantity.”
(Student C’s essay, paragraph 1 & 5,
unedited)
Though he made lots of
grammatical errors in his essay, but
his ideas are still understandable. The
following example is a student’s
writing with problems in fluency
which hinders understanding.
“That
is
simple
reason
why
digitalization should be taught in Senior
High School. It is because Senior High
School students will more accept that
way than elementary or Junior High
student. How do come? Senior High
School students, usually have been using
digitalization better than other level of
ISSN 1410-7201
educations. It may because they have
had further material and explanations
about how to use Internet in previous
level. High School students also have
been mature to look for and get proper
informations which they absence for.”
(Student D’s essay, paragraph 2,
unedited)
Both students came from the
same academic year, they were from
Batch 2014, and they were asked to
write about the same topic:
Digitation in secondary education.
Yet, the first student’s essay is more
understandable than the second one.
It is because, the level of errors is on
the grammar, in the first student
essay; while the second student had
problems with her fluency.
Discussion on Interview Results
For this paper, I interviewed
4 writing lecturers These lecturers
come from different universities and
they range from junior to the senior
ones. Below are their opinions on
grammar/ accuracy or content/
fluency. I presented the results of the
interviews chronologically. The table
below will clarify the four lecturers
whom I interviewed.
Table 1: Lecturers who were interviewed
Initials of Lecturers
Universities
A
Sanata Dharma
University
Satya Wacana
Christian University
Satya Wacana
Christian University
Miami University
B
C
D
Experiences in teaching
writing
7 years
Sexes
10 years
F
2 years
M
17 years
F
M
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Writing Lecturers’ Opinions
Lecturer A has been teaching
writing for 7 years in three different
universities, Universitas Kristen
Krida
Wacana,
Sampoerna
University, and Universitas Sanata
Dharma. He admitted that in teaching
writing, his focus is mainly on the
content of my students' essays first.
Then, I look at their grammar.
Similar answers came from the
second respondent, that Lecturer D,
from Miami University in Ohio,
USA. She also thinks that priority
should go to content first, grammar
ranks second.
Asked
about
priority,
Lecturer A thinks that the content is
the priority because the content
contains the intended message. When
his
students
write in
Bahasa
Indonesia, for example, they still
have problems in the content.
Therefore, if we can teach/assist the
students to develop the content, their
skills on idea development will be
transferable when they write in any
languages. Talking about students
whose sentence forms are very
simple, like S V O pattern, Lecturer
A mentioned that it happened in his
class as well, “I think those students
should be trained to think critically.
As a result, their ideas are not
superficial. And, for those students
having good ideas but poor
grammar, we should assist them to
express their ideas in good English”.
Lecturer A then suggests that writing
lecturers need to focus on the fluency
first (the development of ideas),
accuracy later. The underlying
reason is if we only focus on the
accuracy, we will be trapped in
grammar-oriented writing. As a
result, we teach grammar, instead of
writing.
Different perspectives come
from Lecturer B, who has been
teaching writing for about 10 years.
She was teaching Writing 3 and 4,
and at present Expository and
Argumentative
writing,
and
Academic Writing. She focuses on
the content, rather than grammar. For
her, content - including organization
of idea, coherence - is more
important than grammar, because
writing is not only about grammar.
She further states, “Although
grammar is important, but to me it is
only one of the components that
supports writing. Not the heart of the
writing process. Writing is about
sharing or expressing our thoughts.
We might have perfect grammar. But
it will be meaningless, if we don't
have enough idea to write on our
draft. Mastery in writing is not only
about grammar mastery”.
Lecturer B further states that
there is no guarantee that the students
who can perfectly write simple
sentences can have good idea on the
topic they write. Also, in terms of
style, if the students keep using
simple sentences, it will make the
writing style boring and monotonous.
Although their grammar might be
perfect. It will be obvious because
they only use simple sentences. So,
their mistake will be very limited.
