Debora Ragawanti

In language education, genre-based approach has been widely employed to develop learner’s communicative competence since it can help the learner to relate language to context so that his/her purpose of communication can be achieved. Similarly in Indonesia, it has characterized the English language Curriculum of  2004, 2006, and 2013. Such an implementation then needs to be reviewed to see how it works. This study is aimed at evaluating how the genre-based instruction is appied for teaching writing in correspond to the five stages of the genre-based teaching and learning cycle. This study involved 20 senior-high-school teachers joining a teacher training program conducted by Musyawarah guru Mata pelajaran Bahasa Inggris (English Teacher Development Group), Salatiga, Jawa Tengah. The research instrument used was teacher’s leasson plan designed for teaching writing for senior high school students using a  narrative text. The lesson plan was then submitted and used for group discussion in the program. The  data from the lesson plan reveals that 80% of the instruction develops the context of the text before comprehending the content of the text (stage 1) and all instructions (100%) provide modeling of the text (stage 2). However, none of them applies joint construction of the text (stage 3). As for stage 4, 100% of the instruction provides opportunity for students to construct the text independently but unfortunately, only 60% of the instruction applies stage 5— linking to related text. Apart from this finding, classroom teachers and also student-teachers will be provided with engaging classroom activities to improve the use of genre-based teaching for teaching writing.
 
Key words: genre-based approach, teaching writing, teaching evaluation, and material development

This study investigated learners perspectives on how a teacher explanation can facilitate or hinder their learning. The results suggested that teacher s use of mixed L1 and L2 in an explanation is preferred by most student-respondents since it can expedite their learning. Using only L2 is also preferred because students believe that it gives them more exposure to English and as Eng-lish department students, they have to use English. It, however, can impede learning when teachers use difficult words or complicated grammar. In this condition , using simple language helps students understand an explanation. Despite teacher s use of language, learners perspectives on teacher s behaviors when explaining showed that rapid speaking rate can hinder the process of internaliz-ing an explanation. Conversely, slowing down speech rate can promote a com-prehensible input. Toward the use of examples, using examples from daily life is more preferred than the ones presented in the text book since such examples are easy to remember and understand. Lastly, teacher s use of humor is perceived to motivate student s learning through relaxed and enjoyable atmospheres. It also helps remember language chunks through which it will be an intake. However, humor can obstruct learning if students focus more on the humor than the lesson.

Reflective practice—getting engaged in constant examination, thought, and reflection on one's own teaching through data collected during their teaching—has been extensively used in many teacher education programs in both in-service and pre-service phases of teaching. One of the ways that can be used to capture experiences and thoughts from reflective thinking is through a reflective journal (Loughran, 1996 in Goh, P and Matthew, B, 2011). By documenting, examining, and reflecting events, actions, or problems in teaching and learning process in narrative forms, a teacher will find the patterns of frequent aspects happening in their teaching and be encouraged to think in-depth how certain aspect happens and how to deal with that. Going through such a reflective practice will help teachers be more alert, independent, and developed in their teaching profession. This paper is aimed at analyzing the journal entries of five teaching-practicum students (as the pre-service teachers) coming from Satya Wacana Christian University, Indonesia that is to reveal their professional learning obtained during their teaching practicum.

This study investigated students' preference on teacher's questions and questionings techniques and more importantly on how they could facilitate or impede their learning. The results on teacher's questioning techniques showed that random nomination was more preferred than prearranged format nomination. In addition, techniques of nominating volunteering students and of giving wait-time were disliked by most student-respondents. As for types of question, the yes/no question was favored by most of the respondents. Different from the yes/no question, the number of respondents leaning forward to the analysis question, questions about fact of life, and questions to state opinion did not show a significant difference from the number of those leaning against the same questions.

To response to challenges of teaching English for communication, teacher education programs are urged to prepare the student-teachers to meet the challenges. As a part of the preparation, an evaluation on the student's performance before they graduate is necessarily to be done. This study attempts to weigh up the capacity of student-teachers from the English teacher education Program, Satya Wacana Christian University, Indonesia using the teacher qualification standard. This involved 26 mentor-teachers from 10 local schools where the student-teachers were doing teaching practicum. The findings from the questionnaire and interview interestingly revealed that the student-teachers are viewed to be good in performing pedagogical knowledge (2.92), pedagogical skills (2.86), personality (3.27), social (3.17), and professional competence (3.10). Apart from the opportunities, teachers, curriculum designers, and policy makers will be taken to examine their challenges in meeting the standard and to consider the proposal on what a teacher education can do to improve the pre-service teachers capacity to teach English.

Classroom management is believed to be “The key to the whole success of a course” (Scrivener, 2005, p. 79). Conversely, many student-teachers and beginning teachers have found it very worrisome especially in their first years teaching (Arends, 2012; Goh & Matthews, 2011). It is, therefore, necessary to advance their professional practice in the context of a real classroom
such as through teaching practicum and reflective practice. This paper is aimed at identifying the student-teachers’ classroom management problems as revealed
in their reflective journal entries and to demonstrate how such journal can help them develop their classroom management skills. The participants were 10 student-teachers of the English Department, Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga, Central Java, who underwent their teaching practicum at SMP 2
Salatiga. Through the participants’ journals, it was found that the problems lie in managing critical moments (38,3%), activity (29,7%), techniques (14,9%), grouping and seating (8,5%), authority (8,5%), tools (8,5%), and working with
people (4,25%). Further in this paper, both pre- and in-service tertiary teachers, curriculum designers, and policy makers will be taken to deeply examine how reflective practice can help cultivate the pre-service’s classroom management skills and to consider the implication for pedagogical practices and innovations in curriculum development.
Keywords: classroom management, reflective journal