Lecturer B prefers to
prioritize on fluency. She also
suggests that integrating writing with
reading is a perfect idea as it might
be able to cater both fluency and
accuracy. By using the reading texts
as the models, the students might be
aware of the author's writing styles.
They can also have more ideas about
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the topic. They can also be exposed
with the grammar and vocabulary for
their own writing.
Different from the previous
two Lecturers, Lecturer C, who has
just been teaching writing for 2
years,
Creative
Writing,
Argumentative
Writing,
and
Academic Writing, always believes
that good grammar can help him
understand essays better. In the
Creative and Argumentative Writing,
he pays attention to the grammar a
lot since, for him it is a "foundation"
class before entering classes in their
upper semesters. “If their grammar is
still bad, I will feel sorry for it. I
discuss their mistakes almost every
week; I remind them to use an article
for a singular countable noun, for
instance. However, in Academic
Writing, I usually focus on their
content; seeing their outline;
coherence among paragraphs in the
first five weeks though I become
stricter with their grammar after they
submit their first draft”.
Asked about which one
should be prioritized, Lecturer C is
certain that for undergraduate
students, considering their role as a
teacher' candidate, grammar is more
important. These students will
become a model for their future
students. If they cannot write
sentences using correct grammar,
they will not be able to teach their
future students to do so. His attention
is more on ensuring the students'
language accuracy after they
graduate. For first year writing
classes, Lecturer C suggests that
accuracy should be give more
attention
because it
is
the
"foundation" for the students before
entering future writing classes. It will
be nice if students can use a software
to check grammatical aspects of their
writing before they submit their
work.
The last respondent, Lecturer
D, has been teaching writing since
1999 at the university level. She was
teaching Descriptive Writing and
mostly Academic Writing. Now she
is teaching composition at Miami
University, Ohio, The United States
of America. Lecturer D states that
both grammar and content should be
prioritized because if we are teaching
second language learners, we cannot
focus on one. “Through grammar,
other people can understand the
content. Both are important. If we
focus on the grammar, but the
content is not good, then, it’s just the
same thing. But the way you teach it,
I think you must focus on the content,
and then, grammar”. Asked about
the percentage for grammar and
content in the assessment rubrics,
Lecturer D mentions that in writing
assessment, both need emphasizing.
Content is 70%, and language or
grammar is like 30%. Sometimes,
there are students whose content is
good, but the grammar is not, so we
cannot separate grammar from
content. Both are important.
From my interviews with the
four lecturers, a red thread can be
seen. Lecturer A was in line with
Lecturer B and Lecturer D. They
gave priority to fluency. Lecturer C
was the only one who preferred to
focus on grammar. For him, accuracy
was more important. About fluency
first then accuracy, Chin et al
(2013a) also suggest that writers read
their draft to check content and
organization, write comments on a
different sheet of paper, write the
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weaknesses of their own paper and
write down ways to improve it. After
checking
the
content
and
organization, writers should also read
the draft to check the grammatical
errors and style problems. Singleton
(2011) also strengthens this idea. She
explains that after revising the ideas
in the paragraph, a writer is ready to
edit, which means to check the
grammar.
Singleton further clarifies that
if a writer edits the grammar first,
he/she will waste his/her time
working on irrelevant sentences.
Smalley et al (2012, p.9) have a
similar idea. They mention that
editing and proofreading are the final
steps in writing. Editing means
checking sentences to make sure that
they are all grammatically and
mechanically
correct.
While
proofreading means reading the
paper again to find “any remaining
errors
in
grammar,
spelling,
mechanics, or punctuation”.
correct grammar” (Unedited). Being
a daughter of an English teacher, she
feels that she has more opportunities
to acquire English more than others
who do not have English teacher
parents.
Similar to Student A, Student
B also thinks that grammar and
content are equally important,
especially in writing. She claims, “If
we master the grammar well, ppl
(people) will easily understand what
we're going to convey (content). The
use of language in writing is
important because the language is a
tool to make ppl understand our
meaning. It's kinda a bridge to help
us deliver our ideas well to the
reader.” (Unedited)
Talking about how she
acquired good command of English,
Student B said that she started to join
an English course since I was at the
first grade of elementary school. That
time her mother asked an English
tutor to come. She then I joined an
English course in Salatiga when she
was eight. The course has many
stages,
such
as
beginner,
intermediate, and advanced. Each
stage is divided into some levels also
and every 4 months, she had to pass
each level. When she was in grade 6,
she passed the end of the
intermediate level, while her other
course mates were senior high school
students. These two students excelled
in terms of grammatical awareness in
their writing.
From my interviews with
both students, who both came from
2014 academic year, a conclusion
can be drawn. Both students
preferred to give priority on
grammar. For them, good grammar
will help clarify the fluency of their
Students’ Opinions
Besides the four lecturers, I
also interviewed two students whom
I thought had good mastery of
grammar. From my on-line interview
with two Academic Writing students,
I found that both students consider
grammar an important part of writing
which helps readers understand their
ideas. These two students always had
good ideas besides very good grasp
of English grammar. Student A
firmly says that in writing both
grammar and content are important.
She explains further, “The content of
our writing should be meaningful,
interesting, and reach the purpose of
the text. We also should make our
writing understandable by using
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thoughts in writing. Thus, it will help
readers understand their view points.
Their opinion is in line with Chin, et
al (2013b, p.125)). They mention
clearly, “Writing filled with errors in
grammar, punctuation, selling, and
capitalization is very distracting to a
reader.” They further assert that
writers have to fix these errors before
submitting the essay for evaluation.
Forum Group Discussion (FGD)
with Academic Writing Lecturers
On June 24, 2016, I managed
to conduct a forum group discussion
with four Academic Writing
Lecturers, all from Satya Wacana
Christian University Salatiga. One of
them was Lecturer C (who also
became
the
respondent
I
interviewed). The table below will
clarify the FGD attendees.
Table 2: FGD Attendees
Initials of Lecturers
C
E
F
G
Experiences in teaching writing
2 years
17 years
14 years
2 years
One of the topics discussed is
grammar in writing. Dealing with
the first problem discussed, Should
grammar also be taught in writing
classes? The answers are as follows.
Yes, grammar should be taught in
writing, but independent grammar
classes are still needed, with 2
reasons. First, grammar teaching
surely helps students in using
grammar in context in their writing.
Secondly, lecturers do not need to
spend too much time on grammar.
Discussing
the
second
question (Which one is to be the top
priority for contextual grammatical
aspects to be taught in writing?), all
the lecturers had the same agreement.
Frequency of the most frequently
seen/found grammatical points that
appear in writing is not the only
parameter that needs consideration.
The common and important ones
should be taught. Talking about point
3 (Which one should be prioritized?
The fluency, the accuracy, or both?)
The lecturers attending the group
Sexes
M
F
M
F
discussion had various answers. One
prefers giving equal attention to both,
one lecturer to grammar. One junior
lecturer mentioned that for lowerlevel writing classes, yes, grammar
should be prioritized; another
lecturer prefers to give priority to
fluency, and the last one, content
first, grammar later.
The last question is Should
grammar get a better position in the
rubrics? All the lecturers agreed that
the percentage should be between
30-35% for grammar in the
assessment rubrics in all levels of
writing. This is similar to Lecturer
D’s opinion. The underlying reasons
are as follows. First, this is to
balance grammar and fluency.
Secondly, grammar points can be
used as an incentive. If students can
write with good grammar, they will
get more points in the rubrics. The
next reason is grammar is an integral
part of writing, and good grammar
adds meaning. The last reason is if
students have good fluency, but poor
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grammar, then their writing is not
realistic.
Agreement was made at the
end of this FGD session. There were
three points. First, grammar needs to
be taught, though independent
grammar classes are still needed.
Secondly,
the
most-frequently
appearing grammatical items are not
necessarily the ones to be taught. The
next agreement is both fluency and
accuracy should be given priority in
writing assessment. The final
agreement is that rubrics for
grammar should cover 30-35% of the
whole percentage of scores.
priority. Grammar or fluency.
Secondly, grammar needs to be given
bigger portion in the assessment
rubrics. Rubrics for grammatical
points of 30-35% will be ideal for
writing assessment. The rest 65-70%
should be given to fluency or
content.
Conclusion
From the discussion part
above, two conclusions can be
drawn. Frist, every lecturer of
writing courses has their own
preference of which should be given
Acknowledgements
I owe words of thanks to my
respondents, Ibu Henny ZachariasLiem, Bapak Priyatno Ardi, Bapak
Yustinus Calvin, and Ibu Anita
Kurniawati. Also to my students
Bene and Bella. A bunch of thanks
are also given to Academic Writing
Lecturers who attended FGD, Ibu
Titik Murtisari, Pak Yustinus Calvin,
Pak Christian Rudianto, and Bu
Yustina. Thank you so much for your
help.
References
Chin, Peter; Reid, Samuel; Wray, Sean; and Yamazaki, Yoko. Academic Writing
Skills. Student’s Book 1. (2013a). CUP.
Chin, Peter; Reid, Samuel; Wray, Sean; and Yamazaki, Yoko. Academic Writing
Skills. Student’s Book 3. (2013b). CUP.
Dollahite, Nancy, E & Haun, Julie. (2012). Source Work: Academic Writing from
Sources. Boston: Cengage Learning.
Elbow, Peter. 1998. Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing
Process. OUP.
Penaflorida, Andrea H. (2002). “Nontraditional Forms of Assessment and
Response to Student Writing: A Step Toward Learner Autonomy.” In
J.C. Richards & W.A. Renandya (Eds.). Methodology in Language
Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Raimes, Ann. (2002). “Ten Steps in Planning and Training Teachers of Writing”.
In J.C. Richards & W.A. Renandya (Eds.). Methodology in Language
Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reichelt. 2009. A Critical Evaluation of Writing Teaching Programs in Different
Foreign Language Settings. In Rosa M. Manchón. Writing in Foreign
Language Contexts: Learning, Teaching, and Research. Bristol:
Datapage International Ltd.
Sasaki, Miyuki. 2009. “Changes in English as a Foreign Language Students’
Writing over 3.5 Years: A Sociocognitive Account. In Rosa M.
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Manchón. Writing in Foreign Language Contexts: Learning, Teaching,
and Research. Bristol: Datapage International Ltd.
Schoonen, Rob; Snellings Patrick; Stevenson, Marie; and Gelderen, Amos Van.
2009. “Towards a Blueprint of the Foreign Language Writer: The
Linguistic and Cognitive Demands of Foreign Language Writing. In
Rosa M. Manchón. Writing in Foreign Language Contexts: Learning,
Teaching, and Research. Bristol: Datapage International Ltd.
Singleton, Jill. (2011). Writers at Work. The Paragraph. 11th Printing. CUP.
Smalley, Regina L.; Ruetten, Mary K.; and Kozyrev, Joann Rishel. (2012).
Refining Composition Skills. Academic Writing and Grammar. Boston;
Cengage Learning.
Sokolik, Maggie. (2003). “Writing.” In David Nunan (Ed.). Practical English
Language Teaching. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Ur, Penny. (1999). A Course in Language Teaching. Practice and Theory.
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Zacharias, Henny. July 8, 2016. Personal Interview. Salatiga.
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A Learning Model Design Integrating ESP Course
and Service Learning Program
to Promote Relevance and Meaningfulness
Carla Sih Prabandari, Gregorius Punto Aji and Made Frida Yulia
Sanata Dharma University
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Abstract
Relevance and meaningfulness of the content courses need to be
established to make learners realize that the knowledge acquired in the clasroom
can be utilized to give contributions to society. This research is aimed at designing
a learning model integrating ESP course and Service Learning Program. ESP is a
subject designed to enable students to design ESP programs. The integration of
ESP and SLP allows students to exercise their skills in designing an ESP program,
which is eventually implemented as one of their SLP programs. The current
research is targeted to describe what the learning model design integrating ESP
Course and Service Learning Program looks like.
Keywords: Learning Model, English for Specific Purposes, Service Learning
Program (KKN), Relevance, Meaningfulness
Introduction
In the era of progressivism in
education
and
curriculum
development, the focus of education
is on the relevance, meaningfulness,
self-actualization and emancipation.
Relevant and meaningful learning is
a process which roots into the reality
in the learners’ lives. In progressive
education programs, the goal is selffulfillment of the learners. To
achieve the goal, education programs
are focused on the process-based
learning to develop learners’
awareness,
responsibility
and
autonomy for life-long learning
(Richards and Renandya, 2002)
In order that learning can be
meaningful and relevant, the process
must enable the learners to connect
the classroom activities and the real
life that they face. There must be a
relation between theories that the
learners learn in class and how the
82
theories can be applied in their life.
Furhermore, learners should be able
to experience how useful the theories
are in solving social problems in
their community. Thus, learning is
said to be relevant and meaningful
when the acquired kowledge can be
put into practice for serving others.
In an attempt to create
meaning and relevant learning, the
teachers often need to make some
innovations and breakthroughs. This
would not be easy for teachers who
do not want to get out of routines. In
classroom practice, the common
activities include discussion, sharing,
simulation, lectures, doing exercises
in order to facilitate learners to
master the materials. Such activities
still focus on theories and they
cannot provide students with handson experience about how the
knowledge is applied in real context
in the society.
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
Among the courses offered in
the curriculum of the English
Language Education Study Progam
are English for Specific Purposes
(ESP) course and Service Learning
Program (Kuliah Kerja Nyata).
English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
is an elective course whose goal is to
enable students to design their own
ESP programs. The course requires
students to understand concepts of
ESP and utilize their knowledge in
the process of designing their
programs. Although in practice, the
students are required to design an
ESP program, their design is not
based on actual need analysis and
they are not required to implement
their designed program. In the
process of designing their ESP
program, the students follow the
steps in developing the components
of the design, including setting the
goal, teaching learning procedure,
material and assessment designs.
However, the design cannot be
implemented since it is not based on
actual needs of the clients. The
product is submitted only for the
sake of their ESP Course grade. The
current practice in ESP course, which
is still felt to be theoretical, needs to
be reviewed and revitalized in order
to make the couse more meaningful
and relevant to the learners.
Meanwhile, Service Learning
Program (SLP) is a compulsory
course whose objective is to train
students to develop their potentials
by means of doing community
service. The course provides students
with oppotunities to exercise their
hard skill and soft skill to solve
problems they find in their
community. They are required to
conduct observations and needs
survey in order to identify problems
that occur in society. Based on their
observations and needs analysis, the
students,
as
educated
young
generation, are to perform as agents
of change in the community by
offering community service program.
Through SLP, students have an
opportunity to experience being
members of a community who are
responsible to exercise their hard
skill and soft skill to serve others. As
the nature of SLP course is to start
from the needs of society, the
programs that the students prepare
should address the real and
contextual needs of the society.
To
make
ESP
more
meaningful, some effort has been
made. For example, Shu-Chiao Tsai
conducted research on “Integrating
English for specific purposes
courseware into task-based learning
in a context of preparing for
international trade fairs” (2013). The
research tried to integrate ESP and
Task-based Learning. The finding
showed that the students found the
integration is beneficial and that they
learned better through the tasks
which involved problem solving and
higher order thinking. In this
research, we attempted to do similar
thing by integrating real and
meaningful tasks in ESP course,
which proved to be effective in
promoting a meaningful and relevant
learning. However, our focus was on
the integration of ESP and SLP. This
paper elaborates our attempt to
provide a learning model which
integrates SLP in ESP course so as to
make the students aware that what
they learn in class is something
meaningful to them and that they can
utilize their knowledge to solve
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problems in society. The learning
model will provide opportunities for
the learners to apply their knowledge
of ESP during the process of SLP.
In developing the proposed
learning model, the research adapted
the steps of Educational Research
and Development methodology as
presented by Dick, Carey, and Carey
(2003). The research subjects were
students of ESP class who were
taking SLP in the same semester.
Besides, the research also involved
experts in ESP and SLP to evaluate
the proposed design.
Thomas Orr
(2002) specifically
explains that ESP refers to three
aspects. First, ESP is designed for
specific needs of English learning.
Second, ESP is a branch of ELT
whose aim is to help learners master
English for specific purposes. Three,
ESP is seen as a movement to
expand the role of English in
different professions.
The idea is also supported by
Ann M. Johns and Donna PrinceMachado (as cited in Celce-Murcia,
2001: 43) who suggest that language
learning should be based on the need
of the learners, their learning styles
and their socio-cultural context
where the language is used. ESP has
been developed for a wide range of
purposes, such as English for
Academic Purposes (EAP) and
English for Professional Purposes or
English for Occupational Purposes
(Hutchinson and Waters, 1994).
Discussion
Most
research
and
development projects in ESP are
aimed at developing classroom
materials. This research, however,
aims at developing learning model to
integrate SLP in ESP course. The
discussion will be divided into four
sections, namely ESP and its
development,
meaningful
and
relevant learning in the paradigm of
progressivism, and the description of
the learning model.
ESP and Its Development
ESP emerges from the reatity
that English learning develops in
different parts of the world to serve
different needs of the learners, such
as for business and trade, technology,
education, and various industry
(Hutchinson and Waters, 1994).
84
Steps in Developing ESP Programs
The steps in developing an
ESP program are basically similar to
the steps in developing other learning
programs. However, some experts
propose their own models for
developing ESP programs. One of
the procedures of ESP development
is Skill-centered Approach, which is
designed by Hutchinson and Waters
(1994: 69-71). The proposed
procedure is presented in Figure 1.
LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
ISSN 1410-7201
Theoretical
views of language
Identify
target
situation
Analyze
skills required
in the target
situation
Write a
syllabus
Select text and
Write exercises
to focus on
skills
Develop
evaluation
procedures
Theoretical views
of learning
Figure 1: Steps in developing ESP program by Hutchinson and Waters (1994)
The first step is analyzing the
target situations, which refers to the
context where the language is used.
From the results of the analysis, then,
the course designer can identify the
language skills required for the
particular context. Only after the the
language skills have been identified,
s/he can proceed to the development
of syllabus. The next step is selecting
or developing suitable learning
materials, which focuses on the
required skills. The last step is
developing the evaluation and
assessment to measure the the
achievment of the learning objectives
and the effectiveness of the program.
Relevant and Meaningful Learning
in Progressivism Philosophy of
Education
In
the
paradigm
of
Progressivism, the emphasis of
education
and
curriculum
development are on the relevance,
meaningfulness,
self-actualization
and emancipation. According to
John Dewey (1897, p. 1), education
is a process that should enable the
learners to behave as active beings to
participate
“in
the
social
consciousness of the race.” In the
higher education, learners are
expected to be able to develop their
knowledge and partake in society. In
Dewey’s belief, learners learn
through actions and being involved
in the process. This would require
learners to work in hands-on project
so as to ensure that learning would
take place, rather than demanding
them to do memorization. Thus,
within this philosophy, in order to
create a relevant and meaningful
learning, classroom activities should
be tailored to facilitate the learners
development by providing relevant
and meaningful tasks.
As the goal of education is
self-fulfillment of the learners,
education is not oriented toward
measurable objectives as in the
Objectivist-reconstructionism
paradigm but rather on the process of
learning (process-based learning).
The process is designed to develop
learners’
understanding
and
awareness on their own learning
process as part of life-long education
(Richards and Renandya, 2002). To
achieve the goal, there needs to be a
link and match between the process
in the classroom and the reality that
the learners face outside classroom.
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LLT Journal Vol. 19 No. 2 - October 2016
The link and match needs to be
established in order to ensure that the
concepts and theories that they learn
during class will not remain abstract
in the learners’ mind but will be
useful for solving problems in
society. Learning takes place when
the learners are aware that what they
learn in class benefits them in their
real life because they can give
contributions to society.
A Learning Model of Integration
of SLP in ESP Course
The proposed learning model
is not to merge the two courses, since
they remain separated in the
curriculum, but it is meant to
establish
relevance
and
meaningfulness to the learners. The
end product of the research is a
learning model which integrates SLP
in ESP course. The model consists of
five major components, namely the
Goal of the Project, Learning
Outcomes and Indicators, Classroom
Implementation, Learning Contents,
and Assessment and Evaluation. The
following is the elaboration of the
model.
Goal of the Project
The goal of the project is to
design a learning model which
integrates SLP in ESP Course. There
are two rationales for this. They are:
1) The integration of SLP in ESP
course will provide opportunities
for learners to realize the
relevance between the theory and
the practice of ESP in society.
2) The integration allows learners to
develop their own ESP programs
which
are
ready
for
implementation
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Learning Outcomes, Competence
and Indicators
Learning Outcomes, Competence
and Indicators are components of the
Learning Semester Plan. In this
project, the learning outcomes,
competence and indicators are
formulated as follows.
Learning Outcomes
The learning outcomes in this model
cover the three aspects of
Competence,
Conscience
and
Compassion. They are set according
to the Ignation Pedagogy, as in the
following:
Competence (Kompetensi):
Understanding the nature, basic
concept and theories in ESP,
designing concrete ESP programs to
suit the need of the real clients in
society, implementing the design.
Conscience (Suara Hati)
Honesty in joining the course, hard
work in executing the given tasks.
Compassion (Bela Rasa)
Responsibility in doing the assigned
tasks with the groups and in
implementing
the
programs,
assiduousness in identifying and
solving problems, care for others,
good communication ability with
friends and others in society, synergy
in
planning,
developing
and
implementing the program.
Competence and Indicators
The
competence
and
indicators are separated into two
aspects, namely Hard Skills and Soft
Skills. The hard skills represent the
cognitive competence and the soft
skills represent the conscience and
compassions.
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Hard Skills
ESP
1. Explain the goal and outcome of the course
2. Explain the concepts and elements of ESP
3. Elaborate the steps in developing ESP
programs
4. Choose potential clients
5. Conduct need survey
6. Interpret target situation based on the survey
result
7. Develop the syllabus, material and assesment
SLP
1. Explain the vision and mission of SLP
2. Explain the procedure of SLP
3. Explain concept and practice of SLP
4. Elaborate the metod of program development
5. Conduct observation and collect data
6. Analyse data and develop plans of progams,
one of which is ESP program
Learning Activities and Procedure
The learning activities take
place in and outside classroom. They
are designed based on the cycle of
Ignatian Pedagogy, i.e. Context,
Experience, Reflection, Action and
Evaluation.
Context: Learners are guided to
understand the current context of
learning and the benefits of their
learning.
Experience: Learners are guided to
undertake authentic tasks and share
their understanding through group
discussion and presentation. Learners
gain feedback from peers and the
teacher.
Reflection: Learners are guided to
write reflection on their learning
process so that they realize what
aspects which need improvements
and what aspects are